EKIP– Expert Club for Economics and Politics A Different Opinion
A large part of the Bulgarian government's actions can be described far better as "public affairs" than as "social affairs."
Once upon a time in America, private-sector loggers resented the strong public influence of the U.S. Forest Service, which influenced the allocation of federal land for logging. With the help of growing concerns about government propaganda and the manipulation of public opinion, the so-called “Gillette Amendment” was passed, prohibiting governments from paying for publicity. This small amendment had a much greater impact than its text suggested. The year is 1913. Since then, when it comes to the state, we talk about “public affairs” instead of PR. Or, to satisfy patriotic linguists – government propaganda hidden behind the term “public affairs”.
Personally, I am of the opinion that sometimes foreign words have their place in our language and everyday life. Empirical evidence (ancient Greek foreign word) confirms this. A large part of the actions of the Bulgarian government can be described far better as “public affairs” than as “public affairs”.
And a specific example? Even if you are the person with the worst luck in Bulgaria, if you spin the wheel of ministerial gaffes, the probability of hitting the jackpot remains high. Sectors with the names of Totyu Mladenov, Vezhdi Rashidov, Bozhidar Nanev, Anna-Maria Borisova, Traycho Traykov quickly spin in the mind. All these personalities are part of the foreign "public affairs". But the winner in the shadow is one - the Minister of Agriculture and Food. Along with the Prime Minister, Miroslav Naydenov works quite hard on conducting PR campaigns, most of which are quite cheap.
The minister decorated himself in 2010 with his Stara Planina standard, like a medal. By all the rules of public affairs, Mr. Naydenov sought a wide media presence for an informal dialogue with the public, which only nodded and perceived what was happening as a colorful memory from the archives of the socialist past. But the story did not end with this movie review. Shortly after the introduction of the standard, four meat producers were accused of using soy in their Stara Planina products. Well, it turned out that there is no laboratory in Bulgaria that can measure the permissible levels of soy, but we do have a standard! After testing the samples in Germany on behalf of the State Veterinary and Sanitary Control, it became clear that everything was normal. A half-hearted ministerial apology followed, licenses were returned, business was damaged and sales of Stara Planina dropped by up to 10 times on an annual basis.
This small victory, however, was not enough and the public appearances continued with the notorious action with a rather sonorous name (Operation "The Ass"), in which the import of meat trimmings was stopped with dubious arguments.
The genius of public PR has also been resurrected with the approach of Easter, along with the drama with the eggs. We stop imports from Poland to protect the domestic producer, or in the words of the minister: “…the state intervened and we almost stopped the import of Polish eggs, which are significantly cheaper”. Then we turn to the same producer and force him to “push prices down” under the threat of Polish imports being resumed. Gross state intervention on two occasions, or rather, distortion of the facts – classic Bulgarian public affair.
And to top it all off, instead of focusing its efforts on truly understanding the reasons for the price increase (seasonal factors, production deficits across Europe after the introduction of new legislation on humane treatment of hens, etc.), the state sent Simeon Dyankov to inspect stores and tightened control over the import of eggs at border crossings with Serbia. Even single shells containing 10 of the new Bulgarian gold were confiscated.
At the end of this “tale”, let’s return to etymology. According to linguists, two main types of foreign words can be distinguished in a language: those that enrich the language and those that pollute it. We call the former loanwords, and the latter – foreign words. The Bulgarian government’s public affairs is definitely foreign. All the unnecessary state intervention pollutes sectors that would otherwise function many times better. Minister Naydenov speaks populist and behaves like an all-powerful teacher who brings order to the disobedient and unintelligible students on the bench. As in the legendary Pink Floyd video clip, the teacher manipulates the opinions of the listeners and puts memorized phrases in their mouths. The students, however, are starting to get sick of the public affairs: “Hey, Miro, leave them kids alone!”
