2015

April 10, 2015
in german-essays
10 min read

Es leben meine Toten! (Die Antifa-Dämonologie und die kroatische Opferlehre)

Neue Ordnung (Graz), I/2015

Die dämonologische, mythologische und kriminologische Schilderung Kroatiens im Zweiten Weltkrieg bildet noch immer die Grundlage für die Historikerzunft. Die verzerrte Geschichtsschreibung über Kroatien seitens der ehemaligen Systemhistoriker war die Hauptursache für das entstellte Geschichtsbewusstsein jugoslawischer Völker, was schließlich den Zerfall Jugoslawiens und den anschließenden Krieg in 1991 ausgelöst hatte. Im Lichte der neuen Forschungen, die zum Teil auf forensischen Untersuchungen basieren, deuten heute manche kritische kroatische Historiker, sogar in den etablierten Medien, auf viele fragewürdige Einzelheiten in der Prosa der ehemaligen Systemhistoriker hin. Im heutigen Kroatien, ähnlich wie in der BRD, will die Vergangenheit nicht vergehen. Das Hexenspiel mit Opferzahlen des Zweiten Weltkriegs tobt heftig weiter. Das Ustascha-KZ-Lager Jasenovac und der Schreckensname Ante Pavelić, der Name des Ustascha Staatsführers, der von 1941-45 in Kroatien regierte, wird weiterhin als Sinnbild für das absolute Böse hervorgehoben. Gelegentlich wird sein Name auch in bekannten Weltzeitungen als „einer des größten Massenmörder Europas“ als Warnzeichen gegen alle europäische Nationalisten verwendet. '¹

Nach jedem neuen Regimewechsel schwankt die offizielle Zahl der ehemaligen kroatischen Ustascha-KZ-Jasenovac Opfer. Während der kommunistischen Herrschaft in Jugoslawien, d.h. von 1945 bis 1990, wurde die offizielle Zahl der dort ermordeten Serben, Juden, Zigeuner und Kommunisten in Schulbüchern mit "700.000" festgesetzt. Nach dem Zerfall Jugoslawiens 1991 wurde in Kroatien die Zahl der Opfer um das Zehnfache verringert, das heißt auf die Zahl von "70.000" Toten beziffert. Tudjman selbst schrieb in seinem umstrittenem Buch, welches zwei Jahre vor dem Zerfall Jugoslawiens veröffentlicht wurde, dass „ in Jasenovac wahrscheinlich zwischen 30.000 bis 40.000 Gefangenen gestorben sind; meistens Zigeuner, Juden, Serben und Kroaten“ '.² In diesem Buch hatte sich Tudjman auch kritisch gegenüber den medialen „Dämonologen“ des kroatische Volkes geäußert, die über „den Jasenovac-Mythos und die These von angeblicher Genozidität der Kroaten“ schreiben '.³ Diese Worte haben ihn, sowie das ganze Kroatien nach seiner Unabhängigkeitserklärung, schwer belastet. Einige nationalistische kroatische Autoren gehen heute noch weiter und senken die Zahl der ermordeten Serben, Juden und Kommunisten im Jasenovac-KZ-Lager auf magere "500 bis 700" Tote. '⁴ Meistens sind es Polemiker die einseitig mit Jasenovac-Opferziffern spielen und die sich nur auf ex-jugoslawische, bzw. kroatische Archivbücher berufen.

Das Herumbasteln mit den Ustascha-Opfern ist noch immer eines der zentralen Anliegen im Zweikampf der Opferlehren zwischen Serben und Kroaten. Bis heute jedoch, trotz des Endes des jüngsten Krieges, wurde von der Historikerzunft keine endgültige Lösung gefunden. Das Ustascha-Lager Jasenovac gilt weiterhin "off limits“ in Kroatien, bzw. außerhalb der Grenzen wissenschaftlicher Bearbeitung. Keinerlei Ausgrabungen in dem Jasenovac-Lager werden derzeit in Kroatien gestattet. In bezug auf das Schicksal der ermordeten Juden, die angeblich als "Kapos" in Jasenovac tätig waren, soll man auf die Angaben von dem bekannten ex-Bolschewiken Ante Ciliga – auch ein guter Bekannter von Tudjman, und ein ehemaliger Jasenovac-Insase - vertrauen. Ciliga war nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg in den Umkreis der nationalistischen Exilkroaten in Italien geraten, obgleich seine Bücher über die sowjetische Betonsprache und kommunistische Doppelzüngigkeit häufig in politologischen Kreisen Frankreichs zitiert werden'⁵ .

Laut manchen kroatischen Historikern, die man heute oft in den etablierten Medien in Kroatien liest, wurde Jasenovac zwischen 1945 und 1947 von den jugoslawischen Kommunisten in ein Lager für antikommunistische Kroaten und Volksdeutsche umgewandelt. Zehntausenden Gefangene sollen dort von den jugokommunistischen Wachen nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg ermordert worden sein. In der meistgelesenen kroatischen Tageszeitung gab es unlängst einen Aufsatz über „das Nachkriegslager und Schafott Jasenovac“. „Das ist jedoch nur ein Rad welches einen weiteren Durchlauf in den Enthüllungen ermöglicht, und welches niemand mehr aufhalten kann“.'⁶

Das ehemalige KZ-Jasenovac spiegelt nicht nur eine tiefe Spaltung zwischen den sogenannten antifaschistischen und nationalistischen Historikern in Kroatien wider, sondern steht auch als Symbol für zwei zusammenstoßende Opferlehren zwischen Serben und Kroaten, sowie für die verschiedenen Opferlehren europäischer Nationalisten jeglicher Couleur. Nach den jüngsten Wahlerfolgen nationalistischer Parteien in Europa, wäre es naiv über „eine europäische gemeinsame nichtislamische oder weiße Heimat" zu phantasieren, wenn man bedenkt, dass sich ein polnischer Nationalist völlig anders als sein deutschnationaler Kollege auf den Bromberger Blutsonntag 1939 oder auf die Geschichte Schlesiens besinnt. Das neuste Beispiel zusammenstoßender europäischen Opferlehren ist die gegensätzliche historische Erinnerung pro-russischer und ukrainischer Nationalisten in der Ukraine.

Der endlose Krieg der Erinnerungen beinhaltet immer seine Helden und seine Unpersonen, seine Dämonen und seine Gutmenschen. Wenn die historische Erinnerung verlangt, dass man seinen Feind im voraus als den bösen Geist darstellt, kann folglich des besiegten bösen Geistes nicht länger als eines menschenwürdigen Opfers gedacht werden. Andererseits: die kroatische Nachkriegskatastrophe mit ihren hunderttausenden Toten, die als „Bleiburg Tragödie“ im heutigen Kroatien sehr oft thematisiert wird, ist in den westlichen Medien und Schulwesen kaum bekannt. Außerhalb des jüngsten und gut belegten Buches des Historikers Florian Thomas Rulitz über die kroatische Bleiburgkatastrophe',⁷ neigen viele nationalgesinnte kroatische Autoren die Bleiburg-Katastrophe hochzuspielen und einseitige, hochpolemische Traktate über die Serben zu schreiben. Außerdem hat die Opferzahl der kroatischen Bleiburg-Katastrophe eine andere Bedeutung für einen ehemaligen kommunistischen Politiker im heutigen Kroatien, eine andere für einen serbischen Bauer der in der Nähe der kroatischen Kleinstadt Sisak wohnt, und wieder eine völlig andere Bedeutung für einen kroatischen Bauern aus der gleichen Nachbarschaft, geschweige denn für die vielen alten Exilkroaten die in Santiago, Stuttgart oder Sydney wohnen.

Die Eingeweihten und die Ausgegrenzten; Negative politische Legitimität

Die heutigen antifaschistischen Erzählungen gleichen oft den alten europäischen Mythen, Sagen und Dämonologien. Irgendwelche Dämonologie mit ihrer selbstgefälligen Opferlehre ist eine Sache des Glaubens, eine Art des Kollektivmythos, genauso wie der heutige Demokratismus ein Mythos oder jener von der Ewigkeit der Europäischen Union, oder jener des grenzenlosen Wirtschaftswachstums. "Für viele Zeitgenossen ist die Demokratie nicht eine Lehre, über die man diskutieren soll. Sie ist keine "Tatsache" die die Erfahrung widerlegen kann. Sie ist die Wahrheit eines Glaubens, die unbestritten bleiben muss." '⁸ Es ist naiv zu glauben, dass die antifaschistischen Dämonologien mit Argumenten widerlegt werden können. Angenommen, dass die heutigen antifaschistischen Dämonologien tatsächlich eines Tages als unzeitgemäß oder als groteske Fabelei abgeworfen werden; an ihre Stelle träte schnell ein neuer Mythos mit einem neuen Reich der Gutmenschen und mit seiner Unterwelt des Bösen. Die Zeit der Aufklärung im 18. Jahrhundert konnte die alte christlich-geprägte Dämonologie loswerden, nur weil an ihre Stelle aufgeklärte politische Märchen, wie der Mythos des Gutmenschen, und der Mythos des permanenten Wirtschaftswachstums, treten konnte. Das tiefsinnige psychologisch-geprägte deutsche Wort „Gutmensch“, das heute sehr anschaulich die selbstzensurierenden und hypermoralistischen Akademiker und Journalisten in der BRD bzw. Europa bezeichnet, kann schwer in andere Sprachen übersetzt werden. Man kann es jedoch mit dem Ausdruck „der Dämon des Guten“ bezeichnen, wie der Titel des neuen Buchs von Alain de Benoist heißt („Les Démons du Bien“, Paris 2014), wo er die Psychologie der heutigen medialen Schickeria seziert:

„Das zentrale Element bezüglich der Opfehrlehrenüberbietungen ist ‚die Erinnerungspflicht‘. Die Erinnerung bleibt ein Bestandteil am Randbereich des Vergessens, zumal, da man sich nur daran erinnern muss, was nicht vergessen werden soll. Jede Erinnerung ist höchst selektiv. Einer der Höhepunkte der ‚ Erinnerungspflicht‘ ist die Unverjährbarkeit des ‚Verbrechens gegen die Menschlichkeit‘ -- ein Begriff, der völlig sinnlos ist. Wörtlich genommen, kann nur ein Außerirdischer ein Verbrechen gegen die Menschlichkeit begehen.“⁹

Sollte sich jemand heute zufällig wagen, seine Missbilligung gegen den Multikulturalismus-Mythos oder gegen den idyllischen Mythos des Zusammenlebens eines Bauern aus Südtirol mit einem Afrikaner, oder mit einem LGTB Agramer Päderasten in Frage zu stellen, gerät er prompt ins Visier der Systemdämonologie.

