For the past two decades, the political class of Slovenia has been congratulating itself for undertaking the most successful transition from socialism to a market economy in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe. [1] But this success story has also brought about the dismantling of the welfare state and rising levels of poverty and unemployment. The solid reputation of the Slovenian success story began to shake dramatically at the end of 2012, when mass protests spread throughout the whole country. This social unrest began in November 2012, in the country’s second largest city, Maribor.

 Mass protests in Maribor: From 1988 to 2012

But first let us take a step back to the late 1980s: Maribor, one of the industrial centers of socialist Yugoslavia, was struck hard by a major economic crisis. The rising inflation, growing unemployment, and intensified exploitation led to a general sense of social insecurity. The internal conflicts between republican elites were further strengthened by harsh austerity policies from the IMF, which Yugoslavia needed to implement if it wanted to refinance its debt. The major political event in Maribor took place in 1988, which announced the beginning of the end of socialist Yugoslavia. In June 1988 workers of the biggest enterprise of cars and trucks, TAM, decided to take to the streets after months of low wages. Their march was joined by workers from all other major factories. Against the sense of social insecurity and imposed austerity, workers were able to build ties and a feeling of solidarity. More than 10,000 workers occupied the streets, squares, railroad station, and strategic routes in Maribor. The strike went on for a week and put pressure on factory management, who needed to make some concessions. However, the workers’ opposition –even if strong and important for the trade-union movement later on – came too late. During this period, the whole socialist block was crumbling. The shoe factory Lilit was privatized in 1990, and a few years later, it finally closed down. So began the end of Maribor’s industrial age.

Contrary to the established narrative, which fashioned Slovenia as a ‘success story’ of transition without neo-liberal orthodoxy, one needs to conclude that the fairy tale was not so magical from the very start. The transitory processes on the periphery of Slovenia were already very brutal in the early 1990s, after what we could ironically call the first five-year plan of deregulation and de-industrialization, which took place from 1990 to 1995 and had catastrophic socio-economic consequences for the everyday life of the majority of people in Maribor. Most of the above-mentioned industries went bankrupt and were closed down, especially due to the loss of the Yugoslav markets and also because of their partial integration into the military-industrial complex of the Yugoslav People’s Army. A few surviving enterprises were rationalized and massively shrunk their economic activities, while others were cheaply sold to foreign companies. The unemployment rate in Maribor reached around 25 percent and, what was even worse, around 70 percent remained unemployed long-term, becoming what Marx would call ‘surplus population’. Even in the first years after 2000, when the unemployment rate started dropping and the economic situation normalized, the major 30 enterprises all together employed fewer workers than the factory TAM in the 1980s.

It goes without saying that the industrial infrastructure deteriorated and, with it, the whole urban landscape was radically transformed. Maribor became a monument to the past, both to Yugoslavia, as it brought together many people from all over the former country, and to industrialist times and socio-economic prosperity. However, it seems that the city is now haunted by a new dream, in addition to the industrialist specter of the past: the dream of a post-industrialized future.

 The European Capital of Culture 2012: The dream of de-industrialization

Every major project holds a promise and launches a dream. To understand the dream of the European Commission in light of the European Capital of Culture (ECC), one does not need hermeneutics, but must simply look at the surface, on a most transparent level: the dream-mission of the ECC is to commodify culture and supply Europe with new de-industrialized creative industries. ECC fosters tourism in the region and works as a reorganization of creative potential. Thus, ECC has supposedly become the major ‘catalyst’ of urban revitalization, a thesis enthusiastically confirmed by most of the representatives of local organizations. [2] It seemed that Maribor finally got its historical opportunity by becoming the European Capital of Culture (2012) and the European Capital of Youth (2013). ECC started functioning as a collective dream for the new Maribor, seen as a possibility to overcome the ‘peripheral’ and marginalized position that it acquired vis-à-vis the center (Ljubljana). Local patriotic tensions were supposed to be overcome through team spirit, working toward regional development and the revitalization of Maribor in order to attract the young. In many respects, the project failed to create long-term employment and, as mentioned above, the economic situation during 2012 became painful for many.

