Hang the Doggy
Slovenian politics and society up close. 52 columns, all translated from Slovenian.
- Long Live All Nations
In February 1921, Vienna saw the premiere of Dracula’s Death, a horror film shot in Hungary. Although the film, directed by Károly Lajthay, was quite popular across Central Europe, every copy has since been…
- True Reconciliation
I am a great patriot. I love Slovenia. I often pester friends and acquaintances abroad with enthusiastic descriptions of the beauty of my homeland, from its nature to its food and people. I love my language…
- Hatred Doesn’t Pay
Much has already been written about the reasons why individuals become radicalized to the point of violence and suicide terrorist attacks. There are no simple, clear-cut explanations, but among the motives one…
- The Muppet Show
I don’t know if I’m the only one, but the gatherings and pontifications of the Assembly for the Republic often remind me of those two grumpy old men on the balcony of the Muppet Show—with the difference, of…
- Is There a Pilot on the Plane?
In mid-August this year, 68-year-old Robert Chain of Encino, California, repeatedly called the newsroom of the Boston Globe and threatened to kill journalists because they were “enemies of the people.”
- Hatred and Silence
Kandel is a small German town near the French border, some 70 kilometers from Strasbourg. My family and I like to go there on day trips, as the town of nine thousand inhabitants offers plenty of opportunities…
- Mini-Me
President of the Republic Borut Pahor gave a solid speech at the recent session of the UN General Assembly in New York. He expressed clear support for a multilateral world order as the only way to ensure…
- Grim Fairy Tales
For the past few days I have been haunted by nightmares. The stomp of boots in the middle of the night, banging on the door, men in the uniforms of the Slovenian Guard. “Gruden? We have a search warrant for…
- Hang the Doggy
There are things that only occur to you when someone writes them on a big red bus, or repeats them to you as many times as Dr. Joseph G. prescribed, or when you read them on the Nova24TV website. That media…
- Children of Impure Blood
Any experienced official will tell you that in bureaucracies the biggest crises like to happen on Friday afternoons, when people are already starting to dream about the weekend. Bernhard Lösener, head of the…
- Tired of Democracy
When it comes to giving presents to children, I admit I often behave like that old fart who begins every sentence with “When I was your age.” It is not that I begrudge young people their joy; it is more the…
- Our Sunday with the Styrian Guard
Saturday, 2:20 p.m., a small village somewhere in Kozjansko, the snack bar by the bus stop
- Vi Ar Going Daun
On a fine summer weekend a good thirty years ago, my friend Aljoša and I went fishing on the Krka. We didn’t catch any fish, but we didn’t try very hard either; they were just an excuse for a trip into the…
- Whose Flag Flies Most Upright?
Patriotism without a flag is like soup without salt. Few things bring a lump to people’s throats as quickly as the sight of a sea of flag-waving patriots. Others, again, find such scenes hard to stomach,…
- Little Videos
If anything good came out of the recent early-morning session to rescue our soldiers from Iraq, it is that we now know our president likes little videos. That can be very useful. In my job, for example, we…
- Unity, Happiness, Reconciliation
“Unity, happiness, reconciliation, may they return to us.” The longing for unity is part of the Slovenian national genome. At least in poetry and in theory. In practice, it often seems we can’t manage to read…
- Homeland Is…
Let me say at the outset that I am very fond of folk songs. And of Oto Pestner. They are an important part of Slovenian culture. Not the only one, but still. But as the president says, tastes differ; you can…
- I Won’t Give It Up, I Won’t Give It Up
My heart is like a stone, as the old song goes. In the first weeks of the pandemic, I wrote that we faced a test of our collective and individual responsibility, judgment and solidarity. Today I am…
- The Non-Consolidated Movement
The recent ups and downs caused at home and abroad by the Slovenian prime minister’s comments on the US election results reminded me of an episode from a good year and a half ago that showed, in an amusing…
- Barbie and Klaus
Barbie, Mattel: a children’s toy, originally a blonde, white-skinned doll, of which more than a billion have been made since 1959. Barbie is today one of the world’s most successful brands and is also often…
- The B-Spot
I am closely following the efforts of the President of the Republic of Slovenia to calm passions in Slovenian politics and in this way perhaps contribute to the better and more effective functioning of…
- Wild Students
I hope you won’t hold it against me that this time I am writing about myself and the distant days when I too was a secondary-school student. I do so not because my experiences were anything extraordinary or…
- Poldemocracy
Every serious camper, scout, hiker or treasure hunter knows that if you want to get somewhere, you first need to know where you are. Orientation is an important thing; if you don’t know where north is, you may…
- Ozrenka
Ozren is a mountain in northern Bosnia, between Doboj and Zavidovići. At its foot, in the small village of Boljanić, my mother Julijana was born in August 1943. “In the first days, the newborn daughter had a…
- Crackpot Times
Writing has got me into trouble a few times in my life. All my troubles so far I brought on myself in my first twenty-five years, which is also logical, since until then I lived under an undemocratic,…
- The Road to Rome
Ljubljana at half past four in the morning. I drive slowly through the almost empty city. I am catching the first morning flight from Trieste’s Ronchi airport to Rome, where the Italian presidency of the G20,…
- Let’s Get Vaccinated, Damn It!
