By: Gašper Blažič
Do not let the title mislead you. I am writing neither about Edvard Kocbek’s novella, nor about the album by Pink Floyd, nor about the novel by Mimi Malenšek. Nor am I referring to the famous exhibition which, in the late 1990s, served as a kind of supplement to the permanent exhibition Slovenians in the 20th Century.
But I am writing about a former minister who, following the example of a fallen Venezuelan dictator, grew a moustache because he supports democratic socialism. Presumably the kind that runs on fuel. And I do not mean the allegedly outrageously expensive petroleum products that are supposedly the result of poor government performance and the supposedly very high profit margins of fuel retailers. At least that is what the Freedom Movement elite keeps telling us.
I have in mind a different kind of fuel, the one in the form of white powder. If we are to believe the art patron Duško, who is also greatly admired by our most famous “painter in the countryside” (not the one from Partljič’s play, but Arjan), then former minister Luka is apparently quite “illuminated” around the nose. Yet I would by no means regard any possible use of this “powdered fuel” as his dark side. Not even when he switches on a blue beacon light or signs documents on a church altar. After all, he supposedly served as an altar boy in his younger years, just as our dear Tito once did.
That is why I choose to believe our media phalanx, which keeps urging me to look at the brighter side of life. And at the brighter side of people as well. They are right, after all. Cocaine is not black. Therefore, I cannot speak of the dark side of (Luka) Mesec in this case, because there is none. He never struck me as particularly euphoric, although I remember watching him in person at a press conference marking the anniversary of the election of the previous government, and it seemed as though he was constantly on the verge of laughter. I got the impression that he was about to burst into uncontrolled laughter at any moment.
It is rather strange that he was not included in our shadow government (or, as Aleksander Reberšek put it, the “foggy” government). I am convinced he would have helped maintain a cheerful atmosphere there, with or without the powder.
P.S. Oops, I only noticed from the photograph that there is black powder on the table as well. So, ecological Luka, in his “bright” version, vacuums up all the carbon and ensures carbon neutrality for all of you. Good thing we have so many watermelons in politics that they can process all the excess carbon dioxide for us…