Three decades ago, in the middle of the war for Slovenia, during the Demos government, when all conscious Slovenes were trying to achieve international recognition of the Slovenian state, Milan Kučan and Ciril Ribičič persuaded the secretaries of the Socialist International not to favour international recognition of Slovenia to the rights. Today, thirty years later, the same left is clearly trying to prevent the democratic government led by Janša from succeeding in controlling the pandemic and in obtaining European investment funds. The Slovenian nation is clearly once again a victim of political intrigue. Slovenians are not only known for suicide, but we are obviously also willing to sacrifice our country for selfish party interests.
The tactics of the transitional left is completely clear once again. First, to slender Slovenia abroad, that Janša’s government is persecuting journalists and is violating human rights, and then to achieve financial sanctioning of the “totalitarian” state of Slovenia through the European left network.
And we really received a report of the European Commission on the state of the rule of law in the EU member state, which also mentions Slovenia as a country in which there is still much to do in this area. But this situation is not only from this morning, or from March this year, when the new government took office.
European truth hour
23 years ago, a group of famous Slovenes published a critical call to the Slovene nation (European Truth Hour for Slovenia, Nova revija, 1997). Among the signatories we find names such as Janez Bernik, France Bučar, Drago Demšar, Niko Grafenauer, Drago Jančar, Jože Pučnik, Rudi Šeligo, Alojz Šuštar, etc. Among other things they wrote: “We have a formal democracy, however, almost all centres of power are occupied by people who have formed their own thinking and methods of governing during the one-party system. /…/ These people did not change their political philosophy, they just adapted it to the new situations. What stayed is a reluctance to engage in dialogue, with the help of media and the judiciary de facto, controls people of the previous regime. /…/ (Center-right politicians) are seen as a substitute for a former class enemy. /…/ The connection between the former prosecutor’s organisation, the work of the police and judges deprives judiciary of any credibility and ability to take over the tasks of an independent judiciary. /…/ More than half of the citizens in the Slovene press do not have a messenger of their wishes and interests, let alone a messenger of their dissatisfaction with the current situation. The problem with the media in Slovenia is not only in what they write, but also in what is not in them, in what they falsify, silence, or push completely to the margins. /…/ When we strived for an independent state, we advocated (also) – for media freedom and pluralism. /…/ Today, we are very concerned that we have not achieved any of these goals.”
Even today, 23 years later, we find the same. This year’s report of the European Commission is obviously too mild for Slovenia!
Freedom of the press
The freedom to discover and publish socially important truth is the foundation of democracy and the humane coexistence of people who think differently. Just as we cannot imagine good health care without good people, good doctors, nurses, and carers, we also cannot imagine a healthy media environment without upright, truthful, and empathetic journalists. Just as the supply of healthy good to the population is important for their health, so is the supply of truth important for the mental health of a nation. Therefore, we can say that journalists who are convinced that they can lie, discredit, and falsely accuse, are not worthy of their profession. Faculties that educate such journalists are not worth state funding. Even media that tolerate or even support such journalists and build their strategy on them are not worth the taxpayers’ money. Such writing should be prosecuted.
However, private media can be politically or ideologically defined, even biased, which requires pluralism and equal coexistence of media advocating different streams of though, for the mental health of society. Without this, there is also no healthy competition from ideological movements. It is expected that the global ideological orientation of the private media is determined by its editorial board or owner. In a way this also restricts journalistic freedom.
It is completely different with the state media, which is paid for by all citizens. Its global mission is determined (or it should be determined) by the citizens, or by parliament or government in their behalf. Ideological or political bias of the state media is not permissible! If the state media is unable to ensure truthfulness and political impartiality, the leadership, the editorial board, or even the media itself must be replaced immediately. This is not only a right but also a duty of the executive branch. It is unacceptable that some political option or even some self-proclaimed street group owns the national TV by shouting “RTV is ours! We are not giving RTV!”
The legal state
Even in the field of the rule of law, Slovenia still deserves serious criticism after thirty years. What kind of a legal state is it when the President of the Supreme Court freely confesses his great personal commitment to the rule of law with: “Janša needs to be f… off!”?! The Slovenian judiciary is therefore still first setting a goal of what to do with competitor politician, and the looking for ways, reasons, clues, arguments on how to carry out this “liquidation”. If the network does not find anything current, then they for example pull out a long-chewed matter from naphthalene, a plot in Trenta. Even some constitutional judges easily descend into the muddy waters of a “result” trial.
It is true that not all judges are like that. Only a few journalists, politicians, criminalists, prosecutors, judges and so on are morally highly questionable. But if there are too many of them who are also privileged and favoured in terms of personnel, then we get a sick, distorted, and crippled social life. Such people are characterised by the ease of “lying, stealing, and killing”, which is based on a pronounced lack of empathy. This is the reason why Slovenia is still a victim of a destructive politics thirty years after the fall of the “Berlin Wall”. Those politicians who persist in reckless hatred and exclusion, all the way to the pointless repetition of lies and calls for murder.
It is not for nothing that the modern psychiatrist Reinhard Haller stated in his book (Das Böse, Die Psychologie der menschlichen Destruktivität; Salzburg / München (3)2020): “The basis of all human destructiveness is a lack of empathy.”
If, on the one hand, we are victims of this destructive politics supported by orchestrated media lies, and on the other hand, victims of the primitivism of Friday’s masses who “do not know” why they are demonstrating, then we must heed Voltaire’s waring: “Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.” (Janez Janša in the book “First-class – a system for a false elite; Slovenia has become independent, not yet liberated, 2019). In is not only characterised of Slovenia that Slovenes are supposedly prone to suicide above average, but some of this is also evident in the political dimension of the Slovene nation. The above-mentioned group of well-known Slovene intellectuals also wrote in the European Truth Hour: “Once again in history, the question of the nation in Slovenia is not a question of what others do with us, but a question of what Slovenes do with themselves.”
