The Association MORiS Kočevska Reka is watching the attacks on the President of the Republic of Slovenia Borut Pahor with indignation and great hurt. He and Italian President Mattarella carried out historic acts of reconciliation, a civilizational step forward and made an important contribution to the elimination of prejudices against the Slovene minority in Italy and Slovenes in general. So far, this is the highest international honor of Slovenian anti-fascism. The attacks and insults about this are part of a mean campaign which, in order to maintain their own political survival, incite hatred between the two nations and between the Slovenes themselves, and they do this ruthlessly and extremely uncivilized, non-European and civilly immature. Apparently, behind the attacks on President Pahor there are the supporters of the massacres, who oppose even indisputable historical facts, which, in the case of the ’foibe’, place the communist regime in the context of the criminality of all totalitarianisms.
Unlike the Slovene armed forces, when in the struggle for the preservation of democracy and an independent state in 1991 we did not transgress military honor and civil laws that protect the property and lives of civilians, the history of the last century on the western edge of Slovenian territory and abroad is quite different. Primorska, which was occupied by the Italians after the First World War as a reward for the fight against Austria-Hungary, was cruelly colonized by their country and economically and culturally oppressed. The Narodni dom in Trieste and a number of other buildings were set on fire, and in 1930 four Primorska patriots were shot dead in Bazovica common, resolutely resisting fascist pressure. During their brief occupation of Trieste and Gorizia in May 1945, the communist authorities, similarly to central Slovenia, killed the civilian people there and threw them into karst abysses called foibe. Just as the burning of the Narodni dom in Trieste and the fascist massacre of Slovenes are a fact, so is the fact that the Yugoslav communist authorities took away and in foibe massacres killed around 1,600 citizens, Italians, Slovenes and others from Trieste and Gorizia. They also killed Slovenian anti-fascists, even members of TIGR, who were probable opponents of communism. In this way, they fatally tarnished the former Slovenian Primorska struggle against fascism, which was led in a civilized way by the Primorska priests, the members of TIGR … This was also the reason for the Allied expulsion of Tito’s army with the red star from Trieste and Gorizia and an important reason that at least Gorizia did not belong to Yugoslavia.
All these are indisputable historical facts, so we cannot understand how even the presidents of Slovenian parties find themselves in joint political efforts with the Italian fascists? Is totalitarian solidarity closer to them than state and national affiliation? Can they in the name of it insult the Slovenian state and its highest symbols, the first of which is the President of the Republic of Slovenia?
The President of the Republic of Slovenia, Borut Pahor, and his Italian counterpart Mattarella showed courage and example, proving their affiliation with the highest European civilizational and democratic values. Public records and publications that vulgarly disgrace our president are inadmissible and not only worthy of condemnation but also prosecution. Such is the practice of rule of law. National RTV, whose journalists stand out in attacks and insults, has no right to be called either public or national, and even less has the right to be based on the mandatory maintenance of all citizens.
Dear Slovenians, dear citizens, what is happening is undermining our civic and national future. With the so far unseen ideological intolerance of individuals, who are uncritically supported by the management of RTV and the silence of the journalistic organization, they are destroying the country. By rejecting the symbolic acts of reconciliation and coexistence, they exclude us from European civilization and indirectly support Italian fascism. Criticism and disagreement with the opinion of the majority are basic democratic rights, and inappropriate and the most primitive and false slander, and especially the slander of state symbols, are a sign of personal and political immaturity.