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Slovenia
spurns its minorities abroad
In
that case, the Slovene Foreign Ministry itself must be a wonder of
the world to compete so ineffectually with its Italian counterpart.
It is strange that the Slovene government was of so little help to
the Slovene minority over the Kreditna bank. In the opinion of some
Slovenes that is attributable to the absence of a big bureaucracy
mentality among Slovene civil servants. Paolo Parovel agreed with my
foreign press friend  :
"They're not like the Italian diplomats, the Quai d'Orsay or the Foreign Office; they do not constantly produce position papers on how best to advance Slovenia's cause; they are permanently on the defensive and cannot think strategically. ... They are probably conniving at its downfall, if necessary being willing to sacrifice the interests of the Slovene minority on the altar of good relations with Italy. Slovenia is a small country, and not as aggressive as was the former Yugoslavia." A Slovene-English friend of mine has long thought similarly. "They've never left an opportunity slip to let the Slovene minorities screw up", he told me regarding both the situation of the Trieste Slovenes and that of the Slovene minority in Austria. "The Ljubljana government may or may not be corrupt but it certainly always bends at the slightest sign of pressure, solely so Slovenia can get into the European Union." Parovel agrees, saying that the Slovene government is totally incompetent in foreign affairs. It has always given way in negotiations and has made concession after "concession that are frightening.... They don't know how to deal with the Italian government. Part of the Slovene Foreign Office staff are raw youths, the others are recycled and/or compromised former Yugoslav government officials, who have brought with them Belgrade's lackadaisical attitude to foreign affairs". Another Italian Slovene from Trieste told me: "One problem is the difference in the two language cultures: Slovene is a very direct language and Slovenes generally believe in keeping their promises, whereas for an Italian a promise is made 'just to be nice', per essere gentile. Of such stuff are persecution complexes made. What, might we say, have the Triestino Slovenes done to deserve all this? Of course they may have been blameworthy in the past, though mainly on a low level of political and public relations mismanagement, as we have seen. The foiba executions, in the unlikely event that it was their fault, are the most grievous sin that could be laid at their feet, but even if they were truly to blame, the provocation was as enormous as any putative thirst for revenge was soundly based. In the nineteenth century they were too pro-Austrian for their own national good, but their stance can be interpreted equally convincingly either as rash provocation of the Italian Irredentists or as a sound defensive preparations by a community under threat. The ease with which the Triestino Slovenes gave comfort to Italian and Austrian anti-Semitism was also short sighted, if only because it drove potential allies, Jewish immigrants into Trieste from central Europe such as Svevo, into the arms of the Irredentists. Another case of mismanagement was the 'Trst je nas' [Trieste is ours] slogan because that, above all, aggravated the fears of the Triestino (and other) Italians in a situation in which the Slovenes are far too weak to flesh out the threat it contains. Finally, there has been throughout Italian times a considerable degree of economic, cultural and linguistic mismanagement, due largely to the Triestino Slovene habit of burying its head in the sand. For example, the refusal to see how TV and the new electronic media can be successfully exploited to the advantage of a minority. In the end the Triestino Slovenes show most clearly that they are true children of Trieste, inward looking navel gazers. They cannot see that their attitudes towards both Italy and Slovenia are more or less visibly eroding their community, which bit by bit is falling apart. In the final analysis, however, it is not that Slovenia really needs Trieste, it is Trieste that needs Slovenia, as a gateway to its natural hinterland. Ever since Trieste became part of Italy the city has been in decline. Because of its situation girdling Trieste Slovene revenge on the Italian Irredentists is almost complete. That People without a Past is bound to get its own back on the City without a Future, because without the Slovene hinterland Trieste is nothing, whereas Slovenia can survive as an entrepôt in its own right, and has little need of Trieste. Even though it is strategically valuable to have good access to the city, it is not essential, so long as Slovenia has Capodistria/Koper as its port and has land outlets through its other frontiers. * * * In 1954 the Allied postwar occupation of the city of Trieste ended and the attempt to set up a Free Territory of Trieste to resolve the problem of the two communities and Trieste's hinterland was wound up by the 1954 so-called London Memorandum. It had been defeated by the clamorous hostility of the Italian Irredentists, backed by furtive unreconstructed Fascists from an Italy that, unlike Germany, has never conducted any real purge of its pre-war ruling élite. And also by the play of world politics, since in the period 1945-1948 the Allies were not prepared to let the Soviets gain an outlet in the Northern Adriatic. However, the collapse of the Free Territory dream was yet another blow to the Slovene minority in the city as well as overthrowing Slovene preponderance on the heights above the city. |
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