Nicholson salutes our temporary populist overlords

 I already commented on Tom Nicholson's article on how he learned to stop worrying and love Fico when it appeared in Slovak on Aktualne. It's now out in the Slovak Spectator, albeit paywalled. It seems to me extraordinarily badly timed since the last week has revealed the first indications of just how bad Fico's government is going to be. But it also has lots of other things about it that I disagree with.

Slovaks want a break, not a new beginning

A FEW weeks ago, a political commentator who had been fairly critical of the Fico government in its first months experienced a moment of self-doubt.

Does anyone apart from another hack care about the mental state of journalists? Worst. Start. Evah.

 The cabinet had just approved its euro-friendly budget draft, the crown was at record strength against the European currency, and visiting financial investors were reporting cautious optimism about the prospects of the economy.

This is the nub of the problem. Firstly Nicholson is focussing entirely on economics, not political culture as if the two were completely separate. Secondly, what is this "the economy". There is not one "national economy" but many, many individual interactions and interests. Fico is moving around the emphasis in the economy e.g. moving advantage from the energy companies to the big industrial companies with his war on utility prices. The big industrial companies include foreign investors like US Steel and Peugeot Citroen so some foreign investors are still happy. There's a balance. Fico's not so stupid to fight two enemies at once.

Nevertheless, subsidising industry with cheap prices will probably have a long term impact on the economy different than what would have happened if he'd kept energy markets on the way to liberalisation. There will be no increase in efficiency. No new sources of gas etc. will be explored. So short term good and maybe middle long term bad.

Also, can we really trust visiting financial investors? I suspected a lot of speculators bid the crown down when Fico came in so they could quickly hoover up cheap koruna. Now they want to sell that so they talk "the economy" up. Remember these are not disinterested parties.

"Maybe we should stop scaring people about the government," he said, taking a ruminative sip of coffee.

How can you have a ruminative sip of coffee? Do you slosh it around in your mouth like a cow shifting grass between its stomachs? I suppose it's meant to be a synonym of thoughtful but rumination takes a long time, sipping coffee no time. It doesn't look like this self doubt possessed the comementator for long, which makes sense, because if a political commentator doubts himself for more than 5 seconds he has to quit his job.

Fear and a lack of charity have dominated media coverage of the new cabinet since July. Compared to the first cozy months of the preceding Dzurinda governments, Fico has been attacked with unflagging if somewhat contradictory zeal.

This is apples and oranges. Most journalists are right wing in Slovakia, probably because the newspaper owners are and Slovak journalists are a pretty servile bunch. So the newspapers are in opposition to Fico and you have to compare the opposition now to the opposition then. From day one Fico wanted premature elections and staged his referendums and theatrical votes of confidence that went nowhere, just into a lot of shouting about corruption. On the whole, the opposition (and the press) has been kind to Fico. Where criticism has been overdone (e.g. by the SMK) it has generally pointed this out. And as to lack of charity... WTF??? This is politics and journalism. Charity never comes into it.

He has been criticized for altering some reforms, and at the same time for not fulfilling his promises to dismantle them.

This is not as contradictory as it seems.  Things like the tax changes are botched, rushed attempts to get more cash, which will have a negative impact. It is important to our understanding of Fico to know that he promises things he can't deliver. Has everyone forgotten the damage Dzurinda's "double pay" with "half unemployment" claim did to him. And Fico was always supposed to be about a break from that.

He has been sneered at for being a lukewarm socialist by the same people who feared a truly socialist government.

He's a liar, and a useless one. He should be sneered at.

He has been dismissed as a populist, even though what he has actually done so far has proven exceedingly popular.

Populist things are supposed to be exceedingly popular that's why politicians do them. Are we supposed to be glad that he knows how to get short term praise for things that do long term damage? Is it a case of never mind the content, admire my consumate political skill. Actually, later content does suggest that playing the game is the main thing, not what you do.

Things have reached the point that even when this government does something quite normal - like recalling political ambassadors - the story is reported as another example of political bullying. In the US, by contrast, ambassadors who are not career diplomats customarily resign following a change in government, and then are either confirmed or withdrawn by the new president.

But this is a new custom in Slovakia and Slovakia is not the United States. So the opposition press is entitled to debate it. Besides, demands to write resignation letters have a different history in Slovakia than in the US. Remember Mr Gauleider?

Despite its many flaws, the Fico government deserves more credit than it has received so far from its opponents.

