Croatia: Still Hostage of Communist Fury

 

 

The violent communist furore unleashed from Serbia and within Croatia from rebel Serbs and pro-Communists in 1991 when Croats voted overwhelmingly to secede from communist Yugoslavia has not died down to a tolerable degree despite the horrible war of aggression being long over, with Croatia – a victorious independent state on its way to full democracy. Although physical violence in opposition to freedom and independence is not to be found in Croatia today a perhaps nastier type of violence keeps eroding peace and maintains deep ideological divides from the past afloat.

Retired Colonel Mijo Crnoja, resigned 28 January 2016, just six days after being sworn in as minister for veterans’ affairs in new government of Croatia. His resignation came as a consequence of a tantrum media lynch spurred on by the Social Democrat (communist) operatives who alleged (falsely) that he had acted illegally by registering as his residential address a shed, in which he did not live, on a piece of land in Samobor (town near Zagreb) he received as a war veteran with favourable conditions – including a loan – to build his house on within 3 years. The allegations suggested that Crnoja registered that address as his residence because taxes were lower in Samobor than the Capital Zagreb and, hence, is accused of avoiding taxes and that he should have built his house within 3 years rather than breaching his veterans’ loan contract. An independent legal team appointed to look into these allegations found Crnoja had done nothing wrong nor did he breach any laws or contracts of Croatia, Crnoja, like a true and honest man, offered his resignation to the new government nevertheless, explaining that because of the unsavoury media scandals made up of lies and false allegations he does not “… want to be a burden to the government“.

 

But of course, it’s as clear as a sunny day: the die-hard communists and their friends who do not want any reference to communist crimes out in the public let alone condemning them, who did not want an independent or democratic Croatia, did not and do not really care about Crnoja’s residential circumstances – what they evidently care about is that Crnoja’s announced “register of traitors of Croatian interests” never gets off the ground because they or their fathers or mothers may become a name on that register. Having ones name on such a register would perhaps threaten the nest-egg of income they’ve had as politically appointed operatives in jobs that to a plain eye appear “normal”, or, they simply are agents of those in whose interests it is to keep undermining Croatian society into perpetual ideological division between communists and non-communists where the former are presented as better deserving of Croatian freedom even if they fought against it one way or another! They fight and they will fight against lustration any way they can.

A large number of psychological and otherwise scientific studies have supported the anecdotal view that humour and laughter are therapeutic for relieving tension and anxiety. Croatia’s evident opponents to lustration, such as the artistic collective SKROZ, have, in what strongly appears as an effort to reduce anxiety from guilt of many who could end up on the properly and evidence-based constructed register of traitors, hurried last week into creating a humour-inspired website “Register of traitors” where anyone can put their name down as traitor and the reason why they consider themselves as traitors. Collective SKROZ have been described as a group of people who work towards tolerance of diversity in Croatian society – and yet, by the very act of starting their own “register of traitors” that’s meant to ridicule a minister’s announced initiative, they make steps in denying the government minister the right to implement his initiative in a fair manner! As expected – in a country still buzzing with former active communist families thriving on ideological divide – several thousand entries (alluding to loyalties to nationalism, communism, insulting racial or ethnic or sexual slurs and discrimination) appeared on the website – attracting a media frenzy most misplaced – within the same two days during which their other comrades were further agitating the public by sowing false allegations against the newly appointed minister for veterans’ affairs, Crnoja. The entries on the “SKROZ register of traitors” website and the whole exercise of this obviously politically charged initiative created an atmosphere of humour and ridicule directed at Crnoja and the new government. But, as fate and fair consequences would have it, this atmosphere of humor and ridicule is firing right back at its creators. For it is as clear as a sunny day that their humour and ridicule are nothing other than blatant defence mechanisms through which these “self-appointed traitors” are trying to distance their guilty ego from their real Self; they are avoiding the real truth that among them or their family there really are true traitors of Croatian interests and this truth hurts and they do not want the pain so they ridicule; they banalise and try to render trivial the disquieting truth that Croatian independence did and does have enemies from within – in some cases it could even be they themselves!

