Response to Robert Fico shooting reveals double standards

Etiquette dictates we express sympathy with victims of a crime. When that crime is attempted murder and the vicitim is a democratically-elected representative, protocol demands not just sympathy but condemnation. Last week’s assassination attempt against Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico saw political leaders from around the world issue just such statements. 

When British MP Jo Cox was tragically murdered in 2016, public commentary also struck this note. Political differences were set aside and Cox was, rightly, discussed with the utmost respect and sympathy. But despite Fico having been shot five times and only surviving thanks to emergency surgery, media coverage in the UK has been markedly different. 

Perhaps most notable is how quickly a serious attempt to murder a serving European Prime Minister drifted down the news agenda. Sex education, Starmer’s election pledges and civil servants wearing rainbow lanyards all garnered more column inches. Yet an attack on a nation’s elected leader is an attack on democracy itself. 

Such commentary that was produced sought to explain events in Slovakia for a British audience. Fico’s name was tagged with epithets. According to The Spectator, he was a ‘controversial prime minister’ and ‘a deeply polarising figure’. Sky News described him as ‘a polarising political bruiser’, while The Economist branded him ‘an extraordinarily divisive figure’. One word was used repeatedly: ‘populist’. Despite Fico being critically ill when these reports were filed, these epithets are not complimentary. 

UK coverage described Fico’s reluctance to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, his party’s clashes with Brussels over new media laws, and his broader criticisms of the EU. Slovakia, we were told, is divided between younger, pro-EU, city-dwelling professionals and older, poorer, rural citizens. But support for Russia and criticism of the EU are not considered ‘divisive’ or ‘controversial’ positions to the millions of Slovakians who elected Fico for a third term. The line between ‘popular’ and the more sneering ‘populist’ seems always to correspond with the opinions of commentators. Fico is ‘polarising’ only to journalists whose sympathies lie with Slovakia’s western-leaning professionals rather than the majority of the nation’s voters.

This bias leads to double standards. Just days before Fico was shot, a German Member of the European Parliament, Matthias Ecke, was violently attacked by four teenagers in Dresden. This appalling incident was widely condemned with ‘far right’ activists blamed for stoking a climate of violence with hate-filled rhetoric. Yet, when it comes to Slovakia, it is Fico himself who stands accused of cultivating ‘populist and hate-filled rhetoric’ and so in the words of one Sky News commentator: ‘it’s not surprising that this sort of event might take place’. 

Arguing that politicians who are pro-EU, anti-Russia and do not appeal to the public in their own country must be protected from bad words while those who hold opposing views should not be surprised by attempts on their lives is worse than just hypocritical, it exposes a deeply anti-democratic impulse. It comes perillously close to justifying death threats on politicians western elites consider hold the wrong views. 

Originally published in The Times: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/22505790-ccfa-4dbf-a978-f930a78a361d?shareToken=352188ea2db0a3b857142609bb38e4a6