By: Miro Petek
As I wandered the streets of Philadelphia these days, memories came back of Milošević’s rallies and the time when Slovenians were being told to go precisely to this city. It was to Philadelphia that Mihajlo Švabić, president of the Serbian veterans’ association, wanted us to emigrate.
I searched online for why it was Philadelphia rather than New York, London, or Tokyo, and why that particular city came to his mind. He could not have been inspired by the film Philadelphia starring Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington, since he delivered his speech at Belgrade’s Ušće on 19 November 1988, while the film was released five years later. I found an explanation suggesting that the city came up because the son of Janez Stanovnik was living there at the time.
But that is not really important. Back then, we did not leave for Graz or Philadelphia. We stayed at home. What we did leave was Yugoslavia. We gained our own country and, with it, the responsibility of representing it abroad. Not everything can be done from offices in Ljubljana. Active participation in international affairs requires travel, and such travel comes with a cost.
The wave of righteous outrage over official foreign trips has now crossed the Atlantic. While following the news from Slovenia, I was once again reminded that media outrage largely depends on who happens to be the target. When politicians outside the orbit of the transitional left travel abroad, every expense acquires a story and every hotel star acquires political significance.
Such was the case with the trip of Minister Borut Rončević to Japan, when left-leaning media and politicians turned the delegation’s visit into a stage for political combat. Once it emerged that a similar trip by former Education Minister Igor Papič of the Freedom Movement had cost more than twice as much, over €11,000 per person, media interest quickly disappeared. Just as they showed little interest when it became known that he had a bathroom installed next to his office at the start of his term. The “red bourgeoisie” are allowed everything.
During my two terms as a member of parliament, I travelled extensively as chair of the commission for Slovenians abroad and as a member of the foreign affairs committee. In one media report on parliamentary travel expenses, Tone Rop and Melita Župevc topped the list in terms of cost, while Tone Anderlič had made the greatest number of trips. My own travel was not cheap either. Visits to the Slovenian diaspora in Australia involved 22 hours of flying each way, and I was grateful that the state provided business-class travel, both for MPs and their professional staff. Following our parliamentary delegation’s first visit to India, journalist Jelena Aščić referred to it in her TV report as parliamentary tourism, illustrating the segment with images of sandy beaches, luxury hotels, and private aircraft.
The first commandment of a large part of the Slovenian media has always been loyalty to left-wing politics, regardless of who holds the remote control directing journalists and media outlets. Milan Kučan’s remote control has not yet run out of batteries, while new figures continue to compete for influence, each with a more worn-out programme but no less appetite for power and no less desire to shape the media according to their political preferences.
Journalists and media outlets have become vassals of left-wing politics. When the left governs, they help keep it in power regardless of the cost borne by citizens. When the right governs, they allegedly seek to undermine it through manipulation and falsehoods, paying little attention to the standards and ethical principles of journalism.
The language of hatred is gaining space, encouragement, and amplification in both parliament and public debate. Those who control the louder megaphone can drown out the facts with noise. In Slovenia, he argues, media judgments are influenced by political affiliation: what is a scandal when committed by the right becomes a misunderstanding when committed by the left. One side faces demands for resignation, while a brief explanation suffices for the other.
Such journalism speaks constantly of ethics while having already sold its conscience.