Slovakia was shaken by the report of an assassination attempt on Prime Minister Robert Fico. After a local cabinet session in Handlová, the PM made the unusual decision to greet local people and shots were fired at him from the crowd. This is an unimaginable scenario. However, in Slovakia we have long witnessed polarization here, furrows being plowed between different groups in society. Hatred and intolerance are present in public life. It's true that Romani people have always encountered such attitudes here, but other groups are taken aback when they become the targets of hatred. An acquaintance of mine posted to social media that he does not believe this is Slovakia’s “Sarajevo”, in other words, it won’t spark a civil war. I also believe it probably will not lead to more violence, but aren’t we already in a hybrid civil war right now?
The assassin is allegedly 71-year-old Juraj C., whom the media have managed to identify as the author of several books who lives in Levice, an older, eccentric man playing the role of a somewhat unconventional person who is somewhat provocative. However, it turns out that he is the author of a fairly extensive book (262 pages) entitled Efeta, which can be characterized by this excerpt: “There have never been as many shameless gypsies in Europe as there are today. They see the social systems and know very well how to exploit them. The state is not solving this problem, it’s just nibbling at it around the edges. A hundred thousand Slovak gypsies want the favor of the whites, but they’ll never tell us that… Let’s be strict and just toward them…”
