On Strong Personalities

On October 30, 1922, at five to eleven in the morning, a sleeper train from Milan arrived punctually at the main Roman train station, Roma Termini. From the train clambered down a stocky little man dressed in black, with a pronounced lower jaw. Since one cannot enter history looking disheveled, he first stopped at the Hotel Savoie, then—with a cluster of personal bodyguards and a black top hat on his head—made his way to the Quirinal Palace, where King Vittorio Emanuele III nervously awaited to grant him the mandate to form a new Italian government.

Despite concerns about the chaos the Blackshirts were causing across Italy, Vittorio Emanuele chose Mussolini because he saw in him a rising political star and a strong personality who could overcome the shortcomings of a divided and ineffective Italian liberal democracy of the time.

Just over a decade later, German President Paul von Hindenburg was also disappointed in the shortcomings of democracy—and not entirely without reason. The Weimar Republic, introduced in 1919 by a coalition of Catholic parties, liberals, and social democrats, had by then been paralyzed by internal conflicts. After several failed attempts with democratically inclined but weak chancellors, von Hindenburg—under pressure—granted the mandate to a strong personality meant to bridge the weakness and inefficiency of German liberal democracy at that time.

Before you angrily begin to complain on social media, let me reassure you that I am not comparing the above-mentioned historical “strong personalities” with anyone in Slovenia. Such comparisons are inaccurate and inappropriate. I also believe that those in our country who flirt with the idea of strong individuals do not desire authoritarianism or dictatorship. But on the other hand, it is quite likely that neither did Vittorio Emanuele nor von Hindenburg.

What concerns me is the collective obsession with driving history, ideology, and substance out of Slovenian politics—and thus, out of democracy itself. This is what is paving the way for authoritarianism at the expense of plurality and freedom.

History is clearly seen as an irritating element in Slovenian politics. Overcoming past divisions seems to be a universally accepted virtue, but in practice, it prevents us from realizing that these divisions are still very much alive—and today, more than seventy years later, they are resurfacing and can fatally shape our present and future.

“Never again” has become a ceremonial ritual that begins and ends with laying wreaths at memorials. It is absent where it is truly needed—in the social, political, and legal response to the revival of discourses, ideas, and actions that led to the horrors of recent European history.

In addition to the specific Slovenian trauma of the Partisan-Nazi collaborator divide, the negative attitude toward history also stems from a broader phenomenon that American historian Timothy Snyder calls the politics of inevitability. This belief holds that there are no more ideas, no alternatives, and that the future can only be a repetition or improvement of the present.

The problem is that faith in the irreversibility of history weakens our immune system and dramatically increases the risk that we will repeat old mistakes. Since in the politics of inevitability there are no longer ideas, ideology too becomes a nuisance. Overcoming ideological differences is another mantra we endlessly repeat in the Slovenian public sphere from all sides.

In this view of democracy, a party with a clear program and firm commitments to voters is seen as disruptive—or even, as one political commentator recently put it, radical. A clear and ideologically defined program—be it left-wing, right-wing, liberal, social-democratic, or conservative—is, in this interpretation of democracy, inappropriate because it complicates political bargaining in the name of the so-called national interest.

At first glance, this may seem perfectly logical and even appealing, but the devil lies in how we understand what this common, state, and national interest is supposed to represent. While such an interest does exist, it only does so at a very general level. All citizens want a successful, safe, and socially just state, with quality education, healthcare, a pension system, and so on.

The problem is that individuals, interest groups, and social subsystems see and interpret each of these goals differently. Moreover, there are many paths to these goals, and each path is ideologically tinted. In a democracy, choosing between alternatives that offer different options for social development—within constitutional principles—is not an anomaly; it is democracy’s fundamental characteristic.

Parties go to elections with programs that specify, with concrete measures and figures, how to achieve a certain goal. If—with like-minded parties—they convince a majority of voters under our electoral system, they get the chance to govern. At the end of their term, they are held accountable for their success or failure in new elections.

In our country, democracy seems to be understood differently—as a reality show of old and new faces, empty programs, and vague platitudes that turn politics into opportunistic manoeuvring dictated by the current whims of public opinion.

Left, center, or right—with rare exceptions—are not labels of ideological profiles of parties in Slovenia, but mere reflections of their current emotional stance toward a single individual. Any substantive discussion about coalition-building quickly degenerates into haggling over positions.

Since this leads nowhere, it's no surprise that, on the one hand, people are increasingly staying away from the polls, while on the other hand, disappointment with such politics creates a desire for strong leaders who will impose order in the name of the national interest.

But the fact remains that this interest is always partial—no matter how much it is disguised in national colours, grand coalitions, and development-focussed governments that, if I understand correctly, unlike “non-developmental focussed” ones, are committed to development.

Due to weak political culture and institutions, lack of experience, and half-digested historical frustrations, Slovenia is again trying to invent a different political model. One that is not based on democratic conflict between different ideas and programs, but on the forced promotion of fictional unity, manipulation of the national interest, and politicians who understand this interest better than the people—as the Guardian wrote in the autumn of 1922.

Rejecting ideological diversity and substantive political choice as something supposedly not in the national interest undermines democracy and objectively leads us back to where we have already been: to a system with one truth, one ideology, and one leader.

If we want to avoid this, then we should fix the shortcomings of democracy by strengthening its institutions—not by pledging allegiance to strongmen.