“This is not just Christianophobia, but a phobia towards anyone who thinks differently, who thinks or acts outside the pattern of one huge minority,” Dr Boštjan M. Turk, a columnist, analyst, professor and vice-dean of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, said in relation to Saturday’s desecration of the Ljubljana cathedral.
During the unannounced protest in Ljubljana on the occasion of International Women’s Day, which was attended by just over 50 participants, police officers also dealt with suspicions of officially prosecutable offences. The perpetrators threw balloons filled with paint at the facades of two buildings, causing damage to two of them, one of which was the Ljubljana Cathedral. The protest was attended by prominent members of the Left party (Levica) and NGOs.
Archbishop Zore condemns all religious intolerance and Christianophobia
The Metropolitan Archbishop of Ljubljana, Stanislav Zore, pointed out in light of these events that the joy of the victory of the cyclist Pogačar and the gold medals of the Prevc dynasty ski jumpers was overshadowed by the vile attack on our cathedral and diocese. “I condemn the destruction of our common cultural heritage and all religious intolerance and Christianophobia,” he said critically, adding that he called on law enforcement authorities to find the perpetrator and punish him or her. He also called on everyone to respect each other.
We also spoke to Dr Boštjan M. Turk about the incident, who said that he could predict with the highest probability that the person who defaced the facade of the cathedral would never be found. “If the perpetrator had defaced the façade of a building on Metelkova Street or the façade where the Peace Institute (Mirovni inštitut) or the 8th of March Institute are based, he or she would have been found out immediately, and if they were of the wrong conviction, they would also have been punished immediately,” he pointed out, adding that it is not difficult to find out who is defacing the façades, who is defacing public areas in Ljubljana. Simply because one only has to look at the street of the medical centre for students and the Faculty of Arts. He also said that on the floor of the bus stop in front of the student residence, where the bus to the zoo stops, one can see that they used a model from which they cut out letters to scrawl on the floor. “So, you can see that this is a kind of printing workshop or organised activity. One would have to look at the paint pattern on the cathedral, and if the paint patterns match, that would give the police the first clue. But, of course, that is not going to happen, because we live in a country that is completely unique within the European Union. That is because some people are allowed to do everything, and others are supposed to endure and bear everything,” he explained.
With regard to what happened on Saturday, he pointed out that this is not just about Christianophobia. “Of course this is Christianophobia, but it is not only that – in fact, it is a phobia towards anyone who thinks differently,” he explains. Most students at the university are neutral, he noted. “I am convinced that 99.9 percent of the university students or young people who are the most likely suspects for such an act are not Christianophobic at all,” he pointed out, adding that this is an extreme minority that is politically represented in the Left party. He also mentioned the long-time Left Party MP Miha Kordiš, who lives in a state-owned apartment in Ljubljana, although Škofja Loka is not far away. “One big question is whether he is even entitled to this flat. After all, he could leave it to some young student mother or students, who, of course, do not have the privilege of being MPs and having an apartment at their disposal.”
Turk further explained that this raises deeper problems for Slovenian society. “Starting, of course, with the institutions that do not react, starting with institutions such as the student residence or the Faculty of Arts, which are tolerant of this, and starting with the police, which, of course, never find the real suspects or act in an absolutely selective manner, which is fundamentally at odds with the mission of the police and the judiciary,” he pointed out, adding that this is an issue that goes far beyond the cathedral and far beyond what happened there. No one is stopping this violence, this explicit minority, which he estimates to be 15 to 20 people, terrorising the whole of Ljubljana, the whole of the university, in the name of a Palestine, which, with regard to the slogan “From the river to the sea”, they don’t even know which river and sea it is. At least, he said, that is what has been established.
They don’t sanction it; the university doesn’t sanction it. The university is not saying that it is not a place to deal with foreign and domestic political issues, but that it is a place of study, a place of exchange of scientific and pedagogical views at the highest level. Turk pointed out that parts of the university even openly flirt with politics. “Then this happens, and the question is – where does it stop? So, it starts with the defacing of facades and ends with the defacing of people. We have these examples from the history of Nazism, the history of fascism and the history of communism.” Because the authorities are not reacting, he said, the next time something might happen to someone, a priest or someone who thinks differently from the absolute minority in Ljubljana that is shouting at the top of their lungs.
Social media footage shows that the Left party MP Nataša Sukič also attended the particular rally where chants of “Clerical fascism should be burned at the stake” could be heard. Given the hate slogans that were heard at the rally, she can be directly linked to the hateful acts that followed. Sukič did not publicly condemn the actions of the attack on the Catholic Church, even when asked by our journalists.
