Slovakia learning what it takes to be part of European community
I went "home" this summer, "home" not being home any longer but rather the place I left behind when I came to Canada. It’s a place that in many ways formed me, but also left me with a legacy of loss and pain.
That legacy is not just mine, of course. It is shared by millions in Czechoslovakia, the country I came from, and by many of its neighbours. But things have changed in the region in recent years. Czechoslovakia no longer exists, and Bratislava, my childhood home, is now the bustling capital of an independent democratic Slovakia.
I saw first-hand on this trip how far the Slovaks have come in recent years from their troubled past. Despite this progress, and partly because of it, they are still learning what it means — and what it takes — to be part of the European community.
History's outrages
For most of my lifetime, the people of Czechoslovakia suffered from one outrage of history after another. Occupation by Nazi Germany, the ravages of World War II, followed by a communist takeover. And then, if that were not enough, another invasion — this time by Soviet forces.
I escaped that misery 60 years ago, but returned in 1989 as a journalist to witness the downfall of communism in what came to be called the Velvet Revolution.
As I came down the street 50 years later, all I saw was rot. Our house, my family home, was boarded up, its broken windows gaping.
It was a watershed moment of the 20th century, a time of rejoicing but also of uncertainty about where the flow of history would take Central and Eastern Europe from the wrack and ruin of decades of communist misrule.
The devastation was enormous. What I remember best, what really hit home, was returning in 1990 to what used to be my home in Bratislava.
We lived in a three-storey building that stands in the historic centre of the city on a street of splendid houses, most from the 18th century. Our apartment was above my father’s cleaning supplies shop. I grew up there until age 11, when my parents sent me and my younger brother to England to save us from the catastrophe about to engulf Europe.
As I came down the street 50 years later, all I saw was rot. Our house, my family home, was boarded up, its broken windows gaping.
For me, that one house became the symbol for what had gone wrong not just for my family – my parents were killed in the Holocaust – or even my country, but wrong for a whole way of life. That loss, that pain, also added to my appreciation of the freedoms and bounties of the life I enjoyed in Canada, advantages not available to millions or even billions the world over.
A country restored
The events of 1989 allowed millions in Central and Eastern Europe to begin enjoying some of those same privileges. Now, two decades later, whether it’s Bratislava, Budapest, Prague or Warsaw, they have flourished.
But our building isn’t the only one that has been restored and gentrified; the whole street has. It is now a pedestrian promenade with cafes and restaurants frequented by tourists. Two doors down from my old home, the tourists stop at a palace where a seven-year-old named Wolfgang Mozart once gave a concert. Next, it’s a palace just across the street where Franz Liszt later played. Further down, a building that in the 15th century housed a university.
The renovations extend throughout the old city and beyond. Much has been restored with private money, but large sums have also been spent on public buildings like the splendid Old Town Hall, parts of which date back to the 14th century.
It’s not just the buildings that look better. So do the people. The drabness of yesteryear has been replaced by a stylishness that speaks of a new self-assurance and prosperity.
Balking at bailouts
It’s not all been a bed of roses, of course. Going from a dictatorship to democracy never is. For much of the nineties, after the Slovaks’ "Velvet Divorce" from the Czechs, the country was run by a former communist apparatchik with a penchant for authoritarianism and crony capitalism.
Economically, Slovakia was stuck in a time warp as a largely agrarian society with a few dying industries, like a factory making Soviet-style tanks no one wanted.
Gradually, though, both politically and economically, the country has matured. Politicians depend, as they should in democracies, on the will and whim of the electorate rather than on sleight of hand of backroom manoeuvres. Right now, Slovakia is governed by a centre-right, four-party coalition. The coalition may be fragile – the largest party in parliament is in opposition – but that hasn’t stopped the government from pushing ahead.
The democratization was accompanied by an economic leap. Since joining the European Union and the euro bloc, Slovakia has enjoyed some of the highest GDP growth in the EU.
Despite this dramatic progress, Slovakia is still the second poorest country in the euro zone (after Estonia), poorer than the countries like Greece, Portugal and Ireland it is supposed to help to bail out.
Its success was based on a competent workforce with low wages attracting foreign manufacturers – companies such as Volkswagen, Samsung, Siemens and Whirlpool. In 2007, the Slovak economy grew by 10.4 per cent. In the crisis of the following year it shrank, but it has since bounced back, growing by 3.3 per cent in the past year.
Despite this dramatic progress, Slovakia is still the second poorest country in the euro zone (after Estonia), poorer than the countries like Greece, Portugal and Ireland it is supposed to help to bail out.
To the Slovaks, the bailouts are a boondoggle. Their attitude: Why should we pay for the recklessness of the spendthrift Greeks while we have to work harder to keep paying ever-higher taxes and cut spending to keep our own affairs in order?
The Slovaks managed to hold back from last year’s rescue of Greece. But they’re under intense pressure to go along with the EU's bailout plans this time. While the government has agreed to contribute, it has attached strings to make its participation more palatable to domestic critics.
But that has hardly pacified the opposition. It is led by the speaker of parliament, a member of the government coalition no less, who is determined to block parliamentary approval. His attitude: let the Greeks go bankrupt.
Trouble is that if the Greeks — and then others — indeed go bust, so would the EU and the euro. And with it would go all those lovely well-paying jobs Slovaks have been enjoying.
What the Slovaks have yet to accept is that if they are going to dance the night away in places such as the nightclub that used to be my father's store, they will not only have to pay the bar bill, they must also pay the piper for the European community's music that made it all rock for them in the first place.
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