“We did not want to provoke what happened. We stood there with a banner that said, ‘There are only two sexes.’ When they started walking towards us, there was a kind of heat in the crowd. Bottles were being thrown at us, and they held up their middle fingers. They even recognised me and shouted, “F*ck you, Zala”. One girl ran up to me and started to pour some kind of powder on me. That is when the police came up to us and stood before us to create a kind of human barricade. I am grateful that they protected us; otherwise, I would not have returned home ‘in one piece’.”
Zala Klopčič is the Vice-President of the Slovenian Democratic Youth (Slovenska demokratska mladina – SDM), the youth wing of the Slovenian Democratic Party (Slovenska demokratska stranka – SDS) and co-host of the podcast “Na tekočem” (which could be translated to “Up To Date”). Within the SDM, she organises various activities, especially in her hometown of Ljubljana, where she also often warns about the dangers of LGBTQ ideology. We spoke to her about the dangers of this ideology, as well as youth issues and the counter-protest she and her supporters organised for this year’s Pride Parade.
As the Vice-President of SDM, can you start by telling us in which regions the organisation is most active?
The SDM is the oldest and the largest political youth wing. As such, we have a large number of members all over the country. We are a very active youth group. I would like to point out that we are very active especially in Gorenjska, where we have a large number of conscientious and committed members. But we are also strong in the Dolenjska, Štajerska and Koroška regions. Ljubljana is also gaining in numbers lately, but in the past years, we were in a slightly worse position, because Ljubljana is not so conservative. As you know, everywhere in the world, the capital cities are usually more liberal in some way, and this has also been reflected in our membership distribution. Well, since I joined the party, so since last summer, we have also consolidated Ljubljana, and it has become one of the most active areas of the Slovenian Democratic Youth.
As a youth representative, could you tell us what the biggest problems are that young people in Slovenia are facing?
I think that young people today are in a rather difficult situation because of the general crisis of values. Unfortunately, education, finding a job, and work as a value are no longer a priority for them. It seems to me that the latter is in serious decline among young people, given that the current government so openly does not value work, as reflected by Golob inviting failed entrepreneurs to the public administration. This sets a very bad example for young people. As I said, education and starting a family are no longer a priority. There is a growing liberal-decadent mentality among young people. They are surrounded by new technology; they have everything in abundance. They spend too much time in front of screens and lose touch with reality, they no longer spend enough time in nature. This is why they have idealised ideas about life, created by social networks where everyone is perfect. This has an impact on young people’s mental health, which is one of the main problems for young people, not only here but in general, especially since even the experts are not sure how to approach this new situation.
So a lot of the problems of today’s youth are of a mental nature …
Mental health is a really big problem among young people these days. A lot of people are on antidepressants. It seems to me that this is also linked to the LGBTQ agenda, which offers the answer that they were just born as the wrong sex. So young people think that they will cure their depression if they put the other gender on their identity cards. This is very misguided.
You are also the co-host of the podcast ‘Na tekočem’ with Karin Planinšek. Why did you decide to create this podcast?
We decided to create a podcast because we feel that there is a lack of such content in our country. Since the field is dominated by older commentators, it is good to have someone to give young people an example of active and critical involvement in society. There is a prevailing opinion among young people that politics is “irrelevant” and that all politicians steal anyway. We are also not afraid to tell the truth, to cause a stir, and to take up issues that some people would prefer to be left alone. Our main focus is fighting for a fairer society, fighting injustice and uncovering the truth. Because we are very similar, this collaboration is very easy and fun.
What are the main themes that you are tackling on your podcast?
We want to expose what is under-exposed in the media. We talk about things that no one dares to express an opinion on, such as the LGBTQ agenda, Yugonostalgia, demography and the decline in birth rates, the migration problem. These are taboo topics. If you dare tackle them, you are labelled homophobic, xenophobic and so on. The topics are quite diverse, from the political to the social. Our aim is that no important topic is left untouched.
At your press conference held the day before the so-called Pride parade, you pointed out that there are only two sexes. How do you comment on the fact that in today’s society, it is necessary to point out such obvious things?
I find that tragicomic, or just tragic. It is not only the fact that such things have to be pointed out that is worrying, what is even more worrying is the reaction to our pointing out that there are only two sexes. That was a disaster. It seems to me that we have gone astray as humanity, given that such basic facts of life are something you are not allowed to say, something that will cause a bottle to be thrown at your head. I am worried about what will happen to future generations because the further we get away from nature, the worse off we will be. Natural laws are no longer respected, and children are being indoctrinated under the pretext that they should be exposed to this as young as possible so that they will not be intolerant later on. The most frightening agenda is that we will no longer be men and women, Christians and whites, but just parents one and two. This creates a manageable human being who cannot rebel and can be manipulated very easily.
