Slovenia



Slovenia (Slovenian: Slovenija) is a small Central European country and a member of the European Union. It used to be a part of Yugoslavia before gaining independence in 1991.

Nationalism
Slovenian nationalism spread significantly in the '90s, after Slovenia gained independence and a set of ideologies that could replace Yugoslav nationalism was needed. Using excessive amounts of pseudoscience, nationalists managed to popularize many of their fringe theories in non-academic circles.

Impact on historiography
Currently the most commonly held (and most rational) belief about the ethnogenesis of the Slovenes is that they are descendants of Slavs who came to Central Europe in the 6th century AD. Some nationalists, however, are trying to prove that the Slovenes are a master race by spreading the idea that their ancestors have lived in the lands of modern Slovenia since forever prehistory. That, in a nutshell, is the "Venetic theory", and that's exactly where it belongs.

Besides the Venetic theory, the Slovenes are the subject of many other fringe nationalist theories. Illyrism, named for the Byzantine prefecture of Illyricum, argued that the Slovenes were so closely related to other Southern Slavs that they need to be assimilated into one Yugoslavian nation. The "Windischar theory" argued that the Slovenes were actually Windischars (Slavicized Germans); Nazi Germany used this idea to justify the assimilation of Carinthians and Styrians into the German nation. A similar Hungarian theory said that Slovenes are actually "Wends". The Slovenes are one big crank magnet.

Politics
Although there are more major parties in Slovenia than in the USA and even a completely new party can win in Slovenian elections, anyone who is familiar with the politics of both countries will see the similarities. All parties are devoid of capable politicians and can be placed in one of the categories listed below, and while bickering about multiple unimportant issues and having different labels, there is very little difference in policy. So one can see quite clearly that you don't have any actual choice.

The Left
(aka "Socialists" or, derogatory, "Communisers") Stereotypical leftist: Anti: Christianity, clericalism, the Church, WWII collaborators (!). Pro: multiculturalism, political correctness, religions that are not Christianity, partisans, SFRJ, secularism.

The Centre
People holding centrist views (a. k. a. being on the side of the spectrum on which it is most convenient to be at the moment while having a shot to get support from both leftist and rightist Slovenes). Aligned parties usually get the most seats, but many centrists make it into parliament.

The Right
(aka "Democrats") - corresponding word in English pretty much "conservative" (a term not used at all in Slovenia) Stereotypical rightist: Anti: partisan, SFRJ, abortion, Secularism (officially not, but their idea of Secularism is so compromised it isn't even Secularism any more (ie. Religion and the Church are separate from the state, but not from politics.) Pro: Christianity, tradition, religion, WWII collaborators, nationalism.

Those are definitions an overwhelming majority of Slovenians will be able to give you. Remember political spectrum? Yeah, forget about that, it's all Jesus and Tito.

Important Slovenian parties

 * Positive Slovenia is a newly founded leftist party led by Zoran "Zoki" Janković, mayor of Ljubljana (the Slovenian capital). It won the election, but Zoki missed out on the premiership due to the incompetence of his bloc. He is of mixed Slovenian and Serbian ancestry, so he met with a lot of racism once he got seriously involved in politics. While one can argue that he is economically incompetent or elitist, many people gave "he's a Serb" as the only reason for not voting for him. Some people even developed conspiracy theories about him being a Serbian undercover agent trained up and sent to Slovenia to become its president and merge it into Greater Serbia. Even after his failure to become prime minister, there are nutjobs yammering on about how Serbs will conquer Slovenia. The inane, paralysing stupidity of that is frustrating.


 * Slovene Democratic Party. Centre-right. Led by Janez "iPad Janko" Janša. It played a significant role in Slovenian independence, but the contributions were shadowed by multiple affairs in recent years.


 * Slovene National Party. Far-right. Every country has its batshit crazy ultranationalist party spewing their bigotry and pseudoscience everywhere. Slovenia has the SNS. The president of this national embarrassment is Zmago Jelinčič the Noble, who supports the Venetic theory and compared homosexuality to paedophilia. Fortunately, the SNS was ousted from parliament in the latest elections.


