ATAKA, the political phenomenon led by Volen Siderov into winning 21 seats in Bulgaria’s 40th National Assembly, has been described as ultra-nationalist, anti-Roma, anti-Semitic, anti-EU, anti-NATO, homophobic, and xenophobic.
None of these descriptions is accurate, says Dr Petar Beron, deputy leader of Ataka.
“All of them are sheer slander. The only thing that is true is that this is a nationalist organisation, but this is not a bad name. It is something that we are proud of, because we want to be the same kind of nationalists as all the other noble countries – such nationalists as Chirac, Schroeder, as Bush. Bush is the biggest nationalist now because he wants the interests of the United States to be defended everywhere.
“If we want to do this for the interests of Bulgaria, they call us ultra-nationalists, and I don’t think that this is fair. We want to be measured with the same measure as anyone else.”
Taking the descriptions one by one, he starts: “We are not anti-Roma at all”.
“The problem with the gypsies, or now they call them Roma, is a European problem, not just a problem of Bulgaria. It is very difficult to solve, first because of the very conservative way of life of these people, which is very difficult to change.”
Secondly, he says, the approach to the issue of the Roma is very different from what would be appropriate.
“They have some privileges which are unacceptable to us. They are poor, they live in misery, but they are privileged. They are privileged to not have to pay for electricity, they are privileged to have a lenient approach taken to them in court, because otherwise they accuse Bulgaria in court in Strasbourg of racism.”
All Bulgarian citizens should be equal before the law, as the country’s constitution says.
“Equal rights, equal obligations. Whoever is contributing to society may enjoy all these rights, but whoever is not contributing, who is destroying the cities, and stealing, is not entitled to these rights – they are entitled to go to court and be sentenced.”
“We think that rights are not something fallen from Heaven, they are part of the social contract.”
The Roma need to change their behaviour and their lifestyle, including for their own sake.
“To teach their children not to steal, to go to school – we want them to be educated; to clean up their streets – what is wrong with this? We want them to refrain from organising groups that steal, for instance from the orchards.”
Beron says that Roma steal harvests in villages: “they act as parasites”.
“We want them to work for their bread. If they want cherries, if they want potatoes, let them plant them. The state should help them to do this, to give them land. But that social amenities are given to them, just because ‘everybody’s entitled’, does not solve the problem”.
All who can work, should work, if they want to be treated as decent, equal Bulgarian citizens, he says.
He describes EuroRoma, which is probably the largest Roma political formation, as having been set up with European and foreign money, and says that it is an ethnic party, and as such represents a violation of article 11 of the Bulgarian constitution that forbids such parties.
As regards Bulgaria’s community that is of ethnic Turkish descent, Beron says, “We are not anti-Turk”.
But, he says, Ataka cannot accept the role being played by Ahmed Dogan, the leader of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, the party supported mainly by Bulgarians of ethnic Turkish descent.
“Dogan is doing things that no other normal European country would accept. He is trying to make Bulgarians feel uncomfortable in their own country. Mr Dogan is trying to swallow the whole country, little by little, with his ethnic party.”
There were areas of the country where Turkish, not Bulgarian, must be spoken by Bulgarians in order to access services, Beron says.
In the Agriculture Ministry, Nihat Kabil (the MRF-nominated minister at the close of the Simeon Saxe-Coburg government) introduced the use of Turkish, and addressed Bulgarian officials using a Turkish word meaning “infidel”, says Beron. “We will not tolerate this in our own country. Try to do this in Greece and see what would be the consequences”.
“We don’t have anything against the Turks – they are, contrary to the gypsies, people who are hard-working. They are not a nuisance to society, as most of the gypsies are. But we were under Turkish occupation for 500 years, and they want to perpetuate this now through other means.”
Should the ethnic Turkish population work for the interests of Bulgaria, this would be acceptable, “but when they work as a fifth column for Turkey, we cannot accept this”.
Regarding Jewish people, Beron says that Bulgaria is the country in Europe where there is the least discrimination against Jews.