In autumn 2012, the local municipality, together with then-mayor Franc Kangler, decided to introduce a massive system of 1,000 radars for speed limits. Boris Vezjak stated that “more than 20,000 people were issued with speeding tickets in only two weeks – in a city of 100,000 inhabitants. There was a sense that residents’ household budgets were being targeted.” [3] The sense of clear social injustice accumulated once information about the company was leaked: it was a public-private partnership with personal ties to the mayor, who has been implicated in many corruption affairs without any juridical consequences. People were enraged to say the least. However, nobody expected this public rage to be articulated or to go beyond the usual ranting in newspapers or the critique coming from intellectuals. This time, however, the unpredictable dimension of emancipatory politics unfolded in the most radical way. What started out as trivial – for some even vandal – night attacks on the radar systems resulted in political gatherings in front of the municipality office, where a small group of people started calling for an uprising. A larger event was then organized via Facebook and, in late November and early December, thousands of people protested in the main square. The major event happened on November 26^th, when 15,000 people gathered to demand the resignation of the corrupt mayor and his local municipality. The uprising, which started calmly and gathered together families and children, was violently dispersed by police, who used batons, excessive amounts of tear gas, and other repressive methods. This triggered a violent response: groups of young people pushed into the municipality office, burned trash bins, and used fire crackers. The images circulated all over Slovenia, and public rage accumulated due to the cynical responses of the political establishment. What began as an isolated sparkle in late November 2012 in Maribor spread to other cities and, weeks later, culminated in a national uprising with unprecedented masses protesting across the country. [4] Images of riots, broken windows, tear gas, and police repression spoke of unprecedented political violence on the streets.

 Mass protests reloaded

The Slovenian ruling class found itself faced with the first mass demonstrations since the independence. All major cities saw a veritable democratic eruption of more or less spontaneous protests from below. Protests were not organized by opposition parties or trade unions, but by many different social groups and individuals with different political affiliations and generations, young and old, workers and students, LGBT activists, precarious workers, ecologists, anarchists, and socialists. All political groups demanded a deeper social change, but primarily they were united around the same political slogans usually directed against the ruling politico-economic class: “It is enough!”, “It is over with him/them!” [Gotov je! Gotovi so!], and “They are all crooks!” [Lopovi!].

It would be wrong to idealize this popular movement and see it as having strong unity and a coherent political program. ‘People’ and the movement itself meant a complex entity riven with splits and ambivalences. If the common cause was clear – namely, the overthrow of the political class – the paths and goals of the new political project were less defined. There were diverse perspectives, ranging from moralism (the liberal stance: “we need good new people to uphold the rule of law”), to nationalism (“for a better Slovenia”), to an even stronger radical tendency in support of social transformation. Something else also became clear: it was the end of the myth of Slovenia’s success story.

What seemed to be a relative stable democracy of the Balkans, a successful new member state of the European Union (EU) and Eurozone, was completely de-stabilized in a matter of a few months. All the major projects of the political class had been completed – joining the EU and NATO, transitioning to a market society and democracy – so there was nothing else left to feed the political imaginary of the future. People in Slovenia woke up from this fairy-tale of transition and ‘successful’ political projects to find themselves in a real social catastrophe: the weakening of the welfare state ever since Slovenia entered the EU, the dramatic rise of unemployment, the dissolution of solidarity, and an ever-growing social Darwinist ideology that permeated the mainstream media and political campaigns.

Mass protests found the political class guilty not only of misrepresentation, but also of imposing the worst possible austerity programs. These measures were even criticized in early 2013 by the same International Monetary Fund that promotes austerity, and launched very controversial policies across the European periphery in the first place. The austerity measures adopted in Slovenia in 2012/2013 have included: the privatization of banks (manipulating a public referendum on setting up a ‘bad bank’ to handle defaulted loans); [5] the imposition of special ‘holding-expert’ institutions that sell all domestic capital (what is profitable evidently) to foreign investment firms; massive layoffs and the dissolution of collective bargaining agreements in all social sectors; and drastic cuts in the social budget (the budget for research and universities fell from 10 to 20 percents; cuts in the field of culture are as high as 50 percent; certain groups of pensioners receive merely 250 euros per month).

Austerity, in short, became the most evident financial instrument that sanctioned an unprecedented exploitation of labor. It was intended to ease the re-investment of capital in crisis. It comes as no surprise, then, that during an ever more severe economic crisis the heaviest burden falls on ordinary people. Slovenia registers ever-higher unemployment (13 percent in late 2012, according to Eurostat, [6] and it continues to grow in 2013), and has also witnessed the most drastic relative rise of youth unemployment in Europe, which went from 15 percent to 25 percent in the last months of 2012 and continues to grow steadily in 2013. On top of this, the economy is stagnating, the gross domestic product (GDP) shrank, and the prognosis for this year is not very optimistic.

 The maturity and limits of mass protests: After the overthrow

The first months of 2013 seemed to catalyze certain social processes that strengthened popular demands. Established trade unions organized and, on January 23^rd, there was a massive general strike with 20,000 workers on the streets of 14 different cities across Slovenia. Just as importantly, their slogans against the corrupt political class were confirmed by the report of the Public Committee Against Corruption, which found strong evidence implicating the two major figures of Slovenian politics, Janez Janša (Prime Minister and president of the right-wing party, Slovenian Democrats) and Zoran Janković (mayor of Ljubljana and president of the center party, Positive Slovenia) in major corruption scandals.