 * DeSUS, the Demochatic Pahty of Slovene Pensionehs, is a centhist pahty mohe concehned with siding with the winnehs than actually standing up foh the pensionehs. It is led by fohmeh Ministeh of Defence, Kahel Ehjavec.


 * The Social Democrats, offspring of the Communist Party, are led by Borut "So what?" Pahor, the former Prime Minister of Slovenia.


 * New Slovenia (Nova Slovenija) is a Christian rightist party, spewing the usual (albeit a little softened compared to the Christian right in the USA) Christian right nonsense.

Immigration
Slovenia's relatively strong economy has attracted immigrants from across the Balkans seeking economic opportunity; like many immigrants around the world, they tend to work long hours for low pay and live in less-than-ideal conditions. Some Slovenian ethnic nationalists fear that immigrants may eventually change the face of the Slovene nation.

This kind of ethnic nationalism also manifests in language - for instance, to call someone "Bosnian" or "Šiptar" (Albanian) can be an insult, while the word "čefur" (which comes from Turkish for "Jew") is a word for all people of southern descent.

History
The Slavic predecessors of the Slovenes were Pagans. They were converted to Catholicism partially as the result of successful military actions by the Christian Bavarians and partially through the influence of missionaries.

Up until the Yugoslavian period, the Church continued to have a strong say in Slovenian society and politics. There were traces of secularism and anti-clericalism (both the result of growing leftist presence), though.

In communist Yugoslavia many people described themselves as atheists, as it was very convenient not to be religious.

Since independence, Catholics are in the majority again. The theocracy is disappearing, mostly.

Atheism
The major religion of Slovenia is Roman Catholicism, although the number of Catholics is persistently falling. Since Slovenia has communist roots, there are many so-called atheists that don't actually disbelieve in God, but just hate the Church. Sexual abuse by priests and the Church's history of collaboration with the Nazis are hot-button issues.

LGBT in Slovenia
See also: Civil Initiative for Family and Children's Rights.

The Family Code, a set of laws that would give homosexual partnerships the same legal standing as heterosexual partnerships and make gay adoption easier, was passed by Slovenia's parliament, but repealed via referendum. Slovenian opponents of the Family Code which succeeded to put the law to referendum and led the propaganda campaign masked their anti-gay activism as "supporting family values" or as "protecting children's rights". No other effort for gay equality was put forward by the government, and probably won't be for a long time.

Rightist bigots (*cough*Jelinčič*cough*) are not very uncommon in Slovenia. They go so far as to equate gay adoption to pedophilia.

The principal "family values" organization in Slovenia is the Civil Initiative for Family and Children's Rights, which enjoys broad Catholic support. Another one is the Family Initiative, an older organization of right-wing politicians, which is less insane than the Civil Initiative, as they only oppose gay adoption, but is still trying to enforce a compromised law which would only even out gay and hetero partnerships, but ban adoption.

The Civil Initiative successfully petitioned (with over 42000 signatures) for a referendum on the Family Code. They celebrated by releasing pigeons and pissing on reciting a song from Tone Pavček, a recently-deceased poet, that was supporting the Family Code. The Family Code was repealed.

Other religions
Slovenia is also home to 50 000 Muslims, some, but very few, of whom are fundamentalists. They enjoy leftist support.

News
The most-watched TV-news in Slovenia is the fairly-balanced 24ur (24hours).

Another news show is Svet (World), which is not objective at all, but is at least balanced, as it openly attacks anything the journalists perceive as wrong, whether it's left-wing, right-wing or centre. Svet is known to embrace some crank ideas though, such as homeopathy and 9/11 conspiracy theories. A frequent newscaster is Nuša Lesar, a model. Sounds familiar?

Christian media
Christianity enjoys a strong presence in Slovenian media.

The most popular serial religious publications are the Christian journals Družina ("Family") and Ognjišče ("Fireplace"). Tretji dan ("Third Day") is also quite popular, but is an academic publication. Družina and Ognjišče are strong supporters of Civil Initiative, and they often publish interviews with party members.

There is also a Christian radio station called Ognjišče where leftists are constantly attacked.