The Break Through of People's Voice: Slovenian Anti-Lockdown Protest
Graphics by courtesy of Mateja Turk.
Wednesday 13. 1. 2021 was a historical day for Slovenian people hance their voice had, at long last, been heard. There was the anti-lockdown protest under the coordination of the leading civil initiative Maske dol (en. translation: Take of Masks) and other initiatives. Organisers said around 1 thousand people participated at Trg revolucije (the square in front of the parliament) Ljubljana, Slovenia.
The protest is a genuine break-through, especially considering all the obstacles on the way: deterrents aimed at preventing this protest particularly; under corona measures are people ordered to stay in their municipality, so it’s difficult for a crowd to gather in this generally small country; police blocking the entrance streets the parliament or police stopping cars at entrance routs to Ljubljana (this way or another, they probably blocked 2 - 3 thousand people from coming to the protest); numerous police at the event and interruptions from their side and alleged interfering with the mobile signal of the participators; and all-time structurally divisive and complex controlled opposition.
Ever since declared independence in 1991, supposedly left and right political parties in Slovenia more or less played their-version of the Hegelian dialectic, of course, at the expense of their people and state. Besides the corona policy's criticism, the protestors also expressed their non-tolerance with the state’s corruptive practices and suggested political solutions.
Inspiring speeches
The public cheered and showed the most significant agreement with expressed ideas. This wasn’t an instrumentalised political show, but a serious political gathering with people who strived for a peaceful protest and the right to express their points of view. Despite the police slowly closing a circle around them and taking sounding equipment away from the protestors, they succeed.
All speakers called for the ending of the corona policy and resigning of the current Slovenian government and establishing the technical government and changing the voting system so that politics would be able to change and that the people would have the power to decide about politics as free human beings. A historic day, as said by speaker Zoran Stefanović and it really was, especially when the leaders connected and agreed around the most important questions. Anica Bidar, the protest’s main coordinator, stated that the founding stone of all with the main idea related activities was set with the protest. Other speakers Ladislav Troha, Maja Matinuc and Anis Ličina, including Troha who probably played some kind of double game (due to prior and later dissing of the protest), also held inspiring speeches aligned with the main idea.
‘A protest everybody wanted to prevent’
Paradoxically, while nobody supported this protest, not even parliament opposition or non-parliament opposition - this protest showed that people could step together for basic human rights and values in the context of corona policy. The protest also proved that people stepping together don’t (nevertheless immediately) parallel to far-right violent protesting activity as forecasted by the event’s anti-propaganda.
Furthermore, it demonstrated how all: government coalition under the premier Janez Janša, government opposition (probably including also a part of non-parliament opposition parties or initiatives) and a group of supposedly autonomous protestors; worked aligned to prevent this protest from happening, citing “Terrible epidemiologic numbers” or/and tried to assigned radical, far-right, characterisation to the protest (some print screens can be found at the end of the article), despite the facts: the call was for a peaceful protest, and there was declared distancing from radicalism. Also, the idea of the protest gained support and of prominent intellectuals like Mag Blaž Kavčič and Dr Mila Alečković-Bataille, and not to forget, also everyday citizens declared their presence who just wanted to express their critical points of view.
Regular, non-violent, and good people of Slovenia on the protest meet face to face with numerous police who wanted to prevent the gathering, but didn’t succeed before people didn’t decide to call the end of the protest by themselves. Hopefully, in case of further people’s protests, the leading political figures and even critics from the alleged left can primarily call for the people's safety due to the possibility of whatever provocations.
Another meaningful detail or two. Is repression of people’s voices a regular reflection of all the protests (at least in the corona period) in Slovenia? When protests started in Slovenia in spring 2020, there was a big crowd of ten thousand people and more on the streets. Every Friday, they were protestingly cycling - because of an idea that riding a bike will contribute to following the social distance regulation. The emphasis here clearly is *an idea.* Eventually, the huge crowd of protesters started to fall apart, probably due to the fact that a minority group that wants to overthrow Janša started to marginalise and discriminate criticism over corona policy. They succeeded in silencing “corona-denials,” but simultaneously lost most of the original group of protestors.
Also, alleged left parliament and non-parliament opposition are quoting epidemiologic emergency as a partial reason for distancing themselves from the protest, when they were (and are) also protesting during the corona period. Shouldn’t they ‘stay at home’ and do everything to eradicate the virus, nevertheless, the epidemiologic statistics? How could we know that their protesting activities didn’t cause “The spreading of the virus” and, therefore, indirectly interfere with the others' right to protest? That being said, I’m not saying that epidemiologic algorithms are absolute and I was merely pointing out the double-standard on quoiting an epidemiologic statistic.
Print screens
Print-screens about the anti-propaganda of the protest on 13. 1. 2021 in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Detailed descriptions are under the pictures.
Parliament member Tanja Fajon, party SD, calls people not to participate in the protest due to epidemiologic circumstances and the alleged possibility of violence and provocations. Fajon is a member of, by definition, the middle or left political ideology. Her call to the people gained applause by Dr Vinko Gorenak, a parliament member on supposedly other, right, ideological position.
Protesters, who protest just against Janez Janša’s parliament ruling, declared their distancing from the protest by stating: NO to the conspiracy theories, but YES to opposing (to Janša’s politics). They also emphasised that a Wednesday (the day of the protest) is not a Friday (a day they traditionally protest).
AntiFa Ljubljana distances itself from the protest, saying that this is a protest of “The far-right deniers of the virus” and that everything has “No connection whatsoever with the real protest.” They ignored Maske dol’s actual initiative as an organisator. They attributed the main initiative to a domestic patriotic party only previously connected with Maske dol's leadership and other initiatives that also participated in the protest.
Suffering under corona policy
Months of lockdown in Slovenia and the authorities discuss more of ‘that something’ (measures) we could assume that clearly doesn’t work. We could find some sense in the “still high” corona statistic even if there is no sense to be found? Isolation, depression, loneliness, crumbling of the economy, closed schools, lack of social ‘closeness,’ and rising authoritarianism. It’s clear that Slovenia can’t beat the statistic; therefore, the authority discusses forbidding to move more than in the radius 50 meters from home. Not to mention the word on social media about demanding covid-19 testing from employees with a threat of losing a job. Today with testing, tomorrow with vaccines?
An important day for Slovenia
It’s challenging to connect over anything in Slovenia since so many produced political polarisations. There is ever presented an ideological conflict (mostly related to WW2) between alleged left and right in the parliament. Besides that, there are many various non-parliaments parties and/or initiatives: who usually have some good ideas, on the other hand, contribute to polarisation over particular ideological views (veganism, migrations, pro/against European stance) if they are not oriented towards connecting with other towards totalitarianism of multi corporations critically oriented individuals, groups, initiatives and non-government parties.
In this sense, it’s probably essential to overcome ideological polarisations and connect with others outside of perhaps one’s ideological bubble.
And this anti-lockdown protest also offered that kind of all-inclusive and non-polarised politics. On the one hand, it’s clear that a lot of people, those who were at the protest and those who support it from far-away, are critical of corona policy. On the other hand, people finally stepped together outside of everlasting polarisation. That’s why gathering and expressing their opinion probably felt like a holy-grail to the Slovenian people. We will see if it will also mean new and better politics in Slovenia.
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