CENTRAL COMFORT

The only "argument" that the alarmed consciousness of the new political centrists managed to find in its denunciation of the leftist menace was the phenomenon of the national treason, the same worthless curse to which we were copiously exposed during the last ten years. If all existing condemnations and criticisms are added up, one cannot discern any other identifiable characteristic for the recognition of the red monster apart from its dubious dedication to "Croatianism" and lack of loyalty to the national state and its ideological surrogate. However, why national treason, whatever that meant, would have "leftist" characteristics, and especially be "extremist", remains fundamentally unclear

by Viktor IVANCIC

Feral Tribune, Split, Croatia, June 24, 2000

Zlatko Tomcic, the president of the Parliament, visited last week the birthplace of the Radic brothers, laid wreaths at the foot of their statues and in an appropriate speech emphasized that the political messages of the Radic brothers are especially current today because "Croatia is endangered by leftist and rightist extremists". On Thursday Slobodna Dalmacija, printed a striking headline "Racan undermined by leftist extremists!" next to the announcement "left and right extremism among Croats". Vecernji List announced an interview with Stanko Lasic: "Democracy will have more problems with leftist totalitarians!' Vlado Gotovac initiated legislation for a ban of advocacy of "leftist and rightist extremist doctrines"... These are only some from the series of similar political prognoses fired during the last months very systematically, starting with Budisa, then Tomac, all the way to the pack of great man of the so-called official Croatian culture, which attempt to explain away the true and potential social chaos, and potential making of the waves in the local stale political swamp, as demented raging of "the leftist and rightist extremists". True, during the previous period we've obtained a pretty clear picture over whose graves extremist rightists are prepared to arrange righteous outbursts of urine. However, where does the extremist left piss? Dusko Cizmic Marovic, a former Communist Party activist of the "Committee intellectuals" sort, and since recently a columnist writing for Slobodna Dalmacija recently offered a reply in the form of a question: "What is the difference between wanted posters printed in Feral and posters from Karlovac?" "Posters from Karlovac", let us recall, display photographs of 130 Serbs in the uniforms of the former Krajina militia with the text "These are our neighbors". The poster was designed, printed and distributed by Tomislav Turek, the man who also organized the ritual pissing in Veljun, over the monument to Serbs killed by Ustashe [pro-Nazi Croatian puppet regime during WWII] in 1941. Naturally, Turek revealed that he should be credited for these endeavors during the erection of a monument to Ustashe officer Jure Francetic in Slunj.

Bloodsuckers and Asses

Three performances of the extremist right, according to C.Marovic [cmar means anus in Serbo-croatian (i.e. Croatian); colloquial serbo-croatian refers to sycophants as, roughly, "those who stick their heads up other people's anuses"], are identical to the "wanted posters in Feral", as "strictly speaking, the same means are used in both cases". Furthermore, explains C.Marovic, during all the past years Feral "publicly drank blood to potential vampires with such a methodical persistence, passion and asinine stubbornness that most of them quickly got used to that, so that soon, voluntary blood donors, so to speak, started visiting Feral of their own volition..."

