Open letter to the government from the academic community

Since the mission of universities and academic institutions includes the protection of the values of democracy, humanism and truth, we, the citizens of the Slovak Republic working in universities and scientific institutions, take the liberty of expressing in this open letter our indignation at the administration of public affairs and the overall direction of Slovakia under your leadership. We consider it our moral and professional duty to strongly oppose the fact that you are taking steps to undermine the principles of democracy, one of the most serious manifestations of which is the deviation of our foreign policy orientation away from the advanced democratic world towards undemocratic and totalitarian states. 

We cannot stand by silently as facts acquired through the efforts of generations of scientists from many disciplines, ranging from medicine to history, are purposely questioned, ridiculed and even denied under your patronage.

We must strongly oppose the verbal attacks by government officials on students. These attacks are a disturbing reminder for us of the aggressiveness of the collapsing regime in mid-November 1989. 

Young people are our future only if they stay to live and work in Slovakia. Attacks against them, financially undernourished education, low social status of teachers and scientists, legitimising the spreaders of unscientific theories, conspiracies and disinformation, contempt for facts and education, but also by abolishing analytical departments or replacing experts in decisive positions in the state apparatus with professionally incompetent and often morally unfit people, you are not only making the state dysfunctional, but also sending a clear signal to the younger generation that they will not be able to apply their education and expertise in our country. More and more young and talented people understand this signal and are leaving to study elsewhere, many of whom will not return to Slovakia. You are depriving our university students of their classmates, our universities of their students, our parents and grandparents of physical contact with their children and grandchildren, but, above all, you are depriving this country of its future. 

We are deeply convinced that Slovakia's greatest asset is its talented and intelligent population, and our greatest economic potential is our education economy.  We consider it an irresponsible waste of our greatest common wealth to administer the state in a way that drives thousands of talented people abroad.

Based on our expertise in a wide range of disciplines, we would like to warn you that continuing to govern in the current manner will result in the inevitable decline of the state in the foreseeable future. You are gambling with the already severely frayed cohesion of the population, which could result in damage of widespread or even tragic proportions.     

In the light of the above, we therefore call on you to urgently:

1. respect the values of truth and democracy, uphold the rule of law, promote human rights and freedoms
2. not to jeopardise the anchoring of the Slovak Republic in international structures
3. stop creating an atmosphere of threat to Slovakia from internal enemies and feeding fabricated conspiracy theories to the public
4. stop questioning and denying scientific facts and legitimising disinformation
5. pursue policies that will effectively prevent the "brain drain" from our country
6. stop denigrating the young people who are the future of Slovakia
7. replace professionally incompetent people at the decisive levels of the state apparatus and its institutions with generally recognised experts
8. systematically promote the authority of science and education, including by strengthening the social prestige of scientific and educational institutions and raising the social status of the teaching profession.

Thank you in advance for your reply to this open letter.