One of the things I would like to do here is to show how Slovak people take political action into their own hands to get control over their own lives. Too many people are stuck with the idea that Slovaks are still brain-washed sheep, stunted by Communism etc. and in desperate need of some foreign medicine in order to take responsibility for themselves. It’s true that the current ultra-statist prime minister, Robert Fico, doesn’t make a good ambassador in this regard, but there are plenty of everyday stories of little heroes getting things done.
Of course, when people take politics into their own hands, it’s not always pretty. Few people are model humanists. This evening I watched a report on TA3 about how a village got up a petition and hate campaign against a plan to set up a children’s home mainly for Roma children in their neighbourhood. The programme was really good, contrasting scenes from the daily life of the children (who were perfectly normal) and interviews with spluttering petitioners (“Oh yes, it’s quiet now, but what if those children start playing outside?”) who threatened to take their children out of the village school if Roma children went there and a mayor who rode into office on the issue of the petition and who now has no problem at all with the children’s home, you see, it was just a question of bad procedure. I doubt that’s what he said when he was out pressing the flesh, he looked like a weasel. But he may have had a point. If the authorities had communicated with the villagers about who these children are - normal children just unlucky - and how much better it is for the children to live in a “family type” house for eight rather than an isolated institution for over a hundred, things might have been different. Most of the bureaucrats were just shaking their shoulders and saying “Oh they’ll get used to it”. If the petition changes that, it’ll be good for something.
When the media talks about activism in Slovakia, they tend to talk most often about the Neo-Nazis like Slovenska Pospolita, and their opponents, Antifa. This is getting to the point of total absurdity. Yesterday, TA3 gave over its news discussion programme to a debate about a demonstration “for free speech” that was banned in Bratislava. Some right wingers with links to SP were upset that Archbishop Sokol had been criticised for politically incorrect talk about the fascist ally wartime regime, which Sokol thought made life good for Slovaks. This rather ignores the fact that nothing has happened to the archbishop, it’s just that most of the Slovak chattering classes don’t agree with him (and rightly so, IMHO). The demonstration was banned because of the organiser’s links to banned right wing organisations and fears that it would become a vehicle for hate speech (perhaps also there were fears of a scrap with anti-racism counter-demonstrators). In the end today, 10 rightists turned out to collect signatures for some sort of petition and 30 Antifa types came to watch them. There were probably more police by the looks of things. It is heartening that there are more anti-fascists than fascists willing to turn out on a Thursday afternoon, but was it really worth so much fuss? The police have to watch the Square anyway the same as if it had been allowed, and the organiser got attention on the news to more people than he would on some square in Bratislava, including you readers of my blog (hm, maybe that Square is more attractive…). If you have a law against hate speech, it’s easy enough to monitor what the fools say and arrest them when they say it, but banning people and harassing people for what they might say is going a bit over the top.
Another thing that bothers me is the way these issues are framed in terms of the police, who are always ready to intervene. The media likes to send the message that activism is only for nutters and that we should trust the authorities and our elected representatives to take care of things. Yes, sometimes people say things that stink but how will we learn to live for ourselves without practice?
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