"Strictly speaking" during the last ten years C.Marovic was as quiet as a fish, with methodical persistence, passion and stubbornness, hid with his biography and conscience in the nearest conformist hut, while outside human lives were devastated and heads rolled. However, he is now back to on the open democratic scene denounce "the extremist left", give it lectures in political correctness and send it outside for punishment because that "extremist left" during all these years, while C.Marovic methodically kept silent with crude passion drank blood to innocent "potential vampires". "Strictly speaking", C.Marovic does not even use the terms "left" and "right" because they are implied ("strictly speaking" they are bloodsuckers and asses) but he writes about "journalistic terrorism" which "has ruled unchallenged the Croatian spiritual scene for ten years"; actually, the journalists should have "an imperative mandate in the protection of fundamental human values": that is why he is defending Ivica Skaric [Split mayor] and Josip Jovic [editor-in-chief of Slobodna Dalmacija, a "patriotic" journalist] from criticism of journalists, calls for resignation, since nothing can be more important that their "right to due process". "Strictly speaking" in 1972 Drazen Budisa also had his "right to due process" when in a political trial against Budisa C.Marovic appeared as a prosecution witness; at that time C.Marovic did not methodically keep quiet, but he spoke out, and Budisa in accordance with his "right to due process" ended up in Lepoglava prison for several years. "Strictly speaking", in mid eighties in Split a furious police and judicial persecution of bloodsuckers and asses from Feral was initiated and politically correct intellectual C.Marovic, who at the time was given a lot of open space in the media and the Communist party (moreover he was a director of a publishing company) opted for methodical silence, naturally, only in order to support the "right to due process" and demonstrate respect for his "imperative mandate in the protection of fundamental human values" that are traditionally best honed in prison cells. His credibility, therefore, is a thoroughly moral question.

Pub "Medulic"

However, "strictly speaking" C.Marovic is not interesting for us at this point, apart from being a paradigm of something we recognize as a new magic line of social "suitability": the lie of the Croat political center. It is not only a deceit as a value, but deceit that is considered to be the only permissible course of action and is, in accordance with the good old habits from the Committee, prescribed by the Supreme Ideological and Moral principle and that principle could be named Central Comfort. C.Marovic interrupted his ten-years-long methodical silence on the eve of presidential elections with a shining eulogy to Drazen Budisa, in an article that was a bizarre mix of confessional prose, cheap cathartic writing, fake cleansing of conscience, pretend advocacy of principles and sycophantic sentimentality. Regardless of different political views, in spite of the fact that he was a prosecution witness in a staged political trial, according to C.Marovic, Budisa and he were always connected by "the shared need for liberty". But one paragraph from that program-like article (Budisa himself admitted on one occasion that its outline was written two years earlier) deserves to be quoted separately and in full, among other because it is possible to recognize a romantic version of well-known Krleza's pub as the scene:

"That May evening we went together, I think, to pub 'Medulic'. As is appropriate, everyone sat at their own table, the leftists at their table and the rightists at theirs. I do not drink and do not remember whether we drank anything, but we sang different songs. However, in the spirit of the times or, if not exactly in the spirit of the times, than at least in the oasis of that night, our table joined in the song 'Vila Velebita'. Then, when we later sang 'East and West are Rising', Budisa was gracious enough to join in with his table."

How touching! What an idyllic scene of national unity, including the mutual respect for different world views! That harmony in a restaurant, that drunken company in the pub "Medulic", which between two rounds of drinks helps each other with favorite marches and thereby builds "the oasis of that evening" in the "spirit of the times", is nothing else than the very lie of the Croatian political centrism, transparent just like cigarette smoke in a pub, a romantic version of the social idyll in which, look, "people sing different songs", but all participants are connected with "the common need for liberty".

Cosmetically touched up, even as nostalgic yearning for the lost "spirit of the times" and "evening oases" that mythical scene is meant for the present time. Therefore, Croatia should be that merry pub "Medulic" and all those who do not fit in its nighttime interior and rowdy soundtrack, who do not want to give in to the transparent illusion of national merriment, are allocated the role of outsiders, or more precisely, they are to be thrown out of the pub. Straight to the reality.

Black Background

In reality, Croatian neofascists, who are persistently euphemistically referred to as "the extremist right" have during the last few months managed to draw to themselves all the possible political attention. Starting with mass racist outbursts, amnesty of war crimes, causing of disturbances on the Victims of Fascism square, pissing and demolition of antifascist monuments, announcements of "the subversion of the tourist season" and social disturbances that will be led by the righteous ones wearing black shirts, greetings for Serbs with shouts "we'll show you when we come to power!", all the way to the printing of wanted posters and erection of monuments for Ustashe butchers... However, what has the red gang done during all this time? Or, let us rephrase the question, what criteria are used by the current Croatian mainstream to denounce it as "the extreme left"?