Akademische Forschungen in allen Bereichen der Geisteswissenschaften sind immer noch von historischen und politischen Umständen bestimmt. Ohne Stalin und ohne Kommunisten hätten die westlichen Alliierten nie den Zweiten Weltkrieg gewonnen. Ohne Roosevelt und das kapitalistische Amerika, hätten Stalin und der Jugoslawe Tito auch nie den Zweiten Weltkrieg gewonnen. Heutiger geisteswissenschaftlicher Unterricht an Universitäten in Amerika und Europa hat nicht bloß den politpädagogischen Zweck der Umerziehung, sondern dient auch als Mittel, die Uneinsichtigen mit einem Einzelfahrschein in die Dämonenunterwelt des Systems hinunterzuwerfen. Das System kann nicht funktionieren ohne vorerst seine negative Legitimität durch die Dämonisierung der Andersdenkenden sicherzustellen und ohne das Aufbauen der Unterwelt zu errichten. Das Lager Auschwitz wurde von der Roten Armee Ende Januar 1945 befreit, obwohl die Rote Armee auf ihrem Weg nach Auschwitz hunderttausende deutsche Zivilisten liquidiert und in die Unterwelt geschickt hatte. Auch der alte antike Heide Herakles oder Vergils Held Aeneas müssten sich zuerst in Gutmenschtugend eneinweihen lassen und die Rechtschreibung der Unterweltkommissare erlernen, ehe sie die Erlaubnis zu einer Visite der Leidenden in der Unterwelt erhielten. In gleicher Weise muss heute ein ausgegrenzter Europäer, der die Unterwelt der Systemleute durchsuchen will, zuvorderst viel Mut haben und er muss die Rechtschreibung der Systemsprache auswendig lernen. Man soll jedoch nie das System und seine Dämonologen überschätzen: „ Als der Kerberus Herakles erblickte, floh er zitternd zu seinem Herren, dem Unterweltskönig, und verbarg sich unter dem Thron des Hades.“'¹⁰

Im Rückblick auf die alten europäischen Mythen, mit ihren surrealen Entstellungen und hyperreal Ungeheuren, muss man feststellen, dass sie mehr historische Glaubwürdigkeit als alle moderne Opferlehren haben. Friedrich G. Jünger hat diese Überlebungsformula für jeden freidenkenden Mensch, der die Systemzeiten bekämpft, vorgeschlagen, wobei sich jeder immer an die bestraften und extrem- leidenden Titanen in der Unterwelt besinnen muss: „Er erfährt an sich die Kräfte der Titanen, er lebt mit ihnen. Der Fischer und Schiffer, der sich auf die Wasser hinauswagt, ist im titanischen Element. Dem Hirten, dem Bauern, dem Jäger geschieht in ihrem Bereich das gleiche.“'¹¹ Alte europäische Mythen, Sagen und Legenden gedeihen in Zeitlosigkeit; sie trotzen jeder Geschichtlichkeit. Dies ist der Hauptgrund warum sie nie dogmatisch sein können und keinerlei Eingriffe der Gesinnungspolizei brauchen um sich glaubhaft zu machen.

Die Totenkulte

Darüber hinaus stellen sich viele ausgegrenzte Völker der historiographischen Dämonisierung ihrer eigene Geschichte entgegen, die oft aus subjektiven und hypermoralistischen Erzählung besteht und deren Hauptzweck ist die eigene Totenabrechnung zu erhöhen und die Verluste der anderen Seite zu vermindern. Jede Dämonologie in bezug auf fremde Unwesen trägt immer ein engelhaftes Gegenbild – mit ihren eigenen zusammengeschusterten Opferlehren. Schließlich hatte auch der Henker von Maria Theresias Tochter in Paris, in 1792, seine eigene Opferrolle; nach der Enthauptung von Marie Antoinette ging er nach Hause zu seiner schwer erkrankten Frau.

Zudem spielt jede Opferrolle, einschließlich jene der Kroaten im Hinblick auf ihre Bleiburger Tragödie, letztlich eine rachsüchtige Rolle. Das beste Beispiel war der zweimalige Fall Jugoslawiens vor seiner Auflösung 1941 und 1991. Ein verlogener Krieg der historischen Erinnerungen musste unausweichlich zum Hass und nachfolgendem bewaffneten Konflikt im Jahre 1991 führen. 25 Jahre nach der Neugründung Kroatiens bleibt die Erinnerungskultur des kroatischen Volkes sehr oft auf ein blosses Anti-Serbentum fixiert. Für viele kroatischen Nationalsten kann man nicht ein guter Kroate sein, ohne zuerst ein guter Anti-Serbe zu sein.

Andererseits wird man auch Zeuge von dämonologischen Schilderungen des kroatischen Volkes, die vor allem von ehemaligen kommunistischen Apparatschiks und ihren antifaschistischen Mythographen gefördert werden. Eine erhebliche Zahl von Historikern in Kroatien sowie in ganz Europa greifen erneut zu ihrem antifaschistischen Bestiarium. In ähnlicher Weise handelte auch der Sohn eines bekannten jugokommunistischen Kommissars, der kroatische Staatsoberhaupt Ivo Josipović, in seiner Rede vor der Knesset in Israel im Februar 2012, wo er die kroatischen Ustascha-Schlangen schnell ergriff: „Einige Angehörige meiner Nation arbeiteten systematisch daran, Teile der Menschheit im Zweiten Weltkrieg zu vernichten. Wir müssen unser Herz anschauen, auch den dunkelsten Fleck unserer Geschichte. Wir müssen wissen: Die Schlange ist schwach, aber sie ist immer noch da ". '¹²

Kann das System und seine postkommunistischen und liberalen Ableger in Zagreb, Wien oder Brüssel überhaupt überleben, ohne antifaschistische Schlangen; ohne ihre Toten stets zu beschwören, bzw. ohne ihren Hausdämon Ante Pavelić - und ohne den zeitlosen Weltdämon Adolf Hitler? Auch die heutige Erinnerungskultur an die Leiden der Juden im Zweiten Weltkrieg hat seit langem eine transzendente Rolle erhalten, die weit über den einzigartigen historischem Massenmord hinausragt. Im Gegensatz zum Mythos spielt die Holocaust-Erinnerung eine didaktische und identitäre Rolle, die zugleich zeitlos bleiben soll, oblgeich sie von einer geschichtlichen und einer präzisan Zeitspanne bestimmt wird. Der ehemalige Bundespräsidant Horst Köhler war sich dessen bewusst, als er in seiner Rede 2005 vor der Knesset in Israel sagte: „Die Verantwortung für die Schoa ist Teil der deutschen Identität.'¹³ Der verstorbene Theoretiker der Postmoderne, Jean Baudrillard, hatte schon lange in Hinblick auf diese neue Problematik der Ersatzidentitäten geschrieben: „Die Rhetorik und die Symbolik des Holocaust funktioniert nicht mehr als Ort der Vernichtung, sondern als Medium der Abschreckung". '¹⁴

Mythos und Religion sind nicht Synonyme. Es gibt einen großen Unterschied zwischen beiden. Religion und Ideologie sind immer zeitbestimmt, ganz im Gegensatz zu Mythen, die immer zeitlos bleiben sollen. Kann man Jesus Christus als eine mythische, oder vielmehr als eine historisch-religiöse Figur betrachten oder beides, als einen vorderasiatischen Offenbarungs-Hokuspokusmann, oder als einen Wüstenfakir, der im multikulturellen Römischen Reich den Leuten mit Migrationshintergrund die Leviten liest? So schilderte ihn schon vor einhundert Jahren der Schriftsteller Oskar Panniza, wobei er anmerkte, dass „das Christentum zu uns aus dem Orient kam, anfänglich direkt, später fast nur mehr über Rom. Was für römisch-orientalischer Dreck auf diesem Wege bei uns abgelagert worden ist, ist unermeßlich.“ '¹⁵

In dem sogenannten aufgeklärten und freiheitsliebenden modernen System werden die Bürger in eine Fülle von bizarren infra-politischen Mythen verstrickt, in eine Vielzahl von dämonologischen Erzählungen eingepackt, vor allem von den Erzählungen, die sich mit der Wiederbelebung ihrer Toten befassen. Das größte Problem jeder Opferlehre ist, dass sie gar nicht zum gegenseitigen Verständnis der Völker führt, sondern nur den gegenseitigen Hass weiter vertieft, wie man es heute täglich in modernen Multikultigesellschaften sieht. Es ist daher sinnlos, mit modernen Dämonologen und Viktimologen zu debattieren, auch wenn man empirische Anlagen anbietet. Alle Leute sprechen zurecht davon, dass "jedes Opfer, unabhängig von seiner Größe und Zahl Respekt verdient." Wenn man jedoch diesen Ukas in Kroatien heute verwendet, nämlich die offizielle Zahl von 70.000 Ustascha Opfer des Lagers Jasenovac akzeptiert, dann bleiben immer noch 630.0000 Menschen übrig, die laut jugokommunistischer Geschichtsschreibung in Jasenovac gestorben sind. Das ist keine Kleinigkeit für kleines Kroatien, geschweige denn für die großen mythischen Geschichten oder die moderne antifaschistische Dämonologie. Morgen, wenn eine neue Dämonologie in Mode kommt, werden die Gutmenschen ihre alten Götzen schnell verneinen und ihre neuen Laren und Penaten anbeten.

von

Dr. Tomislav Sunic

Dr. Tomislav Sunic ( www.tomsunic.com) ist ehemaliger Professor für Politikwissenschaft in den USA und ehemaliger kroatischer Diplomat. Chroniques des temps postmodernes ( Avatar, 2014) ist der Titel sein neues Buchs in französischer Sprache.

Annmerkungen

Sam Sokol, „Hundreds attend Zagreb mass in honor of ‘one of Europe's biggest mass murderers’“, The Jerusalem Post, 29. Dezember, 2014. ↩↩
Franjo Tudjman, Bespuća povijesne zbiljnosti (Zagreb: Matica Hvatska, 1989) S. 316. Auf Deutsch: Irrwege der Geschichtswirklichkeit. Eine Abhandlung über die Geschichte und die Philosophie des Gewaltübels ( Zagreb, Školska knjiga, 1993). ↩↩
Ebenda, Seite 9-23. ↩↩
Cf. Mladen Ivezić, Titov Jasenovac (Zagreb: Samizdat, 2014). ↩↩
Ante Ciliga, Dix ans au pays du mensonge déconcertant (Paris : Champ Libre, 1977). ↩↩
Zvonimir Despot, “Jasenovac je i poslije rata bio logor a vjerojatno i stratište”, Večernji List-Obzor, 10. Januar 2015. ↩↩
Thomas Florian Rulitz, Die Tragödie von Bleiburg und Viktring (Klagenfurt: Hermagoras Verlag, 2011). Das Buch erscheint vorausichtlich diesen Sommer in englischer Sprache (The Tragedy of Viktring and Bleiburg, im Northern Illinois University Press Verlag) mit einem Vorwort von Dr. P. Gottfried und einem Nachwort von Dr. T Sunic. ↩↩
Louis Rougier, La mystique démocratique (Paris: Albatros 1983), S. 13. ↩↩
Alain de Benoist, Les Démons du Bien (Paris : Pierre- Guillaume de Roux, 2014), S. 34-35. ↩↩
Karl Kerenyi, Die Mythologie der Griechen, Band II ( München: DTV, 1988), S. 145. ↩↩
Friedrich Georg Jünger, Die Titanen (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1944 ) S. 97. ↩↩
“Croatia president apologizes to Holocaust survivors”, The Jerusalem Post, den 16. Februar, 2012. ↩↩
„Verantwortung für die Shoa ist Teil der deutschen Identität“, FAZ, den 2. February, 2005. ↩↩
Jean Baudrillard, The Evil Demons of Images (University of Sydney: The Power Inst. of Fine Arts, 1988), S.24. ↩↩
Oskar Panizza, Der teutsche Michel und der römische Papst, (Leipzig: Verlag von Wilhelm Friedrich, 1894) S. 202. ↩↩

February 21, 2015
in english-essays
14 min read

Myths and Mendacities: The Ancients and the Moderns (The Occidental Quarterly, vol. 14, no. 4, Winter 2014–2015)

When discussing the myths of ancient Greece one must first define their meaning and locate their historical settings. The word “myth” has a specific meaning when one reads the ancient Greek tragedies or when one studies the theogony or cosmogony of the early Greeks. By contrast, the fashionable expression today such as “political mythology” is often laden with value judgments and derisory interpretations. Thus, a verbal construct such as “the myth of modernity” may be interpreted as an insult by proponents of modern liberalism. To a modern, self-proclaimed supporter of liberal democracy, enamored with his own system-supporting myths of permanent economic progress and the like, phrases, such as “the myth of economic progress” or “the myth of democracy,” may appear as egregious political insults.