In these months, the popular political agenda was no longer defined and molded by existing institutions or parties. On the contrary, participants in this popular movement discussed and attempted to formulate an alternative program through a series of performances, cultural events, and new popular councils, committees, and initiatives that took seriously the search for the broadest democratic platform that would be possible. These included the Committee for Direct Democracy, [7] the Coordinating Committee for Cultural Slovenia, and the General Assembly of the All-Slovenian Uprising. Two new political formations that aspire to be two new leftist political parties have emerged: the Initiative for Democratic Socialism and the Solidarity Party. Political aspirations that used to be unthinkable only a few months ago, such as demands for direct democracy and democratic socialism, have come to the forefront in mainstream media.

March 2013 seemed to bring a huge boost and a victory for the social movement. Central political figures and some other functionaries resigned that month: Janez Janša from his position as Prime Minister (replaced by the more moderate center-left government led by Alenka Bratusek), and Zoran Janković from the presidency of the Positive Slovenia Party. This seemed to be a historical victory for the popular protests, which continued to happen throughout the winter months and tough austerity measures, and brought about a new sense of solidarity.

However, with this victory, the new political landscape was only taking new shapes. The new social movements and political formations did not yet form a historical bloc with a coherent political program, nor did they have any candidates to propose for the ensuing general elections. After April 2013, the popular enthusiasm and the interest in building institutions from below came to an end. Some of those who took part in the protests called for no compromise with the official politics, while others wanted to wait for new governmental policies that were supposed to take a different course. These calls were naïve to say the least: the new government consisted of old parties and, while it did tone down its brutal Darwinist discourse, the general direction remained the same: all the austerity measures and privatisation processes blissfully continued. It seemed like the protesters’ energy was wrongly concentrated on the overthrow of individual figures. The year-long ‘leftist’ obsession with Janša and the fear of a right-wing authoritarian regime became one of the major impediments to real emancipatory politics. When the mayor of Maribor, Franc Kangler, and the PM, Janez Janša, were overthrown from power, the movement gradually disappeared from the public’s attention, and only the most engaged groups remained active. What seemed to have united many of those who participated in the protests became the greatest obstacle to continuing and sustaining a mature political project. But not everything is grim. Some people remain politically active and it is important to note that many protesters were politically engaged for the first time in their lives. And this experience of public disobedience and what Hannah Arendt would call “coming together” cannot be taken away so easily. Let us conclude where we started, in Maribor, and show how the city continued the political process.

 Instead of a conclusion: Maribor’s call for a different and social Europe

It would not be exaggerated to conclude that the political efforts and the effect of the uprising were strongest in Maribor, in the city that saw the first mass political mobilization after almost 25 years. The political platform of the protest started waging two different and concrete political struggles. Firstly, some groups organized to support a new program and an independent mayor. The local elections in mid-March saw the electoral victory of Andrej Fistravec, an independent and critical intellectual, who has been part of the local political scene for years. The trouble remains with the official municipality’s council, which is still full of the members of established political parties. The council will unquestionably stall the democratization of the political process. Secondly, there has been an important direct democratic effort undertaken by the group Initiative for City Council that organized in the district and other communal communities. These new democratic platforms are seen as a forum for the discussion and possible influence of the municipal budget and planning, thus re-inventing the self-management tradition and also working as an example for other cities.

Whether both types of political processes – from below and via institutionalized politics – will come together and bring about change is a whole different question, and it is too early to answer it. But what is important is that the political power was taken away from those who are accomplices of the present crisis. The protests have also undercut the nostalgia of industrialist times and the neo-liberal enthusiasm for the ECC’s de-industrialized dreams. If Maribor attempted to break the deadlock in 1988, it has done so again, in 2012, by starting to redefine the city and to campaign for citizens’ right to the city. If in 1988 Maribor signaled the fall of socialism, which also meant the fall of the welfare state, could it be that this time we hear the bells of the death of neo-liberalism? This is the question raised by the new Maribor, but is goes beyond Maribor. What is clear is that the uprising opened a future for a different Maribor that works against both the imposed austerity and the idea of periphery. Maribor’s struggle illuminates the ways in which the periphery can become the very center of politically engaged thought and revolutionary action.

This said, it is important to recognize that the Slovenian uprising is only one part of the mosaic of struggles on the periphery of the EU: the Bulgarian movement for democratic change, popular struggles in Greece, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, and Italy – these struggles bring into light the logic underlying structural inequalities within the EU: the periphery rises and re-invents both popular democracy and social politics. However, the periphery should move beyond (self)-isolation and make political demands from the very center: How to democratize the European institutions and to regulate financial capital? How to make the socio-economic relations between North and South more equal? These questions are not only to be answered by the periphery, but should be crucial for anyone who wishes to continue the collective and more socially oriented project of Europe.

Gal Kirn