TUDJMAN - THE GODSEND CROAT

AIM, Zagreb, Nov. 28, 1993

A few days ago, a member of the Croatian Democratic Community (HDZ) in clergyman's dress, friar Tomislav Duka, declared that Franjo Tudjman was sent by God himself to help the Croats in creating their state. This statement speaks as much of friar Duka, as of his party leader, but it is interesting because Duka has already uttered it once before at the eve of the elections three and a half yars ago when Tudjman came to power. It is therefore, possible to compare who this "godsend" man was then, and who he is now, and how many people still remain who are ready to share the conviction of the unwavering Duka. When in May 1990, Tudjman triumphantly left the Parliament where the first multipaty Parliament with overwhelming majority of the HDZ had just been constituted and started towards the central city square (the Sguare of the Republic then, and the Square of ban Josip Jelachicc now), a multitude of people welcomed him there as the father of the nation. Cardinal Kuharich was among those who recognized his fatherhood, and no doubt he was the most competent for these matters. Kuharich blessed the cradle where "young Croatia" was rocked, and the father, overwhelmed with joy, accepted congratulations from the crowd on the square and the chosen guests on the stage. Three and a half years later, this spectacle seems unreal and it would be difficult to find a sufficient number of those who would agree to a re-run of the scene on the stage. Kuhatich himself evidently cooled down and on several occasions avoided to be used as the "state priest", and nowdays he meets Tudjman only when it cannot be avoided. The Church finds it hard to forgive itself for its initial overeagerness. Although an experienced member of the opposition from the times of socialism, it wrongly jumped to the conclusion that the option of a national state, regardless of how it would practically be founded, would always be better than the former regime. Now, some of its prominent representatives openly declare that it was a big mistake, and even state that the idea of the nation was perverted in a short period of time to the limits of "nazism", and creed to the verge of "fundamentalism". In just a year or two, the Church had such a tedious and trying experience that it is "tired" and needs to collect its strength and start, almost from the very beginning.

We described to some detail this spiral of drunkenness and sobering up that the Church experienced and still is on purpose, because the same sobering up is still in line for all the others, political parties, intelligentsia, the media, and indeed the people. Sobering up has already begun, but how long it will last, and when it will end, it is difficult to say. Tudjman is booed at stadiums, in public opinion polls he is in such an advantage in front of Drazzen Budissa which is more to the advantage of the second-placed man than to him, and not long ago, six intellectuals finally took the big step and said what waited to be said for some time now - they demanded from Tudjman to withdraw from the post with dignity. The seventy-one year old Croatian President is a rarely vain person who reacts eruptively to such expressions of disobedience, and on several occasions even shed tears in public, to show how touched he was as a man who had devoted his entire self to Croatia, and he was rewarded by disobedience!

But, this does not mean that Tudjman, who had spent half of his professional career as a representative of Croatia in the very top of the Yugoslav Army, and the second half in not too hard "internal emigration", is not capable of rationally assessing his actions on such occasions. Indeed, he is a man who has a particular vision, which might be highly dogmatic and dry, but what is even more important, he knows how to get supporters for it, which is best illustrated by the way he had convinced a large number of Croats, when the independent state of Croatia was being formed, that they had got what they had never had before. This is definitely not true, and it does not even comply with the official stereotype that the Croatian state has an uninterrupted continuity lasting a thousand years. But, at least it helped Tudjman to create a state where everything is justified for the sake of this high goal. Political parties, intelligentsia, the media, the citiezens, must be satisfied with the humble political freedoms they enjoy, not because the authorities want it, but because they, too, must sacrifice something for the sake of their young state. Tudjman has, therefore, concentrated enormous political power, decorated himself with a ribbon, bought an aeroplane, abundantly provided for his family and so on, not because, "he needed it", but in order to represent appropriately the state he was creating.