For many contemporaries, democracy is not just a doctrine that could be discussed; it is not a “fact” that experience could contradict; it is the truth of faith beyond any dispute.[^1]

Criticizing, therefore, the myth of modern democracy may be often interpreted as a sign of pathological behavior. Given this modern liberal dispensation, how does one dare use such locutions as “the myth of modern democracy,” or “the myth of contemporary historiography,” or “the myth of progress” without being punished?

Ancient European myths, legends and folk tales are viewed by some scholars, including some Christian theologians, as gross re-enactments of European barbarism, superstition, and sexual promiscuity.[^2] However, if a reader or a researcher immerses himself in the symbolism of the European myths, let alone attempts to decipher the allegorical meaning of the diverse creatures in those myths, such as, for instance, the scenes from the Orphic rituals, the hellhole of Tartarus, the carnage in the Iliad or in the _Nibelungenlie_d, or the final divine battle in Ragnarök, then those mythical scenes take on a different, albeit often a self-serving meaning.[^3] After all, in our modern so-called enlightened and freedom-loving liberal societies, citizens are also entangled in a profusion of bizarre infra-political myths, in a myriad of hagiographic tales, especially those dealing with World War II victimhoods, as well as countless trans-political legends which are often enforced under penalty of law. There-fore, understanding ancient and modern European myths and myth-makers, means, first and foremost, reading between the lines and strengthening one’s sense of the metaphor.

In hindsight when one studies the ancient Greek myths with their surreal settings and hyperreal creatures, few will accord them historical veracity or any empirical or scientific value. However, few will reject them as outright fabrications. Why is that? In fact, citizens in Europe and America, both young and old, still enjoy reading the ancient Greek myths because most of them are aware not only of their strong symbolic nature, but also of their didactic message. This is the main reason why those ancient European myths and sagas are still popular. Ancient European myths and legends thrive in timelessness; they are meant to go beyond any historical time frame; they defy any historicity. They are open to anybody’s “historical revisionism” or interpretation. This is why ancient European myths or sagas can never be dogmatic; they never re-quire the intervention of the thought police or a politically correct enforcer in order to make themselves readable or credible.

The prose of Homer or Hesiod is not just a part of the European cultural heritage, but could be interpreted also as a mirror of the pre-Christian European subconscious. In fact, one could describe ancient European myths as primal allegories where every stone, every creature, every god or demigod, let alone each monster, acts as a role model representing a symbol of good or evil.[^4] Whether Hercules historically exist-ed or not is beside the point. He still lives in our memory. When we were young and when we were reading Homer, who among us did not dream about making love to the goddess Aphrodite? Or at least make some furtive passes at Daphne? Apollo, a god with a sense of moderation and beauty was our hero, as was the pesky Titan Prometheus, al-ways trying to surpass himself with his boundless intellectual curiosity. Prometheus unbound is the prime symbol of White man’s irresistible drive toward the unknown and toward the truth irrespective of the name he carries in ancient sagas, modern novels, or political treatises. The English and the German poets of the early nineteenth century, the so -called Romanticists, frequently invoked the Greek gods and especially the Titan Prometheus. The expression “Romanticism” is probably not adequate for that literary time period in Europe because there was nothing romantic about that epoch or for that matter about the prose of authors such as Coleridge, Byron, or Schiller, who often referred to the ancient Greek deities:

Whilst the smiling earth ye governed still,
And with rapture’s soft and guiding hand
Led the happy nations at your will,
Beauteous beings from the fable-land!
Whilst your blissful worship smiled around,
Ah! how different was it in that day!
When the people still thy temples crowned,
Venus Amathusia![^5]

Many English and German Romanticists were political realists and not daydreamers, as modern textbooks are trying to depict them. All of them had a fine foreboding of the coming dark ages. Most of them can be described as thinkers of the tragic, all the more as many of them end-ed their lives tragically. Many, who wanted to arrest the merciless flow of time, ended up using drugs. A poetic drug of choice among those “pagan” Romanticists in the early nineteenth-century Europe was opi-um and its derivative, the sleeping beauty laudanum.[^6]

Myth and religion are not synonymous, although they are often used synonymously—depending again on the mood and political beliefs of the storyteller, the interpreter, or the word abuser. There is a difference between religion and myth—a difference, as stated above, depending more on the interpreter and less on the etymological differences between these two words. Some will persuasively argue that the miracles per-formed by Jesus Christ were a series of Levantine myths, a kind of Oriental hocus-pocus designed by an obscure Galilean drifter in order to fool the rootless, homeless, raceless, and multicultural masses in the dying days of Rome.[^7]

Some of our Christian contemporaries will, of course, reject such statements. If such anti-Christian remarks were uttered loudly today in front of a large church congregation, or in front of devout Christians, it may lead to public rebuke.

In the modern liberal system, the expression “the religion of liberalism” can have a derisory effect, even if not intended. The word “religion” derives from the Latin word religare, which means to bind together or to tie together. In the same vein some modern writers and historians use the expression “the religion of the Holocaust” without necessarily assigning to the noun “religion” a pejorative or abusive meaning and without wishing to denigrate Jews.[^8]

However, the expression “the religion of the Holocaust” definitely raises eyebrows among the scribes of the modern liberal system given that the memory of the Holocaust is not meant to enter the realm of religious or mythical transcendence, but instead remain in the realm of secular, rational belief. It must be viewed as an undisputed historical fact. The memory of the Holocaust, however, has ironically acquired quasi-transcendental features going well beyond a simple historical narrative. It has become a didactic message stretching well beyond a given historical time period or a given people or civilization, thus escaping any time frame and any scientific measurement. The notion of its “uniqueness” seems to be the trait of all monotheistic religions which are hardly in need of historical proof, let alone of forensic or material documentation in order to assert themselves as universally credible.

The ancestors of modern Europeans, the ancient polytheist Greeks, were never tempted to export their gods or myths to distant foreign peoples. By contrast, Judeo -Christianity and Islam have a universal message, just like their secular modalities, liberalism and communism. Failure to accept these Islamic or Christian beliefs or, for that matter, deriding the modern secular myths embedded today in the liberal system, may result in the persecution or banishment of modern heretics, often under the legal verbiage of protecting “human rights” or “protecting the memory of the dead,” or “fighting against intolerance.”.[^9]

There is, however, a difference between “myth” and “religion,” although these words are often used synonymously. Each religion is history-bound; it has a historical beginning and it contains the projection of its goals into a distant future. After all, we all measure the flow of time from the real or the alleged birth of Jesus Christ. We no longer measure the flow of time from the fall of Troy_, ab urbem condita_, as our Roman ancestors did. The same Christian frame of time measurement is true not just for the Catholic Vatican today, or the Christian-inspired, yet very secular European Union, but also for an overtly atheist state such as North Korea. So do Muslims count their time differently—since the Hegira (i.e., the flight of Muhammad from Mecca), and they still spiritually dwell in the fifth century, despite the fact that most states where Muslims form a majority use modern Western calendars. We can observe that all religions, including the secular ones, unlike myths, are located in a historical time frame, with well-marked beginnings and with clear projections of historical end-times.

On a secular level, for contemporary dedicated liberals, the true un-disputed “religion” (which they, of course, never call “religion”) started in 1776, with the day of the American Declaration of Independence, whereas the Bolsheviks began enforcing their “religion” in 1917. For all of them, all historical events prior to those fateful years are considered symbols of “the dark ages.”

What myth and religion do have in common, however, is that they both rest on powerful symbolism, on allegories, on proverbs, on rituals, on initiating labors, such as the ones the mythical Hercules endured, or the riddles Jason had to solve with his Argonauts in his search for the Golden Fleece.[^10] In a similar manner, the modern ideology of liberalism, having become a quasi-secular religion, consists also of a whole set and subsets of myths where modern heroes and anti-heroes appear to be quite active. Undoubtedly, modern liberals sternly reject expressions such as “the liberal religion,” “the liberal myth,” or “the liberal cult.” By contrast, they readily resort to the expressions such as “the fascist myth” or “the communist myth,” or “the Islamo-fascist myth” whenever they wish to denigrate or criminalize their political opponents. The modern liberal system possesses also its own canons and its own sets of rituals and incantations that need to be observed by contemporary believers— particularly when it comes to the removal of political heretics.

Myths are generally held to be able to thrive in primitive societies only. Yet based on the above descriptions, this is not always the case. Ancient Greece had a fully developed language of mythology, yet on the spiritual and scientific level it was a rather advanced society. Ancient Greek mythology had little in common with the mythology of today’s Polynesia whose inhabitants also cherish their own myths, but whose level of philosophical or scientific inquiry is not on a par with that of the ancient Greeks.

Did Socrates or Plato or Aristotle believe in the existence of harpies, Cyclops, Giants, or Titans? Did they believe in their gods or were their gods only the personified projects of their rituals? Very likely they did believe in their gods, but not in the way we think they did. Some modern scholars of the ancient Greek mythology support this thesis: “The dominant modern view is the exact opposite. For modern ritualists and indeed for most students of Greek religion in the late nineteenth and throughout the twentieth century, rituals are social agendas that are in conception and origin prior to the gods, who are regarded as mere human constructs that have no reality outside the religious belief system that created them.”.[^11]

One can argue that the symbolism in the myths of ancient Greece had an entirely different significance for the ancient Greeks than it does for our contemporaries. The main reason lies in the desperate effort of the moderns to rationally explain away the mythical world of their ancestors by using rationalist concepts and symbols. Such an ultrarational drive for the comprehension of the distant and the unknown is largely due to the unilinear, monotheist mindset inherited from Judaism and from its offshoot Christianity and later on from the Enlightenment. In the same vein, the widespread modern political belief in progress, as Georges Sorel wrote a century ago, can also be observed as a secularization of the biblical paradise myth. “The theory of progress was adopted as a dogma at the time when the bourgeoisie was the conquering class; thus one must see it as a bourgeois doctrine.”[^12]

The Western liberal system sincerely believes in the myth of perpetual progress. Or to put it somewhat crudely, its disciples argue that the purchasing power of citizens must grow indefinitely. Such a linear and optimistic mindset, directly inherited from the Enlightenment, prevents modern citizens in the European Union and America from gaining a full insight into the mental world of their ancestors, thereby depriving them of the ability to conceive of other social and political realities. Undoubtedly, White Americans and Europeans have been considerably affected by the monotheistic mindset of Judaism and its less dogmatic offshoot, Christianity, to the extent that they have now considerable difficulties in conceptualizing other truths and other levels of knowledge.

