All the daily newspapers published photographs of the grieving faces of the people wearing expensive black clothes, as appropriate for the last farewell to a person who has left us the deed that will be remembered, and studied by the future generations.
You think I'm recalling the funeral of my favorite writer Antun Soljan? I don't think so. His death was only superficially recorded, despite the fact that he left us books without which this small literature would be even poorer. You think I'm remembering the funeral of the great writer Miljenko Smoje? Not really, because he too was given only a few seconds on TV, tightly pushed in at the end of the News, just before the weather report.
It would be unjust to say that the man from the beginning of the text, who had chosen a significant place for his eternal rest, a tomb right next Gojko Susak's and Bruno Busic's, hasn't left a trace behind, a trace as deep as a plowed up furrow, in which cocaine "grew" instead of wheat. This furrow had made the young deceased very rich, it enabled him to fill the walls of his luxurious flat with paintings that he probably couldn't distinguish from each other, and it enabled him to spread his "business", using the skills of that specific breed of "businessmen" that grew under the patronage of Franjo Tudjman. Vjeko Slisko's funeral is just an illustration of the horrible myth about people without identity, people who belong to the very bottom of the moral scale, and who have, thanks to the media, become an inalienable part of the quasi-elite, tied up firmly to the tops of the government, police and army.
People like Bagaric and Slisko would in normal societies be treated as ordinary criminals, and the only people interested in them would be the members of the police and judiciary. However, in Croatia, a country amputated from all real values such as work and education, these people have become myths. Considering this, it is completely normal that prominent public persons stand beside people like Igor Mikola, one of Mercep's killers from Pakracka Poljana, at Slisko's funeral. On the same day, General Roso sent flowers to the funeral of Slisko's murderer, somewhere in the Netherlands, paying respect in this way to another myth of one doubtful war, which was based on lies, crime, murders and quick enrichment.
In order to defend their fortunes, the drags of society in every dictatorship must take the position of an elite, and become in this way untouchable. When the strong forces of the media hop in to help transform the notorious murderers, drug dealers and criminals into the country elite, the circle closes, and we get the code of socially desirable behavior which reduces every true value to something ridiculous and useless.
During those sad ten years it was normal that poorly educated boys and girls gathered from all over become media stars and gain prestige in society and career precisely by associating with army and criminal junta, who, in turn, became role models thanks to the media coverage by those same awestruck boys and girls. Mutual manipulation has enabled the creation of the myth of the leaders of criminal organizations, just as the one of the generals of the patriotic war, which is the reason why it is completely normal that a funeral is attended by all kinds of people, with only one joint characteristic - complete fascination with one semi-intelligent criminal.
Quite naturally, a country with such a system of values has already been abandoned by generations of young, educated people impregnated with bitterness and disgust, with lost hopes about the new government, which still hasn't showed any interest in reevaluating the false reality governed by the men of dark. Even at their own funerals.
If it weren't like this, then the Defense Minister would have resigned after Feral's revelation about the criminal activities of, for example, General Gotovina, but instead of this he said that MORH had invested another 2 million kunas in the house that Gotovina paid 18 000 DM. Especially when we know that all the top people of Tudjman's government realized their "accommodation rights" in the same way.
But, since we live in a country where lie has been truth for years, and the title of the boss of the organized crime is appreciated more than that of a doctor of sciences, the Croats are quite content with Prime Minister's claim about the link between the organized crime and "certain HDZ members, as well as some members of the army and the police". After all, the Defense Minister Jozo Rados called this same statement made by the head of the police Ranko Ostojic incorrect and irresponsible, and his behavior unprofessional and frivolous.
So this is how the Minister of the institution filled with crime behaves, a man evidently infatuated with banal war profiteers who have stolen apartments thanks to their military ranks. Damir Krsticevic paid 136,000 kunas for his 160 square meters flat, Mirko Norac paid only 50,000 kunas for 100 meters flat, the creature known as Cesic Rojs has invaded 181 square meters of space, etc. all in the elite Zagreb neighborhoods, and all signed by certain Iva Pasalic, a mighty "colonel", the boss of the MORH housing department. Is this lady ever going to face an investigative magistrate for abuse of the state funds? No way, it would be revenge over the Pasalic family. Will the defense Minister resign? Please! - as Racan would say. Precisely the immunity of those army criminals means a preservation of the rotten mythology of this society, as well as a guarantee of the peaceful sleep of the new government.
While I was writing this, I received a message from Mira Furlan, a Croat actress living, as she used to believe, temporarily, in Los Angeles. With sorrow, bitterness and disappointment she writes how she lost her apartment in Zagreb in a shameful court procedure cynically called "The city of Zagreb against Mira Furlan". This second banishment of Mira Furlan from Croatia is another horrible message of this government: we do not want to change Tudjman's system of values! How will the public react? With a petition? Public protests? It probably won't react at all, because such public doesn't even exist. It has been eaten up and spat out by the new political elite, which has successfully prolonged the time of shame, but also of fear, and made possible that some truck driver "general" Rojs enjoys all the rights of a verified Croatian cultural great, and actress Mira Furlan the painful status of a worthless refugee.