You are also quite involved in the issue of LGBTQ ideology and transgenderism. What are the biggest threats posed by such ideologies today?
As I said before, it is the devaluation of the family, the devaluation of the personal identity of the individual. And, of course, the destruction of children’s bodies. Adolescent girls are having their breasts removed, and they are being given hormone pills that can irreversibly change their bodies. Not to mention surgical procedures. In the United States, those who change their sex are called ‘million-dollar patients’ because the pharmaceutical and cosmetic surgery industry make a fat profit at their expense. This is really worrying. Young people need to be protected from this, because new things always focus on them because they are not yet capable of critical thinking.
At this year’s LGBTQ Pride Parade, you staged a counter-protest of sorts, which led to you being attacked by parade participants. What exactly happened?
We decided to launch the Two Genders, One Truth campaign, which also included a peaceful counter-protest at the Pride Parade itself. We did not want to provoke what happened. We stood there with a banner that said, ‘There are only two sexes.’ When they started walking towards us, there was a kind of heat in the crowd. Bottles were being thrown at us, and they held up their middle fingers. They even recognised me and shouted, “F*ck you, Zala”. One girl ran up to me and started to pour some kind of powder on me. That is when the police came up to us and stood before us to create a kind of human barricade. I am grateful that they protected us, otherwise, I would not have returned home ‘in one piece.’ They were violent towards us. They even fought with the police. Well, when the “horrified” parade participants passed us, the police wrote us up. They did not tell me exactly why that was necessary. But it is interesting to be written up by the police for a banner like that.
The LGBTQ community claims that they were the victims of violence …
Later on, I even heard accusations that we were committing a physical act of violence with our protest, which is, of course, not true. We strongly deny such accusations and distance ourselves from them. We do not promote violence. Apparently, they still do not understand that we are not against them as persons. We only want to protect children from the aforementioned agenda.
How do you comment on the fact that the current government, together with the NGO Legebitra, has published a sex manual aimed primarily at young people, at the taxpayers’ expense?
I am very disappointed by the fact that such things are being financed by the state. The sex manual itself is a terrible piece of writing that I myself would ban. However, the Ministry of Health, the Faculty of Medicine, the Municipality of Ljubljana, the Student Organisation of the University of Ljubljana and others are also the signatories of the said manual. This is a disaster. The manual presents various forms of sexual relations that are very far from heterosexual, and I am not just talking about homosexual relations. There is also sex under the influence of drugs, how to please someone during oral intercourse and so on. It is a scandal that this is available on the Internet without an age restriction.
This is, of course, a publication produced by a minister of the Golob government …
That the author of this is Simon Maljevac, the Minister for a Solidarity-Based Future, seems incredible to me. As a society, we have gone completely astray. I hope that people will open their eyes and finally realise who is in power, what that power supports and what it is poisoning our children with. There is also too much silence surrounding this scandal. Legebitra is also publishing manuals for kindergartens, and they will soon be in schools, hopefully not as compulsory reading. Unfortunately, some teachers are also in favour of this. At the Pride Parade, a 50-year-old who had seen our banner came up to us and asked me in amazement if we were serious, if we believed what the banner said. Others looked at me as if they were in a zoo and as if I had said the strangest thing in the world, namely that there are only two sexes. The fact that taxpayers’ money is being spent on such disgusting things is controversial in the first place, and we will not be silent about it.
What do you think the future holds for Slovenia?
I hope that there is a change of government as soon as possible and that a party comes to power that actually works for the people, instead of just cleverly lying to the voters and exploiting their trust with unrealistic promises. You know, we have been promised everything from healthcare to housing for young people. In the end, none of that happened. Housing is also a big part of the youth problem. There is no housing for us, and the prices in Ljubljana are very high. Because of this, we need more time to become independent and start families. Well, to return to your question. I would like to see the arrival of a more conservative party that does not have ideological roots in communism, Marxism or socialism. We have a mentality coming over from the US that if you are liberal, that is cooler, and that is now the way young people want to rebel. But it seems to me that the real rebels these days are those who stand up against the neoliberal idea. Those who are conservative, not in a religious sense, but in terms of basic values, patriotism, freedom, justice, and also those who realise that there are only two sexes, which is already taboo today.
Biography
Zala Klopčič is a 21-year-old pharmacy student from Ljubljana. She is the Vice-President of the Slovenian Democratic Youth. Before her studies, she attended the Šentvid Grammar School. She is also interested in music, especially singing, playing the violin and the guitar. She enjoys sports, especially volleyball and hiking. She is also an animal lover. As she says, her journey actually started with morning coffee talks with her father, where they commented on current events every day.
Andrej Sekulović
