When the right had been in charge
the last time around, I dreamt that Ljubljana had been occupied by
neonazis. The city was watched over by gangs of boys, armed with fists,
knives, clubs and dogs. If anyone got away from them, the soldiers took
care of it. They were not uniformed and the army was not officially
involved in the street fights but we nevertheless knew who we were
dealing with; such an effective weapon could only be afforded by their
(and our) master, the church-and-state as one. As crowds of hungry,
tired and scared people were hiding in cellars, the Cankarjev dom (house
of culture), the opera house, the national theatre and other cultural
institutions in the city centre were being turned into an enormous
armoury.
The visions from my nightmare
would haunt me for the rest of the day. When I described my dream to a
friend, I jokingly remarked that the unusually vivid imagery was
doubtlessly indebted to my menstruation. She gave me and wry smile and
shook her head. „A friend had a similar dream,“ she said: „and he
doesn't menstruate.“
In the following days, the details of the dream evaporated. But the fearful feeling that the left was defeated remained.
Once I learned that Nova
Slovenija (the New Slovenia party or NSi) would be taking part in the
decision making of the new ruling coalition alongside SDS (Slovene
democratic party) and others, my head began to swim. Then I remembered
the occupied Ljubljana from the satirical dystopia 4000 that
Ivan Tavčar had written in 1891. In the work, which he wrote as a
response to Anton Mahnič's conservativism, Emona (the ancient Roman name
for Ljubljana) has been „The Pope's province number LII“ for over two
thousand years. The church has taken over the country, the only thing
that's still being printed in Slovene are prayer books and the last
foreigner that set foot in the city was burned at the stake. The first
and last rebellion of the „at least 4000 heroines“, that fought for
equal rights, was quelled in 3919. The population is divided based on
gender and class; a high wall and an army of „old spinsters“ defend the
unmarried women against the unmarried men. The only exception is the
married people ward, where „the Maker exalts all the couples that
remained faithful till death“. The women that interrupted their
pregnancy („the sinners, that single-handedly murdered the fruit of
their own bodies“), are condemned to unending psychological torture,
situated on top of a cliff that offers a vista of a green meadow, where
sweet, angelic children play under the watch of god's childbearing
women. Any woman that attempts to reach the meadow is driven back by an
army of angels with „bloodied swords“, chased back to the cliff where
there is only „crying and the gnashing of teeth“.
Tavčar's liberal mockery of the
catholic demonisation of women may allow a feminist interpretation, but
it should be known that in 1905 he voted against the introduction of a
general right to vote that would be equal for men and women. It is
common that in democracies in a patriarchal society even the most
ideologically divergent and quarrelling political parties will identify
feminism as the common enemy. It is telling that we always find some
excuse for the sexism pronounced by a male politician, but never for the
same opinions of a female one. So I found myself wondering why Franja
Tavčar, Ivan's wife, also opposed the female vote, even though she
established a number of women's associations and shelters in Ljubljana;
how could she have excluded herself from the women's ranks and resist
the female political emancipation?
The same question arises in the
case of the female president of Nova Slovenija and her views. Ljudmila
Novak regards women from a patriarchal, national and population policy
viewpoint and thus sees „mothers and wives“ as and only as a way to
reproduce the workforce, free of charge. And if until now her
antifeminism was supported only by God, „nature“ and the moral majority,
the state has now taken her side, too. If the sexist, homophobic,
islamophobic and racist opinions of Nova Slovenija could have been
dismissed as mere demagogy in the past, their new-found power will allow
them to beatify the heterosexual family as „the most important cell of
the nation“. This will be followed by restrictive regulations,
punishment and stigmatisation of all those of us that are not fulfilling
our patriotic mission. All signs suggest that such treatment of gays
and lesbians will then be applied to women.
In a public chatroom interview
for RTV Slovenija's MMC (the state broadcasting company's multimedia
centre website) in December 2011, Ljudmila Novak wrote that „the right
to life once conceived is greater than the right of a mother to
abortion“. When a reader asked how she is able to deny other women the
right to terminate a pregnancy as a fellow woman, the president of NSi
seized the moment and during the public discussion „lay aside“ her
political function, power and responsibility. She began to reply as „a
woman an a mother“, that has the right to her own opinion, with which
she „isn't condemning anyone“. With this move she reduced the political
programme of her party to her personal opinion, but as female citizens
of Slovenia we can't afford such a reading since her position could soon
interfere with our rights. Ljudmila Novak opines, as a politician,
woman and mother (she could not in the end refer to her expert
qualifications), that the artificial termination of a pregnancy leaves
„lasting psychological and physical consequences, and thus young girls
should be helped otherwise.“. She was not thinking about sex education
or aspiring to a friendlier reception in hospitals or making an effort
to de-stigmatise women that had had an abortion. It seems clear that she
is more concerned about raising the natality than about the
psychological and physical health of women, since she suggested that
adoption was a „more adequate and humane solution than forcing girls to
terminate their pregnancy“.
Ljudmila Novak is not an
anti-feminist because she would be aware of feminist arguments against
the instrumentalisation of women and tried to counter them. She doesn't
need to do this since feminism in Slovenia is not strong enough that
anyone other than the feminists themselves would consider it as a
political movement. Together with her coalition partners from SDS she
can continue to refer to God and nature without worry. If nobody will
stand up to the conservatives that have taken power, sooner or later
they'll be able to refer to the constitution which currently says that
one is „free to decide about giving birth“.
I am fearfully awaiting my next
nightmare. If the image of the neonazi occupation of Ljubljana from my
first dream will merge with Tavčar's image of clerical fascism, Ljudmila
Novak will be marching in front of the paramilitary angelic forces with
a baby in her arms. She will be zealously reciting the thoughts of
Pierre Bayle, the French philosopher that in 1740 praised the „motherly
instinct“ as highly as he could. „The motherly instinct is god's gift,“
she will shout: „it ensures that women will continue to multiply even in
the face of their unenviable position of giving birth and taking care
of children.“
Translated by Gregor Vuga.
First published on February 15th 2012 at the LifeTouch portal.
