The covers and editorials from leading weeklies of the Left and Right for the work-week ending Friday, 23 August
Mladina: Catholic Church Should Not Promote Domobranci
STA - Mladina takes a look at the emergence of organisations celebrating quislings after the fall of the Berlin Wall in Eastern Europe, saying the Catholic Church is behind them to cover up its own collaboration with the Nazi and Fascist occupying forces before and during World War II.
The left-leaning weekly takes as a starting point for Friday's editorial an invitation to a commemoration organised by "New Slovenian Testament, an association which promotes the doings of the Domobranci home-guard during WWII".
In the majority of European countries, with the exception of Austria and Italy, which have not undergone denazification, such associations "do not and cannot exist".
"Eastern Europe is quite another story. After the fall of Communism, associations promoting quislings emerged in many countries," says editor-in-chief Grega Repovž.
He notes that Croatia's ruling party HDZ does not hide its fondness of the Ustashe, and Slovenia's right is firmly connected with organisations celebrating the quislings.
In both Slovenia and Croatia, the Church was the most responsible for the emergence of the quislings - the Domobranci and the Ustashe and for collaboration.
Repovž says that 80 years on, it needs to be clearly said that the Church is behind organisations such as New Slovenian Testament.
"The Church is again abusing the Domobranci and their descendants, their pain, the actual pain, which results from the Communists' post-WWII doings, and also the pain which comes from the inability to face historical facts".
"The Domobranci soldiers were national traitors, but they were also the victims of the Church and politics at the time."
And just as it used to lure innocent people into the Domobranci home-guard and the Catholic militias through its power as institution, the Church is now similarly abusing them to conceal the historical facts, says Repovž.
Just like its role during WWII cannot be limited to Bishop Gregorij Rožman (1883-1959) attending the Domobranci oath to Hitler in Ljubljana, its role at commemorations such as the one organised by New Slovenian Testament is not innocent.
"The leadership of the Slovenian Church abuses religion, believers, Domobranci survivors and their descendants so that it can continue to blur historical facts.
"It is doing the same in dealing with sexual abuse. It simply ignores facts, abusing the power of faith and the trust of believers," Repovž says under the headline In the Name of Mary, the Queen of Slovenians.
Demokracija: Private property in peril as socialism makes comeback
STA - Expressing indignation over the comeback of socialist ideas, including in the west, the latest editorial of Demokracija points to the state supervision of privately-owned forests as proof that "the worm of socialism remains nested deep in the brains of Slovenians".
The right-leaning weekly paper's editor-in-chief Jože Biščak takes the ongoing issues with the culling of wild animals and the protests against the increasing use of off-road vehicles in forests as examples to argue that private property as a basic tenet of capitalism is under attack.
While over 75% of forests in Slovenia are in private ownership, the government is using a number of regulations to claim the right to serve as the only righteous guardian of forests as a common good, a typically socialist supposition.
"The framer, who is also the owner of the forest, does not have the right to settle his accounts with wolves that are slaughtering his sheep and goats ... He is not even allowed to set wild animal traps on his own property."
The same applies when it comes to forest visitors, who need to be granted free access to walk, and pick mushrooms and fruits no matter if the owner agrees or not.
The owners merely have duties, Biščak says, arguing it would not be surprising if things once get to a point when "an ecosocialist will file charges against the owner for getting bitten by a tick".
Meanwhile, off-road vehicles are reportedly destroying the forests, endangering the hikers, scaring game etc., but the only ones that do not get asked for an opinion are the forest owners who may perhaps be using such vehicles to supervise their property, Demokracija's editor says.
Biščak, who claims that "this government is blurring the line between what is state-owned, public and private", goes on to point "to the loud cheering of the media mainstream when inspectors mount an offensive an announce how many private entrepreneurs they have fined".
"One needs to have a sick mind to celebrate something like that. If the share of the 'swindlers' is high, this means something is wrong with taxation and regulations. Disregard for laws is a phenomenon that accompanies any unjust state," Biščak says.
He argues under Don't Steal, the State Does Not Like Competition that people who get robbed by the state should only be expected to look for ways to do the same to the state in order to survive.
