By: Dr Stane Granda
The vessel is full. Its poison is spilling into the heart of Slovenia. Will she survive? Many are asking how something like this could have happened. Independent Slovenia is turning into its rotten, unrecognisable opposite.
Slovenia’s past tells us that never before have there been rulers so antisocial, so contemptuous of the sick and elderly, pensioners, workers… the majority of fellow citizens who do not participate in oligarchic power. Day after day, they prove they have no idea where they are headed, that the country has lost its “raison d’être”, its “Staatsräson” – its reason, legitimacy, and purpose for existence. We are governed by a clique full of self-admiration, masking incompetence and ignorance, a cynical false solidarity that conceals the absence of even a minimal vision for the future. They do not serve the country or its citizens, but selfishly exploit them for their own external and spiritual vanity. The main tool of governance is increasing social division. Even the Roma are used to their advantage. People are left without hope for a better and safer future. The middle class is being deliberately dismantled. What reigns is ignorance, incompetence, and exploitative violence.
This is not whining, much less an accusation, since the current rulers are what they are, and as such, they came to power through elections in which they won the largest parliamentary majority to date. The question is not what happened, but why it happened. The answer holds the key to our real future. The central question is not whether democratic and independence-minded forces will be able to replace them, but whether they will be able to transcend the current state, fundamentally change it, and redirect Slovenia toward the message of its history and future, the reason it stood and endured. This is not about upgrading independence, but about fulfilling it. The problem is not in plans and goals, but in the will and power to realise them. We need statesmen with vision, not merchants of money, ideologues of the past, and tycoons.
A chorus of ambitious individuals vying for positions in the new government is growing louder. Its slogan is: They ruled until now, now we will! We need different leaders, not just other ones.
The new government will have to fix the wrecked economy. It will be difficult. But there are people with knowledge and will. The problems are solvable within a reasonable timeframe. But what about the souls and minds of citizens, worshippers of Egypt’s pots of meat?
We need a new social paradigm. The key questions for the future are education, schooling, political thought, and culture. It will not happen overnight. Given that part of the youth, this is part of a broader international process, as noted by many social analysts and even Pope Leo XIV, desires change, seeks a world of solid values, and hopes for a promising future, this must be thoughtfully seized. We must not merely adapt to new conditions, but use them to our advantage.
Some see the pre-election period as Slovenian society teetering on the edge of civil war. Undoubtedly, this would suit power-hungry people with no concept of the future. They must be stopped at the root, not with the argument of force, but with the force of arguments. These must be clear and uncompromising. The proposed coalition with voters suggests this possibility. It confirms the stance that rotten compromises lead nowhere. What is needed is intellectual breadth, wisdom, and the experience of independence. It was a great achievement. Its spirit and the substance of its realisation show the possibility and path for Slovenia’s future. Everything must be devoted to it, while Kučan & Co. should concern themselves with their past. They must be drawn out with their vision of the future, which they never managed to articulate. Their similarity and kinship with the current government, which proves that financial oligarchy is the highest stage in the development of Bolshevism (just look at Russian and Chinese rulers, all millionaires and billionaires), is an as-yet unused weapon. Let us not be distracted by the smoke of Hayek’s café, the rot of Brussels, or the oddities of Trumpism, but let us walk the Slovenian path, which will allow us to live in Slovenia in a Slovenian way.