On Tuesday, we witnessed another irresponsible gathering of people in the centre of the capital, even though only a maximum of ten people are allowed to gather according to the measures that are currently in place. Apparently, however, the anti-government protesters chose to ignore the current restrictions, despite the fact that we are still in the midst of an epidemic. In fact, we currently have over 10 thousand active cases of infection, and yet they decided to gather in Ljubljana, many of them even without masks. The SD party obviously finds such behaviour completely acceptable, as the SD party’s MP Marko Koprivc expressed support for the mass gathering on Twitter, and the president of the SD party, Tanja Fajon, retweeted his post to show her support.
In addition to an attached photo of Tuesday’s protest, SD MP Marko Koprivc wrote the following on the social network: “I would be happy to celebrate the Day of Uprising Against the Occupation like this every year. But on the other hand, I hope we will never have to celebrate it like this again. Ljubljana, the hero city.” The tweet in question was then retweeted by the Member of the European Parliament, Tanja Fajon, as well as another prominent member of the SD party, Jernej Štromajer, and the municipal organisation of the SD party in Ljubljana.
Since it is quite clear that a retweet of a post on Twitter is a sign of its approval, it makes sense to conclude that the SD party, as a whole, passionately supports the protests. Given that the anti-government protesters are opposing the current government, it is not surprising that they received approval from the opposition, but one would expect at least some level of responsible behaviour from the parliamentary parties. These parties and their representatives should be role models and remind people that responsible behaviour is needed so that the curve does not turn back upwards again.
They learned nothing from their “schools without masks” campaign
Apparently, the SD party has learned nothing from the past – in particular, from the propaganda campaign, in which they took advantage of the children. At the time, they openly supported certain principles, who were advocating for schools without masks, even though medical experts advised otherwise. “We support the call of principals for schools without masks. We call for measures for kindergartens and schools to be designed by the experts. In addition to the epidemiologists, these are also pedagogues, social workers, psychologists and people who work in the education sector. We demand a clear and predictable plan involving everyone, not only decrees that change from one day to the next. For schools without masks,” the SD party wrote on its Twitter profile at the time. It is a well-known fact that the party cannot stop talking about how the government is supposedly not taking the medical experts’ opinions into account when making their decisions, even though they themselves completely ignored the opinion of the latter with the campaign in question. Director of the National Institute of Public Health, Milan Krek, made it clear at the time that it is in no way okay to use the deadly virus for political games like this. He also emphasised that politicians should not work against the people and to their detriment in order to benefit their own political interests.
Given that, according to the National Institute of Public Health, there was a noticeable difference between the number of infections among children who had to wear masks (in high school) and those who did not have to wear them, it is clear that the campaign was completely irresponsible. Especially because we have subsequently witnessed a general increase in the number of infections, which has placed a heavy burden on the healthcare system. Given that the SD party did not want to admit that they are also to blame for the increase in the number of infections at the time, it is hard to believe that this time things might be different. The fact is, however, that showing support for mass protests during an epidemic is completely irresponsible, as such events pose a great danger of causing an “explosion” in the number of infections. As we can see, the people who gathered at the protests did not keep a proper distance from each other, nor did they all wear masks.
All of us probably wish that there was no need to once again tighten the measures in order to contain the virus. However, it is obvious that some people cannot comprehend that by behaving irresponsibly, they are only causing us to move further away from the goal of returning to life as we knew it before the epidemic began. Obviously, the easiest thing to do for everyone right now is to just blame the government for everything and insult it. By doing this, the SD party is proving that protesting against the current government is more important to it than people’s health. Some people clearly cannot bear to even exist if they are not in power.
Sara Kovač
