The Svet show on the Kanal A channel has surprised once again. A report on cattle managed to mention “the good old days of Yugoslavia” despite the fact that these have nothing to do with excessive meat consumption. Evidently the journalists are filled with nostalgia for the old communist times.
And what exactly was it about? The report on massive farming, which supposedly represents one of the main culprits for the weather phenomena that we have been witnessing in recent times, is not controversial. It talks about the percentage of greenhouse gasses that are emitted into the atmosphere by cattle farming. All well and good if they did not, as always, involve Yugoslavia. The report considered how certain events in the USA relate to Slovenia, where destitute Yugo-nostalgic people still pine for communism.
Report essentially considers environmental effects of beef
“In 1990, there were 5.3 billion people living on earth. 27 years later, the number has grown to 7.5 billion. In this year alone, the global population has grown by an incredible 78 million people. 78 million meat-eating people,” they said in the Svet show. What about vegetarians and vegans? The question arises whether Kanal A is forgetting about them, denies their existence or simply does not know that some people do not eat meat. However, this is not the truly controversial part. Read on.
Desire to return to old days of food shortages when meat was reserved for special occasions
“Slovenian beef even bears a label guaranteeing its quality. It was introduced in 2016 by the Ministry of Agriculture and primarily ensures that the cattle are born and slaughtered in Slovenia. /…/ guaranteeing the quality of beef has a positive effect on livestock farmers and consumers. It would be even more positive if the beef only found its way to our plates on special occasions, like in the old days,” says the journalist in the aforementioned report.
It is impossible to overlook the allusion to the “good old days” in the above sentence. We all know that in the past meat was eaten only on Sundays and on public holidays, but only because people were simply unable to afford it, while they also had to raise the animals beforehand. Nevertheless – would it really be worth it to go back to the past ways of life? We believe that the journalist does not mean the poverty and the hand-to-mouth existence from years ago, for he would be foolish at best if he were to deem this positive. So?
Regime media are becoming more and more blatant
The red totalitarianism drew its last breath more than 25 years ago, and Yugoslavia was buried with it. Despite this, the glorification of the old days of Tito is still present in Slovenia. This is often done by the media in a quite blatant manner. Just the fact that they unnecessarily mention Yugoslavia in an article on mass cattle production is telling enough. And the reason for such behaviour?
After some time, carrion begins to stink horribly, and it is the same with Yugoslavia. Despite the fact that it has been gone for a while now, people dizzy from its smell have been enjoying the putrefying meat for a long time and even seem to miss it.
People tend to forget how they really used to live in “the old days”
With such words, many journalists encourage Yugo-nostalgia and misrepresent the life during those times. “Everything was wonderful, and we had it all,” many of them say. What about those who were not even allowed to have a life? Those whose life was worth less than the life of the cattle eaten on Sundays.
Anja Lepej