Have you seen what credit Fico gives his opponents? What about the time he libelled Miklos about him having a Swiss bank account full of bribes. You want to give these people credit? They'll bite your hand off as soon as you extend it to them.

Not only has it not (yet) done significant damage to the country's economy or moral fibre,

Isn't it better to criticise him before he does damage rather than after? That might be expensive.

but it may actually be just what Slovaks needed after the past eight years - a break from "integration correctness".

And now ladies and gentlemen, the patronising pay off. Slovaks cannot bear very much reality, poor little fools.

Like its political namesake, integration correctness is an emotional hair shirt that countries occasionally feel the need to remove. It too requires that people behave and speak in an exemplary way, which quickly proves exhausting, and then starts to cause resentment. In the name of securing membership in the EU and NATO in 2004, for example, Slovaks were asked to accept many things - foreign capital, US influence, less job security, greater tolerance for minorities, reduced sovereignty - before they were ready for them, while they had to reject national passions just as they were finding out what it meant to be a nation.

And what was the purpose of all this accepting, adapting, repressing? Isn't it precisely the fact that Dzurinda and co. sold us a bill of goods that has put Fico in charge rather than mere fatigue. Here's Duzrinda again: People thought there was something like a Marshall Plan for the eastern part of Europe that would automatically allow us to reach the richest countries in the union. Now I wonder how people came to think that. But in fact it was Dzurinda who promised to wring out the European Social funds. Dzurina couldn't think how to sell the European ideal, cooperation, etc. to the Slovak population so he sold them a goose that lays golden eggs.

Those parts of Slovak society that are more Western-oriented, which includes mainly the current political opposition, NGOs, the media, and university-educated urban residents, supported integration correctness enthusiastically, and punished any deviation from it.

Well yes, they wanted to integrate with the west because they were western oriented. This doesn't answer the question of what the point was. Were we integrationally correct just for its own sake?

 In doing so they performed a service to their country, for there was never any real alternative to joining Western alliances.

Apparently yes. There was no alternative. Resistance is futile. Nicholson of Borg.

But now they have to learn to give way for a season to people with different political convictions - graciously, and without fear.

And now Tom is the engineer of Slovak society. It puts me in mind of someone opening a safety valve. A dangerous pressure has built up and so he has to let it out for a while. Let people play with their Christmas bonuses and have Hungarians on the two minutes hate instead of Al Qaeda. Then we'll put the toys away and get back to work.

There will be plenty to criticize under the current Fico government, because the people who find themselves in power are certainly no better than any to date.

Politicians, eh. Can't live with 'em. Can't live without 'em.

 But there is a lot less to fear than some of us originally believed.

I for one salute our temporary populist overlords.

 No, Fico didn't mean all of his pre-election promises seriously, nor did voters take them seriously, and in this harmony of supply and demand lies the secret of the prime minister's popularity.

We have come so far from Havel living in truth. In fact, we're back to the good old days when the greengrocer does not worry to hang the Soviet flag outside his shop because he knows he doesn't really mean it, and the government doesn't really mean it. Society will proceed according to plan and democracy is just a show where words mean nothing, giving variety. But maybe the whole Velvet Revolution was just a break too.

Yes, people want a break from relentless energy price rises,

Especially US Steel.

 from the widening gap between rich and poor,

Just a break from the widening gap? Maybe they don't want a gap at all.

and from small-shouldered international policy.

I have no idea what this means. Can anyone help?

But a break is all they want - not a new beginning.

How does he know that? There's no evidence of what Slovaks want. The only people who speak out are the journalists and the politician-actors. And they are not the controllers, just a part of the machinery that must go here for a time, there for a time.

And that is the worst thing about it. Fico is nothing but a valve being released before the machine of Slovak society continues its inevitable progress to a more beautiful tomorrow. There's a lack of the sense that politics is about dialogue, that it involves rhetoric, over-egging your pudding while no one's looking and catching out the other guy. Instead it appeals to a sort of technocratic "objectivity", of following the way to which there is no real alternative. (Of course, I'm leaving aside the question of whether Fico really is just for a season and people can be brought back to the one true path, as Nicholson glibbly assumes).

Wouldn't a better reaction to the failure of integration correctness be to offer people real alternatives, real debate, real choices rather than this stupid holiday season? Otherwise, you might find people choose without your consent, and then they might decide to make the holiday permanent.

Source: The Slovak Spectator - Slovakia's English Language Newspaper