“Well, strictly speaking, the left structure does not exist in our country, because what is understood as the “left” is the exact structure that carried out privatisation in the nineties. If it had not done that, it would understand that the problems of workers, women, those in precarious employment, the weakest members of our society or those who are being excluded, are the result of their privatisation, and therefore, they would not call it that,” said psychoanalyst and pioneer of Lacanian psychoanalysis, Nina Krajnik, who was a guest on the show Intervju (Interview) with the host Dr Jože Možina, on the national television RTV Slovenia. Among other things, she also pointed out that the so-called “cliques of the deep state exist in all systems and even work against the state, which we have witnessed in the last two years when important steps have been taken to resolve these issues.”
Nina Krajnik, who is also the founder of the Slovenian Association for Lacanian Psychoanalysis and the only member of the World Association of Psychoanalysis, holds a doctorate in philosophy and recently wrote a book on the history of psychoanalysis in the countries of the former Yugoslavia. On the show, Krajnik and the host, Dr Jože Možina, talked about Lacanian psychoanalysis and other topics embedded in the Slovenian political system and, above all, touched on the left, which, in contradiction to its definition, is based on privatisation and economic power.
On her path, Nina Krajnik also collided with the centres of power, which tried to overpower her. This happened a few years ago, when she returned to Slovenia after 12 years and experienced great obstacles because of the Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts (ZRC SAZU) and “the circle known in Slovenia as the theoretical psychoanalysis and a wider range of centres of power – with that, I am also referring to Gregor Golobič,” explained Krajnik and added that it was mainly a collision with the main ideological apparatus of the country, higher education. She also mentioned non-governmental organisations, which she interprets as a problem in the sense that they present themselves as independent, but in reality, they addictively usurp an area, at the expense of taxpayers, for their own private goals. The line of bearers of the deep state goes all the way from old levers of power to small tyrants through the quasi-state institutions. She also drew attention to Gregor Golobič and his relationship with Slavoj Žižek, Mladen Dolar, and others. “This is the clique that privatised one of the main ideological mechanisms of the state. Namely, these are public universities, higher education. And the forensic trace of this privatisation is public money,” she said.
In Slovenia, we read a censored version of Lacan
Krajnik and the host of the show also touched on the fact that in our country, Lacan is mostly considered left-wing, as it is believed that this is somehow a leftists’ domain, but Krajnik explained that Jacques Lacan “declared himself against the left, and during the times of left-wing tendencies in France, voted for de Gaulle.” According to Krajnik, this connotation that has been established in Slovenia in connection with Lacan is more connected to Yugoslav socialism and numerous manipulations and interpretations. Namely, Krajnik claims that in Slovenia, we read a censored version of Lacan, explaining that all his translations into Slovenian were done without copyright, as the authors did not get the copyright precisely because of the translation modifications, exclusion of certain paragraphs and rearrangements.
Psychoanalysis was forbidden by law in Yugoslavia, and not only was it ideologically banned, but it was labelled as a Jewish practice, Krajnik said, explaining that psychoanalysis as a theory and reading was allowed, while psychoanalysts were banned. According to her theory, the deep state is “something that is on the surface, and its mechanism is economically strong, but above all, it is strong in terms of ideology,” and these cliques, as she called them, are found in all systems, from the media, public universities, to the education sector – “there is no system in Slovenia were these cliques would not exist, and the state is affected by it as well, as these cliques also work against the state. We have witnessed this in the last two years when important steps have been taken to open or solve this problem in some way.”
“The ideology is a kind of cellophane that covers the structural core that protects it, and that is the privatisation of social property, which, in this sense, is the greatest evil of a democratic state, as it has re-established inequality,” Krajnik believes.
What is understood as the “left” is the exact same structure that carried out privatisation in the nineties
According to Krajnik, the privatisation of social property by the so-called left is a crime, as it is the reason for the social inequality we are witnessing today. No understanding of the symptoms of today’s society can ignore the original inequality caused by this privatisation. If we are witnessing political violence today, it is because privatisation was already a violent process at the time. Of course, we can say that the roots of this go even further. However, in the 1990s, a paradigm shift took place, a new system emerged, and here the question arose, which is a lever of the deep state, namely: “How to privatise and remain a leftist, which is at offs with the ideology of the left, because the left does not exist in capitalism. This is precisely the issue they have been dealing with and are still dealing with today; namely, how to carry out economic privatisation and remain a leftist.” Krajnik concluded that the answers are cultural Marxism and the anti-Janša ideology.