This sublime state interest has become lately the excuse for more or less open repression against the dissatisfied, so police searches of the headquarters of various political parties and dubious trials to party leaders, etc. have become customary methods applied by the state in keeping order and discipline. They are applied agaisnt various political parties - Paraga's Croatian Party of Rights, Ljubicc-Lorgerich's Dalmatian Action, Jakovchicc's Istrian Democratic Assembly, Cesar's Croatian Christian Democratic Party ... - but what they have in common is that once they got in the way of the planned expansion of the ruling HDZ, and they have all openly, sometimes even violently, criticized the sovereign Tudjman. The punishment that they met often by far exceeded their even most violent words, since some of them were shaken to their foundations and the spectre of the parties in that part has significantly changed colours. Therefore, this shows that even when he reacts vainly and furiously, Tudjman makes moves which from the aspect of preservation of power have a lot of sense. This was quite obvious at the recently held General Assembly of the HDZ, where it proved that he had a hardline intra-party opposition, but extremely rightist, which did not reproach him for his monarchical type of rule nor the luxury of King Louis, but indeed for his too lenient attitude towards internal and external enemies of the indepencent state of Croatia. In the end, Tudjman pacified this fraction with an emotional explanation - and tears, again, but this time not his own, but those of the leader of the rightists, Vladomir Sseks - that he himself was the obstacle for Croatia's spreading within its internationally recognized borders. He kept secret what was in the air, and now is discussed openly, that in this way he prevented a coup of the right wing against himself, which he was informed about by foreign intelligence sources and not Croatian.

Should this coup be compared with a previous one in summer 1990, which was also plotted by the right wing of the HDZ, it becomes obvious that entire Tudjman's presidential mandate has passed in a struggle to preserve power, shaking off the assaults of his opponents from within his own ranks, and lately, from without. In a sense, this is a sign of weakness, but in another, of strength. Tudjman successfully wins these battles, often turning his opponents ones against the others (gathering his party closely together against the oposition, but when necessary using the opposition agaist the hardline wing of the HDZ). Therefore, it seems at the moment that the only thing that might jeopardize his power is either a complete crash of Croatian national interests in Croatia and B&H, or a collective refusal of the Croats to achieve these interests at such as high price. Both of these processes have been opened, some are even well underway, but none sufficiently for the turning point to be anywhere in sight.

This means that all central trends of Croatian state policy will continue at least for some time yet to come, among others, departure from the idea of becoming a part of Europe, which is the source of all major traumas and delusions of Croatian politics. At first sight, this growing gap between Croatia and Europe seemed as an accidental mistake of Tudjman's policy, because he stepped on the political stage with loud pro-European rhetoric, which was in the beginning the thing that distinguished him most from Milossevicc. But this difference soon disappeared, because it became obvious that neither the HDZ, as a party of distinctly rural and patriarchal psychology, nor Tudjman, as a man who was politically formed in the tradition of hardline communism, could follow in their own words.

Tudjman is also a poor historian, who studying the past, remains in it - instead of using it as a displacement necessary to have a better view of the future - so that he soon became very close to Milossevicc in the way he saw the present conflict between Serbia and Croatia - as a continuation of the Second World War. Not long after Belgrade propaganda had proclaimed that the HDZ, Croatian police, and finally all Croats were Ustashe, the apprentices from Zagreb media responded in the same manner and proclaimed that all the Serbs were Chetniks, so that something which might have remained, objectively speaking, within limits of a local conflict, actually did take the shape of an apparition that resembled the continuation of the 1941-45 war. The fact that contributed to it is that Tudjman is possessed by the idea of the so-called synthesis of major political projects from the past - from the radically rightist to the partisan-leftist - so that he took intolerance towards Croatian Serbs from Pavelicc, and, what seems that he liked best about Tito, his system of strong presidential power and firm and efficient ruling party. The mentioned synthesis includes also Tudjman's hidden intimate wish to create the largest and, according to his taste, the best Croatia ever, and to become a greater Croatian politician and leader than both Tito, Pavelicc, Radicc and all the others.

This explains his effort "to find corrections for their errors", and the fact that he polemizes with them, as if they were alive, which would not have been a major problem, had he been doing it by writing another mediocre book. But, his ambitions are to incorporate these corrections from the margins into Croatian state politics, so secession of Croatia can be interpreted as a correction of Tito's (and partly Machek's) Yugoslav policy, and the war with the Moslems and tensions with the Italians as correction of Pavelicc's mistakes and delusions. Tudjman's browsing through history books involves everything - not only issues that might have been left open, but those which were closed once and for all. Hence, Croatia is suddenly having so many problems that not even three other countries taken together have, or even if they do, they are not in their everyday life but in historical documents bound in stiff covers.

Therefore, it is not surprising that in Croatia, slowly but surely, the number of those who wish to see the "godsend" man Tudjman end up in history books soon is increasing.

MARINKO CULIC