Fear Of Freedom

Vreme: Seven years have passed since your discourse about guilt and sin. Today, however, it seems that the Slovenian reconciliation is farther away than ever?

My initiative for the national reconciliation is based on the pious attitude to death; I am of communist provenance, but I sympathized with the tragic death of domobrans, (Slovenian WWII anti-communist patriots). And today our Right feels no piety - not only for the partisans but even for its own dead. It is a blasphemy to weigh, on the one hand, the piety for the dead at a memorial ceremony in the Parliament, and on the other, the Redress of Injustice Act which, for instance, specifies that the claimants are entitled to so many Tolars compensation for every month spent in prison... This haggling over somebody else's misfortune is the most odious thing happening here: those who speak today "on behalf" of the victims are, in fact, only after money. When the dead are manipulated in this way, the reconciliation is impossible.

After ten days of fighting in June '91, Slovenia learned of a new kind of internal enemies - the officers of the former JNA (Yugoslav People's Army). Do you approve of the fact that many of them cannot enter Slovenia where their families live?

Regarding the former JNA officers and families from which they are separated, my attitude is clear: the state should allow them to live with their families. If it is suspected that some of them are responsible for something - there are courts of law where everything can be clarified in regular proceedings. A crime is a concrete thing, it must be treated that way and one cannot qualify a whole category of people as criminals and then think that he has done with them for good. I think that those who, at the time of Slovenia's proclamation of independence, chose to be loyal to Yugoslavia, to my mind they did not commit a crime because thought and man's choice cannot be a crime. When Yugoslavia was falling apart, there were two available options: the first said that one should fight for the preservation of Yugoslavia because otherwise we would perish, and the other insisted on the need for the struggle for the independence of Slovenia, regardless of the price. Both options were legitimate and feasible. Or - does it mean that - had the first, pro-Yugoslav, option come true - we who were for the independence, would be treated as traitors today?!

The answer depends on how you understand truth. If you understand the truth as something with several faces, then there can be no room for terms such as 'enemy' and 'traitor'.

Do you think that after all the bloodshed in the territory of the former Yugoslavia the reconciliation (reconciliation meaning forgiveness, not the restoration of the common state) is possible among the South Slavic peoples?

I think it is indispensable. It is impossible to simply move the Slovenes, Croats, Serbs and all the others, and thus separate them from each other. We have lived here for thousands of years and in the future we shall have to agree as to how we shall live with each other.

The majority of the Slovenian intellectuals and politicians, including most of the former human rights and tolerance activists, ever since the independence, have refused to support the protection of the so-called marginal minorities?

This is an absurd situation. The former communist regime was illegitimate and therefore lacked confidence and forced itself to conduct some kind of a dialogue with the intellectuals. The present-day government in Slovenia was legitimately elected in the free elections and this has brought about a paradoxical situation wherein anyone elected believes himself to be untouchable and thus relieved of the need to bother about delicate issues. This gives rise to another problem - love of power; in the one-party system it was permitted to the chosen, in the present system it is permitted to all; this trait has surfaced in a marked degree, and even among those one would have never expected it from. Many of my colleagues in the cultural circles are wallowing in the love of power and with it, then, go populism and yielding to the majority opinion. Those who in the present political system want to stay in power must bow to the opinion of the average subordinate themselves to the majority opinion and pursue conformist policies.

A critical attitude and advocacy of the underprivileged minority groups is very hazardous for a politician. Furthermore, it so happened that after the independence we suddenly found ourselves in the open, responsible and left to our own devices. We cannot accuse anyone else for our destiny any longer. Some see a way out of this in the discovery of internal enemies and 'unmasking' of international conspiracies. This is the effect of the fear of freedom. That is why for the current problems of the Slovenian society the blame is laid, depending on the political affiliation of the critics, on "southerners", communists or clericalists...

Do you think that today, in spite of everything, it is possible and necessary to conduct a dialogue with the intellectuals on the other, now "hostile", side?

It is necessary and needful. I remember that once I wrote a text defending Seselj and everybody said I'd end up in prison. I said: If Seselj is in prison, then there's nothing for me in the party any more". The things have undoubtedly changed much since that time. Later many oppositionists from Serbia came to us, we polemised, but the problem was that they mostly offered us ideas about a limited, cultural autonomy. And that was too little for us then. Regardless of that, I think that today we should have more contact with Nebojsa Popov, Djindjic, Inic and many other colleagues from Serbia. It is true that we the Slovenians are too busy with ourselves, but it is also true that the Serbian intellectuals turn to us too seldom, and maybe they could rely on us in looking for the explanation of their own positions. I say explanation, so don't misunderstand me; I do not mean apologies but what we all need, and that is a dialogue.