By: Zvjezdan Radonjić
Recently, six judges of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Slovenia decided that Janez Janša insulted journalists Šetinc Pašek and Carl by referring to them as prostitutes. The labelling was deemed not to follow a serious professional debate but rather to misuse a serious professional debate for personal vendetta.
Minister of Culture Asta Vrečko recently engaged in psychological-social profiling of the same Janša: “It is not surprising that Janez Janša has spoken out against the act that will protect media freedom. The dark period of the previous government under the leadership of the SDS president was marked not only by authoritarian rule and repression on the streets but also by a crackdown on public media. In addition, he supported private media outlets that supported his regime. Also, because of such political reshaping of the media landscape in favour of one political party, the European Media Freedom Act was recently adopted, which promotes a pluralistic media landscape and media freedom. The SDS party and its leader are not interested in independent media; they only need mouthpieces for their party propaganda. When Janez Janša talks about interference in Slovenia’s internal affairs, he is talking about being able to do whatever he wants while in power. But we know who Janez Janša is. Janez Janša is a politician whose political capital is based on supporting social stratification, fomenting hatred, spreading falsehoods, fomenting discrimination, attacking dissenting voices, and destroying independent media and autonomous journalism.”
Her mode of expression deserves serious criminal and any other reprimand.
In the first sentence, an equation is made between the personality of Janez Janša and lack of freedom – where Janša is, there is no freedom. Wherever media and freedom of expression are legally protected, Janša is against it. It is not surprising that Janša is speaking out against the EU act. Where there is anything progressive, Janša is not there. The EU bureaucracy with appointees like Vrečko is on the right side of democracy, while nationally conscious forces are on the wrong side.
The period of the previous government is supposed to be uniformly dark, there is no doubt or at least partial distancing. The truth is black and white. It is either Janša and darkness – or Vrečko and light. There is no autonomy of the government here – authoritarian governance excludes any debate, clash of opinions, the existence of differences in viewpoints, etc. The government in this dark period is merely an appendage, the sterile fruit of the ruler’s individual arbitrariness. All these doctors of various disciplines are puppets, distributors of the ruler’s darkness. The police, following the orders of the prime minister, torment, beat, relocate, and imprison peaceful citizens who have filled the squares in the fight against the dark government. Darkness, arbitrariness, and authoritative violence must be followed by a crackdown on objective media, opposed to darkness, dedicated to freedom. The circle is complete; first comes psychopathic arbitrariness, which seizes power, ignoring institutions and institutional mechanisms, followed by the darkness of a police state and an attack on freedom of the press.
Janez Janša is said to further support only private media, namely those that support the regime of darkness, virtual institutions that stifle freedom, light, support police brutality, and contribute to the degradation of objective media with taxpayers’ money. The media landscape is politically reshaped in favour of one party: Dnevnik, Delo, Večer, Primorski glas, Mladina, RTV Slovenia, POP TV, internet portals… are placed under the control of an autocrat who dictates their direction, and they write in favour of SDS all the time. Because of this, they had to adopt the Media Freedom Act at the European level, not only because of the Slovenian autocrat but closely linked to him. Vĕra Jourová was convinced of the actual darkness after discussions at the Constitutional Court of Slovenia, she conveyed the findings to headquarters, followed by a swift reaction from neoliberal enlightenment. With external agents, they stabilised the democratically uninformed Slovenes, paved the way for a plural media landscape of free media, and thus Asta Vrečko came into her own.
Independent media does not interest Janša further; presumably, he does not like them because of his authoritarian personality. If independent media existed, Janša would be in opposition, not in power. So why is he in power?! Is there any corner of the earth where dictators, dark forces, controllers of the media space are in opposition? No, there is not. Only here is it possible to suppress media freedom and consequently find oneself in opposition, while free currents come en masse to power with these same dark media controlled by the dictator. Therefore, we have an autocrat who introduces media darkness, but in a way that the suppressed liberators continuously control the media through which they serially rise to power.
Asta Vrečko uses the phrase “propaganda tools”. There is absolutely no, not even minimal difference between labelling a journalist as a (media) prostitute and labelling the media (thus journalists again) as propaganda tools. Just as prostitutes offer various types of services (far from just physical) for money, media tools also trumpet for money. If what Janša is accused of contains elements of a criminal offense, then what Asta Vrečko spreads contains the same elements to the same extent. Because Karl Marx, who should be known to Vrečko (but he is not!), once referred to the Second Comintern and social democracy as “prostitutes of parliamentarism”, I would dare, if there were any independent judiciary, to label Asta Vrečko as a prostitute (of parliamentarism).
Furthermore, the claim that Janez Janša is dissatisfied with Brussels’ interference in Slovenian internal affairs only because it limits him in his personal authoritarianism. Janša should not be bothered by the fact that bureaucrats from Brussels decide on sovereign Slovenian constitutional matters, appoint our leaders, determine the dimensions of the media landscape, the composition of public media editors, decide on constitutional issues, and outline the boundaries of our remaining sovereignty. Otherwise, it would be talking about authoritarianism. An epic battle between free Europe and the dark Janša. Asta Vrečko is on edge due to the danger to the imposed freedom.
But we know who Janša is! A ruler whose staying in power is based on social stratification, hatred, lies, discrimination, attacks on dissenters, and the destruction of the media. He has divided us, stratified us, rolled us in lies, discriminated against us, suppressed dissenters, and blocked the media. And yet, he is not in power?! In power are those who, with the help of likely and apparent stolen elections, managed to surpass the electoral threshold. What kind of dictator allows electoral theft to his own detriment? And instead of the Kanglers, who apparently exceeded the electoral threshold, it was the Levica party that actually remained below the electoral threshold in parliament? The dark Janša, who controls the media, the police… could not prevent electoral theft, but even acknowledged the outcome of the elections?! As for discrimination – about this first-hand; after Asta Vrečko and her party’s victory in the elections, they took away from me: the contract with the FURS management a month after the elections, the contract at the faculty four months after the elections, membership in the supervisory board a few days after the elections. All the contracts that I relied on for a living were taken away from me by Asta’s liquidators, the lackeys of the new regime. Despite Janša’s darkness, dictatorship, oppression, personal depravity… I only lost my means of livelihood after Asta Vrečko’s government took office, from which people are fleeing in droves to avoid mobbing and deformed creatures, whereas during Janša’s rule, I could work and operate smoothly.
The above outline offers clear conclusions about who is dark and who is bright in this country. When hysterical deviants who do not know how to work are in power, it is darkness in the land. Those who, under the guise of serious topics, personally defame those who want and know how to work, find themselves not in courtrooms but in positions of power.