Colonial Spirit of "Tjednik"

Hrvatsko Slovo, Zagreb, Croatia, July 4 1997

Namely, the director of Tjednik, Slavko Goldstein, is still in his consciousness and political attitude in Partisans [WWII antifascist movement which fought against Germans in Yugoslavia], fighting against Ustashe [Croatian fascist movement; collaborated with Germans and Italians during WWII]; consequently his tough political pragmatism is always on the relation Partisans-Ustashe. Therefore, he lives in the past and long time obsolete clash which was caused by two criminal ideologies. It is not surprising that Goldstein has gathered a team of journalists who will follow his retrograde outlook. As the editor-in-chief he appointed Krsto Cviic, long time Croatian emigrant, who has become an expert in British Royal political bureaucracy, which has for centuries built a colonial mentality and tried to impose its will on other peoples. Hence, it is not surprising that a good student of such policy, Krsto Cviic, lectures everyone who is something in the political life of Croatia, although he is aware (is he?) that he hasn't lived in Croatia for several tens of years and that his "view from outside" cannot explain things, events and phenomena inside, because he hasn't lived and felt Croatian internal life and hasn't personally experienced all phases of political changes in Croatia. At all times, Cviic's intention is to replace by "democratic" means current Croatian President of the Republic, elected by free people in free elections; this is his old project, started by his five collaborators. Cviic perfidiously comments blasphemy recently published in several articles in New York Times; in his Tjednik, among other, he slanders Croatia: "Above all, ethics and then pragmatism demand a clear and principled attitude with respect to the dark pages in our national history..." As if Cviic didn't know the causes and consequences of that "dark history". That's why this student of British political school puts himself in the role of a sly prosecutor and a judge, because in his article he also writes: "It is much more important that objective Croatian readers will have to admit that those articles, although biased and full of negative stereotypes about Croatia, are to a certain extent based on facts".

Since the director of Tjednik is still with the Partisans fighting against Ustashe, he found several Croatian intellectuals who had for the longest time believed in the motto "brotherhood and unity"; he found them among Croats who escaped from surrounded Sarajevo because Bosnia-Hercegovina used to be described as Yugoslavia in miniature, and "brotherhood and unity" existed there the longest. Naturally, Ivan Lovrenovic caught Goldstein's eye because as early as 1991 he wrote in Sarajevo Obzor: "We have to get rid of Tudman and his philosophy," while later he stated that he is an ethnic Croat, but is politically a Muslim. It is obvious that he doesn't understand the origin of the Muslim political consciousness in Bosnia-Hercegovina, which doesn't make distinction between national and religious, and has been trying to transform Muslims from a religious group into a national being without state-making roots, origin, and content, pushing in such a way a religious people away from the essential framework for the unknown, which they call Allah, in order to bring it closer to the state-making idea and thus has made out if it a nation which has accidentally ended up in contemporary history.

In stead of sharing the destiny of their people, the other Croat refugees from surrounded Sarajevo who write in Tjednik now, in Croatia, lecture Croats as Mile Stojic did when in 1991 he wrote an article in Sarajevo Odijek, under the title "Letter to an Unborn Son" attacking Croatian liberation struggle and condemning Croats who pulled a gun off a Serb tank and pulled out of it a soldier of the occupying force [a Macedonian conscript in Yugoslav Peoples Army was pulled out of a tank turret and badly hurt in 1991 in Split]. Hence it is not surprising that Sarajevo "Croatian" cry for "justice" and Yugoslavia contributed that these decisive and patriotic men from Split were tried in Sarajevo. In order to demonstrate his knowledge of Croatian history, the mentioned Stojic in his column in Tjednik writes: "In Croatia, because of the lack of continuity of Parliamentary politics, one cannot speak of developed multi-party democracy". This expert on Croatian history forgets about thousands years of existence of the Croatian Parliament!

Another two runaways from Sarajevo, Miljenko Jergovic and Zeljko Ivankovic, have exactly the same political beliefs, knowledge of history and spiritual outlook; in order to use their political and spiritual experience, brought from the heart of darkness [Bosnia], the director of Tjednik pushed them into the editorial board to enable them to promote their political ideas that Pale and Grude, Beograd and Zagreb, Milosevic and Tudman are equally responsible for this war; thus they try fo force feed their readers with articles prepared in Sarajevo long time ago.

Exactly because of such director, editor and collaborators Tjednik must be exactly the way it is now, and consequently its chances with the Croatian readers are minimal, because it is written by those people who look at Croatia from outside and with retrograde ideas. But, their activity will last as long as their foreign financial supporter, actually the person whose money guides their "political beliefs", doesn't withdraw his financial support; consequently, their "view from outside" and their ignorance will continue to try to fulfill the expectations of those who still believe in "brotherhood and unity" which has been so deadly implanted in Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina by greater Serb nationalists.