The Value of Education

Human beings are in principle conservative creatures; they feel safe within certain traditional patterns and tend to resist to 'unknown' changes. Moreover, people tend to cling on to prejudices. With these two givens, a society's behaviour is explained - though only superficially. How to effectively break through such a pattern, especially when we have to open society to become more transparent and progressive. I am referring to situation, where a specific society has suffered from a totalitarian past and desperately needs changes to become truly democratic in values and deeds.

We can think of a variety of true life examples to demonstrate the aforementioned: One that comes first to my mind is the case of Germany - especially the former West-Germany. It needs no long elaboration to describe the pre-1945 status of German society. Immediately after Germany's capitulation, an educational programme was implemented, that should educate young people to become democratic members of their new post-war society. The overall success was perhaps, as it was 'imposed' by the occupying allied (Western) forces. As to the morality of whether a triumphant power should be able to impose their political views on the other shall not be the subject of this blog. It can be argued, that in the case as it was of the Third Reich-ideology the necessity is clearly without any discussion.

Currently, as I regularly report on the political situation in Slovakia, we can clearly see evidence of the opposite trend. Whereas political mismanagement thrives, the change against its unethical behaviour is minimal - rest a few individual exceptions. Nevertheless, the majority is either indifferent, ignorant about the possible repercussions, or too passive.

While we should not delve on non-scientific approaches by claiming e.g. that such is "in the genes of the people or nation", there is however indeed a clear cause for these deficiencies in society: Education. It is not so much, that education taught this society for more than 40 years that the Soviet Union was a paradise, which of course is not the case any longer. After 20 years since the 1989 revolution, textbooks are - to an extend - leaving totalitarian socialism behind them. It is more a problem, where pupils are hardly taught about values beyond these textbooks. Teachers-Old-Style prefer subservient students - you do not ask critical questions to your teacher, you learn to recite what he told you, giving a (wrong) signal that it clearly doesn't pay off to be critical, to question injustice, etc. It's safer to keep quiet, go with the flow: The bully will win.

If such basic skills - those that we take for granted in the West, are not instilled onto young pupils, young grown-ups have hardly an example to follow. Society has only a superficial coating of being a modern and a free society, while inside the old structures still ravage and very successfully. The fact that schools lack money - and it is not really about having a pc for every student - it reflects on the payslip of staff, who is - and let's be honest - grossly unmotivated and for a part unskilled enough to face this task.

It has been throughout history a repeated slogan; our youth is our future. Whether anyone will remember such slogans from darker times, it must be admitted that it is a true statement. Ignoring youth will eventually lead your society down the slope. There will be no competitiveness - economically that is - and the fading of ethical or demacratic values leads to political instability. Education is not about learning an alphabet, or being able to add, subtract, divide and multiply. It is a value, which is vital for a society to survive, and therefore beyond any value. It's worth it!

MS

The Game of Politics - A Matter of Responsibilities...

It can be argued, that power and the role of those who are in power has changed over the centuries. Was it only to control your property in the ancient times, nowadays, when we have painfully crawled out of the straight-jacket of absolutist monarchies and slowly introduced the rights for each individual citizen, our perception of the roles of states and their politicians is somewhat modified. As the basis nowadays is the overall public interest, government is responsible - answerable - to society how it is dealing with this responsibility. In the end, the citizen as the sponsor of the state, by means of taxation, is one of the stakeholders in the game. A logical consequence,... one might say. But is it?

Societies in the 'West', at least those where I had the privilege to dwell for a shorter or longer period, usually would follow such given. Of course, you always find a rotten apple somewhere, but that's usually on an exceptional basis. Once a politician 'screws up', where his reputation is disputable - even in the event, this is perhaps only because of an alleged controversy - his career is at risk, sometimes followed by resignation.

Yet Slovakia follows a completely different equation of power. Yesterday, we had the second round  for the local government elections. For those who monitor the political scene, it is highly remarkable how things tend to go in the opposite direction. If you see that your sink is about to overflow, you turn off the water. Not so.

The present coalition government has without any scruples demonstrated that their sole interest in governing is not to secure public interest at all but nothing else than enriching themselves. Anything getting into the open - mostly accidentally - is opposed as a 'bad machination of the bad press to smear the reputation of the Republic', while meanwhile the whole tunneling simply continues.

