], he had come to accept the idea of Slovenian independence as a second-best option in lack of better alternatives, as every plan for reforming Yugoslavia while conceding more autonomy to Slovenia and Croatia had failed.

[1] In 1991 he worked as interpreter for foreign media during the Ten-Day War, and witnessed first-hand the Yugoslav-Slovene armed clashes at the Austrian border in Gornja Radgona.

He also participated in the social liberal think tank Forum 21, led by former President of Slovenia Milan Kučan.

From 2001 he started the journal Sarajevo notebooks, in order to re-establish communication and linkages between intellectuals and activists throughout former Yugoslavia, and create regional public forums of reconciliation.

An opponent to the everything-goes schools of modern thought, such as postmodernism, Debeljak's work was informed by an "Enlightenment" ideal of right and wrong, good and bad.

[citation needed] In addition to poetry and cultural criticism, Debeljak also worked as a columnist for the most important newspaper in Slovenia, Delo.