It needs to be stressed, though, that ancient European myths have a strong component of the tragic bordering on outright nihilism. Due to the onslaught of the modern myth of progress, the quasi-inborn sense of the tragic, which was until recently a unique character trait of the White European heritage, has fallen into oblivion. In the modern liberal system the notion of the tragic is often viewed as a social aberration among individuals professing skepticism or voicing pessimism about the future of the modern liberal system. Nothing remains static in the notion of the tragic. The sheer exuberance of a hero can lead a moment later to his catastrophe. The tragic trait is most visible in the legendary Sophocles’ tragedy Oedipus at Colonus when Oedipus realizes that he is doomed forever for having unknowingly killed his father and for having un-knowingly had an incestuous relationship with his mother. Yet he struggles in vain to the very end in order to escape his destiny. Here is the often quoted line Nr. 1225, i.e., the refrain of the Chorus:

Not to be born is past all prizing best; but when a man has seen the light this is next best by far, that with all speed he should go thither whence he has come.[^13]

The tragic consists in the fact that insofar as one strives to avoid a catastrophe, one actually brings a catastrophe upon himself. Such a tragic state of mind is largely rejected by the proponents of the liberal myth of progress.

Myths and the Tragic: the Coming of the Titanic Age

Without myths there is no tragic, just like without the Titans there can be no Gods. It was the twelve Titans who gave birth to the Gods and not the other way around. It was the titanesque Kronos who gave birth to Zeus, and then, after being dethroned by his son Zeus, forced to dwell with his fellow Titans in the underworld. But one cannot rule out that the resurrection of the head Titan Kronos, along with the other Titans, may reoccur again, perhaps tomorrow, or perhaps in an upcoming eon, thus enabling the recommencement of the new titanic age. After all Prometheus was himself a Titan, although, as a dissident Titan, he had decided to be on the side of the Gods and combat his own fellow Titans. Here is how Friedrich Georg Jünger, an avid student of the ancient Greek myths and the younger brother of the famous contemporary essayist Ernst Jünger, sees it:

_Neither are the Titans unrestrained power-hungry beings, nor do they scorn the law; rather, they are the rulers over a legal system whose necessity must never be put into doubt. In an awe -inspiring fashion, it is the flux of primordial elements over which they rule, holding bridle and reins in their hands, as seen in Helios. They are the guardians, custodians, supervisors, and the guides of order. They are the founders unfolding beyond chaos, as pointed out by Homer in his remarks about Atlas who shoulders the long columns holding the heavens and the Earth. Their rule rules out any confusion, any disorderly power performance. Rather, they constitute a powerful deterrent against chaos.[^14]

Nothing remains new for the locked-up Titans: they know every-thing. They are the central feature in the cosmic eternal return. The Titans are not the creators of chaos, although they reside closer to chaos and are, therefore, better than the Gods—more aware of possible chaotic times. They can be called telluric deities, and it remains to be seen whether in the near future they may side up with some chthonic monsters, such as those described by the novelist H. P. Lovecraft.

It seems that the Titans are the necessary element in the cosmic balance, although they have not received due acknowledgment by contemporary students of ancient and modern mythologies. The Titans are the central feature in the study of the will to power and each White man who demonstrates this will has a good ingredient of the Titanic spirit:

What is Titanic about man? The Titanic trait occurs everywhere and it can be described in many ways. Titanic is a man who completely relies only upon himself and has boundless confidence in his own powers. This confidence absolves him, but at the same time it isolates him in a Promethean mode. It gives him a feeling of independence, albeit not devoid of arrogance, violence, and defiance.[^15]

Today, in our disenchanted world, from which all gods have departed, the resurgence of the Titans may be an option for a dying Western civilization. The Titans and the titanic humans are known to be out-spoken about their supreme independence, their aversion to cutting deals, and their uncompromising, impenitent attitude. What they need in addition is a good portion of luck, or fortuna.

Notes

[1]: Louis Rougier, La mystique démocratique (Paris: Albatros, 1983), p. 13. [2]: Nicole Belmont, Paroles païennes: mythe et folklore (Paris: Imago, 1986) quotes on page 106 the German-born English Orientalist and philologist Max Müller who sees in ancient myths “a disease of language,” an approach criticized by the anthropological school of thought. His critic Andrew Lang writes: “The general problem is this: Has language—especially language in a state of ‘disease,’ been the great source of the mythology of the world? Or does mythology, on the whole, represent the survival of an old stage of thought—not caused by language—from which civilised men have slowly emancipated themselves? Mr. Max Müller is of the former, anthropologists are of the latter, opinion.” Cf. Andrew Lang, Modern Mythology (New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1897), p.x. [3]: Thomas Bullfinch, The Golden Age of Myth and Legend (London: Wordsworth Editions, 1993). [4]: See the German classicist, Walter F. Otto, The Homeric Gods: The Spiritual Significance of Greek Religion, trans. Moses Hadas (North Stratford, NH: Ayer Company Publishers, 2001). Otto is quite critical of Christian epistemology. Some excerpts from this work appeared in French translation also in his article, “Les Grecs et leurs dieux,” in the quarterly Krisis (Paris), no. 23 (January 2000). [5]: Friedrich Schiller, The Gods of Greece, trans. E. A. Bowring. ttp://www.bartleby.com/270/9/2.html [6]: Tomislav Sunic, “The Right Stuff,” Chronicles (October 1996), 21–22; Tomislav Sunic, “The Party Is Over,” The Occidental Observer (November 5, 2009). www.theoccidentalobserver.net/authors/Sunic-Drugs.html [7]: Tomislav Sunic, “Marx, Moses, and the Pagans in the Secular City,” CLIO: A Journal of Literature, History, and the Philosophy of History 24, no. 2 (Winter 1995). [8]: Gilad Atzmon, The Wandering Who? A Study of Jewish Identity Politics (Winchester, UK: Zero Books, 2011), 148–49. [9]: Alain de Benoist, “Die Methoden der Neuen Inquisition,” in Schöne vernetzte Welt (Tübingen: Hohenrain Verlag, 2001), p. 190–205. [10]: Michael Grant, Myths of the Greeks and Romans (London: Phoenix, 1989), p. 289–303. [11]: Albert Henrichs, “What Is a Greek God?,” in The Gods of Ancient Greece, ed. Jan Bremmer and Andrew Erskine (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2010), p- 26. [12]: Georges Sorel, Les Illusions du progrès (Paris: Marcel Rivière, 1911), p. 5–6. [13]: Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus, in The Complete Plays of Sophocles, ed. and trans. R. C. Jebb (New York: Bantam Books, 1979), p. 250. [14]: Friedrich Georg Jünger, Die Titanen (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1944), p. 89–90. [15]: bid., 105.

January 31, 2015
in english-essays, essays
5 min read

The Curse of Victimhood and Negative Identity (israelnationalnews.com, January 30, 2015)

Days and months of atonement keep accumulating on the European wall calendar. The days of atonement however, other than commemorating the dead, often function as a tool in boosting political legitimacy of a nation – often at the expense of another nearby nation struggling for its identity.

While the media keep reassuring us that history is crawling to an end, what we are witnessing instead is a sudden surge of new historical victimhoods, particularly among the peoples of Eastern Europe. As a rule, each individual victimhood requires a forever expanding number of its own dead within the context of unavoidable lurking fascist demons.

Expressed in the postmodern lingo of today, the modern media-made image trivializes the real death and dying into an image of a hyperreal and surreal non-event. For instance, the historical consciousness of Serbs vs. Croats, Poles vs. Germans, not to mention the victimological memories of the mutually embattled Ukrainian and Russian nationalists today, are becoming more “historical” than their previously recorded respective histories.

It seems that European nationalists do not fight any longer for their living co-ethnics, but primarily for their dead. As a result, as Efraim Zuroff correctly stated, “in post-Communist eastern Europe, [they're] trying to play down the crimes of the Nazi cooperators and claim that the crimes of the Communists were just as bad.” (AS,” Top Nazi Hunter: Eastern Europe Rewrote the Holocaust,” by Benny Toker, Ari Yashar, January 27, 2015).

Yet Zuroff’s s remarks, however sharp, miss the wider historical context. Any day of atonement or, for that matter, any day of repentance on behalf of a victimized group, is highly conflictual, if not warmongering by its nature.

It was in the name of antifascist victimology and their real and surreal fear of the resurrection of the anticipated fascist Croatia, that local Serbs staged a bloody rebellion in Croatia in 1991. It was in the name of their own post -WWII victims, killed by the victorious Communists on the killing fields of Bleiburg in Austria in May 1945, that Croats, forty-five years thereafter, began their war of secession from the Yugoslav grip. The Ukrainians still nourish the memory of Holodomor, the Poles nurture their memories of Kaytn, the Cossacks commemorate their victims in Linz, the Russians have their numerous Kolymas, the Germans their Dresdens — locations standing not only as memorial sites, but also as symbols of just retribution in the eyes of the Other.

Crimes committed by the Communists in Eastern Europe during and after World War II were not just Allied collateral damage, or a freak, unintended accident, but a planned effort to remove millions of undesirables.

Almost by definition this raises time again the painful symbolism of Auschwitz, a locality standing not only for a specific historic and clear-cut site of large-scale dying, but also as a didactic location designated for teaching the world the meaning of worldwide tolerance. Of course, the liberation of the Auschwitz camp by the lauded Soviet troops, raises a side question regarding their previous itinerary, especially if one considers that millions of East European and ethnic German civilians were either displaced or killed by the very same Soviet troops on their way to Auschwitz in January 1945.

How genuine were the tears of European statesmen and politicians at the recent commemoration event for the Auschwitz dead will remain a matter of wide speculation and wild guesses. Suffice it to note that if one were to take a peek into the recent history of France, in 1940 the entire Communist and left-leaning intelligentsia sided with the pro-fascist Vichy regime. Of course, in the aftermath of WWII it became politically expedient for the French intellectuals to posture as ardent philo-Semites and learn hastily the antifascist vulgate.

Another case in point are modern Croat politicians, who almost without any exception, prior to 1990 were strong advocates of the unity of the Yugoslav Communist state, as well as staunch purveyors of the socialist “self-managing” economy — only to rebrand themselves shortly thereafter into either rabid nationalists or Brussels-gravitating free marketeers.

The same feigned mea culpa scenario can be observed today among the German political class which had gone a step further, as seen in the recent verbal gestures of ex-president Horst Köhler and acting president Joachim Gauck, the latter of whom stated that "there is no Germanidentity without Auschwitz.”

One can thence surmise that without the memory of Auschwitz, EU politicians would likely be in goose-stepping unison, marching to the enchanting tunes of Giovinezza or the Horst Wessel Lied.

Some scholars seem to be well aware of the mendacious mentality of contemporary European politicians. As Shmuel Trigano notes, “while setting itself up as “new Israel,” the West recognizes in Judaism a factual, if not a juridical jurisdiction over itself.” His words signify that the West has become “Jewish “to the extent that for centuries it had kept denying the Jews their identity. It follows from this that the strange verbal construct “Judeo-Christianity” is not an elusive and dangerous oxymoron at all, but rather a symbol of self-defeating and false identity.

