Politicking and the Velvet Revolution

Here we are twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, living in Slovakia a country very much known as a Soviet satellite communist country prior to the Velvet Revolution. In November 1989 the Velvet Revolution began and since 1993 when Czechoslovakia separated, Slovakia has been at the heart of it all. When the Berlin Wall fell I was too young to appreciate the significance of such an event let a lone see any relevance it may have in my life. The road for Slovakia has been rough. I see it everyday I spend here, this is not a rich country and they are painfully aware of that fact. However, people here are optimistic. Everyone, even people my age say things are getting better and have improved significantly in the last few years. So far 3 presidents have been elected in their democracy each serving 5 years.

Ten years ago the United States and EU made a public statement regarding their growing concern over the Slovak democracy, but these faded as Slovakia continued to inch closer to government stability with each election. However, I found articles as recent as last year slamming Slovakian democracy due to their questionably strong ties with the Catholic church. Slovakia has many provisions in their government for church, but in particular the Catholic church. Apparently Slovakia uses tax dollars to fund the building of catholic churches and private schools. They allow any health professional to deny services based on their catholic ideals such as dispensing contraception. This is a bigger deal than many in the states might believe because the medical system here is public meaning they have 'universal health care' and essentially all hospitals are run on the same system. Religion is mandatory in all Slovak schools from 6-18 years of age. The EU has publicly come out against it's newer member state regarding these issues. Essentially it all seems to boil down to complete integration of church and state.

When reflecting on this information I believe there are many possible explanations. This society is still reeling from the former communist regime where religion was all but forbidden. Deprivation of anything becomes a craving of something. After years without being able to comfortably practice religion Slovakians were overly accepting of the catholic churches initiatives while forming the foundations of their democracy.

In another train of thought, not all that communism left behind in this country is bad. There is a strong system of higher education provided free to all Slovak nationals. The dentists I work with here have no student debt, I cannot fathom how liberating it would be to graduate dental school with no debt. They have universal public health care which has been transformed to a more socialist mandatory health insurance system and the level of access here is greater than the states.

I was speaking politics with a doctor I work with and was really intrigued by his political sentiments. This is of course as alway is only opinion, but he said that generally they trust more wealthy politicians than those coming from poor or mediocre financial situations. Initially this shocked me because growing up in America I believe the opposite. When a very rich politician campaigns back home the opposition attacks and labels them as out of touch or inevitably corrupt. I am sure we all saw the smear ads about McCain regarding his 7 houses worth over 14 million while the rest of country suffered in the recession. He explained to me that here they believe a poorer politician will use his first years in office trying only to acquire wealth for himself and in contrast a richer politician already has all that he needs and can focus more on the issues and tasks at hand. An interesting perspective that made me think in some ways the attitude in Slovakia is more free market democracy than at home where distrust of the high upper class, especially during hard times, is the more common frame of reference.

I also stumbled across a Health Care in Transitions report from the EU while doing some research. It's long and a little over detailed but it has some great information so if your curious or want more information you can check it out.