Since we have had the internet and social networks, people mostly communicate in bubbles. If you are tired of mutual back-patting, I suggest you post a thought or two about vaccination, and your bubble will…
- Healthy Peasant Common Sense
Many who are old enough will probably remember the joke about a communist bigwig (insert any name) who, during a stroll through the countryside, met a peasant with a nag in a sorry state. “What’s wrong with…
- Down with “Down with Janšism”
The title may surprise some and lead them to think that I have finally broken my rule of not commenting on day-to-day and party politics in Slovenia, or even that, a few months before the elections, I have…
- Tales and Legends
I often have the feeling that we disown the past, dislike it or are embarrassed by it. And so we often make up little stories about what was, because we believe it will make it easier to live with what is.…
- New Times
With a nod to the 1979 song Novo vrijeme by the band Buldožer, about new times that look very much like the old ones.
- Elections Are Democracy’s Working Day
In the rich collection of media platitudes about this and that in politics, the one about elections being a celebration of democracy ranks quite high on my personal list of the most misguided. Not because…
- Our Compatriot from Arizona
On May 24 this year, in the small Texas town of Uvalde, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos first shot his grandmother at home and then went to the school he had once attended and shot 19 children aged ten and eleven,…
- A Little Glossary of Coded Intolerance
While following this year’s presidential campaign and many rather tiresome pre-election debates, my attention was caught by a very well-mannered gentleman who assured us very zealously that he respects, by…
- We Cannot Rely on Prosecutors Alone
A few weeks ago, two people were murdered outside the gay bar Teplaren in Bratislava. The killer was a young man, the son of a far-right activist. Without insinuating anything about anyone, it cannot be ruled…
- Dear Madam President
Dear President-elect of the Republic of Slovenia, first of all I would like to congratulate you wholeheartedly on your election. With your victory, Slovenia has reached an important milestone: the first woman…
- People in Quotation Marks
In the apartment to the left of the elevator on the ground floor of the tower block in Ljubljana’s Vodmat where I grew up lived a short gentleman who got very angry with us children when we played soccer in…
- Don’t Praise the Day Before Večer
When my grandfather Franček turned one hundred, the mayor, a journalist and a photographer came to his little house below the Pohorje hills. The news of yet another Maribor resident who had reached such a…
- A Dangerous Understanding of Human Rights
On December 7 last year, President Vladimir Putin addressed the members of the Council of the Russian Federation for Civil Society and Human Rights by video link. In his introduction, he first thanked the…
- Our Expert on Human Rights and the Jewish Question
“Since 1850, when they obtained all political rights in the German Reich, the Jews managed to control about fifty percent of the media and seventy percent of all judges, so that they had a strong influence on…
- On Polarizations That Should Not Be “Overcome”
Quarreling really isn’t nice. And when someone quarrels as much as we Slovenians do, it’s no wonder many are fed up with us and calls are coming from all sides for us to stop arguing and dividing. Unity and…
- Cinca Marinca, Hir Aj Kam
On Sunday, November 11, 1945, the first “democratic” elections were held in postwar Yugoslavia. Under the agreement between Tito and Šubašić, the head of the Yugoslav government in exile, the elections were…
- Collision on Congress Square
Recent events in the center of Ljubljana, where opponents and defenders of women’s right to decide freely about their own bodies came face to face, have raised a great deal of dust in the Slovenian public and…
- Homelands
Homeland is not a legal term but a political and emotional reference. And because it is politics mixed with emotion, it is also one of the most inspiring, but also most abused, of concepts.
- A Constitution for Cefizelj
“Hands off our children!” one of our political grandees recently exclaimed on social media, backing up his digital fist on the table with the accusation that someone was, with something, directly violating…
- Before the European Elections
On May 4, 2004, just a few days after Slovenia officially joined the European Union, a historic event we Slovenians had longed for for so long, the Slovenian flag was raised in front of the European Parliament…
- Rubles Thrown Away?
At first glance, one might say that Russian intelligence officers are wasting their effort and money here. In Slovenia, at least by their own account, no one supports Russia’s aggression against Ukraine or…
- The Anti-NATOists
Weapons and military matters have never been close to my heart. I never liked playing with rifles and pistols, not even during my military service in the former JNA. There I did everything I could to get them…
- The Intellectual Guard and the New World Order
Gone are the days when we could make fun of backwoods Americans who set up people’s militias, dig bunkers, stockpile canned food and arm themselves to the teeth to defend themselves against a secret…
- Freedom to the People?
The war in Ukraine has brought a great deal of confusion into the Slovenian sport of quarreling between Partisans and Home Guards. Suddenly many Partisans have reservations about national liberation struggle,…
- For Whom the Bell Tolls?
Recently I came across a Facebook post by my former high school teacher who, in the context of debates on whether Slovenia too should increase defense spending, complained that people had not read Hemingway’s…
- Stop Creating and Go Do Some Work!
“What are you thinking for, go do some work” is for me one of the most obnoxious and primitive Slovenian idioms. It brings back memories of bullies in primary school, teenage pimples and stale sweat. The…