Letter to the editor
I used to be a regular reader of The Slovak Spectator several years ago, but I stopped reading it because I recognised that the true title of your newspaper should read "The Anti-Slovak Spectator". You helped create an impression abroad that those who really loved Slovakia and worked incessantly for its welfare were villains, tyrants, and idiots, whereas those who wanted to sell it out to your foreign masters were the true do-gooders, democrats, heroes, and geniuses. All of you see yourselves as the "social, economic, and intellectual elite of Slovakia" (see the ridiculous and outrageous advertisement on the back page of your Vol 10, No 9 issue). Well, think twice. If you are at all elite, it is certainly not anything to do with the Slovak nation.
The name of the only good thing that happened to Slovakia after 1989 is Vladimír Mečiar. If you look for proof, what better proof can there be than the hatred of the likes of you and your foreign masters who have been bit by bit swallowing the whole of Slovakia? The macro-economic miracle ridiculed by one of your overseas readers in your Vol 10, No 9 issue was a very real one. It was exactly you, the self-appointed intellectual elite, most of whom only carry Slovak names, which helped the present clique climb into the saddle. And what a beautiful clique it is. I personally would hesitate to use [PM Mikuláš] Dzurinda as a garden gnome, out of fear that grass would refuse to grow at the sight of him.
Does it matter to those "insightful" overseas readers that Dzurinda's first government stopped the construction of speedways for a long three years? Do they mind if Dzurinda's governments have snatched the largest factories in Slovakia, (VSŽ Košice, Slovnaft, Slovak telecommunications, SPP, etc.), from Slovak hands through swindle and cheating, and presented them on a silver platter at a fraction of their true value to new foreign owners whom they freed from paying any taxes for 10 years? Of course they don't because the new owners are "their people"!
Do your overseas readers mind if the real income of Slovaks has been continually dropping since Dzurinda took over the government in 1998, even though the little curly marathon man promised his voters that he would double their wages within the following four years? How could your overseas readers mind? Hungry, poor, and desperate Slovaks make for a cheaper workforce and that's cool!
Should my fellow Slovaks be so stupid as to elect the likes of Dzurinda, Mikloš, Kukan, Zajac, and Kaník once again, I have decided I will officially waive my Slovak nationality (luckily my grandmother was Czech). My children have already been strictly ordered to seek their happiness abroad and never return to Slovakia.
Trnava, Slovakia
