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 novel A Farewell to Arms, implying that if they had, they would not be arming themselves. This teacher has always been very dear to me, because in times when single-mindedness was in fashion he encouraged students to think critically. And because he succeeded in this, this time I cannot agree with him. If we must drag Hemingway into this tiresome debate of ours, let us do it the way he taught us. In the debate on whether Russian imperialism should be deterred or embraced, only the title of A Farewell to Arms is more or less relevant. On the question of which side Hemingway would take in this dilemma, the novel For Whom the Bell Tolls, set during the Spanish Civil War, tells us more. Hemingway observed that war as a reporter and writer, but he never hid which side he was on. He never, for example, suggested that the Republicans lay down their arms in the name of peace and surrender themselves to the mercy of the Francoist Falange. He was, if I may use a more modern term, a Francophobe and a warmonger. In For Whom the Bell Tolls he created the character of the peacemaker Pablo, leader of a rebel band who does not want to provoke the fascists because he fears their reprisals. To prevent an attack on the Francoists, he steals the detonators and throws them into the river. Because when did detonators ever bring peace? Pablo repents in the end, but it is already too late. His peace operation has tragic consequences.

But fiction is fiction, and reality is another matter. Except for some. For Spomenka Hribar, for example, who recently wrote in an open letter that Russia has never attacked anyone. Get it? She was not talking only about the latest excursion into Ukraine, but about any time in history. Never. Nikogda.

People like Spomenka Hribar enjoy standing and influence among the Slovenian public. That is why such a statement is particularly shocking. Not because I disagree with it—in a democratic society it is normal for us to hold different positions on important questions—but because democracy also requires that these positions be based on facts, not on obvious untruths. Why many Slovenian intellectuals and politicians use a discourse that often coincides with what we hear from the Kremlin, I don’t know. But the fact is that through their influence they significantly shape Slovenian public opinion on one of the most important questions in the history of the Slovenian state so far. Why panic and buy weapons if Russia has never in history attacked anyone?

This text is being written in Ukraine. I was invited to take part in the opening ceremony of the European Youth Capital, for which Lviv was chosen this year. The courage, creativity and stubbornness of young Ukrainians, after three years of a war forced upon them, deserve every support and admiration. The motto of Lviv 2025 is “It’s not easy, but we keep going.” I didn’t have the heart to mention Spomenka Hribar’s theses about Russian peacefulness to them. Perhaps she will find the opportunity and the courage to explain them herself. To their faces.

History these days is a self-service restaurant. You pick what suits you; if something isn’t on the menu, you add it yourself. With their selective historical memory, Slovenian peace activists populistically claim an exclusive moral right to advocate peace and in this way try to delegitimize the views of people who seek a path to peace on the basis of facts and in the real world. Anyone who doesn’t think as they do is a warmonger. A Russophobe.

Some take positions on this (and other questions) the way English children play children’s games. Simon says support Ukraine. And then half of them follow Simon without thinking, and half are against without thinking. Except that we are not English. We are Janezes.

In this circus there are, of course, trolls too, warriors of Resnica (Truth), who warn against the folly of arming to defend against aggression and the danger of injecting vaccines to defend against disease. And they like to toss LGBTI people, women and migrants into the minestrone as well. I do have suspicions about where some of them get their zeal and talking points, but without evidence I will claim nothing. Perhaps the KGB really did send its agents to Slovenia exclusively to deal in works of art.

Then there are some of the media. On the show Marcel, guests in the studio compete every Monday over who can agree more with the host. We check public opinion with polls. Are you for or against buying weapons? Are you for war or peace? Click, click, click. The answers to questions put this way are known in advance, and their credibility regarding the challenges we face is questionable, evidently also in the opinion of the respondents themselves. In the latest Eurobarometer, we Slovenians were, of all, the most massively in favor of Europe taking better care of our security. Better safe than sorry.

The government is not finding its way very well in this confusion, and sometimes it seems only to add to it. We will increase defense investment, or we won’t, or we will, but we don’t know by how much or by when; in any case, don’t worry, because we’ll pull a trick and promise one thing in Brussels and spend the money differently at home. With such behavior the government is doing itself a disservice both with our European partners and with Slovenian voters. With the former it reduces its credibility; with the latter it creates doubt about the justification for increasing the defense budget. In the end it will have less influence on joint decisions, and implementing them may cause it considerable political damage with voters.

Once again we have managed to make a mess of such important questions. The problem is not that we disagree—we do live in a democracy, after all—the problem is that we are unable to talk like adults, responsibly and on the basis of facts. Instead of engaging with arguments, we pelt each other with labels and ideological slogans. It is high time we got our act together and organized a serious public debate in which there is no room for trolls and untruths, and made an effort to reach the broadest possible consensus on the way forward. It is important to secure influence in shaping common European positions. True, we are small, but that does not mean we have to make ourselves even smaller. If there are to be greater European investments in defense, it matters how we reach that goal and what the consequences will be for social, economic, development and environmental policies, on which European security depends at least as much as on drones and tanks. Slovenia has legitimate interests here, and its citizens legitimate expectations. It is important that these positions and expectations are taken into account in future European defense policy. To achieve this, our European partners must take us seriously. To achieve that, we must first take ourselves seriously. So far, we are not doing very well at it.