Nacional, 3/1 1996.
Most frequently, men kill in the name of a leader, state and nation, in the name of sacral etatisme whose sunday tolling calls from time to time for a ritual killing, turning seemingly meek people into devil's children. Only a few realized the fatal significance of those first announcements, a few who understood that a publicly recommended crime would certainly be committed, in five, ten or fifty years.
Bozo Jelic, an Ustasha from Siroki Brijeg, was a member of the so-called Devil's Division in WWII, and a Wehrmacht soldier on the Eastern front; he was decorated with an Iron Cross of the first and second order and greeted the German capitulation in action: in Jasenovac. Today, this 77-year-old sturdy man is photographed for the Croatian papers (Nacional, 3/1/96) in front of a wall on which his war souvenir, a Kama [Ustashe knife, used for butchering of people], is displayed. A rusty Kama under the picture of Poglavnik. This Kama looks as if it has been used, maybe in Jasenovac, maybe frequently.
Nacional, 3/1 1996.
A crooked blade of Kama as a political message, was brought to its final conclusion in the paper published and edited by Pavelic's son in law, Srecko Psenicnik (Nezavisna Drzava Hrvatska), whose publication has recently begun in Zagreb. Under a photograph of ten or so stiff dead bodies we can see a printed warning: "This is how the enemies of the Croatian people will end up!". As far as the message is concerned it doesn't really matter whether their throats had been cut by Bozo Jelic or some other trustworthy Croat.
Nevertheless, if in todays Croatia it is possible to perform the coarsest possible apology of crimes, then we should prepare for the future consequences of those "democratic customs". How can we know whether Bozo Jelic or some other trustworthy Croat, with a trophy Kama in his hand, will submit a protest because of somebody's insufficient patriotism? Will he be hailed as a hero because of that? Since, according to the Kama blade, used "in the name of the people and the state" and, therefore, led by that huge and communal "us", the "real" Croats do not butcher because of vices but because of highest ideals.
Nezavisna Drzava Hrvatska, March 1996.
Of course, these are the extremes; but behind them we can find an ideological foundation which is almost the same as the official ideology, which includes a clear list of "democratic" priorities. How many among the top moralists in the ranks of the patriotic Croatian nationalists are today ready to say that the mentioned "values" are not such that one should not, under any circumstances, kill for them?
Before we turn our noses away from the latest photographic messages and head for the Croatian democratic chaos, it is worth mentioning that Bozo Jelic and Nezavisna Drzava Hrvatska have not appeared out of nowhere in our contemporary reality. They are simply the most vulgar, totally unsophisticated pilgrims of the culture of killing which is today and here cultivated as the state religion (or the religion of the state, whichever you prefer). Its connotations are such that they can always (actually whenever necessary!) turn up like blood on the ground. Because all "ideals" with which a crime has been justified or recommended are in front of us; they are offered accompanied by a beautiful tolling of the bells as the highest virtues of the cult: there is the Croatian people, there is the Croatian state and their ever more numerous enemies. How are we doing with Poglavnik?
used without permission, for "fair use" only
In the current "rehabilitation" of the Ustashe (by this I refer to the leadership which was in power since the founding of NDH on April 10 1941 until its demise in May 1945) it is not (even) a problem that some are trying to correct the past, although that carries a lot of emotional load; the evil is in the following: Ustashe "love for Croatia", in which everyone was allowed to do as he wished, is recommended as a model and practice for the todays Croatia where there is no sin of crime as long as one "loves the Croatian people."
One of the propagandists of this sort is Mr. Vinko Nikolic, without a doubt a strong personality on the Croatian cultural scene, a writer, a former Ustasha with duties in NDH and a member of the upper house of the Croatian parliament, appointed by the Croatian president. Nikolic has lately been reveling himself as an Ustashe apologist, as for example in a recent interview for Nedjeljni Vjesnik under the title "All our 'sins' came out of our love for Croatia."
From that point of view, the discussion of whether the Ustashe regime was, or was not, fascist and pro-nazifascist is irrelevant. That regime was dark, evil and bloodthirsty and there is no "polish" which can present it as anything else. Therefore, I think that toying with Pavelic is a spiritual death (especially in view of contemporary Christian education) for every Christian in todays Croatia, and at the same time the betrayal of the Croatian national interests: our country is trying to return to the not quite ideal community of European states.
