By: Vinko Vasle
The interview of the great TV star Igor E. Bergant with the dictator resonated abroad as well and put us back on the map of homophobic, undemocratic regimes. We have reviewed some of these records for you.
The New York Times wrote, among other things, that Janez Janša, who unfortunately presides over the EU, sat helplessly in defeat in an armchair opposite a well-known TV presenter and practically never looked him in the eye. Andrew Higgins, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, added that this was a characteristic of right wing nationalists in non-centre Europe. As Higgins was informed from the stolen villa – the headquarters for the promotion of Slovenia abroad – Janša did not want to answer 78.99 percent of the host’s questions. While Tanja Fajon emphasised for the newspaper that she was extremely worried about this, and that she had already received telephone calls from even more concerned citizens during the interview. He did not see the interview personally, but Dr Marko Milosavljević, an academician, said that it was so awful that he turned off the TV after three minutes.
In an article entitled “Terrible Eyes”, Die Presse emphasised that Janez Janša deliberately avoided the journalist’s eye contact, whom he deeply hates, in order to completely confuse him. Which really happened, as Mr. Bergant forgot what he wanted to ask a few times because of this typical intimidation, so the nationalist anti-immigrant Prime Minister continued with the questions himself. He asked himself if he was leading Slovenia well and replied that he could not see anything better. Not even Orban is so imaginative. Autonomous professional journalist Anuška Delić commented on this horrific event with an interview for Die Presse, adding in her style that it was a shitty interview, which is a shame for a public house as well.
Politico or its journalist star Lili Bazer wrote in the introduction that she learned from her Slovenian sources such as Blaž Zgaga before the interview that Janez Janša intended to come to the studio armed with an armbrust, but that he had just changed his mind, so he armed himself with verbal sarcasm and other rudeness, which proved through the interview that it was a contemptuous attack on media freedom and the autonomous prominent journalist Igor E. Bergant. He was, of course, so shocked that it would not be unusual for him to collapse during the conversation, but he persevered.
Deutsche Welle then reported for its correspondent and its winner for Eastern journalism, Blaž Zgaga, that it was an incredible scandal that a public house had invited a man to the studio who had already been imprisoned twice – first by the Slovene Udba and the Yugoslav army, and then also by the renewed communists, because he was interfering with their plans in every election. Sadly, he was released both times. Unfortunately, millions of protesters in the streets with their shouts “kill Janša” are not fulfilling their predictions, because in this dictatorship they are as intimidated as the author himself, who has not come out of the basement for five years, as Janša threatened him on Twitter with the words “this are your sick lies”. Deutsche Welle also published affirmative statements by Boris Vezjak and the Journalists’ Association.
The Guardian relied on the opinion of Marcel Štefančič Jr., another prominent journalistic autonomist, that the interview with Janša was an obvious and unequivocal attack on the host Igor E. Bergant, which proves, for example, the Prime Minister’s provoking that the host should prove to him with a court decision that he is violating the law in relation to STA. The host objectively did not have this option, because such a court decision does not exist, and not every dismissal act is illegal. Primož Cirman told the Guardian that he himself had been humiliated several times, saying that he was lying, that it was not true, that he was inventing what was true, but – what about freedom! Milan Kučan, a two-time president, was the most direct and outraged. He said that with his answers, Janša turned the TV studio into a gladiatorial arena full of hostility, which was an attack on human rights, freedom of expression, freedom of the media and freedom of speech. According to him, Janša’s answers were unconstitutional.
Vinko Vasle is a long-time journalist, publicist, satirist and writer.