Not only has the ruling Socialist party of Prime Minister Fico transgressed against several legal regulations during the aforementioned elections, causes that cost society billions of euros are defended for months and months. Hardly an image, that would make any western politician publicly credible enough to retain his title of a politician. It turns a politician straight into a a criminal. On top of it, Mr Fico has defended his political views with blatant lies about the pre-1989 period. Perhaps even to the post-1989 generation this is an obvious phantasy and for a politician a dangerous statement to make, when almost everybody can prove the opposite to be true.

Fico and his cohorts have cunningly put this scheme together; pass a law, which curbs free journalism, then slowly moving Minister of Justice Harabin (who had proven contacts with the drug mafia - should never have been a justice minister in the first place, let alone a supreme judge) into the post of presiding the Supreme Court: Suppress all negative publications - claims that are bringing newspapers to bankruptcy. The court procedures are obviously decided upfront (remember who rules the courts). In case it would end at the European Court (and one does not need to be a high shot lawyer to guess who will be reprimanded), any compensation will be paid out of the state budget (taxpayers' money) - the individual politicians will be the big winners.

What would you expect would happen in such a case? No, you are dead wrong; the result is that the ruling party remains a comfortable majority of around 40%. In other words, this game will go on for a while, till the national treasury chest will be empty. While EU commissions scrutinize potential new member states, Slovakia can continue its tunneling without any pressure from Brussels. So far. True is that several EU projects are currently under investigation, but the victim will be the Slovak taxpayer. 40% is quite an achievement! Politics without responsibilities. Just a horde of thieves. Wouldn't you be sad?

MS

The legacy of 1989

Today is the famous date, when 20 years ago the Velvet Revolution started in Czechoslovakia. Twenty years is a long time, although I remember it very vividly - as if it was just yesterday. But, as we all know, everything is relative, also these 20 years can be perceived differently.

In any case, the period has proven that living in freedom - or rather learning finally to live in the long yearned for freedom is a lengthy process. In November 1989 Czechoslovakia was a proud country, bursting with confidence, doing away with its communist government, where a dissident became suddenly their president. Two nations regained together their freedom and somehow remembered their 1918-spirit, where both nations linked together under Masaryk to emerge from the ruins (and century old domination) of the Habsburg Empire. Yet this freedom soon brought forth cracks that would eventually lead into a split of these two nations. While I have always regarded - having lived abroad - my background being Czechoslovak, this split was for me in a way a big disappointment. Obviously, each nation has a right to live its own life - govern its own state, that is. Fortunately the split was also smooth: after a Velvet Revolution we had a Velvet divorce.

Living in Slovakia, has given me some remarkable insights, which definitively make me convinced, that the split of the two states was a good thing to have happened. Not only because of the aforementioned statement, but it has made me clear, that Czechs and Slovaks, despite their linguistic similarities, are in fact indeed different people. Despite even the formative years of being one state (1918-1939 and 1945-1992). The 20 years, especially 16 years independent developments, have shown results which appear almost as if Czechs and Slovaks are (were) the complete opposites.

What pains me a bit is that whilst Czech media, Czech government and other groups commemorate the enthralling events of 1989, Slovakia's politicians systematically trivialise the events, and more and more behave like the cronies of the pre-1989 period. Prime Minister Fico declared earlier that he "didn't notice" any November 1989. Being a student it is hard to imagine that he couldn't notice. Not only stated Fico the fact that there are more important events in Slovak history (meaning that November 1989 was therefore indeed insignificant?), even planned an official  trip to Moscow - of all places! - during these commemorative days.

An academic conference (I would like to add, it was purely pseudo-science happening) about the revolution organised by the governing party was held. Instead of some substantive discussions, Mr Paška - Chairman of Parliament and co-member of Fico's political party, addressed a crowd - exclusively consisting of allied parties only - and emotionally propagated an analysis, which could easily be carbon-copied from the former communist demagogues, more appropriate during party rallies rather than an academic conference.

Such signals by such politicians, plus the fact that news in the Slovak public media is visibly censored - or at least distorted - are a slap in the face of those, who have once stood in the streets and squares back in 1989. When following both Slovak and Czech programs on television, I am deeply saddened, that this society has allowed such government to go so far. In all fairness, there are of course exceptions, those individuals, who indeed do care, who do whatever they can, yet they face a strong wall, which is erected by ignorance, indifference, and criminal mafia-practices among political key players. Yet through this, both countries have demonstrated to be of a different substance.

