Local Racisms

Vesna Bukovec
Local Racisms
Series of seven drawings, poster campaign 
2022

Originally a differentiation based on skin colour or race, racism also provides the background to the logic of excluding entire groups of people who deviate from the norm – what the majority considers “natural” or “ours”. Racism is as omnipresent as the polluted air that we are breathing. It is based on the fear of losing one’s own privileges and establishes the Other as the danger. On a systemic level, it is present in the state apparatus, but can also be found in cultural patterns as well as in public and private spaces. It is ingrained in our speech, forming the basis for both humour and violence, and is a relic of the past.

In 1992, the newly independent state of Slovenia illegally erased 25,671 people from the register of permanent residents, thereby taking away their legal status and related economic, health and social rights. Overnight, they became foreigners – just like the refugees and asylum seekers whose human rights are systematically violated and who suffer inhuman treatment. Migrant workers working in difficult, even slave-like conditions for a meagre wage are also subject to the racist Foreigners Act and long-term bureaucratic procedures.

The Romani people have been a target of racism from the majority population since forever; among other things, Slovenia violates their human right of access to drinking water. Citizens who emigrated from the republics of the former Yugoslavia and their descendants experience racism because of their surname or accent. LGBTQI+ persons are exposed to verbal and systemic violence; a few years ago, their constitutional rights were violated by the referendum decision of the majority population. In a predominantly white population, every person of a different skin colour is subject to racist treatment on a daily basis. Even when it is not out of malice, the first question they get is “Where do you come from?”, as if it were impossible for them to be born here.

Nationalism is based on the glorification of the “right” nation and the exclusion of all others, while capital and politics benefit from creating differences between “us” and “them” and directing hate towards “them”.