Procrustes sidles-up to the Slovenes

Travel News ... Procrustes visits Ljubljana and gives praise to the brave Slovenes ... Then to Siena and murals representing the effects of good government on the city and countryside ... Medieval message about justice 

Ljubljana: Procrustes is spruiking the delights of this fairy tale capital. He must be on a retainer from the Slovenes

ONE trundles around Europe, trailing the spoor of Australians abroad. A report has come in from a Nordic migration conference in Copenhagen where roomfuls of Scandiwegian women debated the fate of unaccompanied child refugee applicants.

The Scandy approach is to get these kids into family-type surroundings asap. Delegates were pressed to explain whether they were receiving adequate varieties of rye bread, so you can imagine the scandal when the Australian present said:

"If we find them heading for our virginal and unpolluted shores, we put them in the hold of a border protection vessel and sail them 5,000 kilometres to a tropical hew-hole, on an island we're renting from a client state. If we're mean enough word will get out and the wretches will stop coming."

This raises the legal status of unaccompanied minors arriving in Australia. Under a 1947 Act, the Minister for Immigration has guardianship responsibilities for these kiddies. 

Scotty (Devoted Christian) Morrison is the copybook fairytale wicked guardian. Is no one going to challenge this man's performance by testing basic fiduciary standards that must fall on a guardian? Come on, readers!

Meanwhile, family matters took your correspondent to Slovenia, the little country that could.

This is not Slovakia, it is not Slavonia. It is tucked away with Italy to its west, Croatia to its south and east, and Austria and Hungary to its north. Mountains, rivers, forests and even a 40 kilometre Adriatic frontage.

Best of all, it has the Slovenes: polite, alert and with a seemingly universal command of English. Vineyards abound from the fine Rieslings of the north, to excellent reds on the Italian border. All this with a fairy tale capital, Ljubljana, which is an operetta in stone.

The gypsy baron effect oozes from the squares and nineteenth century wedding cake architecture, all set off by a cute castle on a hill served by a cog railway. Prices are more than reasonable. Go!

Your correspondent heard tell of a retired Melbourne barrister living in western Slovenia, near the Italian border. He's working hard on collecting the stories of escaped Australian POWs helped by the Slovene partisans in the period 1942 to 1945.

There were a lot of them about, and some are still alive: Bill Rudd and Ernie Brough live in Victoria in their 90s. 

Another group of 99 mixed British, NZ and Oz POWs got out by walking 250 kilometres across Slovenia to an airfield where they could be flown to southern Italy. 

The sacrifice of the Slovenes in the fight against Nazism should never be forgotten. For every German they killed, 100 of theirs were shot in reprisal. This was a mighty sacrifice for a nation still under two million in population.

A train ride, and Procrustes had left the charms of central Europe for the sunny hills of Tuscany. Siena beckoned, all terracotta tiles and, like its women, embraceable brown.

The Senesi had a proud history of republican liberty, at least till the Florentines beat them up in the 1460s. 

Justice (in white) organically part of good government

The Palazzo Pubblico, built in the early 1300s, contains an extraordinary set of murals: The Effects of Good Government on the City and the Countryside, and the Allegories of Good and Bad Government.

The Allegory of Good Government has a wall to itself, with executive government on the right, surrounded by the attributes of good government - peace, fortitude, magnanimity, modesty, prudence, etc), while on the left justice is dispensed from giant scales.

It is from these scales that two cords descend to the figure of Concord, where they twine into a single rope that then runs through the hands of the 24 Councillors who parade across the lower front of the mural, before emerging to reach up to the staff of office held by the black and white figure of executive government.

The dispensing of justice is organically part of good government, and the entire community (through the councillors) literally have a hand in that attachment.

The modern viewer is left with the conundrum of how far this concept from a tiny, proud medieval hilltop town can be kept relevant in a modern mass society.

The latest blasts from Talleyrand Tony about reduction of our liberties to prevent the beheadings he anticipates in Oz indicate a progressively smaller role for justice in the evolving Modern Australian Mystery Play.

More soon as your correspondent struggles with France and the French ...