Let's look at it from a different point of view. Was anyone ashamed on the day when courageously, with clear conscience, they killed the kid from Macedonia, because they were convinced that he was a kid from Serbia? Or, did anyone of the political mentors of the past (and still continuing) violence set out to the village of Kavadarci in Macedonia at least to express condolences to Sasko's parents? Or, was that historical date that is even today "solemnly" commemorated by always one and the same handful of fools and extremists actually a beginning of the long walk through violence and hate towards the other and different? Yesterday, the object of that hate were Serbs, Yugonostalgics... Today Roma, residents of Split who dare think differently, the president of the republic, women, Jews, dogs... The scenario hasn't changed, its political mentors also haven't changed; historical revisionism that suddenly erased, in the name of the sacred soil, every proof of crime and hatred is also the same as before. All of this is similarly followed by the lack of shame that should be implied by such a superficial treatment of events.
Is anyone today ashamed because of the orchestrated violence and the murder of Split that went on for several years? Perhaps the mayor? The man that will be remembered as a supporter of continuous pro-Ustashe violence and a good host for the extremist right, which keeps trying to stage attempts of state coups in this city.
Only those who were ashamed when the kid from Macedonia was murdered are ashamed even today, when the streets of Split ache under the weight of howling - in defense of infamous Mirko Norac or a minor editor of a miserable newspaper. They are ashamed of the paramilitary group that under the distinguished sponsorship of Tudman-Hebrang's party and spying governors, but also with shameful silence of the ruling coalition, insults Roma by denouncing all of their political opponents as Gypsies. For them shame, unease and impotence were the only things left over in the face of onslaught of the current Split reality. The reality in the streets where shameless entities fight for their even more prosperous future. Or consider the incident in the military facility "Dracevac" where the same "citizens", led by a mentally disturbed individual, who gets 18,000 kunas a month from the state, controls several apartments, and answers to a fake rank of colonel, insult the president of the republic, or repeated scenes from basketball games where fans raise their arms in the fascist salute, while the Police hear and see nothing; or the reality at the Hajduk soccer stadium where well directed fans promote violence for political purposes, under the election sign of the rightist coalition "We are also the Croat Block"...
Therefore, the old HDZ's fool, Fr. Ante Bakovic is correct when he says that today Split and Mostar are "the most Croat cities". And really, is there any difference between the recent violence in Mostar, violence in Banja Luka and Trebinje, and violence in Split? The only difference is in the perpetrators of that violence. In Banja Luka and Trebinje Chetniks continue to "kill" in peace, while here, on the other hand, the perpetrators are their Ustashe counterparts. And this has nothing to do with a purported lack of political culture, or ordinary "hate speech", or some sort of an "attempted rightist march that will not fly", as Prime Minister Racan keeps lamenting. This is elementary, base Ustashe ideology [fascism] that is orchestrated by the polished HDZ leadership and parts of the military structures, both retired and active officers, those who recognize authorities only if they control them.
Racan may understand, maybe he won't, that the right that according to him "won't fly" has already not only marched in Split but also in to all the vital state institutions. Actually, to be more precise, it never left those institutions. Because Racan and his lot did not want to name things by their real name, because even today, after the debacle of the rule of law in Split, especially in the circle of a military facility, the significance of an attack on a president of the state and the commander in chief is being diminished by Racan's educational pontification that Mesic "should not have responded to those who insulted him" or that "Mesic should have apologized to the residents of Split", as Budisa [leader of the Croatian Social Liberal party, HSLS] tells us from the point of view of the rightist madness.
By protecting the HSLS's Minister of Defense, the quiet protector of all the dark developments in the military, his party boss again lies in public claiming that the secret service in time warned president Mesic about the mess that awaited him at the celebration of the 4th Guard Brigade in Split, which, among other, included former secret service [SIS] agents as well as "general" Damir Krsticevic, favored by the HSLS.
Was Budisa the only person informed timely by his friends from the Security-Information Service (SIS) that the mayor of Split and a member of his party would again join criminals and rightists at the rally which was supposed to defend "Budisa's" Slobodna Dalmacija? Was Budisa the only person informed that fools from the war veteran organizations from Kastela would shut down the café in which the president of the state was supposed to meet and chat with citizens? Or is that frustrated political looser trying again, before the forthcoming election, to score cheap points with dangerous groups, self-declared protectors of the Homeland War, who already, mostly thanks to him, control the political life in Split?
And while, for example, Vesna Pusic publicly demands a debate in the parliament about the responsibility of the SIS and the Ministry of Defense because of the attack on the president of the republic, her colleagues from the ruling coalition, Racan and Budisa, want to actually tell Mesic that he should not have visited Split at all, since that city is a high-risk zone, which should be engaged, but from afar. Caught in the unrelenting trap of nationalism and fake Croat patriotism, they will not attempt adventurous descent to the masses, especially in Split, the city that has all the characteristics of a ticking bomb. Consequently Racan "self-effacingly" lives in the official residence in Zagreb, from where he lectures the president of the republic parroting old platitudes about "hate speech", about Balkans, about tolerance...
But I forget, this week, while an old and cute city struggled under the threat of violence and savagery, Ivica Racan put on a yellow helmet and courageously set off into the unknown. All the way to a dangerous oilrig, somewhere in the midst of the terrible Adriatic sea. And that helmet was not supposed to protect him from the blows of those whose "marches won't fly", but because it was mandated by a dangerous place, such as an off shore oil drilling platform. The only place where Ivica Racan feels at ease. Just like with the former Central Committee of the Croatian Communist League "platform" [political program].