Alessio Ecoretti
Following a decision by the reactionary Slovenian prime minister, Janez Janša, the embassy of the Zionist colonial state was opened recently in Ljubljana, after a rather long period during which the previous social-liberal government had taken more or less explicit critical positions towards Tel Aviv’s actions and the genocide of the Palestinian people (we are referring to the government led by the party Gibanje Svoboda, Freedom Movement). The Israeli Foreign Minister, Gideon Sa’ar, a fervent supporter of crimes against the Palestinians, attended the inauguration with full honours and was given a grand welcome by his Slovenian counterpart, Tone Kajzer. The latter had prepared a “challenging” agenda for the occasion, including for the staff of Israeli businesspeople drawn by the smell of lucrative deals. They took part in a forum organised by the Minister of the Economy, with the participation of the SPIRIT Slovenia agency and the Slovenian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, to discuss “the main opportunities for commercial cooperation”, new investments, and to sign a memorandum of “cooperation in the fields of education, science, culture, youth and sport”.
According to the Associated Press, Sa’ar did not spare a succession of questionable statements during this “historic day”: “the only democracy in the Middle East and almost the only real and true partner of Europe”, “Moreover, we are defending Europe, Europe’s security, directly and indirectly”, and “Israel is the fortress on the front line for Western civilization”. There is never a shortage of a touch of supremacism and, as luck would have it, this fantastical, or rather mythological, “only democracy in the Middle East” invariably finds itself doing business with the most corrupt and reactionary governments.
While several European countries are belatedly blocking trade with the colonial outposts in the occupied territories, Janša was keen to declare that “The economic damage alone due to the anti-Semitic policies of the Golob coalition is enormous”. Robert Golob is the outgoing liberal prime minister, to be clear. A curious statement, if uttered by a nationalist about to sell the country off to the bourgeoisie of a settler colony from another continent.
Janša, who comes from the Slovenska demokratska stranka (Slovenian Democratic Party), a political formation that went from a peculiar form of centrism to a clear conservative, misogynistic and xenophobic inclination, took office as prime minister despite his party coming second in the electoral contest, because the winning coalition failed to produce the necessary governing majority. This frustrated the majority of the Slovenian electorate, which consequently found itself saddled with a pro-Zionist “Orban/Trump-style” leader as a result of the incompetence of the liberal bourgeoisie.
The latter suffered a significant decline in support and even had its electoral victory effectively stolen from it: after previously gaining a certain amount of support precisely by positioning itself in opposition to Janša, it managed to alienate a large portion of the electorate, allowing the reactionary prime minister to exploit its weakness and quickly put together a narrow coalition with the Christian Democrats of Nova Slovenija and the Demokrati party, a personal vehicle for liberal-conservative Anže Logar, with the support and votes of the grotesque reactionaries, conspiracy theorists and pro-Russian forces of Resni.ca.
This is not the first time Janša has managed to become prime minister: this is his fourth time, although even in 2020 he was not directly elected, but rather took over the position. He has based his political choices on hostility towards migrants, anti-democratic and presidentialist tendencies, as well as on expanding the private sector at the expense of the public sector. He has also directly promoted the reactionary broadcaster Nova24TV, which he himself helped to found.
After all, we are talking about a “worthy” son of his father, who was identified as a potential victim of the “foibe” because he was a member of the pro-Nazi Slovenian collaborationist units (Slovensko domobranstvo), and apparently miraculously escaped death. Another interesting detail in the murky career of Janša as a bourgeois political operator — marked by countless opportunistic shifts to the right and left depending on convenience, particularly during the early part of his career, as well as ambiguous connections with intelligence services and arms trafficking — is his 2013 corruption conviction, which was subsequently overturned a couple of years later.
In any case, the city was crossed by a march of thousands of people on Wednesday, 9 September. These were by no means insignificant numbers, given the adverse weather conditions and the Slovenian context, which has seen an increase in episodes of struggle since the reactionary government came to power. Large sections of students were present, particularly Študentsko društvo Iskra, which has a strongly anti-imperialist character and has been critical of the inertia of the parties of the Slovenian Left, as well as groups of supporters from across the border and a small delegation from the International Socialist League.
The Freedom Movement is trying, rather vacuously, to capitalise on the dissent, despite having in fact, and on certain issues, paved the way for the reactionary government, particularly through a questionable reform of the pension system and the strengthening of the police, militarism and anti-migrant policies.
Together with Levica (The Left), it has filed a request for impeachment proceedings against the prime minister and for Kajzer’s removal from office as well, accusing Janša of placing Slovenian foreign policy at the service of Israeli foreign policy and of rushing to establish the Zionist embassy in order to return the favour, since Janša is believed to have received overt support from Tel Aviv during the elections.
Nor is this even the worst thing the government has done: immediately after taking office, it made a point of having the Palestinian flag removed from the government building, where it had flown alongside the national flag, the European Union flag and the Ukrainian flag. It revoked all measures hostile to the Israeli state, such as the arms embargo, the halt on imports from settlements deemed illegal under international law, and the ban on entry into the country for Netanyahu, Smotrich and Ben-Gvir. It has also pursued, at the European-policy level, a campaign to water down criticism of the Zionist regime.
Demanding the resignation of the newborn government is certainly justified, but what matters to the popular classes is a radical transformation of the Slovenian political situation: a transformation that can only be built by a consistent, mass anti-capitalist movement and through the overthrow of the capitalist system of enslavement, which, so long as it persists, can only continue to produce one Janša after another.
And this change will certainly not be brought about by a social-democratic, liberal-democratic or confusedly radicalising party, all of them engaged in everything except the revolutionary political education of the masses. Likewise, small activist groups are not enough to overcome and overthrow the Janša government and the entire system that surrounds it. Precisely in order to achieve this objective, one should hope for the creation of a section of the International Socialist League in Slovenia, as elsewhere, which could serve as a transmission belt for a genuinely revolutionary vision.
