By: Dr Janez Juhant
In elementary school, we learned Gradnik’s poem Narobe svet (“Upside-down world”): “If a cow drives a shepherd into a trap…” etc. It ends “If this is the order in the world, this order is the upside-down world.” The commentator wrote about the poem and the title of the collection, “that even poets make fun of logic and common sense”. If we look at our socio-political reality, we can be sad, disappointed, hurt, and worried because the apparently elected representatives of the country are actually “messing” not only “with logic and common sense”, but also with us, the citizens. Instead of acting, they demonstrate, instead of showing their integrity, they are indicted, instead of keeping their word, they trample the principles they preach to the citizens for their own gain, instead of governing, they plunder.
It is against human wisdom and unacceptable that the government of a democratic country, as we wrote in the association Združeni ob Lipi sprave, decides that “the head of the former Udba, according to the criteria of the European Democratic Parliament, a criminal organisation, is buried with the state honours of democratic Slovenia”. We add to this that we are convinced “as a non-governmental organisation in the public interest, which has been striving for reconciliation in the Slovenian nation since the beginning of democratisation, that such government decisions, according to our firm belief, do not contribute to reconciliation in any way, but rather deepen our national division and insult the victims who were deliberately perpetrated against their own nation by the criminal organisation led by the deceased”.
This authority also – with the exception of the President of the Republic, who laid a wreath on his grave – did not remember the late President Demos and the leading organiser of the Slovenian independent state, Jože Pučnik, with a mourning session in the National Assembly in the presence of all the leaders of the country and elected representatives of the people on the 90th anniversary of his birth. Pučnik, who with Demos resolutely, boldly, and self-sacrificingly realised independent Slovenia, was ignored by the executive and legislative authorities, and according to European democratic criteria, the head of the criminal organisation of the former regime, which we renounced with the independence, was shown the honour of the state. With this act, it also humiliated the Slovenian army, which, with the sacrifices of its members under the leadership of Janez Janša, fought against the structures of totalitarian power represented by the late Janez Zemljarič.
On Republic Square, next to Pučnik’s portrait and a mourning wreath with the inscription “Yugoslavia is gone. Now it is about Slovenia.” prominent representatives of the Slovenian Democratic Party, New Slovenia – Christian Democrats, and other citizens and members of the Association for the Values of Slovenian Independence gathered. In addition to showing this rally, the media could talk more extensively about the history of Slovenia’s independence. This goes back to the deeper past, when the ancestors of Matija Majar Ziljski, Lambert Ehrlich, and other visionary spirits envisioned and shaped the contours of an independent Slovenia, which Jože Pučnik realised with his statesmanship and fearlessness with Demos.
The statement of the member of the Levica party in Dražgoše that NOB was not a fight for an independent Slovenia, but for a revolution, also confirms the Slovenian upside-down world. The gathering in Dražgoše is therefore, according to the leftists, the preservation of the delusions of the semi-past and opposition to independent Slovenia. At the same time, none of the organisers and participants remembers the deceased Dražgoše locals, who were dug up from the cemetery together with the partisans and anonymously encased in concrete in the ossuary of the monument.
The upside-down world is represented by staged media depictions of supposed citizen protest against the government (?), the minister (?), the doctors (?) or the health system (?) with participants who are part of the health system problem. The presence of the Prime Minister and members of the ruling coalition at the meeting says everything about the functioning of this coalition, which, with the protesters who paved their way to power, proves that this agony of the country is sustained by the background, and the government is not willing and able to solve problems. The media-staged display of the Minister of Health’s “apology” to the Mayor of Ljubljana is only confirmation of these governmental contradictions. They are not affected by the plight of patients who (interestingly, especially in Ljubljana) do not have their own doctor. At the same time, we know that the late head of the Udba, who was buried with state honours, managed most of the economic transactions in the field of healthcare and elsewhere – from the construction of important facilities in Ljubljana to other transactions in healthcare. At the same time, the “outing” of the President of the National Assembly is only an episode, because according to experts, it only casts a cloud over corruption deals in energy, healthcare, and the rest of the (national) economy. Therefore, it is not surprising that the judges received a salary increase of 600 euros each, which will trigger the legitimate demands of all other, often more needy beneficiaries. Everything will be paid for by posterity, in addition to the corruption deals that go on behind the scenes of this appearance.
Not only in society, but also in the Church, we will have to stand more decisively on the ethical and democratic foundations of independent Slovenia and resist this “upside-down world” that is dangerously eating into the fundamental principles of democratic Slovenia.