Naive Offers, Naive Choices

The upcoming elections have caused the usual campaigning, where each party tries to formulate its goals, become more than visible; the standard expected objective being the wish to become the most wanted party in order to gain as much as possible number of voters.

The trend - globally speaking - of vanishing borders between the traditional political mains streams, has in most cases resulted in blurred and unclear programmes, where voters would need supernatural skills to find the faintest difference. Whichever political programme one wishes to scrutinise, the current state is not so much whether one prefers liberalism, leftist, outright conservative or whichever, it is in all aspects a question; how realistic are the proposed programme-bullets to be implemented - with a stress on the balance sheet, of how much is it going to cost the national treasury chest.

While ideologies might have been almost a thing of the past, Slovakia struggles with ideologies; It's Roman Catholic trait cannot be overlooked, while similarly, a vast group of economically lesser opportunities cling to the pseudo soviet-styled propaganda of the current prime minister Fico - promising them glorious prospects and a caring mother-state, while at the same time looting the place barren. An ironic mix and mind you; a very stubborn one.

It is therefore too sad to see an opposition, that cannot find hardly any workable consensus to join forces against the present state's mismanagement, when even among themselves they quibble about minute trivias. What I found most repulsive - and repulsive is a mild word - was Ján Čarnogusrký's recent article in one of the dailies. 

Mr. Čarnogusrký was somewhat belonging to a dissident group at the end of the totalitarian era, being mainly persecuted for his strong religious involvements - after the 1989 Velvet Revolution he therefore became one of the leading Slovak figures in politics. It has been somewhat an enigma to me, how this distinguished 'éminence grise' regularly expresses a Russophile opinion. To a degree, were it merely cultural, I could live with it; his openly flirting with the political Russia makes it very equivocal.

Clearly it demonstrates, that the public memory is always very short - while Germany and France have dug their feuds very deeply into the EU soil, Slovakia and Russia seem to have a hidden undertow of attraction. The difference between the former and the latter is the mere fact, that Germany and France in my view are far more decent countries than Russia is nowadays, be it that the Soviet Union is passé. Nevertheless, Russia's behaviour on the world political stage is far from reassuring. Recent terrorist attacks in Moscow or any place else are not a sign of trivia like shortage in foreign cheese or licorice. The memory is not just short, it is a total amnesia, and a dangerous one too.

But Mr. Čarnogusrký's naivety is illustrative, as well as the continuous superficial pricks of political parties show nothing more but an impotent political scene. The parties are all similar to each other, programmes are hardly relevant, and debates are practically non-existent. The alternatives offered are naive and thus the people vote naively too.