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 never please everyone. Except when it comes to ideological tastes, where trying to please everyone can be a political program. Perhaps state ceremonies could be approached in a similar way. Reconciled and balanced. The Smrtnik Brothers and Zlatko. The president speaks for half the speech and is silent for the other half. Pirkovič scripts the first part of the ceremony, Živadinov the second. At the end, both step onto the stage and hold hands, like Kohl and Mitterrand at Verdun. Fade out on Pahor’s Mount Rushmore presidential expression, and off to bed. Or we can keep it simple. If you ask me, I would limit Statehood Day ceremonies to the anthem Zdravljica, an honor guard, the president’s speech, a cannon salute from the castle so that even household pets know we are celebrating, and a children’s choir with a medley of folk songs. All of it, if possible, with a visual design by someone who has had more than two art-club sessions in the fourth grade of primary school. There is really no point in tearing your hair out over taste. But at this year’s ceremony I noticed a few other things.

First, a completely hollowed-out, generic concept of homeland and patriotism, based on ritual incantations of blind love and loyalty, which with minor adjustments could also be used for Paraguay. I am proud to be Slovenian because I am Slovenian. We are sturdy (whatever that means), hard-working and honest. We have beautiful nature, rivers, mountains, hills and valleys. I doubt the Paraguayans consider themselves feeble, lazy and dishonest. They have nature and mountains too. Their own, not just the neighbors’ ones that were used for our central ceremony. Today the Italian Dolomites, yesterday Rovinj. Are we really so insecure and envious in our admiration of what is ours that we can’t even put together a state ceremony without stealing a postcard or two from our neighbors? We will never be the biggest, we will never be the strongest, we don’t even need to be the best at all costs, but it would be nice if we could be at least a little bit ourselves.

In the concept of patriotism that the designers of this year’s ceremony swear by, the homeland is a fate into which you happen to be born. A fate you can neither choose, nor change, nor help shape. You can only follow it blindly. In this concept of patriotism, you don’t love your homeland because you love it but because you must love it. In this concept of patriotism, you must not be critical of your homeland, even if you love it. In this concept of patriotism, patriotism is not love of the homeland but obedience to the authorities. Nothing reflects this concept of homeland better than the stock photos taken from the internet that were used at the ceremony to illustrate its citizens. The citizens whose state we were celebrating. A generic, photocopied mob, people without identity, people who don’t exist. All virtual, all without rights. Real citizens were not at the ceremony. For security reasons they had to stay behind the fence. Imagine if, for prophylactic reasons, selected representatives of the people on Congress Square had been replaced by inflatable dolls from Sežana.

The president’s opening speech was immediately followed by a Darth Vader-like rumbling about those who supposedly “did not want, were not allowed, did not wish and did not believe,” which promptly gave his call for dialogue, tolerance and cooperation the middle finger. There was repeated mention of a “healthy” homeland, which of course implies the existence of another one that is sick and unhealthy. When, after the ceremony, I mentioned the comparison with Paraguay on Twitter, I was showered with accusations of being a traitor to my own culture who should rather pick up a pickaxe and shovel, since I have never done anything socially useful in my life. Nothing is more entertaining than being accused of left-wing treason by functionally illiterate characters who consider themselves right-wingers while idiotically imitating the ideological patterns and discourse of China’s Cultural Revolution, the Khmer Rouge and Stalin’s purges.

Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel, Samuel Johnson wrote back in the eighteenth century. It was not a criticism of love of one’s country but a condemnation of false patriots who sell their own interests, shady dealings and dirty tricks wrapped in the national colors. So when the homeland calls you, it is wise to check whether it is really her on the line or just someone trying to abuse your love for her. True patriotism is based on love of one’s country, but it also includes a critical attitude towards it, not because we don’t love it but because we do. True patriotism is shown above all by our attitude to moral and ethical values. We show true patriotism through our attitude to pluralist democracy, human rights, the democratic rule of law, solidarity, humanism and social justice. Blind obedience, without critical judgment, principle and courage, can lead us into the same kind of predicament in which German and Italian “patriots” found themselves in the 1930s. Torn between their conscience and taking part in the crimes the authorities demanded of them in the name of the homeland. In history, the greatest patriots have very often been precisely those who had enough courage to say a firm no to “the call of the homeland.”

So much has happened in Slovenia in recent days that you may be wondering why I am still going on about the ceremony. Perhaps because I do not accept that some people claim the exclusive right to decide what the homeland is and who is a patriot. Not only patriotism but also other values, such as family, security and culture, are being twisted and abused as weapons in a culture war in which, from the extreme fringe, the progressive, democratic and humanist European values that we wrote into the Constitution twenty-nine years ago, at the founding of the state celebrated on Congress Square, are smeared and discredited. I do not accept that, in the name of patriotism, anti-fascism—the foundation of free and democratic post-war Europe—is demonized. I love Slovenia too much to just watch this in silence. Every time I come home, I can hardly wait for that tiny, faded Slovenian flag in the middle of the Karawanks tunnel to appear. Love of my homeland gives me strength and self-confidence that do not need intolerance and hatred and reject them. I love family so much that I wish it to everyone who wants one. I love Slovenian culture, not only because it is ours but because it is culture, the kind that connects us, can also anger, irritate and provoke us, but above all lets us breathe, makes us creative, bold, innovative, different, interesting and successful, and allows us to be open to others and to trust ourselves. I love the Slovenian language, not only because of Trubar, Cankar and Prešeren, but also because it is a miracle that we have preserved it, and because it is the language in which, after thirty years of living abroad, I still think, feel, love and get angry. I love Slovenia, not because it has the most beautiful lakes, rivers and sea, but because on their banks I fell in love for the first time and celebrated the births of my children. I love Slovenian forests, because bears live in them, because I picked mushrooms in them with my grandfather, and because in these forests fought patriots who answered the call of their conscience and rose up against evil. I love Republic Square, not because it is more beautiful than St Mark’s Square or the Champs-Élysées, but because on it we celebrated the birth of our shared and free state. No one can take that away from me, and no one can claim that I am not a patriot. Because I love Slovenia, I do not accept that people for whom the homeland is merely blood and soil present themselves as patriots. Those in yellow that is turning brown.