By: Dr Metod Berlec
In this issue of Demokracija, we took a closer look at violent and criminal acts committed by certain members of the Roma community in the regions of Dolenjska, Bela krajina, and Posavje. Recently, three of them attacked the mayor of Ribnica, Samo Pogorelec, the barely-of-age son of a municipal administration employee, and a policewoman.
The ruling coalition did not respond seriously to this brutal act, as they are partly responsible for the current state of conflict. The governing coalition had already previously rejected proposals by mayors, backed by signatures from more than 11,500 voters, to amend several laws aimed at addressing issues related to the Roma ethnic community. After the attack on the mayor of Ribnica, this was pointed out by the mayor of the City Municipality of Novo mesto and president of the Association of Municipalities of Slovenia, Gregor Macedoni: “An outrageous and perverse act that clearly reflects the state’s failure to properly address the Roma issue. Worst of all, it is an indirectly systemically encouraged act. If individuals repeatedly commit violent acts and are not appropriately sanctioned (such as tolerated non-payment of fines, repeated suspended sentences for criminal offenses…), then perpetrators become increasingly brazen. And let’s be clear: the blame does not lie with the victims and the majority population in Southeastern Slovenia and Posavje.”
Another important point to highlight here is the publication of the collection Consensus for a Historic Moment – New Contributions for a Slovenian Spring Programme in book form. In the concluding part of his contribution, “Slovenian Reconciliation and Transition”, the collection’s editor-in-chief, Dr. Peter Jambrek, wrote: “I emphasise that the mass and grave crimes of the wartime and post-war totalitarian regime were systemically conditioned and endemically fused with the very structure of the regime. This emphasis is crucial for understanding Slovenia’s post-1990 transition. For example: the scale of human rights violations and fundamental freedoms in Slovenia’s formally established constitutional democracy since the April 1990 elections is influenced by the structures of the former non-democratic regime. Their forces are inherited. They have survived and continue to exist in the institutions of Slovenian civil society, its value orientations, in the statism of the economy and public services, and in government bodies. Some call all this the ‘deep state.’”
According to Jambrek, the “burial and dismantling of the deep state, structural development reforms, and national reconciliation based on the public condemnation of the original crime” are the first conditions for “the complete establishment of a free democratic society today.” In short, these are contributions to a new Slovenian national programme, as the times we are living in are once again “intensifying” – in Slovenia, in Europe, and globally.
