By: Dimitrij Rupel
On Saturday, October 23rd, 2021, the Croatian Večernji list (attached to Obzor) published a longer interview with journalist Denis Romac and former Slovenian President Milan Kučan. The interview is equipped with the big title “Milan Kučan” and two subtitles:
- “The former Slovenian president talks about the situation in the region, Europe, about wars that can happen…”
- “The current debates on sovereignty within the EU are reminiscent of the debates before the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia.”
Two emphases that attract attention are: “wars that can happen” and “disintegration of the former Yugoslavia”. Given that Yugoslavia disintegrated in a war that lasted about five years, we could conclude that the interview deals primarily with the war. It is mainly an explosive Balkan, where “conflicts have remained dormant” (“conflicts within Bosnia and Herzegovina, conflicts between Serbia and Kosovo, between Northern Macedonia and Bulgaria”), but they can “go into an acute state”. At the same time, Kučan remembers his political youth when he listened to the warning that in the Balkans “from words to daggers is a very small step” (od riječi do kame jako mali korak).
Kučan bowed to the cycling protest
The writer of these lines comes from a generation that experienced a short war in 1991 with a relatively small number of deaths, followed by thirty years of peaceful politics, diplomatic, economic and cultural achievements. I assume that today’s digital youth – for the most part – are not particularly motivated to shape their experiences and interests against the background of the problems that Kučan is talking about. In the interview we read mainly about the disintegration of Yugoslavia (which according to Kučan did not disintegrate due to the end of the Cold War and communism, but because it failed to “refresh its values” and due to lack of solidarity), which is to blame for all (our) current problems; on the irresponsibility of the European Union (because it does not want to accept the Western Balkans), on the aggressiveness of the Visegrad Group, on the ingratitude of Poland and Hungary… The interview for the Croatian newspaper was apparently an opportunity to confront the current Slovenian government. According to Kučan, there are actually no rational reasons for what is happening in Slovenia today:
These are the consequences of the rule of the current government, of which president declared the establishment of another republic as his goal, which means the overthrow of the current constitution with the ambition of creating an autocratic democracy of a liberal type.[1]
The former president is convinced that Slovenes will not peacefully accept the “anti-European policy” as it appears in Poland, then he bows to the “cycling” protests:
The moment the authorities declared Friday’s cycling protesters fascists and the authorities refused to dialogue with the protesters, I felt I had to show solidarity with the protesters.[2]
Kučan’s contemporaries remember that the situation was exactly the opposite: the label fascism/fascists was used for the government of Janez Janša in bulk mainly on Fridays, and later also by Wednesday’s protesters. Story Catch a thief!
The Yugoslav war, which erupted due to the blind infatuation of the Yugoslav communists that despite the fall of the Berlin Wall it would be possible to preserve a one-party system and self-government, stifle national dignity and identity… was the first and supposedly last war of my generation. Anyone with any concerns about the justice of Slovenian independence should take a look at the Yugoslav banknotes from 1993, when there was peace in Slovenia and daggers overtook words all over Yugoslavia.
The war of our generation
A few days ago, my friend and I talked about modern dramatic phenomena: the epidemic, Afghanistan, migrants, climate change, hatred and intolerance among people, demonstrations and clashes with the police… Finally, a friend said: This is the war of our generation!
Comparisons are usually inaccurate and controversial. However, the Bosnian (former Austro-Hungarian, then Yugoslav) city of Sarajevo and the Chinese city of Wuhan have something in common. The First World War began in Sarajevo, and the latest World War began in Wuhan. Wars begin with random, seemingly insignificant events. On June 28th, 1914, a Serbian zealot shot an Austro-Hungarian, then also our heir to the throne Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, and the assassination allegedly took place due to an incompetent driver whose engine (an Austrian Gräf & Stift convertible) “died” when braking in the place where Gabriel Princip stood.
Of course, there are no such accurate reports on the events that took place in Wuhan (a city with 11 million inhabitants) in December 2019. Wuhan officials tried to conceal information about the outbreak of the new disease. Eight doctors who expressed concern about this received a reprimand. The Chinese authorities did not inform the public until January 20th, 2020, and in February of this year, the lawyer and journalist Chang Chan began to present the facts. She recorded 122 posts for YouTube, after which she was sentenced to four years in prison for “getting involved in quarrels and causing trouble”. She reported that the situation in Wuhan on February 1st seemed “unreal” and that “there was no living soul” in the city. She was soon banned from filming chaotic events in hospitals. While around 15 to 20 million people (among whom there were around 30,000 Slovenes) died during the First World War, 5 million people have died due to covid so far, in Slovenia alone there are more than 5,000.
Even the pressure of migrants and refugees on European and American borders, mostly on the borders of the Christian West – a phenomenon typical of wars – began relatively innocently: with the Pope’s blessing in the summer of 2013 in Lampedusa. It continued two years later with Angela Merkel’s welcome to a million immigrants. Today, we watch panic and hysterical scenes from Kabul airport, harrowing scenes of crowds penetrating from Syria and Afghanistan towards Turkey and Greece; crowds and physical clashes on the Belarusian-Polish border; invasions on the Mexican-American border… In addition to the fear of barbarian incursions, the European and American borders are being closed by an epidemic. Everywhere there is talk of thousands of militant young men, of pregnant women, and of hungry children; in some places it is hundreds of thousands, and sometimes it is millions. 281 million people live in countries other than the country of their birth. In 2020, there were 128 million more than in 1990 and three times more than in 1970. Politicians and philosophers are wondering where the population of overpopulated China will move, some hoping Russia will stop it. Bosnia and Herzegovina, which barely survived the Yugoslav crisis in 1995, is falling apart before our eyes; even more severe, though more cultural, are the conflicts between Western and Eastern Europe, between Brussels, Warsaw and Budapest. Every once in a while we think of a sinful thought that the British, by leaving the EU, knew what they were doing.
Wars often begin with incitement against certain nations and personalities. Incitement is expressed through statements such as: We will never cooperate with “these people”, we will not talk to them; but we will not even talk to those who talk to “these people”! Such statements – in the thoughtful expectation that something will catch on – are often followed by slander and insults, labels such as fascism, dictatorship and even totalitarianism.
Of course, impoliteness and rudeness are not limited to Slovenia. Fighting statements regarding military commanders and defence ministers are also appearing in neighbouring Croatia, where – in contrast to their Slovenian counterparts – President Milanović and Prime Minister Plenković use all possible names and nicknames. Milanović calls the ruling HDZ a Nazi party, the Minister of Defence a stub, the father of the Foreign Minister Komunajzar (“Commie”); Plenković says that Milanović is brutally and primitively offensive, that he uses road language, that he is a man without character; Defence Minister Banožić hints that Milanović has a psychiatric problem.
The former Slovenian president noted some similarities between the Croatian and Slovenian governments, but he seems to be more on the Croatian than the Slovenian side. As a former Slovenian president, he could still stick with his compatriots. The main problem, however, is not Kučan’s patriotism, but his political imagination, in which the phrase: from words to daggers is a small step is in the forefront.
Dr Dimitrij Rupel is a sociologist, politician, diplomat, writer, playwright, editor, publicist and former foreign minister.
[1] Denis Romac, “Milan Kučan”, Večernji list, Saturday, October 23rd, 2021.
[2] Prav tam, p. 38.