By Sara Kovač
SAB MP Marko Bandelli makes us laugh to tears again and again, this time with freshly uploaded photos on his Twitter profile, which are supposed to prove that the “Carantanian” panther is a Nazi symbol. But the latter only proved that the Member of Parliament does not really know what he is talking about. It seems that he wanted to use photographs to support his recent statement that the “Nazi symbol” (by which he meant the “Carantanian Panther”) would be “a recognisable sign of Slovenia during the EU presidency”.
Without SAB MP Mark Bandelli, the debates in the National Assembly would be much more boring, dull. It seems that this time he did not do his homework for the second time and read some books on heraldry (the first one was about Goli otok).
He served with photographs showing the abuse of the symbol of the black panther, which has been appearing on our soil since the 12th century (that is, since the Middle Ages), and when there was no trace of any Nazism. As can be seen from the photos, it was allegedly defiled by the Nazis during World War II, as they attached a swastika to it.
A similar abuse can be observed in the case of an extreme group that was photographed with a white flag with a “Carinthian” panther and a Nazi flag at the same time (photo below). Nevertheless, both cases do not change the fact that it was only an abuse by a certain policy, ideology or subculture, as the black panther (which many mistakenly declare to be “Carantanian”) was used by various noble families in Slovenia and elsewhere.
The eagle on the German flag was also abused in a similar way (just like the panther on the coat of arms of the Austrian province of Styria). Does MP Bandelli dare to claim that modern Germany and the Austrian state of Styria use Nazi symbolism? Neither the Germans nor the Austrians would be satisfied with such an explanation. Last but not least, the panther is also present in the National Assembly. So is Bandelli walking around Nazi premises? If so, then he has a serious problem, as it is a serious contradiction with his personal ideology.