Lunatics Have Taken Over The Asylum

Once upon a time in a land far away
lived a monster, who one day woke up
and screamed: Where the fuck am I living!?
(adapted from a jingle by Radio Študent)

Interior minister Gorenak (source, author unknown)

More Google translate, this time a post by the minister of the interior Vinko Gorenak (SDS) who despite last week’s ruling by the European Court on Human Rights continues to deny that the Erased in fact exist, calling them “so called erased” and maintains that most of the 25.000 are just trying to cash in on the situation and that those few who have indeed been wronged should have their rights restored based on case-by-case evaluation. He also says that this restitution would include material compensation. Which is weird, since the position of his party has long been that the Erased are not entitled to any sort of compensation and in 2009 SDS even put forward a constitutional amendment to that effect. I guess he didn’t get the memo.

However, bad grammar aside, he apparently was in the loop when the latest talking points were being distributed. As of a couple of days ago, the line that SDS and (presumably) NSi are taking is that the only problem in town are compensation claims and that the whole thing is to be blamed on the political left wing. Translation: because Gorenak’s predecessor Katarina Kresal went about fixing what (among others) the Slovenian constitutional court told the state to fix long ago, it is now the left wing’s fault that state will have to fork out some money.

Further to that point, Gorenak repeats what his party boss Janez Janša said days ago, namely that despite the finality of the verdict the state doesn’t have enough money to cover its basic needs, let alone compensate “people who were sitting on the fence, while those who might have been wronged should be looked at individually, all the while keeping in mind the state’s financial situation“. Meaning that after everything else is paid for, the victims of the single largest violation of human rights in the history of democratic Slovenia will get what’s left. After having been screened for “traitors, malingerers and speculators”, of course. In other words, minister of the interior, whose portfolio since recently also includes state prosecution, publicly stated he just doesn’t give a fuck about a ruling of the European court of human rights. And nothing happens. Really, where the fuck am I living?!

Obviously, this perverted attitude towards democracy, human rights and the rule of law does not end there. As the state just reduced pension benefits granted mostly to retired WWII war veterans, policemen, judges and so on, and some 25,000 people (funny, how numbers keep repeating) saw their pension reduced by as much as 20% it is probably only a matter of days until some bright soul in the government spins this as if the Erased are to blame. As in: “no wonder we have to reduce pensions as we have to pay huge compensations to people who sympathised with the occupator, and you can thank the left wing and Katarina Kresal for it.”

So, let’s get the story straight (again). When the erasure happened (26 February 1992) the government was run by PM Lojze Peterle (Christian Democrats). His government was comprised of every single political party from both sides of the spectrum save the liberal ZSMS which was later renamed in transformed into LDS (and then split into Zares and LDS). And while Igor Bavčar, lately of Istrabenz fame and Janez Janša’s war buddy was indeed the interior minister at the time of the erasure, he was nowhere near being a member of LDS. Back then he was a member of Democratic party, one of two parties created after SDZ (one of the first parties in Slovenia) broke up. No LDS, no Milan Kučan, no Janez Drnovšek and certainly no Katarina Kresal. This is not about whether the left or the right wing is to blame. The Republic of Slovenia is to blame.

When Janez Janša, Vinko Gorenak and the rest of the current administration came to power six months ago swore to “uphold the constitutional order, act according to my conscience and that I shall do all in my power for the good of Slovenia“.

If this the above is how Gorenak et al. perceive constitutional order, the good of this country and if that is what their conscience dictates, then the lunatics have truly taken over the asylum.