The only "argument" that the alarmed consciousness of the new political centrists managed to find in its denunciation of the leftist menace was the phenomenon of the national treason, the same worthless curse to which we were copiously exposed during the last ten years. If all existing condemnations and criticisms are added up, one cannot discern any other identifiable characteristic for the recognition of the red monster apart from its dubious dedication to "Croatianism" and lack of loyalty to the national state, and its ideological surrogate. However, why national treason, whatever that meant, would have "leftist" characteristics, and especially be "extremist", remains fundamentally unclear.

What is important is that the leading lights of the so-called political center and the heralds of the new political correctness, the singing Croats from the "Medulic" pub, are using exactly the same criteria for the labeling of the "extreme left" as Djapic's blackshirts. That outcome makes total sense. Namely, the true fascization of the Croatian society during the past decade was not conducted by Ustashe buffoons but by legally elected authorities in a very systematic manner, by using their legal infrastructure and in that enjoying ample logistical support of the so-called civic sector and purportedly independent institutions, media and intellectuals, all the way to the authorized leading lights of something that used to be referred to as the national culture. Black shirts and arms raised in the salute were only a threatening background, just as they are now.

Rag Dolls

The national traitor, today converted into an "extremist leftist", was however a favorite rag doll of the political center, whose "quiet activists" fired in his direction oodles of spittle whenever they momentarily ran out of patriotic legitimacy. Since the very crime of national treason in its essence is nothing but a cumbersome and perfidious lie, the centrist conjurers were left nothing else but to engage the natural extension of that lie and fabricate "extremist leftists". The base motivation, naturally, is the chief reason why that phantom left cannot be anything else but "extremist", i.e. "treasonous". Thus the centrists establish a classical mold; the "extremist right" is problematic because of its surplus of Croatianism, the "extremist left" because of lack of the same, and only the centrists present the desirable measure of active nationalism. Thereby, the whole social landscape is neatly divided according to the nationalist criteria, entirely banal, and therefore entirely rightist in its nature.

The label of "leftist terrorists" was used for the first time in the newly democratic conditions by Slobodan Prosperov Novak, who attached it to the signatories of a petition against the Minister of Culture, Antun Vujic. The petition was prompted by Vujic's statement that the state had no role in the emigration of some artists, who had previously lost jobs and space for public activity due to their lack of "right" blood or insufficiently prominent patriotic feelings. National treason is the main axis of this story because "voluntarily departed" artists did not have a "leftist" but "treasonous" vocation and the brand of "terrorist left" was after the fact imprinted by a person who actively participated in the production of national traitors. Let us remind our readers that at that time Prosperov Novak sent letters to the International Center of PEN denouncing Feral for "slandering and muddying prominent member of the Croatian PEN Dr. Franjo Tudman"! The matters with terrorists are such that there is no need for discussion. "Terrorists" should be removed and neutralized. Extremist labels are mass-produced in order to deny the right to legitimate public dialog. They are a practical manifestation of the banishment from C.Marovic's pub in which the laziness of spirit rules and in which the singing of marches in chorus creates the atmosphere in which any other discussion is senseless. "You're out!" say the centrists, red in face, because they do not see their position as in some sort of a center. On the contrary they see that center extending to cover the whole political scene, the whole singing Croatian pub in which an empty gathering is celebrating and drinking, while "red and black extremists" are climbing against windows and making faces on the outside.

Demons and Angels

At work here is actually open denial of the right to criticism that would be even slightly different from rightist howls, especially if that criticism makes dirty conscience uncomfortable and attempts to portray pro-Ustashe escapades the way they really are - merely a vulgar expression of the Croatian mainstream from the nineties. That is why that criticism was labeled as "terror" and "terror" is only seriously considered in the sense of elimination. One of the important reasons forcing C.Marovic to emphatically equate Feral's and fascist "terror" (just like Novak is capable of equating the defenders of "Witches from Rio" with hijackers of airplanes) lies simply in the trouble that Feral has for years systematically unmasked that neofacsist "terror", while C.Marovic on the other hand fed it with his methodical silence.

