Pellegrini, Fico and Danko (left to right) signing their memorandum of understanding under the painting of Ľudovít Štúr. (source: Sme - Marko Erd)
I did not come to bring peace, said Jesus of Nazareth. A few years after his departure, a mysterious Jewish sect comprised of his followers became a huge movement, in a few decades spreading throughout the Mediterranean, later destroying pagan religions and the Roman political system.
Calm can be neither established nor declared, because it is not a state that comes from outside, but a feeling formed to a certain extent in regards to external circumstances.
In extermination camps, there were people who, in addition to not being afraid of the Nazi death machine, were able to spread calm even in the final minutes of their lives.
People in extreme situations, doctors, paramedics, police and firefighters can keep calm in difficult, life-threatening moments when everyone knows exactly what to do and how to do it.
A country with no way out
If the Slovak Republic functioned in crisis situations like rescuers in a dramatic car accident, we would not have to discuss this out-of-this-world calm, but about the ability to manage difficult moments, such as the pandemic or the beginning of the Russian war in Ukraine.
In order to do that we must not vote for immature individuals, unable to control themselves and their childish ideas about colour, women and religion. Restlessness, deep restlessness, or at least deep concern are therefore more characteristic of our society.
They mimic the hopeless feeling of a country that had everything to become a prime example of European prosperity; today it has [PM Robert] Fico's unfinished motorway to Košice, which should have been built by 2010, the demolished Rázsochy hospital in Bratislava, unfinished tunnels, and strange trains.
Slovakia does not lack calm. What Slovakia lacks are children whose reading and mathematical skills are not at the level of developing countries. Slovakia does not lack false calm; it lacks the decision to do something fundamental, so that two-thirds of young people do not consider leaving the country.
Slovakia needs finished roads and fast trains, modern hospitals providing health care that people do not have to arrange for through acquaintances, staffed with educated people who will not decide to leave, because this is their home like it is home to those who consider fascist Russia to be their rogue homeland.
