- Primoz, turn it off.
- My experience is ...
I don't believe in God and I have
no talent for transcendence.
I understand religion solely
as a political ideology.
My experience is that when someone
mentions Islam, everybody goes crazy.
Concerning the subject of our debate.
Tunisia, Egypt, Libya.
I would like to say three things. The revolution
in Tunisia was lit by unionist and the army,
nobody mentioned God. In Egypt
the core were those freaks from Facebook.
Definitely God had nothing to do with it,
he wasn't their administrator.
Their administrator was Wael Ghoneim,
Google's marketing director for Egypt.
He was the administrator of the
Facebook group, not God.
If you're going to speak of Islam, then you
should add Catholicism, Protestantism, too.
You can't say just A) Islam and
B) Neoliberalism.
To me that doesn't make sense.
In Egypt, specifically, the most wealthy
neoliberals are three Copts. Brothers Sawiris.
15 percent of the population are Copts.
Let us at least say that Egypt
is a Muslim and a Christian country.
With the oldest Christian community in the world.
And with the oldest churches.
Our people, then.
The Islamic exegesis and their ramblings
about economy
are no more intelligible than that of
our Archbishop of Ljubljana.
There is a counterpart of Maribor Archdiocese
in Cairo too. Trust me.
Muslim companies terminate the same
way as catholic ones.
People fleeing with bags of money,
saying God will settle the bills.
We shouldn't forget.
I am afraid we will forget this.
Because you can say what ever you like
about the Arabs, all is true.
If we speak of Islam, then let's look at the Jewish
economy, Copt economy, Catholic, Protestant.
And I'm not an expert. But if we speak
of economic models, then we must note
the political role of labour unionists,
the economic growth, and ownership.
Allah didn't bury Mubarak,
he buried himself by
giving the Ministry of Tourism to
the owner of the largest tourist agency,
the Ministry of Housing to a man
with the largest construction company,
and the Ministry of Finance to a banker.
I don't want to offend my surroundings,
but this reminds me heavily
of our Christian society.
What happened isn't such a mystery.
One shouldn't sophisticate things.
Yes, it may be a trap.
Who knows what they're doing.
But when they say "Allah Akbar",
they mean just that "God is great".
Have you every heard a Christian saying
that God is not great? No!
They say the same, only the language is strange.
We shouldn't excessively
complicated things with mysteries.
Understand it as a political process
in the context of dictatorships.
What is astonishing about Gaddafi
is not that he is a psychopath,
but that all European politicians
shook his hand and signed agreements with him.
The last agreement that Tony Blair signed,
and he was a religious lunatic, by the way,
was with Gaddafi about
the British Petroleum.
Out of politeness I won't mention
others who shook his hand.
It's not about a mystery.
I don't know what Gaddafi believes in.
But I have a feeling it's something
different than what most Libyans believe in,
in view of the fact that he hired idiots from
Darfur and Uganda to serve as his millita.
The first thing I heard about Bahrain was
that the Shias went against the Sunni ruling family.
Yes, but we must take into account
that Assad is an Alawi,
that Saddam Hussein was a Sunni
in a Shia society,
- that where there is oil in Saudi Arabia
there are only Shias. - They are Sunnis.
- Where there is oil there are Shias.
- Where there is oil, yes.
In short, if you want to explain things
in religious terms, be consistent.
These democratic revolutions are
about commonplace things, like social rights,
equality of rights ...
Things which are to me totally understandable.
- I don't need God here.
- May I add one sentence, literally.
Today everybody is saying how ...
and I have no sympathy for our PM ...
- Be short, Slavoj. - Yeah.
How Borut ... which is it ... the other is a writer ...
- Borut Pahor. - The young one.
How he went to Gaddafi and humiliated himself.
But didn't Jansa (former PM)
go on an official visit to Saudi Arabia?
Yes. Honestly, they're both shit.
But I would be more ashamed to go to Saudi Arabia.
Last year I met with Hosni Mubarak.
Now continue.
As I said before, when we take over,
your tie will come in useful.
We know who to hang and
we have the instrument. We'll just turn it upside down.
- I want an orange tie. - I know. You like orange,
CIA revolutions. You'll get a green one.
- Turn yourself off, Slavoj.
- Sorry.
- To Mr Hladnik Milharcic. I think
that was directed at me too. - Be short.
Yes, nobody on Tahrir square had
Quran with them or mentioned it explicitly.
But we must be aware of the fact that
those young people are culturally Muslim.
Although they surf the net,
they live in a disparate cultural environment.
That we should mention Protestantism too?
Of course. Here is the hypocrisy of the West.
Western economists are telling Muslim
economists, you are reactionary because
you want to bring Islam into the economy.
If you look at the foundations of western economics,
you will see that religion is also present.
In the economic theory of Adam Smith
the Market is God, if I quote John Gray.
Or that some natural theology is built in.
Although John Locke's liberalism tries
to presents itself as a secular ideology,
it contains many Christian concepts.
And lastly, Bahrain. There, I think, the social
situation coincided with the religious situation.
Because the Sunni lords are systematically
precluding the Shias from important state structures.
So it was difficult to distinguish whether
it is about the social or Sunni-Shia conflict.
Thank you. Now Samo Zbogar.
You're a minister, I can interrupt you.
- If you're too long. - I won't be.
Just two points. First about the uneasiness.
Certainly there is uneasiness,
we don't know how things will end.
Certain ministers of the EU feel uneasy because
of the unknown number of incoming immigrants.
Ervin mentioned Tunis.
There the secular factors are evident.
Not so evident in Egypt. Although it was
organized by the Twitter, Facebook generation.
Only the Muslim Brotherhood
is politically organized.
You said that only they had experience.
The transition from a Facebook generation
to a political force is not an easy one.
In Slovenia we have Ecologists Without Borders,
who gathered 250.000 people. But their
transition into a political force may not happen.
Will this great mass of Facebook users
become a political party and run for election?
The sooner they have elections,
the more power the Muslim Brotherhood will get.
I'm not saying we should fear them,
but still ...
It is said that in Benghazi in Libya
an Islamic Caliphate is emerging.
- I'm not sure if this is true.
- That's what Gaddafi is telling people. - Yes.
My point is that the uneasiness comes
from not knowing how things will end.
Second thing is ... Zizek said that
now is the opportunity to end anti-Semitism.
And to end with the anti-Semitic obsession.
Which is common in the Arab world.
Yes, provided that the
Palestine question is solved.
Which is the source of anti-Semitism.
One can say that last year Israel missed
an opportunity to solve this problem.
Since the fall of Mubarak,
Abass has been lost. Mubarak was his adviser.
He was his ally, a moderate force
who guided the Arab world.
One can feel depression on the
Palestinian side.
Talks are going forward. And perhaps until
the end of the year Palestine will be established.
Upon this depends whether
anti-Semitism will persist.
Now we will give the audience
a chance to ask questions.
Franco Juri asked to say
a few things.
I would ask everybody
to limit themselves to 3 minutes.
Now I will be really strict.
When it is your turn,
please introduce yourself. Franco, please.