A recent group harangue against movie director Lordan Zafranovic, in which, prompted by Zafranovic's interview, a decent-sized company of liberal Croatian intellectuals joined the action "re-occupation in 26 scenes" [pun on Zafranovic's best-known movie, "occupation in 26 scenes"], demonstrated to what extent the influence of national treason is irreplaceable in the detection of "the ideological code of extremist leftists". Slaven Letica on that occasion even fell back on Julian Benda, shamelessly falsifying his Treason of Intellectuals, because Benda writes about the treasonous work of those who "serve the state and the nation", and about "intellectuals who have turned their state in a tower defying the heavens". On the other hand Letica asserts that Zafranovic "has always been, and, it seems, will always be a dissident against everything Croatian!" Then he recalls "an absolutely correct headline" published by Globus in 1991, next to an article written by Letica. The headline states: "Lordan Zafranovic, the movie director whose movie 'Jasenovac'[biggest Ustashe concentration camp for Serbs, jews, Roma and antifascist Croats] is used as the chief propaganda tool for the fanning of unprecedented anti-Croatian hysteria in the ranks of the Yugoslav People's Army and Montenegrin Chetniks. He ran away to Vienna where he plans to shoot other anti-Croatian movies."

The fact that nine years later that rabid wanted poster remains "absolutely correct" testifies about the political correctness which today flows in the same direction as during the "leaden years". The only difference is that now "the traitors" are forced to put on a new straight jacket, the one of "extremist leftists". Slaven Letica, the blas� guru of the "liberal center" in his article from 1991 was even more picturesque. He provided illustrated tables with categories "angels" and "demons"; "Demons" include Aleksandar Tijanic, Goran Babic, Mila Stula, Mira Furlan, and Lordan Zafranovic, while the "angels" are Sven Lasta, Radoslav Katicic, Ivan Cerovac, and Slobodan Praljak. That was the principle of "literal demonization" in Letica's style. It was meant for the gray masses capable of consuming only the most literal messages. And if one today mutters something about the injustice inflicted to Mira Furlan with such "literal demonization", for example, the president of the Croatian PEN will denounce you as a "leftist terrorist". He will throw you out of the pub in which, traditionally, only "angels" are served.

False Self-Portrayal

Nenad Polimac also joined in the all-encompassing liberal barking about "leftist extremist" Lordan Zafranovic, asserting that Slobodan Praljak ended up among Letica's "angels" "before the destruction of the old bridge in Mostar" (!), and the series was sealed by Jurica Pavicic in Slobodna Dalmacija under the headline "Gifted and Dangerous", concluding that "one should not be surprised that "the reaction to Zafranovic in 1991 was rough", as he was the "state promoted director of the post-WWII Croatia" and because his movies, attention please, "proclaimed a totally orthodox message about devils and angels" (!), and as such, with that "message about angels and devils", "offered a banal vision of people and history"! Therefore, by dividing people to "devils" and "angels" Zafranovic deserved to be sent to the devil! Because liberal democrats, unlike the "extremists", do not offer "a banal vision of people and history". In the conglomerate of the Croatian mainstream Jurica Pavicic represents an especially colorful character. In one debate, several years ago, while he still hunted and publicly denounced "war deserters", he wrote for himself that he was "a sincere leftist"; later during a public debate with a prominent rightist he declared to be "a very moderate civic rightist". That internal misunderstanding is nothing but the rotten lie of the Croatian political centrism; that is that Nothing that forever tries to falsely portray itself because it does not really know what it is nor who it is, but it does know what it is supposed to represent. The fabrication of the "extremist left" has been undertaken exactly to shore up one's own nonexistent identity, which is then defended by volleys of verbal fire and terminology that calls for urgent elimination.

