HIMMLERS FROM OUR STREET

"Our compatriots have not actually fallen so low as we had feared, because they had not risen as high as they had believed they had". (Sigmund Freud, psychiatrist)

AIM Zagreb, September 21, 1996

Plastic artist, Jagoda Buic was some time ago the victim of an assault: a group of young men rushed at the gate of her Dubrovnik house, called her names and threatened to break her bones... This lady was saved from this attempt of lynch thanks to quick intervention of a friend, an officer of the Croatian army. He helped her "evacuate" to a hotel. She declared that she would stay there until she got guarantees from the police that her life was not in danger any more.

The artist who became a world celebrity primarily for her tapistries, showed also a threatening letter to the journalists, and connected her trying experience of three weeks ago with the polemic with Mani Gotovac, manageress of Zagreb threatre ITD. Towards the end of 1991, after Mrs. Buic, according to Mrs. Gotovac, failed to deny articles which claimed that she advocated Dubrovnik an "open" or "protected" city (which was equal to surrender at the time, in other words, calling for the destiny similar to that of Ilok for Dubrovnik), Mrs. Gotovac addressed an open letter to her friend. But, Mrs. Buic rejected the allegations!

Even if Mrs. Buic had sent an open telegram to Momir Bulatovic congratulating him on the brilliant speech, in the best tradition of Njegos, made to reserve forces which, among other, heroically plundered all the television sets and cigarettes at Cilipi airport, and very humanely moved all the cows from Konavle to better Montenegrin pastures - in a state ruled by law it must not be a cause for lynch. Even if Mrs. Buic had sent smoke signals (with burning car tires?) in order to correct, direct cannon fire on the "jewel of the Adriatic", a group of young men has no right to take "justice" into their hands. It is clear who is authorized to investigate, indict, sentence... Of course, the state administration cannot (and must not) replace public opinion. But, what kind of public is it which allows taking somebody's home by force and breaking somebody's bones?

Mrs. Gotovac denies the connection between the 1991 open letter with the open assault on Mrs. Buic's life. Indeed, this is true, but it is possible that the enraged lads had heard about the letter, but also about articles in newspapers, and rumours (usually started over coffee and brandy) about unpatriotic behavior of Mrs. Buic. After all, in the eyes of the petty bourgoeois "Ku-Klux Klan", she transformed into a "Chetnik" who deserved to be finally beaten up. It is interesting that it was possible to read in a journal that Mrs. Buic was the daughter of the ban of Primorje (by administrative organization of Kingdom of Yugoslavia, before Croatia was established as a ban's dominion), and in others that her origins were in a respectable rich Croatian family, but she was nevertheless labelled "Chetnik".

However, does not this latter presentation of Mrs. Buic as a "thoroughbred" speak in favour of those who consider it their right to exterminate those who are "unfit"?" Does not it mean that lynching would be all right, had Mrs. Buic been of Serb origin? Or would she have earned the epithet "Chetnik" even if she had been able to prove her Croat origin by a genealogy reaching back to primitive man, but cannot prove respectability and wealth of her family?

Any approach which is not generally against all forms of cry and hue leads to "legalization" of lynch, and noone knows who can become a victim of an infuriated mob. There probably is not a better presentation of the growth of nazism than the following: "First they came to get communists, and I did not protest because I was not a communist. Then they came to get the Jews and I did not protest because I was not a Jew... Then they came to get the Catholics, and I did not protest because I was a protestant. Then they came to get me, but by that time there was noone left to protest." This quotation is not a rule which is valid only for fascist systems, but it is one of the socio-pathological characteristics of all authoritarian and totalitarian systems. Of course, it may also appear in a democracy. After all, lynch is a phenomenon whose "father" is the American farmer called Lynch. But, in every second western movie a sheriff appears who is against the beastly liquidation, the "common law" of the Wild West.

The case of Mrs. Buic, i.e. of the attack against her, is specific for the fact that she had the opportunity to declare that the harassment had been initiated by the people she had cooperated with, and send word that they will "hear from her yet". It was published that her husband - Hans Wuttke, former head of one of the most powerful world monetary institutions - had informed German embassy in Zagreb about this case, and that the case reached Hans Dietrich Genscher, who must have phoned Franjo Tudjman... In any case, Ministry of culture reacted and an apology reached the artist...

In connection with this, questions about other victims of "warring in the rear" are inevitable, about those who had become targets of village and petty bourgeouis "revolutionary authorities", that is of local combatants who had an urge to contribute to "our cause". For example, by maltreating a Serb who had not "flocked with his birds of feather" (and thus became a black sheep and a scapegoat in the Croatian flock), or by labelling those who openly show understanding for problems of others (specifically of the Serb minority) by "Yugo-nostalgic", "traitors of the Croatian nation", "spies of former Yugoslav state security service"... When such labels were attributed to Ivan Zvominir Cicak, Slobodan Budak, Ivo Banac or Drago Pilsel, one can only imagine what kind of a "welcome" would be organized for Mira Furlan or Rade Serbedzija. When the latter actor came for a short visit to Croatia, as far as we are informed, he had no problems with the official representatives of the Republic of Croatia, but only with some of his colleagues. This is a case of specific division of national labour. For instance, architect Bogdan Bogdanovic from Belgrade - where he was a mayor in mid eighties - has not left due to direct state repression. "Cleansing" of Bogdanovic, writer Mirko Kovac and thousands of young people who had no time to become celebrities, was carried out by society which turned into a mob.

Mrs. Buic was saved from a bone-breaking end in the midst of a Dubrovnik mob by an officer of the Croatian army. What about victims of vandalism who were not lucky to have friends in a uniform of the army, police or at least of a forester or a postman? Mrs. Buic found accomodation at Excelsior Hotel. How many women "Chetniks" were not tapestry artists but textile workers? Who were not public figures, but "ordinary women", not to say unfortunate people? What about those women "Chetniks" whose husbands are sergeants retired 20 years ago or qualified tin-smiths? Will they too receive an apology from the relevant ministries? And what about those "Chetniks" who are in no position to receive an apology any more (who were 69, 75 or 83) who experienced more serious things than threats: who were shot, strangled, had their bones broken... And they were not killed by hundreds only in August 1995 in the liberated parts of Croatia, but lynch was practised both before and after that even in places which are very far from the battlefields. Because the enemy is never that far not to be detected by a local Himmler even in a completely innocent, apolitical co-citizen, even in a neighbour from his own street. It is very easy to find an immediate cause, in other words it will disappear only after the last target of intimidation disappears: the last "Chetnik", "fundamentalist", "spy"...

In this context, a cynic would say that it is a good thing that the mob had chosen Mrs. Buic who is obviously not just anybody, like majority of those who have also experienced to be asked about their origin or have (not) survived letting their blood. But, if such shock therapy is accepted, does it not lead to the conclusion that an arrow should also be sent towards the banker Dejan Kosutic, son of a Serb and grandson of Tito's general? Bit, no fret, Tudjman's grandson has a lot of friends in uniforms of the Croatian army...

MIRKO VID MLAKAR