As an MP, he went to Israel in 1991 as part of a parliamentary delegation.
“They were so thankful for the salvation of the Jews in Bulgaria in World War 2 that I felt uneasy because I personally did not contribute to this.” In the war, 50 000 Bulgarian Jews were spared from transportation to Nazi death camps because of the courage of Bulgarians who stood up against the Reich.
There has been little anti-Semitism in Bulgaria, he says.
“We have many Jews in government now, in Parliament, some of them open, some of them hidden under Bulgarian names, but Jews all the same. You see that one of them is trying to be Speaker of Parliament (this interview was conducted at the time that it had emerged in media reports that the Bulgarian Socialist Party’s George Pirinski, whose mother was of Jewish descent, was to be nominated as the National Assembly’s presiding officer), the other one Prime Minister (BSP leader Sergei Stanishev’s mother was also reported to be of Jewish descent).
“We have nothing against them when they work for Bulgaria. When they get their orders from foreign Jewish institutions, we cannot accept this. It is very simple. We are against the activities of Mr (Solomon) Passi not because his father is a Jew, but because he is serving foreign interests and foreign forces.”
Who are these foreign interests and foreign forces, Beron is asked.
“First of all, the overall project of the United States for world domination, which no one can deny. Second, the US-based Jewish organisations that are dictating to Mr Passi what to do and what not to do. This is our deep conviction.”
Beron says that his son is an American citizen, living in Washington DC, and his daughter-in-law is American. “So, I have nothing against this country (the US). But I cannot accept an ambassador here in Sofia who is calling the Bulgarian ministers and telling them what to do.”
Bulgaria, Beron says, is not a colony or a dominion. “We try to be an independent country, like Greece for example, with national dignity. We want to be equal among equals and to have more consideration from the foreign ambassadors”.
That US ambassador James Pardew makes statements about issues like judicial reform and military reform – “giving very blunt instructions” – affects the dignity of the Bulgarian people.
That Ataka is labelled as “Nazi” is meaningless, he says, because the party has no ambitions to invade foreign countries – in fact, it wants to withdraw Bulgarian troops from foreign countries.
And yet, it is put to Beron, someone felt comfortable enough with their perception of Ataka to post an anti-Semitic document, purportedly listing 1500 influential Jews in Bulgaria, on Ataka’s website forum?
“This was a provocation.” The list, he says, contained the names of people who were not Jews. The list was concocted in 2002 and had been posted on several sites since then.
“Ataka is not against people because of their ethnic origin.”
The party’s appeal, he said, was based on its true aims, which included stopping corruption and thievery. “Forget about this list. Anybody can put such a list on anybody’s website”.
On the European Union, he dismisses the description of Ataka being anti-EU as “rubbish”.
“We cannot stay outside the EU, but we don’t like the way that the talks were carried out. This was done without any clarity. Chapters that were closed were not shown to anybody. The president of the Bulgarian Academy of Science asked that the chapter on science and technology be shown to him, to be told that it was ‘top secret’.”
He describes the agreement on the closure of units of Kozlodui nuclear power plant as “scandalous”.
There should be real negotiations, he says, rather than “yes-men and yes-women” simply accepting orders from Brussels, and European functionaries being treated as gods.
On NATO, Beron says the alliance is an aggressive organisation, not a defensive one. “NATO has not defended anyone up to now. It was created by the West for defence against the Soviet Union. Now they are trying to impose a new role of NATO which is not written, as far as I know, in the statutes of NATO – to fulfill the global purposes of the US.”
NATO will be disbanded one day, he says, because it is outdated. There will be a new defensive organisation. But for the time being, it is not possible for Bulgaria to leave NATO. In the unstable Balkans, when Bulgaria’s army has been purposefully destroyed, Bulgaria has no choice but to remain in NATO because it needs it should the need for defence arise.
At the same time, US bases, like any foreign bases, should not be allowed in Bulgaria. “Bulgarian military bases should be open to NATO, but remain under Bulgarian military control.”
That the party is xenophobic, he says, is “a nonsense”.
