Slovakia is, in more than one way, coming to a cross-road, where it could decisively make a turn into the right direction.
The past months have been the usual roller-coaster, albeit reaching its physical limits of safety standards. This turbulent situation has somewhat driven a handful of people into the streets - which in itself is rather unusual for this society (if one may speak of one; but to that later).
At the closing of last year, a compilation of secret service wiretaps transcript (labelled as 'Gorilla') leaked out on the cyber-highway, revealing much, what has been suspected and 'known' a long time. Due to the current lack of PR awareness, several reactions signaled only one thing; they were probably authentic enough and confirming more than large scale corruption.
The texts not only incriminated financial player Penta, but most political parties were more or less involved as well. On the one had, 'amicable' ties between corporations and top-politicians is not too uncommon in any society, yet the extent and the pushing the boundaries was slightly over the edge. However, the apparent tragedy, came in the weeks that followed:
The first mistake, was in the inability of politicians of the current left-over coalition to deal with the matter adequately. Facing early-elections in a few weeks, not one effective response has been given, creating devastating havoc to the 'rightist' government beyond believe. The current SDKÚ party of outgoing prime minister Iveta Radičová is at risk of even not making it into parliament after the elections. The party's incompetence to retaliate is amazing; instead of the (still) current political leader Dzurinda (heavily incriminated by the leaked transcripts) to step down -something that should have taken years ago - dragged the party's moral credibility into an abyss, plus the incompetence of others in the party to manage the crisis.
Justice minister, Lucia Žitňanská, a woman with a great political credit for pushing reforms within a heavily corrupted judiciary, declared only a few days ago in an interview, to be 'eventually willing to take over leadership of the SDKÚ (from Dzurinda), but after the elections". One cannot remain but flabbergasted by such a illogical statement. "Perhaps", "eventually", "after" .... It's now simply "too vague, too little, too late".
The only politician, although tainted as well but reasonably capable of remaining the shadow of the criticism, is SMER ('Labour') leader Robert Fico; pointing at the failure of the rightists. Remarkable; his name has been mentioned more than would be comfortable, and it was during his government when these transcripts submerged for the first time, but his friend General Persecutor Trnka in 2008 swiped it masterly under the carpet. (Another reason, why President Gašparovič bluntly and continuously refuses to appoint Mr Trnka's elected successor into office?).
The people, completely disillusioned by the revelations, although enraged by the extent and finally taking into the streets, appeared to have become even more disconnected; disgust to even go voting. Other voices, declaring that they came to protest against corruption but not to politicise the matters, were illustrative too, how little Slovaks understand politics as a whole.
The summit of idiocy, which could be imagined, was Penta's boss Jaroslav Haščák to file a court-claim, trying to prevent publication of the Gorilla book by the Canadian investigative journalist Tom Nicholson - only at a manuscript stage - as it would destroy Mr Haščák's "good name".
Remarkably swift, the court - in other cases a court easily could drag on a court case for decades - honoured Mr Haščák's request and forbade the publication of a not yet finalised book based on 'hearsay' (the manuscript has not been submitted for analysis - whereas the crude source is fully available on the net anyway!). In concrete terms, it is explicit a case of censorship, furthermore a judge, having trespassed legal boundaries and de facto committed a clear case of abuse of authority - a crime in itself.
The counter effect of this ruling (interesting to note, that another judge, simultaneously, has intersetingly enough ruled otherwise, taking into consideration the true meaning of the freedom of press principle) is that Mr Haščák has made himself even the more suspicious; as said earlier - contacts between high ranking politicians and corporate leaders is not uncommon, yet the court-case itself filed implies like a red cloth on a bull that the transcripts are more than speculative and/or that Penta indeed has gone far beyond the limits of legally allowed behaviour.
The organisers of the Gorilla protests, turned out to be completely clueless on the state of affairs; having no direction. True, somewhat the last drop which Gorilla caused came unexpectedly (especially for Slovak standards), but despite being driven by naive passion driven by anger, they could have at least consolidated power with more experienced personalities - from whichever strata of society. By refusing so, their innovative suggestions were in the range like 'legislation via facebook.
The NGO community in general has also lost the right decision at its optimal momentum. Vision, a prerequisite which actually is non-existent. So-called 'think tanks' (a undue title to most of them) in general have little or no capacity - primarily due to poor management or lack much needed leadership up to too little sense of effective and vital PR, only to be following their individual petty agendas, encompassed by their own tunnel-visions, and therefore too turning the whole Gorilla movement into an eroded spur of moment and vanished lost energy.
Slovakia has lost much and it is ultimately irrelevant, whether the elections are going to be won by party X or Y. The deplorable moral state in politics and the whole society itself is basically what the people do. Indeed former British Ambassador Michael Roberts once strikingly quoted Burke in 2010 that "All that is needed for the forces of evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing". The Slovak man and woman remain silent, because not feeling the responsibility of being a citizen in a civil society. The society as such, however, therefore is non existent in Slovakia; as long as no true school reforms are pursued to raise citizens - as parents themselves have little clue or experience, or the judiciary is being purged of its corrupted elements. Until such, Slovakia has hardly a future. It will linger in a feudal mind-set, where autocrats loot every possible cent out of public money, and the passive meek subjects only weep in the pubs; using the most popular but deadly argument that is the aversion to 'politicise' matters. The only logic is, that anything which affects the people (society) IS a political matter. But this logic is beyond public comprehension.
One can only pray, that the new EU members, haunted too by traumatising pasts, will avoid these very same mistakes.
Goodbye Slovakia; wish you much strength and endurance, for it will take long... too long.
MS
(This is the last blog entry on Slovakia by the author)