On the one hand, the latter day European victimologists nurture latent anti-Jewish feelings, while on the other hand, they continue formulating their ethical ukases and legal judgments almost exclusively on secularized teachings of the Hebrew sages.

Since the end of the cold war, the political class all over Europe claims its own bizarre brand of antifascist victimology by resurrecting the fascist straw man, as if the invocation of the fascist demonology could exonerate it from its fascist past and possibly give it a free pass in the eyes of Jews. It appears that liberal democracies in the EU and the USA cannot function at all without regurgitating fake philo-Semitic terms of endearment on the one hand, while indulging in a false self-denial on the other.

It might be worth considering setting up an international interfaith conference where scholars of different ethnic and intellectualbackgrounds could discuss both the positive and the negative sides of different victimhoods. As of now, diverse and often conflicting victimhoods are not likely to bring about genuine reconciliation among different Europe peoples, let alone solve the rapidly emerging war of victimhoods in the increasingly racially fractured and balkanized European Union. Self-serving victimhoods only exacerbate the false prejudices of the Other and lay the ground for new conflicts.

Mr. Sunic is author, former US professor of political science, and former Croat diplomat. One of his recent books is La Croatie ; un pays par défaut ? (2010).

link: israelnationalnews.com

Tom Sunic

Dr. Tom Sunic, the writer, born in Zagreb, is an author, former US professor of political...

January 27, 2015
in editorials-on-ex-yugoslavia
5 min read

INTELLECTUAL TERRORISM (09.02.2002., pravda.ru)

The modern thought police is hard to spot, as it often seeks cover under soothing words such as “democracy” and “human rights.” While each member state of the European Union likes to show off the beauties of its constitutional paragraph, seldom does it attempt to talk about the ambiguities of its criminal code. Last year, in June and November, the European Commission held poorly publicized meetings in Brussels and Strasbourg whose historical importance regarding the future of free speech could overshadow the recent launching of the new euro currency.

At issue is the enactment of the new European legislation whose objective is to counter the growing suspicion about the viability of the multiracial European Union. Following the events of September 11, and in the wake of occasionally veiled anti-Israeli comments in some American and European journals, the wish of the European Commission is to exercise maximum damage control, via maximum thought control. If the new bill sponsored by the European Commission regarding "hate crime" passes through the European parliament, the judiciary of any individual EU member state in which this alleged "verbal offence" has been committed, will no longer carry legal weight. Legal proceedings and “appropriate” punishment will become the prerequisite of the European Union’s supra-national courts. If this proposed law is adopted by the Council of Ministers of the European Union, it automatically becomes law in all European Union member states; from Greece to Belgium, from Denmark to Portugal. Pursuant to this law’s ambiguous wording of the concept of "hate crime" or "racial incitement," anyone convicted of such an ill-defined verbal offense in country "A" of the European Union, can be fined or imprisoned in country "B" of the European Union.

In reality this is already the case. In hindsight, the enactment of this EU law appears like the reenactment of the communist criminal code of the late Soviet Union. For instance, the communist judiciary of the now defunct communist Yugoslavia had for decades resorted to the similar legal meta-language, such as the paragraph on "hostile propaganda" of the Criminal code, Article 133. Such semantic abstraction could apply to any suspect - regardless whether the suspect committed acts of physical violence against the communist state, or simply cracked a joke critical of communism.

For the time being the United Kingdom enjoys the highest degree of civil liberties in Europe; Germany the lowest. The UK Parliament recently turned down the similar "hate crime" law proposal sponsored by various pressure groups. However, numerous cases of mugging of elderly people of British descent in English cities by foreign, mostly Asian gangs, either go unreported, or do not have legal follow ups. If a foreign suspect, charged with criminal offense is put on trial, he usually pleads innocent or declares himself in front of often timid judges as a "victim of racial prejudice". Thus, regardless of the relative freedom in the UK, a certain degree of de facto self-censorship exists. The proposed EU law would make this de facto censorship de jure. This could, possibly, trigger more racial violence, given that the potential victims would be afraid to speak out for fear of being convicted of “hate speech” themselves.

Since 1994, Germany, Canada and Australia have strengthened laws against dissenting views, particularly against revisionists and nationalists. Several hundred German citizens, including a number of high- profile scholars have been accused of incitement to racial hatred or of denying the holocaust, on the basis of the strange legal neologism of the Article 130 ("Volkshetze") in the German Criminal Code. From this poorly worded yet overarching grammatical construct, it is now easy to place any journalist or a professor in legal difficulty if he/she questions the writing of modern history or if happens to be critical about the rising number of non-European immigrants.

In Germany, contrary to England and America, there is a long legal tradition that everything is forbidden what is not explicitly allowed. In America and England the legal practice presupposes that everything is allowed what is not specifically forbidden. This may be the reason why Germany adopted stringent laws against alleged or real holocaust denial. In December of last year, a Jewish-American historian Norman Finkelstein, during his visit to Germany, called upon the German political class to cease to be a victim of the "holocaust industry" pressure groups. He remarked that such a reckless German attitude only provokes hidden anti-Semitic sentiments. As was to be expected, nobody reacted to Finkelstein's remarks, for fear of being labeled anti-Semitic themselves. Instead, the German government, via its taxpayers, agreed last year to pay further share of 5 billion euros for this fiscal year to some 800.000 holocaust survivors. Such silence is the price paid for intellectual censorship in democracies. When discussion of certain topics are forbidden, the climate of frustration followed by individual terrorist violence starts growing. Can any Western nation that inhibits speech, and the free expression of diverse political views -however aberrant they may be - call itself a democracy?

Although America prides itself on its First Amendment, free speech in higher education and the media is subject to didactic self censorship. Expression of politically incorrect opinions can ruin the careers of, or hurt the grades of those who are “naive” enough to trust their First Amendment rights. It is a growing practice among tenured professors in the USA to give passing grades to many of their minority students in order to avoid legal troubles with their peers at best, or to avoid losing a job at worst.

In a similar vein, according the the Fabius-Gayssot law, proposed by a French Communist deputy and adopted in 1990, a person uttering in public doubts about modern antifascist victimology risks serious fines or imprisonment. A number of writers and journalists from France and Germany committed suicide, lost their jobs, or asked for political asylum in Syria, Sweden or America.

Similar repressive measures have been recently enacted in multicultural Australia, Canada and Belgium. Many East European nationalist politicians, particularly from Croatia, wishing to visit their expatriate countrymen in Canada or Australia are denied visa by those countries on the grounds of their alleged extremist nationalistic views. For the time being Russia, and other post-communist countries, are not subject to the same repressive thought control as exists in the USA or the European Union. Yet, in view of the increasing pressure from Brussels and Washington, this may change.

Contrary to widespread beliefs, state terror, i.e. totalitarianism is not only a product of violent ideology espoused by a handful of thugs. Civic fear, feigned self-abnegation, and intellectual abdication create an ideal ground for the totalitarian temptation. Intellectual terrorism is fueled by a popular belief that somehow things will straighten out by themselves. Growing social apathy and rising academic self-censorship only boost the spirit of totalitarianism. Essentially, the spirit of totalitarianism is the absence of all spirit.

Pravda.ru

January 27, 2015
in editorials-on-ex-yugoslavia
13 min read

MARSHAL TITO'S KILLING FIELDS (Croatian Victims of the Yugoslav Secret Police outside former Communist Yugoslavia: 1945-1990, pravda.ru)

The ongoing legal proceedings in the Hague against Serb and Croat war crimes suspects, including the Serbian ex-president Slobodan Milosevic, must be put into wider perspective. The unfortunate and often irrational hatred between Serbs and Croats had for decades been stirred up and kept alive by the communist Yugoslav secret police. The longevity of the artificial, multiethnic Yugoslavia was not just in the interest of Yugoslav communists but also of Western states. The long-time Western darling, the late Yugoslav communist leader, Marshall Josip Broz Tito, had a far bigger share of ethnic cleansings and mass killings. Yet, for decades, his crimes were hidden and went unreported in the West.

The first part of the following essay represents a brief excursion into the Croat victimology. The second part covers the poor legality of the International Criminal Court in the Hague.

When talking or writing about state terror in former Communist Yugoslavia, one must inevitably mention those who were either assassinated or wounded outside the jurisdiction of that state. The assassination attempts were carried out by Yugoslav secret police (OZNA, UDBA) agents - although the decision "to make a kill" had to be first reached at the very top of the late Yugoslav Communist regime. During Communist ex-Yugoslavia, there was the whole spectrum of UDBA victims, particularly among former Croatian political emigres living under foreign Western jurisdictions. Of course, this sensitive theme can be addressed from a variety of different perspectives: historical, sociopolitical, psychological, ethical, and theological. Statistics or the "body count" of the UDBA terror is very important - but what appears to be even far more relevant are the persons who carried out those killings. Who gave the orders, and what were their motives? Such a wide-range analysis can, hopefully, be of some help, particularly in understanding today the poor legitimacy of the Tribunal in the Hague.

Moreover, such a broad-based approach is all the more important as the results of UDBA lawlessness went beyond its immediate victims. Each act of silencing a different, or dissident-minded opponent, or to physically eliminate somebody who refuses to pledge allegiance to a given state ideology, often exacerbates opposing views. Indeed, it can lead to a wider armed conflict, resulting in wars, mass killings, ethnic cleansings, etc. These end-results (which were recently confirmed by the violent break-up of ex-Yugoslavia and the subsequent Communist party -inspired aggression on Croatia, were also part and parcel of a larger socio-political package, leading to, but also deriving from, the spiral of mass psychosis, nationalist mythologies, general insecurity, the culture of resentment, and the resurgence of most primeval animal instincts amidst wide layers of population.

The Sense of Victimhood and the Meaning of Forgiveness

Regarding the scope of the Yugoslav secret police (UDBA) terror, one must not attribute them an excessive importance. In the last analysis, victims, following World War II in Yugoslavia, can be counted in hundreds of thousands, and victims in the recent war in the Balkans in several dozens of thousands. Therefore, attributing special significance to a relative small number, i.e. over a hundred victims of the UDBA terror in foreign countries, may sound biased - particularly when one compares this relatively low figure to the much higher figures mentioned above. Yet the difference in significance regarding the volume of the crime does not minimize the gravity of the crime; all victims are equally important. The only difference is how and in which historical circumstances these killings took place, and what is the causal relationship between the post- Word War II victims, UDBA victims, and Croat and Serb victims of the recent war. It is more or less taken for granted that mass killings occur in a war like scenario. Yet victims of the UDBA terror, which are discussed here, happened in peace time, in free and democratic Western countries, i.e., in societies in which everybody is entitled to his opinion and his pursuit of happiness. The criminal acts by the UDBA were committed abroad, and for them the Yugoslav Communist government (and their today's recycled followers both in Croatia and Serbia) bear direct responsibility. Moreover, those post-World War II crimes went beyond the legal framework of Communist ex-Yugoslavia.

