When two years ago the media published images of fanatics in military outfits carrying guns and marching under the floating black flags, many were left wondering where they came from. All of the sudden in the name of faith and the ideology of their leader they were marching Syrian cities, murdering, spreading terror and fear.
Europe and Slovakia know fanatics too, who similarly claimed to be protecting the nation and the faith, and with the ideology of their leader, marched the streets of cities and murdered their neighbours, classmates, and colleagues, just because they were of different beliefs or origin.
In their case the majority at first ignored it, then downplayed them, but in the end had to yield to them in surprise.
Just like Nazis in Europe, just like Islamists in Syria, Slovak neo-Nazis march today with the guns over their shoulders, wearing military outfits. For the moment they are not in the streets, only in the forests. Those responsible - the police, the army, and the secret services - are indifferent to them. These extremists train in order to be able to replace exactly them in the event of “crisis”.
Kotleba to spend state money on militia Read more They argue they need to protect the nation, just like the Nazis did, or that they need to protect people “from the decadent and harmful influence of the degenerated times”, like the protectors of the faith do.
Trained ideologues again use the frustration of people and unsolved everyday problems to their advantage. They have made their own army, mostly from the youngsters who “want to belong”, “rebel against something”, or “change things”.
But the combination of ideology of hate targeted against everything that is different - a different skin colour, different faith, or a different culture, puts them on the same level with fanatics —those who killed 30 people in Brussels in 2016, and 130 in Paris in 2015, and 77 in Oslo in 2011, and 64 in Ostry Grun and 84 in Klak in 1945, and thousands or others in another time and in other places.
Now neo-Nazi Marian Kotleba wants to provide these trained fanatics with millions of euros, that he will get because of his party’s result in the elections, to build his own army.
And if the society first ignores and then downplays his efforts, the fanatics in military outfits will quickly move from the forests to the streets. And there they will start, trained and with a gun in their hand, to protect their deformed values from those whom they believe to be threatening them.
From us.