However, in today's Croatia, there is no "extremist left". In Croatia the left does not even exist as a coherent and organized political force. Racan's "leftist" government is willing to much more rigidly follow cruel market rules of liberal capitalism than the HDZ's government; worker's protests are mostly led by rightist nationalist trade unions, whose leaders spit on "Communists" through bullhorns; profascist HSP announced that this fall it will organize social disturbances and place itself at the head of the endangered workers... What would have happened if those developments were marked by demands for the renewal of socialist self-management and return of social [state] ownership?

History in Present Tense

The fabrication of "extremist left", however, perseveres exactly on the line of C.Marovic's "protection of fundamental human values", and in a very perfidious manner. It labels consistent advocacy of the respect for human rights as extremism. Those who oppose the nationalist hysteria (or refuse to take part in it) are denounced as "extremists" because they refuse to conform to the desirable measure of the nationalist hysteria, since it is after all "ours", and that measure is prescribed by the Supreme Principle of the Croatian political centrism, its Central Comfort [a pun on Central Committee of the Communist party]. After all, that was a specialty of the former political leadership which, based on the same ideological mold, called for "all-Croatian reconciliation" or, on the other hand, for "social divisions". When last year blood was spilled on the Victims of Fascism square, namely when neo-Ustashe fell on the peaceful protesters with sticks and stones, the spokesperson of the ruling party, Ivica Ropus, concluded that "a conflict between two extremist groups" was to be blamed. The President's office, through the mouth of Vesna Skare-Ozbolt, condemned "savage behavior of both 'blacks' and 'reds'". The man of the future, Zlatko Tomcic added icing on the cake by saying "we believe that antifascism is as much a thing of the past as fascism!" Thus, we arrived to the promised tomorrow without antifacism.

Fabrication of the "extremist left" social monster is a cry of those who cannot imagine a state without national traitors. Such a state, however, contains the despised fascist essence, and the true problem here is that some do not want to decisively discard that rotten nucleus. On the contrary, the desire to protect public and hidden fascism from "extremists" prevails.

Vlado Gotovac's infantile proposal, infantile because it can in no circumstances be implemented and is objectively unimaginable, was used as a pretext for a supposedly historical debate, but conducted in such a manner in which "history" was viewed in present tense. An editorial in Slobodna Dalmacija "based on Gotovac's formula" correctly recognizes that "Ivica Racan has a historic chance" and "can become a true leader of this nation", but only if he "destroys leftist terrorists who are scheming behind his back"! The leaders of that "terror" are certainly not Baltic, Dragosavac, Vrhovec, [old-guard Croatian Communists] and other political mummies, as they have hardly anything to do with the Croatian reality.

Question and Pissing

The symbols of "leftist extremism" are the same as those that were recognized in the nineties according to the criteria of marching Croatian nationalism. The problem is that the intellectual elite of the so-called political center does not have the strength to give up national traitors, or the consciousness about the Nation as a living being, that should at the same time be protected from danger and trained to obey only one master. Because of that, C.Marovic, who in that past was really a dogmatic Communist, with such ease can draw a parallel between Feral's editorial policy and the fascist rage in Lika. The energy for that act is drawn from the dumbest version of opportunism.

A few years ago Feral Tribune, accused of national treason, was ritually burnt by organized neo-fascists on the People's square in Split. No one, none of the passers by said a single word of protest. Perhaps one should have invited Biserka Legradic from Veljun to douse that flame with a spray of authentic Croatian urine? Perhaps C.Marovic, who at the time kept his tongue firmly in his mouth, would have helped her, so that that would have been an appropriate way for him to publicly express his "need for liberty" and dedication to the "protection of fundamental human values"?

Namely, there is an organic need of the intellectuals such as C.Marovic to equalize writing and pissing, pretending not to understand what the problem is.

Translated on December 7, 2000