The question must be raised as to why the Communist regime, even after the establishment of Communist Yugoslavia in 1945, continued to assassinate its political opponents, including those who resided in Western countries. One might believe that political opponents of Communist Yugoslavia who lived in the West did not pose a tangible threat to the ruling Yugoslav Communist League. This is all the more important considering the fact that Western countries, in which Croatian political emigres lived, or still live, were by no means sympathetic to the vision of establishing an independent Croatian state. Quite to the contrary; Western countries often did their utmost to preserve the "unity and integrity" of Communist Yugoslavia. But a threat to Communist Yugoslavia from Croatian emigre Western-based circles did exist - for a simple reason that the state of Yugoslavia and its Communist elite could not rely on the good will of the Croatian people. This weakness of Communist Yugoslavia did represent a problem to the Yugoslav authorities, because any state and any regime without legitimacy (regardless of its claim to legality), unless founded on the will of its citizens, does not have long-term survivability. The regime in place could be upheld only by sheer force. In an uncompromising effort to secure its survival, the Yugoslav Communist regime decided, very early on, to "neutralize" all separatist Croats, including those living in Western countries. This method of "neutralization" often took place in a beastly manner. The new Republic of Croatia, today, does not need to be kept alive by using force against its dissidents, because its support is solidly anchored amidst the majority of its citizens. It does not have to fear a handful of individuals, or a handful of small extremist parties. Far more dangerous for the survival of Croatia are the individuals, who in the name of some "ultra-Croatiandom," or some "mega-Croatian" statehood, continue to act in a radically opposite way to their much vaunted agendas. This danger is all the more great because it often operates under cover of fake Croat patriotism. Very early on, the ring leaders of the Communist machinery realized that their policy of "Yugoslavenisation" or "Titoisation" could not have positive effects among the Croatian people. Therefore, they viewed anybody who dared advocate the idea of the Croatian state independence, as a mortal enemy. On August 10, 1941, at the very beginning of the formation of Yugoslav Communist partisans units, late President Josip Broz Tito, stipulated that the "provocateurs, traitors must be immediately liquidated." Those who fell into this category were often advocates of Croatian state independence. Following these official Titoistic stipulations, only a few months later, the leader of Slovenian Communist Partisan units, Mr. Evard Kardelj (under his conspiratioral name "Bevac"), in a written report sent to Tito regarding the liquidation of opponents, carried out by his partisan units, noted: "Our machinery of execution is made up of 50 well trained men, armed with pistols and hand grenades. In view of the much increased terror undertaken by the Italian (Fascist) occupying forces, and local Slovenian "Bela Garda" collaborators, we had to increase the number of our activities. These men are capable of everything. Almost every day collaborators and traitors are eliminated along with members of the occupying (Fascist) units, etc. There is no police protection for those whom our VOS takes for a target..." Classical UDBA Terror

Here is a typical example of Communist terror. On the one hand, Partisan and Communist executions, during WWII in the Balkans were carried out in order to scare the local population; on the other, to incite the occupying Fascist and pro-fascist forces to carry out retribution killings, and create additional mass psychosis, along with the sense of insecurity, further prompting local population to join the Partisan movement directed by the Yugoslav Communist Party - and the Red International.

The task of carrying out this mission was handed over to the OZNA, which later, after Word War II, changed its name to the civilian police security apparatus, under the name of UDBA and the KOS. In fact, as the Communist Partisan movement, as a result of the Allied help, grew stronger, on May 13, 1944 the Yugoslav Partisans formally founded the "Section for the People's Protection" (i.e. OZNA). This organization, among the Croatian people, brings back bad memories, because it was through the OZNA that Communist leadership carried out mass or individual killings, which took place during Word War II and immediately after Word War II. Following the dissolution of the pro-fascist NDH ("Independent State of Croatia") in 1945, the OZNA received the order, immediately after its first round of killings in post-World War II war months, to continue eliminating well-known Croats, who had managed after Word War II to escape and hide in foreign countries.

The early OZNA chose as its first victim Dr. Ivan Protulipac, who was assassinated in Trieste, Italy, on January 31, 1946. Dr. Protulipac was a founder of "The Eagle and Crusading Youth" in the former monarchic Yugoslavia. He was also a successor to Dr. Ivan Merz, the much praised leader of the "Croatian Catholic Youth."

Two and a half years later, i.e., on August 22, 1948, the UDBA tried to kidnap in Salzburg, Austria, Dr. Mato Frkovic, who during Word War II, in a short lived NDH ( "Independent State of Croatia") held a high ranking place in the government. The same year, the OZNA (from then on "UDBA"), assassinated in Austria, Mr. Ilija Abramovic. Only a few months later, on March 16, 1949, the UDBA kidnapped in Rome, Italy, Mr. Drago Jilek, who had worked as the interim Head of the Intelligence Service of the NDH, during Word War II. After the former Chief of the Security of the NDH, Mr. Dido Kvaternik had been deposed from office, Jilek assumed control of the pro-fascist World War II, Croatian UNS ( Ustasha Security Service).

The kidnapping of Drago Jilek by the Yugoslav Communist police agents coincided, strangely enough, with a tragic case of the most prominent Croatian Communist leader, Mr. Andrija Hebrang. It is widely considered that the UDBA wanted to find out what kind of contacts existed during and before World War II between high ranking Croat pro-fascist Ustasha officials and high ranking Croatian Communist and Croatian antifascist officials and intellectuals - whose common and apparent goal was, or may have been, the establishment of an independent Croatian state.

Victims of the Yugoslav Communist Security Service, i.e., the UDBA, included not just pro-fascist Ustashi or anti-communist Domobran ("Home Guard") individuals, or members of former Croatian military units, but also prominent Croatian Communist and Partisan figures, such as the poet, Ivan Goran Kovacic, Dr. Andrija Hebrang, and a former Croatian Communist military officer - turned dissident - Mr. Zvonko Kucar. This further confirms that for the UDBA and the Yugoslav Communist regime, the main criteria for coming to terms with "hostile elements," was not ideological affiliation of the target-victim ("left vs. right"), but primarily the removal of all those who showed any inclination towards any form of Croatian statehood or/and Croatian nationhood.

One-Hundred-Nine Cases of Assassinations and Kidnapping

Obviously, not all details can be mentioned about every UDBA victim; neither can one separately cover all the facts leading to the death or kidnapping of the victims. One must, therefore, focus only on some of the most salient examples of UDBA state terrorist activity: From 1946 to 1949 two assassinations were carried out; one failed attempt of assassination; one kidnapping; one person was reported missing.

From 1950 until 1959 no assassination took place; two failed assassination attempts took place (against the former Ustashi exiled leader, Dr. Ante Pavelic, and Dr. Branimir Jelic); one kidnapping; one failed attempt at kidnapping.

From 1960 until 1969, twenty assassinations took place - all expect one during the period from 1966 to 1969; four failed assassination attempts; one kidnapping ( Dr. Krunoslav Draganovic, in Italy); two persons reported missing ( Mr. Zvonimir Kucar, 1960, and Mr. Geza Pesti, 1965).

From these figures it may be concluded that the number of assassination by the UDBA increased dramatically during that period. The reason for that was the fact that the Yugoslav President Tito, as a follow-up to the important Plenary Congress of the Yugoslav Communist League, which was held on the Island of Briuni in 1966, after having fired his chief of the Yugoslav Security, Mr. Aleksandar Rankovic, decided to loosen up somewhat the repressive tools within Communist Yugoslavia - but to sharpen up repression, i.e. UDBA killings of Croatian emigres outside Yugoslavia, i.e., in Western countries.

From 1970 until 1979 twenty-eight Croat emigres (including the well-known Croatian dissident writer, Mr. Bruno Busic) were assassinated by the UDBA; 13 failed UDBA assassination attempts; one kidnapping (of the Croatian poet Mr. Vjenceslav Cizek); four failed attempts of kidnapping (including the one of the former high ranking exiled Croatian Communist official Franjo Mikulic; one person missing.

Spurred by the crushing of the "Croatian Spring" in December 1971, the Yugoslav Communist regime became particularly intent on eliminating Croatian emigre dissidents - often without any scruples. Thus in 1972, in Italy, a whole Croatian family was killed, Mr. Stjepan Sevo, his spouse and his nine-year old daughter.

In 1975, in Klagenfurt, Austria, a 65 year old Mr. Nikola Martinovic was the target of the UDBA assassination. Mr. Martinovic was known in Croatian emigre circles, before his violent death, as a caretaker of the graves of Croat soldiers and civilians who were the victims of the Yugoslav Communist units in southern Austria, near the town of Bleiburg, in May and June 1945.

The same year, i.e., 1975, shortly before his death, Mr. Martinovic planned to organize large anti-Yugoslav demonstrations in the vicinity of Bleiburg. However, Yugoslav Communist government officials sent a note to the Austrian government, requesting the interdiction of the Croatian emigre mass gathering. Since it did not work, the UDBA had to take the matter into it own hands.

From 1980 to 1989, seventeen emigre Croats were assassinated (including Mr. Stjepan Durekovic, a former high ranking Croatian Communist and head of the state-owned "INA", (largest oil refinery in ex-Yugoslavia); nine failed assassination attempts - including one against myself (Mr. Nikola Stedul, n.t.); and one kidnapping.

From these figures it can be seen that for the period stretching from 1946 to 1990, the OZNA, the UDBA, and the KOS carried out over one hundred assassinations and/or assassination attempts against Croat emigres. Regarding the rough break-down of this figure, it follows: in Western Europe eighty-nine UDBA assassination attempts; nine in North America; six in South America; two in Australia; two in Africa. As far as figures regarding individuals countries are concerned, the majority of assassination and assassination attempts took place in the Federal Republic of Germany - fifty-six; ten in France; nine in Italy.

The total number of UDBA victims is a follows: sixty-seven killed; twenty-nine failed assassination attempts; four successful kidnappings; five failed kidnapping attempts; four persons reported missing - who were in all likelihood also UDBA victims.

Beside UDBA targets of emigre Croats over that period of the same time, there were also twelve emigre Serbs killed; four ethnic Albanians. The above figures are based on various sources, and it is quite likely that all victims have not been counted and covered here, and that the fate of some still remains to be elucidated.

Three Objectives With each assassination Communist Yugoslavia aimed at achieving three goals: a) to eliminate a political "trouble-maker"; b) to scare other dissidents and emigres both at home and abroad; c) to leave general impression both in Yugoslavia and abroad that Croat emgires were fighting among themselves their own turf war. Each assassination was followed in Communist Yugoslavia's state-controlled journals by words that "Ustashi-Fascist-Croatian nationalists fighting war among their own ranks." The media mega-language of Yugoslav state-sponsored journals must be thoroughly examined. Indeed, many Croats in Communist Yugoslavia were persuaded, as the result of incessant Communist propaganda, that the deaths of emigre Croats was a direct result of underground infighting.

It should be pointed out that any effective organization among Croatian emigres, was virtually nonexistent and, legally speaking, impossible to achieve. All foreign security services kept Croatian emigre groups under strict observation, especially those Croats abroad who intended to overthrow the Yugoslav Communist state. In many cases, Western-based security and intelligence services even worked hand in hand with Yugoslav intelligence services, including the Yugoslav diplomatic corps. Croats abroad, and those in the former Yugoslavia have been well aware of these Western attempts to prevent the dissolution of Yugoslavia, and to make quite costly the establishment of the independent state of Croatia. It is also clear why many Western countries glowingly supported the decades-long Yugoslav and Titoistic experiment - if for no other reason than as a desire to keep status quo in the East-West cleavage, and as a country-pawn in the geopolitical gamble of the Cold War - during which Communist Yugoslavia, as a non-aligned buffer-state played an important role.

