Law against fascisation

Aim Zagreb, June 18, 2000

Croatia is soon to adopt a law prohibiting the use of fascist symbols and propaganda - he Croatian Prime Minister Ivica Racan, announced in Parliament. The bill has already been drafted and should soon go into parliamentary procedure.

The announcement of the adoption of an anti-fascist law was preceded by a number of incidents provoked by fascist circles - some monuments built in memory of fascist victims were desecrated and demolished, a number of marches organised with right activists carrying pictures of the criminal Pavelic and late Tudjman side by side and shouting threats to the minority Serbs and saluting with a raised right fist. The climax of that Ustasha orgies was the unveiling of a memorial plaque dedicated to the notorious commander of Black Legions - Jure Francetic - in Slunj.

The new authorities tried to ignore the provocations claiming that too much attention devoted to such marginal groups would only give them leverage. True, right wing, extremist, especially neo-fascist forces enjoy very modest support in Croatia nowadays. It seems that these Ustashas have appeared in public all of a sudden, and in much greater number or, at least, more ready for extremist adventures than ever.

Tudjman's Government has practically rehabilitated NDH (the Independent State of Croatia) but, at the same time, kept its supporters under control. It turned a blind eye to their destruction of anti-fascist monuments and traditions; while the naming of a street after Mile Budak, an Ustasha author of racial laws symbolised actual penetration of Ustasha sentiments into all segments of the state and society. During the HDZ rule, the Ustasha scarecrows resurfaced and the pro-fascist language and acts have become a practice. But, Tudjman's authorities also did not support open glorification of the criminal Francetic.

The tolerance limit in respect of the fascist behaviour was set rather high, but existed, nevertheless. Now, right wing groups behave as no limits or considerations should be observed, they are out of control. After Tudjman's death, there is no one left to restrain these wild extreme groups. They are also driven by the fear of losing the hitherto positions and by animosity towards new authorities which they consider leftist and openly threaten with overthrowing. The re-activated Ustasha movement now openly advocates violence, which is a new phenomena in Croatia's political life.

Actually, under Tudjman the right wing terror was realised through the institutions of the system and now it is threatening with non-institutional strikes since it lost power; Tudjman always found some excuse for being so close to the NDH heritage. The army of his right wing supporters totally rejected such mollifying attitudes and considerations. The previous authorities were hypocritical about this - saying one thing and doing quite the opposite. Now this discrepancy has disappeared and the rightists now say everything straight from the shoulder.

The adoption of the law on "de-Ustashisation" was proposed already two years ago by some political groups, but without attracting much public support. Moreover, a legal provision prohibiting the incitement of ethnic and racial hatred was revoked. Now, things have changed, seemingly for two reasons: first, because of the threats that the right-wingers could lead the socially dissatisfied population, and second, as a result of the pressure exerted by the international community.

Recently, Washington warned Zagreb that it should take a firm stand towards the right-wing activists, the more so as they have marked a part of the Croatian history.

One of the leading blackshirts, the HSP leader Anto Djapic, recently pointed out that their protests will soon become larger and that in the autumn his party will be leading the social protesters. Djapic has taken over such ideas from certain renown intellectuals. Recently, professor Zarko Puhovski said that unless social degradation is somehow halted Croatia will be soon faced with serious social unrest of rightists orientation: "In autumn Croatia could be easily faced with very grave, perhaps even bloody, large-scale rightist social riots", said Puhovski. It seems that the new authorities have finally realised that they have to forestall the uniting of right-wing rubble-rousers and explosive social malcontents, whose activities are hard to predict, but even harder to restrain under the given circumstances.

Racan's statement on the prohibition of use of fascist symbols has initiated a public debate on the possible contents of the mentioned law. The media are analysing the experiences of other European countries in which such prohibitions don't exist. The majority of states do not consider fascist propaganda free political thought, but treat it as an offence. Contrary to the predominant European practice, Croatia is proposing sanctioning of not only fascist, but also communist symbols. A part of the ruling coalition is inclined to treat as equal these two ideologies and totalitarian practices. Thus, Vlado Gotovac's liberals are warning Racan not to forget the left extremists. True, at the same time he admitts that there is no left extremism in Croatia today, but warns that it should not be forgotten, just in case.

Question is how will Social-Democrats (SDP), the strongest party in the new authorities, react to these demands. SDP originated from the one-time Communist Party, although it appears that the party would gladly erase that legacy, but - willy-nilly - SDP relies on it. Instead of Racan's party, journalists are the ones commenting on the attempts of equalising the swastika with the five-pointed star. Opposing this equalisation of, as they are called here, extremisms, an analyst recently wrote that fascism is undeniably an evil project in contrast to communism which is basically emancipatory. Fascist crimes are an integral part of the project; red crimes were not a part of a plan; although appalling and can be compared with those of fascism - they can, nevertheless, be considered just a deviation. Someone remarked that communism behaved like church: portending good, it often committed terrible evil.

The current political elite is rather inclined to make various, even artificial balances, so that it is very probable that with a strike of a law Croatia will prohibit symbols of both fascism and communism, so that revamped and newly emerged Croatian fascist would not feel affected. And it is precisely such practice of concessions, tolerance and refrain from reacting to Ustasha provocations that the Croatian authorities have found themselves in a situation from which there is no retreat.

Jelena Lovric