I will start, Mr. Nikolic, with the conclusion of your interview in Nedeljni Vjesnik. Very skillfully you silence your critics and those who disagree with the idyllic picture of NDH by saying: "Judge all of us in that way, and let the one without a sin be the one to throw the first stone." Mr. Nikolic, you are not any more in the same position as Mary Magdalene whose impotence was attacked by a system, as was the case with you while you were in emigration. When I read your book ,"In front of the Homeland's door," in Germany, almost immediately after it was published, I was on your side, since your basic human rights were denied. There is no man who did not sympathize with those sufferers who had been after WWII sentenced by the vengeful communist authorities, supposedly "in the name of the people"; instead, their human rights and freedoms were violated; honest people disappeared together with those who should have been tried for their crimes; all this was done according to different rules and by different people. Today, you are a well respected man in Croatia and a member of the Croatian parliament (although your good intentions and the good intentions of the man who had appointed you remain doubtful). On the other hand, those who are "attacking" you are in the situation you used to be in: they can hardly be heard. Your "side" is much louder and your opponents are publicly compromised as the "enemies of the people".
Therefore, take my criticism (since that is the kind of man you are) as a sort of a dialogue; not as a hammer with which I'm trying to destroy everything around me, but as a well argued approach and a desire to confront your "peaceful conscience" which you haughtily mention a lot in your interview in Vjesnik. Even the latest Church document written by the pope John Paul II, "Ut unum sint", from the last year, states that "the ecumenical dialogue is characterized by a common search for the truth, especially in the Church." Those who selected you as the "Man of the year 1995" should have known that. Actually, we seek truth through dialogue, together, in order to mature for reconciliation and unity.
Are you a truthful man?
You say that "Ustashe creed was not an ideology." I agree with you; it wasn't an ideology because Pavelic and his bandits were not intelligent enough to develop an ideology; Ustashe creed was something much worse than ideology: it was the means for the Balkanization of the Crotian politics. Ustashe accepted and, unfortunately, developed all methods of the political violence which have made the Balkans "famous" since the Turkish times and the Serbian uprisings at the beginning of the last century. Your former collaborator in Ustashe press, Dr. Jure Jareb, who has come to his senses, claims the same: "even during the war," he says," I had an impression that Pavelic must have studied the formation of the Serbian state at the beginning of the 19th century, especially the politics and the rule of Karadorde and Milan Obrenovic. It seems to me that Karadorde and Milos Obrenovic and their ruling methods were an inspiration and a model for Pavelic. That Serb political school was completed with the Italian political practice, primarily by fascism..."
Because of that, it is ridiculous and childish, Mr. Nikolic, to, as semi-illiterate Croatian drunks, "interpret" Ustashe creed as "older that both Nazism and Fascism and unrelated to either of them." Although this is an imputation, since I'm talking about Pavelic's Ustashe creed, let us think about what would happen to a neonazi in Germany if he used the same logic and concluded that no one should be offended by his Hackenkreutz since it is actually a swastika, a symbol much older than Hitler and the Nazi symbols?!
Anyone in the least bit familiar with the ideological propaganda, after reading these lines, will give you an appropriate title without a second thought: the leader of the Ustashe hunt on souls! I've trembled every time I've read these lines, as I couldn't believe that any man could make such an about-turn and celebrate a state in which all Biblical values had been turned upside down: Rights, People, Politics... Even if that man was young, pretentious, unexperienced and professionally ambitious!
You want to present yourself to the Vjesnik readers as a "public, mostly cultural, worker." Therefore, you were ideologically neutral during Pavelic's rule like the majority of Croatian artists who worked during those years without a pause. I need to ask you this: prove that to me, by a single act with which, as a poet, publicist and manager of several cultural institutions during the Ustashe regime you used your signature in protection of, for example, a Jewish artist whom the Ustashe had taken to a concentration camp or had intended to extradite to the Germans? As for example did during NDH, Jakov Gotovac, Boris Papandopulo, Vladislav Kusan, Marijana Radev, Josip Gostic and many others. Please, don't babble about Krleza, Nazor and Goran Kovacic: they only for a moment, at the politically suitable time, took part in the Ustashe "strategy" of the Croatian ubermensch. And that was all.
Therefore, you, Mr. Nikolic, remained the same man you were in 1938, 1941, 1945, 1970... and you support those who want to repeat those times in todays Croatia since 1990 until today.
By pronouncing my judgment of you, I haven't lost my ability to judge other events, on the contrary: not only were some mistakes made in the Pavelic's state, as you claim, but that state was in itself a sin. You don't understand, or refuse to understand, one simple thing: Pavelic's state abolished "common sense" and the todays Croatia, the republic, is making a mistake by relying on you. Even in your position of a political emigrant, which more and more reminds me of a recent humiliation by many church celibate priests, now married "lay priests", who according to their own reasoning made a carnal compromise with the world. And us, who stayed and home, tried to find a modus vivendi with you.
In that way we exchanged "different paths" with those who claim to be the "only choice [for Croatia]". In todays Croatia, the reason will prevail sooner or later, and you will be remembered as an unreformed preacher of the "love" for Croatia, who never wanted to face the truth. Although you wear a monumental head of white hair.
Dubravko Horvatic, Hrvatsko Slovo editor-in-chief, attacked Mr. Vincetic and this article in his editorial:Arson, Mistreatment and a lie.