Which leads to the conclusion that the left does not exist in Slovenia, according to the aforementioned facts, and Krajnik calls the so-called left “the left-wing privatisers of social property.” After the intellectually interesting and dynamic eighties, these groups began to carry out not only economic but also cultural privatisation. The usurpation of higher education, cultural institutions, major galleries, newspapers, and departments at public universities started to happen.
“Well, strictly speaking, the left structure does not exist in our country, because what is understood as the “left” is the exact structure that carried out privatisation in the nineties. If it had not done that, it would understand that the problems of workers, women, those in precarious employment, the weakest members of our society or those who are being excluded, are the result of their privatisation, and therefore, they would not call it that,” said Krajnik. And according to her, in Slovenia, we are fixed on the idea that the left is something good and fair, and the outcome of the elections is one of these delusions in our country, given the election results and “actions of the Janša government that worked in actual impossible conditions, but still achieved amazing results.”
Golob is a “leftist who privatises”
“The name Robert Golob is the answer of transitional social property privatisers. A leftist who privatises,” the psychoanalyst believes. The host of the show then wondered where all of the “hatred” against Janez Janša specifically came from, when he had done so much at the time of Slovenia’s independence, and what, in Krajnik’s opinion, is the reason for this “anti-Janšaism” and the “anti-Janša” reflex in Slovenia, which is extremely present in our society. The philosopher believes that Janša is a threat to this transitional privatisation, as he threatens the very core of what the political scene has been building for decades and is “what makes Slovenia democratic, in the sense that no one is particularly privileged – that is what Janša is being accused of, and of course, every mechanism needs a figure like that, in order to divert attention.” The host of the show and his guest agreed that this points, above all, to a culture of a totalitarian regime.
When the father’s name falls, people become disoriented, which is what happened in the last election
Politics is about dialogue, and non-cooperation is highly non-political; non-cooperation leads to exclusion and Slovenia is based on exclusion, said Krajnik, adding that all this is happening so that those who are being exclusive could preserve this wholeness and preserve the totalitarian element. According to the host of the show, all of these centres of power in Slovenia, including the media, are saying one thing but then act completely different, raising the question of how this can happen in a democracy, where the media that speak the truth should be the majority, and not the other way round. Krajnik believes that people have a hard time accepting the truth, and thus, it is easier to follow these media, regardless of whether they are telling the truth or not. “When the father’s name falls, evil appears, people start wandering, all disoriented, which we also saw in the last elections. People can vote for the same structural figure many times, but later, they always understand that this was a mistake, and they continue to repeat that mistake,” the guest explained, adding that Slovenia lacks the ethics of the singular and the ethics of respecting the truth of others, because if that is missing, then social ties do not exist – there is only hatred towards those who are different.
Krajnik is pleased that despite many staged fights, there are still real struggles going on and that there are still people who are connecting among themselves. She believes that all academic, cultural or ideological manipulations will eventually break down in the face of the truth, and in her opinion, the same thing will happen to those we have witnessed so many times in Slovenia already.
Nina Krajnik studied at the Univeristy Paris VIII – Vincennes Saint Denis. She was a researcher and fellow of the James Joyce Swiss Foundation in Zurich. She has worked on humanitarian projects in Iceland, Ireland and Portugal, as well as Africa, Asia and the South Pacific. She is a doctor of philosophy who has dedicated her work to the relationship between neuroscience, psychoanalysis and symptoms in technological times. She was the first Slovenian to receive her analytical training within the framework of L’École de la Cause Freudienne and accomplish her supervised clinical work in the Saint Anne Hospital in France. She is the founder and president of the Slovenian Association for Lacanian Psychoanalysis. She is also leading the establishment of a foundation of Lacanian orientation in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia, where she runs her own psychoanalytical school. She also works in particular with issues of trauma from the period of the war and the transition. She translates from French, Spanish, English and Serbian.
Ana Hribar
