Or: The lack of understanding and true commitment to the values in society, the irresponsibility, greediness, corruptness, fraudulence and illiteracy, accompanied with laziness, illiteracy and carelessness have led to degradation and extended agony of society.
by: XHABIR DERALLA
Regardless of whether a party is in power or in opposition, people who understand and measure things according to values and who understand the complexity of relations in society and politics, not only according to whether someone is in power or not, subject to criticism those structures and actions depending on their values, and not on whether they are in power or in opposition. Perhaps this view, packed in one sentence is not quite understandable, and so I will try to explain with simpler and shorter sentences. Therefore, read until the end. In principle, reading to the end doesn’t take up your time, but instead saves you time, but I will explain this in another occasion.
Let’s begin with the point that criticism of government is the work of political parties, while criticism coming from the media and civil society implies assessing of values, policies and practices, regardless of where the political parties and other structures of power are located? Certainly, criticism understood in its true sense of the word, not as black propaganda.
When in power, the responsibility of political parties in power is greater, but when in opposition, the irresponsible behaviour and action in politics can be equally harmful to society and the institutions of the system. Especially when the distribution of forces in parliament is about the same, which is not just the case in North Macedonia, but also in many other countries. And they do function! Whereas in our country, the parliament hasn’t been able to budge from a standstill for years.
The proportions and relations between the centers of power (not only the political one) and the responsibility that implies the power acquired at elections and in the post-election coalitions for establishing a government, are far more complex and more dynamic situations and processes than what can be read in analyses that are prepared and published by public opinion makers that we find at every corner – in the media, NGOs, various institutes, academia… certainly, let’s not disregard also the “bravura” analysing of the Facebook thinkers.
The non-acceptance of the media-intellectual elites and NGO phonies to understand and explain the complexity of politics and society, leads to deep politicization in society, to one-sidedness and shallowness, obliviousness and, pardon me, to illiteracy. That, also speaks of amorphousness and lacking in ideas, blindness to the values in society. What values am I talking about here? I am sure it’s not clear enough, not because I am writing something puzzling and complicated like Heidegger and God forbid like the “fun charlatan” Jacques Lacan (Chomsky), but because the values in this society have been banalized for generations.
What values are we talking about here? We are talking about the European values! Equality, rule of law, social and environmental justice, respect for human dignity, human rights and freedoms, freedom of expression, equal opportunities for all, respect for diversity and antinationalism. That’s what we talking about. The criticism starts and ends with the values. The rest is propaganda.
Those who act contrary to those values are a legitimate target of the progressive public, regardless of whether they are in power or in opposition.
The lack of understanding and true commitment to the values in society, the irresponsibility, greediness, corruptness, fraudulence and illiteracy, accompanied with laziness, illiteracy and carelessness have led to degradation and extended agony of society.
That puts the propaganda machinery of the powerful enemies of democracy in a superb position of leading campaigns for destabilization and ruining societies not resistant to black propaganda. Justified dissatisfaction with the corruptive and insufficiently reformed system follows this. More specifically, the public is scandalized by the numerous corruption cases related to officials and managements of state and local institutions. And corruption has always existed, it is carefully nurtured and deeply-rooted in the system. Accompanied with systematic understatement of values.
Surely in these circumstances, with uninformed political know-nothings who create the public open on a daily basis, with a very “smart” expression on the face, a distinction can’t be made between a criminal and corrupt government that functions as a mafia and a government that shows clear signs of political will and has a plan for combatting corruption. During the rule of the regime, no one was allowed to say a word about the corruption, because they would immediately be “thrown in the ditch”, and in conditions of a democratic government, each corrupt case is sounded off from the highest bell tower or minaret, as you like.
Now, we have an exceptionally shallow “argument” of a quasi-critical public that says that we should leave the criminals and radicals alone, because they are not in power. That means that we should also forget Stalin, because not only is he not in power, but has also been dead for a long time ago. Right? Or, in Russia there is no structural violence, minority oppression, dictatorship and corruption, because all politicians, intellectuals and journalists who have tried to speak out about those conditions are blackmailed, intimidated, imprisoned or… killed. Whereas in Germany the government does not oppress and kill, and so the media and civil society are constantly talking about the shortcomings of the government and the opposition, about the corruption, air pollution, Neo-Nazism… So, Russia is fantastic, Germany is no good, right? Well, then why doesn’t anyone want to move to Russia?
In other words, the easiest thing to do is to shoot and spit against the government, especially it it’s democratic and doesn’t abuse the levers of power for repression of criticism and freedom of expression. Or maybe it’s about a deeply-rooted fear of repression of other political (militant and criminal) structures and installations in politics? Just in case, they return to power. Not to mention, God forbid, the assumption that a great part of the media, academia and civil society have deeply and forever sunk into clientilism and corruption in every sense of the word.
I don’t know how much clearer what I am saying here can be, but let me illustrate this view with an opposite logic: If the Fascists are in opposition, that means that they should automatically be supported. We should fight for them to come to power, and then, if we are allowed to, we will criticize them”. Or: “If the criminals are no longer in power, we don’t have to criticize them anymore. If they come to power, if they don’t corrupt us, we will criticize them”.
P.S. In the next occasion, we will take a walk through the Macedonian political aquarium, or perhaps a better expression would be fair, jungle, swamp, labyrinth…?
translation: N. Cvetkovska
This post is also available in: Macedonian