Just as the world passively witnessed, in 1991, the break up of Yugoslavia, so too did the world passively observe serial UDBA killings of Croatian political activists abroad. Even the Libyan leader Colonel Moamar Khadafi in an interview with the German Der Spiegel : once said. "Tito sends his agents to the Federal Republic of Germany in order to liquidate Croatian opponents. But Tito's prestige doesn't not suffer at all in Germany. Why should Tito be allowed those things and why am I not allowed to do the same. Moreover, I have never given a personal order to have somebody killed in foreign countries."

The above quotes may be further confirmed by many more further killings of Croatian emigre dissidents - which was barely ever covered in full in the Western media. One example should suffice: When the Russian writer, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was expelled from the Soviet Union, in 1973, the entire Western media was deluged with protests aimed at the Kremlin handling of this case. By contrast, when the Croatian dissident Bruno Busic was assassinated by the Yugoslav secret police UDBA, in Paris 1977, the event was mentioned as a side story - with unavoidable speculation that Busic's death may have been the result of the Croatian emigre infighting.

The travesty of the present legal International Criminal Court in the Hague is that its judges never wishes to examine the root cause of the recent crimes committed in ex-Yugoslavia. It never occurs to Hague prosecutors that there were large scale infra- and extra- judiciary historical precedents for the more recent crimes which they are supposed to impartially adjudicate.

End of Part 1

NIKOLA STEDUL TOMISLAV SUNIC Dr Sunic is an author, former US professor in political science and a former Croat diplomat. He is the author of Titoism and Dissidence (1995). His website is www.watermark.hu/doctorsunic/

Mr Stedul is a former Croat emigre, who was a victim of the Yugoslav secret police assassination attempt in Scotland, October 1988. He was also a former president of the Croatian National Democratic Party in Croatia.

Pravda.ru

January 27, 2015
in editorials-on-ex-yugoslavia
4 min read

QUEST FOR THE OPULENT WEST (11.02.2002., pravda.ru)

Catching up with the West is a big dream of all post-communist countries in Eastern Europe. This dream transpires through imported liberal slogans such as “transition,” “integration,” and “market democracy” and is aired daily on all local TV and radio wave lengths. This rhetorical switch from former socialist command economy to capitalist market economy appears to East European leaders far more palatable than the necessity of removing their own ossified past. In fact, movers and shakers of the New World Order had never given the green light to East European masses to forcefully remove communist officials from power. Between local nationalists and local ex-communists, global plutocrats opt for the latter.

In reality, though, the transition to a market economy has been going on for years, yielding meager results, and only in some areas of Eastern Europe. Countries, such as Slovenia, the Czech Republic, and Hungary, which appear now on the fastest track to “catching up with the West,” benefit from geographic vicinity of the affluent Germany. Other post-communist countries, further to the east, do not have the same comparative geographic advantage and offer little incentive for direct foreign investments.

New World Order sharks, despite their financial ingenuity, commit serious mistakes, assuming that rapid economic growth in Eastern Europe can be solely achieved through liberal formulas or by resorting to some Asian role modeling. What was successful in de-nazified Germany in the 1950s, or in Thailand and Singapore in the 1980s, does not apply to present-day Romania, Ukraine, or Croatia. It is also a frequent error among US politicians and businessmen to project their own wishful thinking onto Eastern Europe or occasionally pump their tax payers' money into the hands of bankrupt East European leaders. The gap between Eastern and Western Europe is bigger today than ever before, and is likely to become even larger. In terms of economic output, from a ratio of 1: 2 in 1989, the gap in productivity between East and West increased threefold in 1999, notably to the ratio of 1: 3 and 1: 4, respectively. On the whole, East European countries have reached only 60 to 70 percent of their 1989 communist GDP levels. In plain English, this means that the majority of East European citizens, in terms of their purchasing power, are worse off than during the last days of communism.

The leading slogan, which had brought down communist economies, was the popular outcry to “join Europe.” The main motor behind it was the idea, albeit naive, that Western prosperity would suddenly follow suite. But catching up with the West has not occurred, and one can sense now a widespread nostalgia for the economic predictability and guaranteed social security that communism once provided. The proverbial homo sovieticus is well alive, although he carries now a false veneer of a would be Melrose Place broken-English macho entrepreneur.

A Western visitor should not be duped by the shopping mall glitz in Croatia's Zagreb, Hungary's Budapest, or Russia's Moscow. Nor should the presence of East European rowdy young “conspicuous consumers” be viewed as a trade mark of improvement in living standards. The core of democracy is its middle class, which quite simply was physically destroyed after the communist take over in the early 1920s and late 1945, respectively. Despite overzealous mimicry by East European leaders to copy the free market cannons, notably by the incessant regurgitation of slogans such as “the rule of law” and “market democracy,” in reality, a mixture of Western- imported bandit capitalism and local shadow economies is in full swing. This is true not only for Russia but for practically every country in the region. The so-called basket-case economies of the Western tele-guided liberal-leftist Croatia, let alone the bankrupt post-Milosevic Serbia, garner little support from their respective citizenry. In a not too distant future, the rising social apathy may result in a mass appeal for yet another strong man. In such a fragile economic environment governed by poor imitators, with each of them tainted by a murky totalitarian past and each waffling empty marketeering slogans, it would be unwise for US and EU businessmen to make professional commitments. Of course, for global money-flow architects, such as the WTO and the IMF, it is easy to lecture East Europeans on the virtues of market democracy. Yet, despite their planetary influence, modern plutocrats ignore the heritage of embedded communist psychology. In fact, present political elites, be it the Baltics or in the Balkans, seem to be well versed in political survivability of any kind. Other than verbal virtuosity in free market recitals, all of them know deadly well that cut-throat, free market competition has no chance of long-term success in Eastern Europe.

The road to genuine democracy in Eastern Europe can only be achieved through the reeducation and the removal of the communist mindset. Even post-war Germany, prior to its economic miracle, had to start the process of de-nazification first in order to attain a certificate of democracy later. For the present ruling class in Eastern Europe, it is impossible to shed its paleo-Bolshevik carapace. Half a century of communist social leveling, the culture of mendacity, and the lack of self-initiative have left deep scars on all East Europeans, including its own victims. This tragic area of Europe has historically been subject to unpredictable tremors. A new version of Western bandit capitalism, mixed with the terrorist legacy of Stalinism, will soon exacerbate these tremors to an unseen boiling point.

Pravda.ru

January 16, 2015
in editorials-on-ex-yugoslavia
3 min read

The Terminal Illness Of Yugoslavia (Chicago Tribune, June 09, 1990)

Amidst breathtaking changes in Eastern Europe, Yugoslavia appears as a cadaver that simply refuses to rot away. Not long ago the Yugoslav communists could claim to be the first initiators of their self-styled perestroika, and their maverick self-managing communism engendered considerable awe in many Western well-wishers. Today, however, Yugoslav institutions are turning into anachronisms, and Yugoslavia's ill-conceived federalism has pushed its six constituent republics to the brink of civil war.

With the recent electoral success of conservatives in Slovenia and Croatia, Yugoslavia is the only country in Eastern Europe where non-communist governments in the north cohabit with communist governments in the south. Constant ethnic provocations and chauvinist slurs from all six republics have made Yugoslavia an ungovernable and unlivable state whose break-up is threatening to turn the Balkans into a European Lebanon. Bracing for the coming deluge, Slovenia and Croatia are already bidding farewell to the remainder of Yugoslavia and are eagerly courting the favors of their West European neighbors.

Without Slovenia, or possibly without the southern province of Kosovo, where the Serbs still exercise their iron muscle, Yugoslavia could continue to hobble on, but its life would not last a minute with Croatia's walkout. The second largest and richest republic and the arch-rival of Serbia, Croatia is experiencing a nationalist revival whose aftershocks are putting the last nails in the coffin of fractured Yugoslavia. The secessionist drive among Croatian and Slovenian nationalists has been met with hostility and outright fear among influential Serbs and their power base in the army and diplomacy. Left to itself, and cut loose from affluent Slovenia and Croatia, the lone Serbia knows all too well that it is doomed to shrink fast into a obscure landlocked Balkan state.

The terminal illness of Yugoslavia probably would never have occurred without the emergence several years ago of the wildly popular Serbian communist leader Slobodan Milosevic-a man who rose from a provincial apparatchik to a chief torchbearer of Serbian nationalism. Milosevic's fiery speeches galvanized Serbs, triggering in turn similar nationalist appetites among other scared republics. Today all four major ethnic groups are displaying an impressive litany of past injustices, angrily blaming each other for their real or perceived ethnic plights.

No less ominous is the conduct of the Serbian intelligentsia. Once it could proudly claim to be the most progressive and reform-minded in Eastern Europe; today it has entered an alliance with the mob rule. However, its support of Milosevic's heavy-handed policy in the southern province of Kosovo has yielded results different from those it originally anticipated. The continuing exodus of ethnic Serbs from this little enclave, which by now is 80 percent populated by Moslem ethnic Albanians, will further legitimize neighboring Albanian's claims to an ethnically pure and aggrandized Albania. The skyrocketing baby boom among Albanians is already changing the demographic picture of the entire Balkans.

Among Yugoslav nationalisms there has never been a net loser or a net winner; the rendering of ethnic justice to one ethnic group is invariably perceived as injustice by another group. More than any other European state, the patchwork of Yugoslav nations, which were glued together by force rather than by consent, has earned Yugoslavia a sorry name of a levitating "seasonal state." One wonders what will happen with the superpowers' security arrangements when Yugoslavia disappears from the map.

Ironically, Yugoslavia's survival so far is due to its shifting ethnic balance of power as well as to the lack of any organized pan-Yugoslav opposition. The very inter-ethnic anarchy of Yugoslavia accounts also for its morbid longevity. Undoubtedly, if the events of 1914 or 1941 were to be repeated today, Yugoslavia would immediately disintegrate, with Slovenia and Croatia flocking to the West, and Serbia shrinking farther under the watchful eyes of its inimical Hungarian and Bulgarian neighbors.

Today, the remainder of the Yugoslav Communist League, with its power base in Serbia, has been caught unprepared. Ethnically fractured and ideologically discredited, the communists can no longer resort to the cliche of external "Soviet threat," or point to internal "reactionary fascists" in order to keep themselves in power. Even hard-line communists must admit that there are simply no more scapegoats.

Can Yugoslavia survive? Yes, but only as an authoritarian or a totalitarian state led by its largest ethnic group. A democratic Yugoslavia is a contradiction in terms. A democratic Yugoslavia can exist only if it breaks up first.