So, as I said above, the nongovernmental organisation SKROZ art collective raced ahead of Minister Mijo Crnoja to set up a website, filled with nasty and misguided self-importance: “we have not only hastened the identification of traitors but have also saved the newly formed government from the torture of having to implement procedures of public procurement and other lawfully regulated bothers…,” says on the website.

 

How utterly depraved!

 

Then the group invited all Croats who felt they had betrayed their country to voluntarily register themselves as “guilty”. The “guilt” registered has panned out with a significant number of statements that are the hate speech one supposes SKROZ collective would not want to be associated with (?). Yet, days into the website it has not been shut down nor hatred inciting “statements” adequately moderated! They plan to have the website open on a permanent basis! What a desperate attempt to try and dissuade the government from pointing fingers at true traitors of Croatian interests.

SKROZ collective keeps the banner of hate talk fluttering about and yet, only a couple of days before, journalist Marko Juric and Z1 TV were temporarily shut down for alleged hate speech as it exposed Serb Orthdox priests from Zagreb singing Serb Chetnik songs to and glorifying Serb Chetnik Murderers!

The new Croatian government has a great deal of work ahead of it in cleaning up the absolutely atrocious and awful mess the former leftist government left in the media arena. It’s most disturbing seeing the blatant discrimination being practiced in public media in Croatia and that discrimination to be in favour of communist totalitarian regime sympathisers or left-wing political arena, as it were. The e-media authority that shut down Z1 TV has not even batted an eye against the SKROZ collective website where there are thousands of snapshots in the form of phrases or statements that are designed to incite hatred and inflame ideological division within the Croatian society.
I do trust that if by any chance SKROZ collective are in receipt of any Croatian government funding the same funding is withdrawn forthwith. For not only does a non-government organisation such as SKROZ give itself the task of ridiculing a serious national issue such as traitorous behaviour that undermines freedom and independence but it feeds hate speech and incitement of hatred via its website.

Sadly, but evidently under the pressure of public ridicule that stemmed from the SKROZ website, Minister Crnoja announced that the focus of the new veteran affairs minister and his associates will not be any kind of registry, but much more important existential, social, and health problems of the [veteran] population and resigned his ministerial post withing days! What a shame he pulled away from the idea of participating in lustration by way of a well defined register of traitors. What a shame he resigned! Lustration was never going to be easy and the sooner the new government of Croatia accepts that and acts decisively in ridding Croatia of communist remnants the better. A good thing that hovers with promise of better days to come for freedom and democracy is that thanks to the Member of Parliament, retired general Zeljko Glasnovic, the need for lustration retains its strong voice in the parliament and on the streets.

 

The battle over what kind of society Croatia should be looks far from over. Thee are still many communists or former communists or those who are not ready to admit that communist Yugoslavia truly was a totalitarian regime condemned by the modern world of today!

Hence, we can expect many more rallies against the new government especially now that lustration is openly talked about in the Parliament and some newly elected parliamentarians, part of new government coalition, are asking for a review of funding supports to non-profit media internet portals and non-profit NGOs and their activities. About time someone implemented proper audits of NGOs in Croatia as many have been cradles and nests of communist anti-Croatian independence, for too long. Rallies against the new government and its minister for the culture, Zlatko Hasanbegovic, are also expected from the communist league particularly because the minister has a couple of days ago done away with support funding for several smaller internet media/social outlets and plans to cleanse the media environment of political rot that keeps poisoning progress into democracy and keeps stifling the processing and condemnation of communist crimes. Furthermore, the new Croatian government differentiates loudly between communists and antifascists, saying clearly that communists of Yugoslavia were not antifascists as they pretend to be and this is a big thorn in the eyes of communist sympathisers. Their tempers are likely to flare up more but they had it too good for many decades as reward for their political allegiance – it’s time Croatia went fully democratic and many more positions in society and workplaces earned through professional merit, not political sentiment and allegiance. Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps. (Syd)