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 bosom of Lower Carniolan esotericism, steeped in morning mist and homemade wine. We spent the night at Aljoša’s aunt’s, in a caravan in the garden, because there was no room in the house. Another relative had come to visit, at the time temporarily working in Kočevje, who was, if I remember correctly, a road maintenance worker by trade. Everyone knows Kočevje is no joke. They have the fattest bears, Nataša Briški and a chainsaw-throwing contest. The gentleman in question was proud of all this and much more, and began every sentence with “Back home in Kočevje…”

The uncle has long since left us, and a few days ago we also said goodbye to Aljoša; I dedicate this piece to him. But since those days, the phrase “back home in Kočevje” has become a family saying. My brothers use it as a red card every time I, in the old guest-worker habit, start comparing people and customs abroad with those at home. Since I am going to commit exactly this sin in today’s piece, I apologize in advance to them and to you. Please be understanding. For those of us temporarily working abroad, convincing ourselves of the advantages of our new surroundings is a defense mechanism against homesickness. I often feel it myself, although I must admit that since I can follow Slovenian TV news from abroad, I somehow find the pain easier to bear. And it was in these news programs over the summer that I came across reports that led me to compare Slovenia and France.

First, those about the village patrols in Bela Krajina and the patriots who, in flip-flops and camouflage uniforms, armed only with beer bellies and broken English, keep watch over our security and territorial integrity. Some of them reportedly walk up to fifty kilometers a day, hunting for unwanted foreigners. “Daun, daun, dis iz kantri Slovenija, daun!” A few dozen kilometers in flip-flops is no small thing, although, by their own admission, the patrolling is not terribly effective. “We shout, but they just don’t obey, they don’t lie down at all, they just keep walking.”

France also has people who selflessly take on the burden of protecting the state’s borders. A few days ago, the French state thanked them by sentencing three of them to six months in prison and a fine, while their far-right association Génération Identitaire, which also has supporters and sponsors here, had to pay as much as seventy-five thousand euros. Meanwhile in Slovenia, the harshest sanction our wannabe border guards currently face is the possibility, admittedly slight, that sympathetic media reports about them won’t make the very top of the front page or the prime-time TV slot. To be fair, it should be added that the identitarians in France were convicted for “activities carried out in circumstances liable to create the impression that they were exercising a public function.” That is certainly not something we can accuse our budding heroes, patrolling in flip-flops accompanied by underage children, of.

But it is not only identitarians who patrol France’s borders. In recent years, the French authorities have repeatedly arrested and even convicted Cédric Herrou, a chicken farmer and olive grower from near Nice. Cédric was not prosecuted for getting in the way of far-right border vigilantes. Au contraire, as the French would say, he was convicted for helping refugees trying to get from Italy into France. It is worth noting that all the first-instance convictions were eventually overturned, and the French Constitutional Council ordered parliament to change the law and severely restrict the so-called crime of solidarity and the criminalization of humanitarian aid. This does not, of course, include organizing illegal border crossings for profit, something we also have plenty of. Human trafficking quite rightly remains a criminal offense in France too.

What also prompted my comparison between the two countries was a news story from a few months ago about how the Social Democratic mayor of one of Slovenia’s border municipalities managed, by exploiting fear and intolerance of refugees, to build a patriotic bridge between himself and the far right. The mayor was mortally offended because the local brass band refused to take part in the anti-migrant rally, so the only rhythm for the marching patriots was provided by a lady who, in a fit of love for her homeland, was beating the asphalt with a Slovenian flag.

France also has mayors who are very concerned with refugees and migrants. One of them is Damien Carême, who was elected mayor of Grande-Synthe, a suburban municipality of Dunkirk on the English Channel coast, in 2001. In eighteen years as mayor, he managed to introduce only locally produced organic food in school canteens, set up a number of municipal community gardens, and provide free public transport and municipal social assistance to all residents below the poverty line. When thousands of refugees, mainly from Iraqi Kurdistan, poured into Grande-Synthe in 2015 and 2016, hoping to make it to Great Britain, Mayor Carême did not stand idly by but, together with Médecins Sans Frontières and without state aid, set up a humanitarian refugee camp.

Despite all my guest-worker enthusiasm, both French examples above should be taken with a dose of realism. Not all that glitters is gold in Kočevje either. Like our village patrols, Cédric Herrou is more the exception than the rule. The difference is that our exceptions and the French ones go in different directions, and we should not forget what legal and political changes the activism of a chicken farmer from Provence led to. While we put up barriers on the borders and pat uniformed village eccentrics on the back in the media, in France self-appointed defenders are sent behind bars, and the Constitutional Council and parliament remove legal obstacles to humanity and solidarity with our fellow human beings.

Nor can the mayor of Grande-Synthe be presented as a typical representative of local government, although it is true that across France there were far more local initiatives to welcome refugees in solidarity than the typically Slovenian initiatives to “defend” against them. One of the cities that has shown solidarity with refugees is Strasbourg, where I live. Mayor Carême’s story is instructive above all regarding the consequences that firm, effective, caring and humane politics can have for popularity and electoral support among the population. Since May this year, Damien Carême is no longer mayor of Grande-Synthe. In the European elections, he was comfortably elected to the European Parliament.

To avoid misunderstandings, plenty goes wrong in France too, and I would have no trouble finding quite a few examples where Slovenia could be a model for the French. But the treatment of foreigners, refugees and migrants, and solidarity with our fellow human beings, are not among them. Of course intolerance and racism exist in France too; the difference is that all serious politics, whether left or right, rejects them in principle. When the right-wing Republicans tried to flirt with chauvinism before the European elections, they got a bloody nose. Meanwhile here, a good part of politics still behaves as if feeding prejudice and fear were an investment in the security of the state and its borders. The progressive European values that we wrote into our Constitution are increasingly just one possible option, which, in the name of a poorly understood freedom of speech and political opportunism, we treat the same as any extremist agitation and hatred. Such equality is of course illusory; putting the decent and the indecent on the same level is always a victory for the latter. Until we understand this, we ourselves are leaving decisions about our future to paramilitary patriots in flip-flops and their sponsors. Although they seem stupid to us, they are no less dangerous for that. Dis iz kantri Slovenija. Vi ar going daun.