Chicago Tribune

January 14, 2015
in editorials-on-ex-yugoslavia
2 min read

Bosnian Muslims Must End Suicidal Gamble; The Joint Declaration (The New York Times, February 10, 1994)

To the Editor:

In the wake of the joint declaration in Geneva between Presidents Franjo Tudjman of Croatia and Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia, some foreign journalists have jumped to the conclusion that such an agreement amounts to the creation of some sort of alliance against the Bosnian Muslims. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The joint declaration is a small but important step in the possible normalization of relations between Serbia and Croatia. This breakthrough paves the way, we hope, for mutual recognition of internationally recognized borders.

It may seem ironic that Croatia, a victim of Serbian aggression, is the first country to begin normalizing relations with Serbia, or what is left of Yugoslavia. This decision was not solely Croatia's choice, but also that of the international community. Croatia and President Tudjman are doing their utmost to help restore peace in this part of Europe.

Nonetheless, Croatia's decision to sign this declaration in no way means that Croatia will abandon efforts to bring about a lasting peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina. On the contrary, Croatia has been more than forthcoming with the Bosnian Muslims on the future structure of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Also bear in mind that Croatia is accommodating more than 150,000 Muslim Bosnian refugees, for whom most of the cost is covered by the Croatian Government.

Croatia and President Tudjman do not hold all the cards for peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Bosnian Serbs still control 70 percent of Bosnia's territory, while it is the Bosnian Croats who have lost a considerable amount of territory to the Muslim forces since the breakup of their alliance.

The New York Times

January 14, 2015
in editorials-on-ex-yugoslavia
3 min read

Croatia back in chaos? (The Washington Times, December 28, 2001)

I read with interest Jeffrey T. Kuhner's Dec. 26 Op-Ed column on Croatia and its difficult road to democracy, "Not yet Bush of the Balkans." Mr. Kuhner is right in critically assessing the pervasive Balkanesque cronyism and corruption in Croatian politics. Yet he briefly and only sketchily mentions the large-scale massacres and removal of thousands of Croat civilians and competent professionals by the former Yugoslav communist security apparatus, which is still partially alive in Croatia. One's view of what happened in ex-communist Yugoslavia and later in the late President Franjo Tudjman's Croatia depends on the observer's vested interests, his ethnic prejudices and his historical perspectives. One thing remains certain, though: Croatia lacks solid elements of civil society and ignores the Western rules of meritocracy.

Similar to other post-communist countries in the region, modern Croatia is deeply infected by the legacy of communist mendacity and double-dealing and the spiral of silence and civic fear. Waffling empty Western-imported cliches about human rights and market democracy, the revamped Croatian diplomacy shows amazing signs of provincialism and incompetence. What a would-be democratic Croatia needs is a solid dose of re-education and decommunization.

Undoubtedly, a staggering number of Mr. Tudjman's officials were recycled communists who briefly put on display a feigned Croat patriotism. Was not the current President Stipe Mesic also Mr. Tudjman's pal until their fateful split in 1994?

These remarks may seem of minor importance, but what is worrisome is the present ungovernability of Croatia. Mr. Mesic and Prime Minister Ivica Racan may have good intentions about the country's future. Yet, good intentions do not suffice to make a good politician or make a country safe for entry into the rich men's club of the European Union or NATO.

Furthermore, the coalition government at bureaucratic loggerheads with Mr. Mesic has an unsavory international reputation as a coalition of five swingers making poorly mimicked passes at the European Union. Apparently, this is because of a naive effort to extract a certificate of good democratic behavior or some putative charity from credulous EU and U.S. taxpayers. With mutual mudslinging within this motley crew of four diverse parties, a question remains: Is Croatia a governable entity?

Mr. Tudjman did his best to bring Croat ex-communists and anti-communists together. His motto was "reconciliation." The present Croatian government is doing exactly the opposite; it is unstitching the country and driving a wedge between expatriate and homeland Croats, between the former communists and the right-wing opposition figures, and between the politically correct and politically incorrect.

Outside of regurgitating in broken English and in the old wooden communist lingo slogans such as "free market" or "necessity for economic transition," the present political class in Croatia is a carbon copy of the late "homo sovieticus" universe albeit with the mandatory and feigned liberal veneer.

Forty-five years of communist and Titoist terror brought about negative selection and depleted the Croatian society of honest, law-abiding and professional Croatian politicians irrespective of their ideological creed. Hence, the country is gripped by paralysis and slated for long-term instability.

Slowly, but surely, Croatia is pushing its way back into a still unnamed and unknown chaos.

The Washington Times

TOMISLAV SUNIC

Read more: www.washingtontimes.com/news/2001/dec/28/20011228-034324-6699r/ Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter

January 14, 2015
in editorials-on-ex-yugoslavia
5 min read

Croatie dans l'UE : "Je crains que l'Europe ne devienne une nouvelle Yougoslavie" (Le Point, Paris, le 2 juillet, 2013)

C'est une voix discordante dans le concert de célébrations organisées en Croatie pour l'entrée du pays au sein de l'Union européenne, officialisée ce 1er juillet 2013. Tomislav Sunic, croate et américain, ancien diplomate et professeur en sciences politiques, désormais intellectuel à plein temps, a grandi dans la détestation du communisme version Tito. En janvier 2012, il a voté contre l'entrée de son pays dans l'Union européenne. Lui qui a appris le français en lisant "les lettres de Daudet" et "la plume d'Aron" dit naviguer librement entre la pensée économique de gauche et une approche de la culture de droite. Conflit serbo-croate, situation économique difficile, corruption..., l'auteur de La Croatie : un pays par défaut ? (2010, éd. Avatar) se montre plus que pessimiste quand on lui demande si cette adhésion peut aider à régler les problèmes de son pays. Entretien.

Le Point.fr : Quel regard portez-vous sur l'entrée de la Croatie dans l'UE ?

Tomislav Sunic : Pour l'heure, je pense que l'Union européenne, telle qu'on peut l'observer, relève plus d'un "constructivisme académique" que d'une réalité politique qui refléterait la volonté de ses peuples. C'est le problème essentiel. En fait, le projet européen tel qu'il est, je le crains, me rappelle beaucoup l'ancienne République de Yougoslavie.

Si c'est le cas, on peut s'attendre à un avenir qui déchante...

Bien sûr, la désintégration yougoslave ayant abouti à des guerres inutiles et désastreuses. Conçu sur papier à la fin de la Première Guerre mondiale, le projet yougoslave semblait tout à fait valable, sauf que plusieurs mythologies nationalistes (slovène, serbe, croate, etc.) allaient finalement conduire à son éclatement sauvage. Au niveau européen, il me semble que l'on procède là aussi à des élargissements sans vraiment sonder le terrain.

Que voulez-vous dire?

Je ne suis pas le seul à penser que le projet européen est mal défini. Depuis le Traité de Rome en 1957 jusqu'à aujourd'hui, il se dirige d'abord vers "l'économisme", soit un capitalisme sauvage, et favorise la création d'une oligarchie mondialiste... Fatalement, cela va rejaillir sur le sort des peuples. Regardez par exemple le Mécanisme de stabilité européen, qui donne une immunité quasi totale à des décideurs non élus. Ils échappent au triage démocratique !

Que la Commission et la Banque centrale européenne rédigent nos lois, dans la grammaire comme dans la substance, voilà un projet qui me paraît particulièrement anti-démocratique. C'est ce qui me fait prédire que l'on se dirige malheureusement plus vers une rupture que vers une consolidation européenne. Bruxelles parle un langage économique, mécanique, super-capitaliste, qui nous fait mal, qu'on soit croate, français, de gauche ou de droite.

L'adhésion de la Croatie a pourtant été entérinée par un vote démocratique [66,67 % des votants ont dit oui, NDLR].

Certes, mais ce référendum a souffert de 60 % d'abstention [56,46 % exactement, NDLR]. Ce n'est donc qu'une petite couche de la population qui a voté oui. Si l'on compare à 1991, 85 % de Croates s'étaient déclarés pour la sécession d'avec la Serbie. Voilà un plébiscite qui était non seulement légal mais doté d'une légitimité à part entière. Dans le cas du référendum pour l'UE, on a fait chuter à dessein le palier de votes pour rendre le référendum valide...

De plus, il faut savoir que l'immense majorité de la classe politique croate est composée des nostalgiques de la Yougoslavie de Tito, que ce soit le président, Ivo Josipovic, ou même le Premier ministre, Zoran Milanovic (centre gauche, élu en 2011), issu d'une célèbre famille communiste. Des gens qui, paradoxalement, sont devenus les principaux supporters de l'"intégration" ! Ils pensent que tous nos problèmes vont être résolus à Bruxelles, par une pluie d'argent. Je caricature, mais c'est l'esprit.

Justement, l'économie croate compte 20 % de chômeurs, 50 % chez les jeunes. L'Europe a promis une enveloppe de 14 milliards d'euros au pays. N'est-ce pas là un signe positif ?

Tout à fait, nous sortons de quatre années sans croissance, même si notre dette souveraine reste bien inférieure à celle de la France par exemple [59 % du PIB contre 91,7 %, NDLR]. N'oublions pas aussi que toutes les familles ont leur expatrié (en Europe, en Amérique du Sud, etc.), ce qui permet de s'entraider. On a une vraie culture de la débrouille, aussi. Je ne pense pas que notre situation soit catastrophique.

En revanche, je pense que ce sont les grands apparatchiks de l'UE, tel M. Barroso, qui ont besoin de la Croatie plutôt que le contraire. Pour se donner bonne conscience, pour dire : "Regardez comment on continue d'intégrer." Et de faire un peu oublier au passage les cas grecs et portugais, qui ont pourtant été, à l'époque, les premiers bénéficiaires des aides européennes...

La Croatie est classée 62e sur l'indice de perception de la corruption par l'ONG Transparency International. Que faire pour lutter contre ?

C'est un de nos grands problèmes, c'est certain. Nous n'avons pas eu, comme vous en France en 1945, une "épuration" après la fin de la guerre. Nous aurions dû nous débarrasser des membres de la police secrète, nous n'avons pas assez fait table rase de la période communiste.

L'entrée dans l'UE peut tout de même constituer une étape pour tourner la page du passé. Par exemple, en aidant à enterrer la hache de guerre avec Belgrade ?

N'oublions pas que, dans les années 90, quand beaucoup de Croates étaient pro-européens, Bruxelles ne s'était pas donné beaucoup de peine pour stopper les atrocités entre la Croatie et la Serbie.

Par ailleurs, je pense que cette adhésion ne résout en rien la question de la vérité historique, qui nous mine d'un côté comme de l'autre de la frontière. Je plaide pour une grande conférence qui réunirait des intellectuels de tous horizons pour qu'on règle une fois pour toutes la question de la "victimologie". C'est-à-dire qu'on se débarrasse de cette bataille de chiffres, dans laquelle on compte nos morts de part et d'autre sans souci des faits. Mes compatriotes construisent trop souvent leur identité de "bon Croate" en opposition avec le "mauvais Serbe". Il faut vraiment sortir de cette nécessité d'exister dans le dénigrement de l'autre...

Mais que ce soit à Bruxelles, Zagreb ou Belgrade, tout le monde est imprégné du même "économisme". Tout se résume aux mathématiques, aux chiffres. Il faudrait plutôt mettre en valeur nos idées spirituelles, intellectuelles, culturelles. Je suis pour une Europe culturelle, que l'on parle tous les langues des uns et des autres, plutôt qu'un mauvais anglais.

Le Point