“Half of my family is married to foreigners, including in Israel. I am chairman of the Association Friends of Africa, and of the association for friendship with Indonesia. I have been to many foreign countries.
“We just want Bulgaria to be predominantly a country of Bulgarians, just like France is a country of the French and Germany of the Germans. You know the German anthem, ‘Deutschland Ueber Alles?’ If we asked for such an anthem in Bulgaria, they would call us nationalists. We do not want Bulgaria to be ‘ueber alles’ but we want it to be respected. To be a country where Bulgarians are the predominant etnos. This is the national state of Bulgarians. This is not xenophobia.”
His recruitment policy at the Museum of Natural History, he says, has always been to appoint on the basis of competence, not ethnic group or nationality.
“When we say that we do not want non-Bulgarians in the government, it doesn’t mean that we are against somebody of another ethnic origin. We want people who are not acting for foreign interests. There are people of pure Bulgarian ethnic origin who are acting against Bulgarian interests, and these are also non-Bulgarians.”
As to homophobia, he considers this a question of character, not sexuality. “We do not want to be ruled by such people.”
“Things like the laws that have been accepted in Holland and Spain, on same-sex marriages, we do not want such laws. We are old-fashioned people. If they want to have such relationships, let them. These are weird people, let them be weird, let them be as they want to be, but let them not impose their weirdness on others. The normal situation is a heterosexual situation.”
But, he says, such matters are not the core issue. The real issues are those like privatisation, and the real resentment of Ataka is not about its views, but that the party wants to see prosecutions for illegal acts during privatisations.
Has Ataka received threats, considering the controversy that surrounds it?
“The ordinary people are ringing, day and night, to express support. Support from everywhere. If you see the analysis of our vote, you’ll see that most people were educated, middle-aged, intellectuals, with strong support too from young people. If elections were held now, we’d have 50 MPs, at least. The results would be crushing for the thieves. They think that entering Parliament, we shall become like them, but we shall not. We have decent people, lawyers, doctors, army officers – they are respected people in their constituencies. I don’t think they will yield to the pressure to become like the others.”

Interviewer's note: taxidermy and politics

TRAPPED forever in poses of rigid but futile aggression, the stuffed wild animals in Sofia's Natural History Museum provide a tempting analogy for the politics of Ataka. Petar Beron, before taking up his seat as an MP on July 11, was still director of the museum, and it was there that this interview was conducted. He came down from his office to meet me at the entrance of the museum (entrance fee: 50 stotinki for children, pensioners, and students, one lev for Bulgarians, two leva for foreigners) and, with impeccable courtesy, insisted on playing tour guide, showing off the exhibits, leading me through the atmosphere of perceptible humidity and a whiff of dustiness. In turn, I murmured and nodded politely at each point of pride, refraining from pointing out that, coming as I do from Africa, I had seen many of the animals on display live, vital and vigorous. A glass-eyed relic of past glory, sometimes with a tiny fold of sagging hide, is not quite the same. In his office, shared with a secretary, one wall is lined to the ceiling with books, including his own, the covers showing his face younger and firmer, the beard as bushy but much darker, taken at the time he was one of the leaders of the post-communist wave of democracy, when he was a key figure in the Union of Democratic Forces, and at one point came close to being Prime Minister. His staff, and his fellows from Ataka who came and went as the interview proceeded, defer to him with politeness and respect. The previous night, when I had been introduced to him to get this interview, the person who did so described me laughingly as a “Jewboy” (an ancestral claim, however objectionable the term, true of that person himself), but Beron received me not as the enemy, but as the conduit of what he hoped to clarify in the interview. This newspaper, he said, was vital to its audience of expatriates and foreigners finding out what Ataka really stands for. Throughout the interview, I found myself using one of time-honoured techniques of the interviewer, of nodding and murmuring at appropriate junctures in the flow of words. It is human nature for many interview subjects to be encouraged by this, by the way: to misread the real message, which is no more than “I'm listening”, as “I agree with you”.