The legacy of 1989 is difficult to describe in one sentence. But freedom is a brittle state, which needs time to mature and to ripen before society will have a profound understanding of their responsibility towards freedom. As long as freedom means nepotism, manipulation, preaching hatred towards minorities, then there's still a long way to go. 1989 Teaches us that ordinary people en masse can perhaps overturn a seemingly all-powerful regime, to maintain the good spirit of those days has proven to be more difficult. A nice thought was discussed in a recent documentary; Living in a "bad regime but with good people around" was more bearable than living in a "good regime with bad people around you". The latter seems more prominent nowadays.

My foreign background gives me indeed a peculiar magnifying glass when looking on society and politics as a whole. While I am partly proud of originating from this region, I equally do realise, that those many years abroad have made me feel more and more that perhaps my compatibility with this region unfortunately is somehow fading. In my view, the legacy is to keep on working and questioning every step of society: to find the best way towards an ethical and moral society. Present day excuse-attitudes are inexcusable, it is manipulative, blinding, and will only lead to painful erring. The deplorable and lamentable state of a corrupted judicial system and restriction of freedom of speech is not what 1989 should have brought us, it is exactly the opposite. True is that one can freely travel and has more freedom than before 1989, yet Slovakia cannot afford to remain complacent. There's still much to be done as potential danger lurks.

As for now; will attend today the Central European Forum in Bratislava, to show my support for the real spirit.

MS

Religious sophism

Living a life of an informed citizen, one becomes critical. Especially, when the surrounding consists of political mischief and debates which hold little valid arguments. Therefore one of my favourite publications is the Slovak magazine ".týžden" - probably derived its content including its layout from the American periodical Newsweek. Enjoying every week critical and though-inspiring comments, I eagerly follow the RSS feeds.

Not that I find time to read all of them; admittedly, I accumulate more than approximately one thousand feeds in a few hours, so I have to be selective. One headline I initially left aside; a reaction on the European court ruling, that public schools should dispose of their crucifixes. A matter, which one would tend to ignore in the early 21st century one would say. Yet I decided to have a closer look, as religious debates are still - more or less - one of my interests. 

The author Jaroslav Daniška, comments on this very Italian matter. Is there a connection to Slovakia? The fact that Berlusconi began to feel the hot breath in his neck since the court decided to lift his imunity was an issue completely ignored in the Slovak media (would it be too uncomfortable, probably even resulting in a precedent for the present cleptocratic coalition?), this has become important feature. Why?

Let's be fair; to a degree it can be understood, that a measure, which has repercussions to some centuries-old Catholic practices, is attracting some attention abroad as well. But, in all objectiveness, the verdict stipulates (as far as I am aware) that religious symbols - i.e. the crucifixes - are to be banned and this pertains to public schools - and public schools only.

What the author started in his (video) blog, is a correct identification of the aforementioned fact. But them he slips into a dangerous argumentation: He labels this prohibition being equally to the ban of religion from public life as during the totalitarian (communist) era. His pleading is somewhat pathetique as the reasoning and comparison is way off appropriate.

First of all; perhaps Rome may be both capital of Italy and the centre of Roman Catholicism, there is no valid argument to proclaim, that Italy is per sé a country which deserves Catholic symbols everywhere. Whether you like it or not, even in Italy, there are enough people who are of perhaps Jewish, protestant, islamic, Sikh or for the sake of it, atheist background. Must every parent, from a different denomination be forced to be confronted with Roman Catholic symbols, just because he or she happens to live in bella Italia??? Come off sir! We are past way beyond the Inquisition era, and we have a freedom of religion. In case you stick to your religious symbols and rites, I wish you all the freedom to do so, and therefore you can enroll in Catholic schools, of which you will be able to find more than enough around there. 

Somehow I get allergy rashes by this type of unjustified religious whining. To avoid misunderstanding, I am very open to other thoughts, and in my eyes, everybody has all the right and space to practice his or her believes - provided I have also my space. Peace to them all. But, labelling the said (in my view a fair and tolerant) court ruling as being an attack to Italian Roman Catholicism, religion in general and comparing it to communism from the past is a very ludicrous and poor debating level. It's no more than pure sophism. Maybe Slovaks are perhaps still overly happy with their freedom of religion, which they regained only since 1989 and thus sensitive to anything related to Catholicism. Don't make it however into a pathetic crusade and indirectly offending other religious minorities. This is unworthy of your magazine, and somewhat a disappointment in your quality. Or is it a confirmation, that you are far from ready to be an open society after all? Let's hope not. I consider it still a faux pas - at least a slip of the tongue - giving a wrong signal, and hopefully it will not be repeated again. 

MS