On the 15th of February last year, we published an article entitled “The Coalition is preparing a very dangerous and utterly vile law: the verbal delict is back!” And it was with good reason, it seems.
The Freedom Movement (Gibanje Svoboda) parliamentary group had already drafted a law against the glorification of fascism, Nazism and collaboration back then – last year. As reported in the online edition of the newspaper Delo, the draft document was sent to the Ministry of the Interior, which at the time refused to take a position on it, as the Ministry was waiting for a new boss, Boštjan Poklukar, after former Minister Tatjana Bobnar had resigned. It was clear, however, that it was only a matter of time before the controversial draft law would be on the agenda.
The infernal plan of last February
Apparently, the infernal plan to bring back the offence of a verbal delict – which was fought against by a large part of civil society (and also part of politics through the Association of Socialist Youth of Slovenia – ZSMS) in the 1980s – was agreed upon at that very time. Namely, the leadership of the National Assembly met with Marijan Križman, a former Member of Parliament from the Social Democrats (Socialni demokrati – SD) and the President of the Association of the National Liberation Movement of Slovenia (ZZB NOB), who are the proud successors of the League of Communists of Slovenia. He presented an initiative to the increasingly authoritarian Speaker of the National Assembly, Urška Klakočar Zupančič, to increase the scope of curricula with content on the national liberation struggle. The Speaker of the National Assembly said that we must strive to ensure that the most difficult periods of our past do not slip from historical memory, as the media outlet Siol reported at the time.
In light of this, representatives of the Association of the National Liberation Movement of Slovenia expressed the opinion that not enough attention is paid to the national liberation struggle and the War of Independence in schools at this time. This was, of course, an intentional feigning of ignorance on their part, as this statement is especially true in terms of talking about the independence of Slovenia, which plays a peripheral role in the curriculum, and in addition, most teachers run out of time before even getting to that point and speaking about the independence period. But apparently, Križman and Klakočar were not talking just about this, as signals of a new attack on the freedom of speech have been coming off MP Martin Premk, a member of the Freedom Movement party and historian for some time now, who is also the main instigator of the controversial law, and also a functionary of the Association of the National Liberation Movement.
Double standards
Anyway – at the meeting between the leadership of the National Assembly and the Association of the National Liberation Movement of Slovenia, they discussed, among other things, a bill that would ban the wearing of Nazi and fascist symbols, which the Speaker of the National Assembly, Urška Klakočar Zupančič, also supports. At the time, there were already rumours that the bill would go even further, as it would provide for a general ban on the glorification of fascism, Nazism and collaboration. It is obvious that the interests of the Left party (Levica), which is the most ardent supporter of the preservation and development of revolutionary traditions, are what is actually behind this. This has been demonstrated recently, as the coalition is allegedly soon to declare the display of Nazi symbols an offence under the amendment to the Law on Public Order and Peace, while the Left party wants to make it a criminal offence. It has now become clear that this is mainly a feigning of ignorance. If the coalition had been consistent, it would have banned all totalitarian symbols – including the red star that the intolerant Svetlana Makarovič wears. We will certainly not see this happen, though, because the current government coalition is clearly basing its policy on the tradition of the Leninist revolution. This was, after all, also evident in the liquidation of the Museum of Slovenian Independence and the burial with military honours of the former head of the criminal State Security Service (UDBA), Janez Zemljarič. Even in the case of death threats against opposition politicians, the law enforcement authorities have failed in their duty, but they have recently convicted a member of the far right, for example, who allegedly threatened ruling politicians and glorified Hitler. All of this more than obviously points to double standards.
Will the Penal Code also be amended?
“The word has become flesh,” as the Freedom Movement, the Social Democrats, and the Left party’s parliamentary groups have tabled an amendment to the Law on the Protection of Public Order, which bans the glorification of Nazism and fascism, in the parliamentary procedure last Thursday (on the feast of St Benedict, the patron saint of Europe). Communism was omitted, of course, but “violent ideologies” were mentioned. The amendment proposes to amend the law on the protection of law and order by adding an article prohibiting the glorification of Nazism and fascism and violent ideologies, which, according to the draft amendment, will be an offence punishable by a fine of between 1,000 and 2,500 euros, to be fined by the competent authorities. In June this year, Premk claims, neo-Nazis were parading around Ljubljana, threatening people, and similar things were also happening elsewhere in Europe, where they are also attacking their political rivals. Of course, he “forgot” to mention that the Antifa and the far left, which is widespread in this country, are doing exactly the same thing – one example of that are the recent rallies of the Voice of the People initiative (Glas ljudstva), where they threat doctors, who are labelled as amphibians, as they work in the public and the private sector.
The anti-Semitism of the Left is clearly non-existent
It is also clear that the drafters of the law would like to circumvent the critical treatment of far-left phenomena, while, on the other hand, widening the field of criminality for all those who think more in a “right-wing” direction. This would also mean banning certain civil society movements that would be accused of fascism. Thus, the ruling class is worried about attacks on Pride parades, migrants and the like. They do not, of course, want to say even a word about threats to Catholics and sympathisers of the Slovenian Democratic Party (Slovenska demokratska stranka – SDS). The Left party MP Nataša Sukič even went so far in her feigning of ignorance as to criticise the hatred of Jews, even though it is her own party colleagues who, in their fanatical support for the Palestinians, utter hateful phrases at the expense of Israel.
Will the coat of arms of Carniola also be punishable?
One thing is clear – the adoption of such legislation is a serious blow, not only to freedom of speech, but also to the security and democracy in our country, because this law legalises, between the lines, the violence of one political option in advance. This raises the question of the commemorations for the victims of the communist massacres, including members of the Slovenian National Army in 1945, who wore, as their symbol, the by-then-familiar coat of arms of Carniola – the blue eagle. In 1848, when the Slovenian flag was first hung on Wolf Street in Ljubljana, this symbol became the central symbol of the Slovenian nation, which did not yet have its own state. The flag was a signal to the Austrian imperial authorities in Vienna that the Slovenian nation, although scattered in different lands, was uniting into a single Slovenia – a “united Slovenia.” From 1945 onwards, the coat of arms was condemned as representing the “Home Guards” and was subsequently banned. Some may also recall a sporting “incident” ten years ago, when football fans in Argentina showed a flag with a blue eagle. Even if someone were to use this former flag of the Slovenians from the 19th century, it would be at least as legitimate as the use of the “tricolour” with the five-pointed red star – the flag of Yugoslavia. It is worth pointing out here that the star is a totalitarian symbol, whereas the blue eagle is the historically attested coat of arms of Carniola. The same applies to the Croatian patriotic cry, “Za dom spremni!” (“Prepared for our home!”). The latter is considered to be “Ustasha” by the old regime structures, but in fact, it is much older than the infamous Independent State of Croatia (Nezavisna Država Hrvatska – NDH).
The Freedom Movement coalition and its “opium for the masses”
The law is therefore completely unnecessary, but it would have been perfectly decent if communism and totalitarian leftism were also included in it. The coalition is thus creating a situation of party racism, where one group of citizens must be “protected” from another. Such laws are designed to provoke indignant reactions, a psychological effect by which the ruling coalition distracts the public from its inability, for example, to reform the healthcare service. In short, this is pure “opium for the masses,” as Karl Marx might have put it.
Gašper Blažič
