After ZDF, yet another Western European media outlet has shown its true nature and made a fool of itself due to its lack of journalistic or, in this case, editorial work. Euronews published an article on its website about Janez Janša, written by the journalist Aleksandar Brezar, who was born in Bosnia. So, a foreigner wrote an anti-propaganda pamphlet against the Slovenian Prime Minister, as dictated by two biased sources, which he also mentions in the article. What would be considered an international incident in the past is now a Slovenian and European media every day.
Aleksandar Brezar, a journalist who was born in Bosnia and currently lives in Brussels, wrote a negative agitprop pamphlet for the Euronews web portal, against the Slovenian Prime Minister, Janez Janša. The article was practically dictated by two left-wing activists, whom the author of the article even brazenly mentions in the article itself, and it seems as if a Mladina journalist had written in (one of the two activists who dictated the article is actually an editor and journalist of Mladina), with an added bonus: an attitude of underestimation towards the Slovenian Prime Minister, which is typical for the arrogant journalists from the former Yugoslavia, when it comes to Slovenia in general.
Blatant underestimation
Brezar begins his article with “Janez Janša is the rising populist leader you have likely never heard of…” Underestimation, which the larger European media outlets, even the biased ones, do not afford to have towards Janša. Even the ZDF did not have an attitude like this in its article from a few days ago. But – this is just what Aleksandar Brezar from Sarajevo is like. Opinion journalism in an international media giant, slandering a prominent European politician, as dictated by two extreme leftists. With an added mixture of Balkan arrogance.
In the article, Brezar worked with – that is, wrote it according to the dictation of – the Director of the Centre for Information Service, Cooperation and Development of Non-Governmental Organizations, Goran Forbici, and Izak Košir, one of the editors of the Mladina web portal. It must be acknowledged that the ZDF, in addition to being more respectful of the Prime Minister, was also one level more subtle in its choice of “expert commentators.” For ZDF’s commentators, one must at least use the Slovenian Google to establish an example of their bias and nonobjectivity, but in this case, it is ad nauseam, “recipient of a Soros scholarship and editor of Mladina magazine. For those of you who believe that not all of the NGOs are necessarily left-wing, we suggest you google the history of Forbici’s settling of the score with the SDS. This will be enough for you to know for sure that he is not an independent commentator.
The narrative of the article is entirely left-wing: Janša started out as a communist, continued as a pacifist, and then a liberal, and he had the chance of becoming Slovenia’s Vaclav Havel, but he chose to become Slovenia’s Viktor Orban. As a right-wing populist, an authoritarian leader who changes the law in order to attack the independent media and organizations that “criticize the society only from the scientific point of view and only accidentally criticize only Janša’s government, but not others.” Liberalism, framed by national interests and tradition, is equated with fascism. The dominant “spike” of the far left, growing louder and louder and is probably even dominant in Europe and the West.
A whole bunch of lies
Even if we could somehow justify this pamphlet in the context of opinion journalism, if it were not published under the guise of independent journalism in a serious international publication, we cannot justify a whole bunch of lies that the “Soros trollist” “stuffed” in the text. The first lie or, in the worst-case, the deliberately misleading half-truth that catches the eye, is Brezar’s quoting of Forbici, writing that ever since Janša became the Prime Minister for the third time, the number of attacks on “independent journalists” and “anti-corruption activists,” as well as the numbers of anti-immigrant opinions and climate sceptic views have risen to unprecedented levels.
Firstly, he does not define what he means with the word “attacks.” There is a difference between the Prime Minister tweeting something about someone or changing the law to violate certain freedoms. To whom did the left-wing activists that dictated the pamphlet refer when mentioning the “independent journalists” and “anti-corruption activists?” They also mentioned the climate sceptics. It seems unusual that they did not mention the covid sceptics and their connections to the left-wing parties and the “independent” left-leaning media outlets. Strange – if you have no idea what is going on or are as malicious as Brezar. When he writes about “unprecedented levels” … Where are concrete numbers? There are no, of course. The source simply said something that coincides with the harmonious meta and sub-narrative of the article.
Košir poetically problematizes that Janša began his path as a just, rebellious hero of the people, who was imprisoned by the authorities, and now he himself has become the regime that the people on the streets are protesting against. What a manipulation: it is not appropriate to compare the Roška protests to this year’s protests – neither from the point of view of justice nor from the point of view of crowds and consequences. Shortly afterward, he mentions that Janša was also imprisoned by the Slovenian authorities, although he does not question whether this is justified or not. Meanwhile, he does not find it strange or undermining for the narrative of the article that he and Forbici narrated to the “lost in space” Brezar, that Janša was a political prisoner. No, everything was indisputable. Well, he just happened to be found guilty, simply by chance, and just before the election. The court later acquitted him, but that only serves as further proof of his influence. Looney Tunes, to the disgrace of Brezar, Euronews for whom he writes, and the editor, who allowed such a propaganda smear to be published. You can read the full article here.
Who is Aleksandar Brezar? He himself does not even bother to hide the fact that he is a left-wing activist. Here is what is written in his Twitter bio: “Southeast Europe, Western Balkans Network Lead/Comms, @Demsoc. Co-Host, @SarajevoCalling. Factchecker, Debunker. Contrarian. Positively Negative. LFC Fan.”
And if you research a little further, you will come across a webpage where it is clearly stated that Aleksandar Brezar worked or still works for Soros’s Open Society Foundation: “Interpreter at Open Society Institute & Soros Foundations Network.”
Aleš Ernecl
