PAVELIC AS AN IDEAL

AIM ZAGREB, 17 October, 1997

As it is evident today, Croatia was unprepared for the uncontainable democratic changes from late eighties and early nineties, personified in the replacement of a one-party system with a multi-party democracy and free elections, as well as all other inevitable changes which ensued. A rigid domination of one party, wild capitalism, increasingly intensified restriction of human rights and freedoms, and primarily the right to true and timely information, as well as chauvinism, which only favoured the war - are some of acute ailments of the young Croatian democracy, as it was christened at Pantovcak. An additional problem in Croatia - which is impossible to observe separately from other negative tendencies - is history. Under the guise of that same young democracy events and facts from not only recent past, but also that of some ten or thirteen centuries ago, from "seventh century till now" are being altered and reshaped. People and events about which we learned in schools as negative till the nineties are turned into positive and vice versa - what was positive has been turned into undesirable, negative to the very bone. One ideology was replaced by another.

Those few remaining independent media carried numerous articles during these seven years about ruthless distortion of truth which is being served to pupils of elementary and secondary schools, and even at faculties. What is more, authors of history textbooks have started to speak openly of pressures they are exposed to in order to alter facts from the Croatian past, in which the Ministry of Education and Sports of the Republic of Croatia, with Ljilja Vokic at its helm, has a leading role. Therefore, as well as because of the lowered level of teaching, those rare better off parents have decided to send their children to be educated outside Croatia, in order to maintain their educational level at a fairly European level. Unfortunately, the majority do not have sufficient financial means for something like that.

Many hoped that the re-introduction of gymnasiums in the Croatian educational system would mean the return to the tradition of a high-quality education of future students, which was interrupted by the school reform of Stipe Suvar. Thanks to their earlier reputation of good and desirable educational institutions, some gymnasiums have been declared elite, and it is sometimes necessary to pull certain strings in order to get admitted. The Zagreb XV Gymnasium, former educational center for mathematics and informatics, was proclaimed the most elite of all gymnasiums, while the latest school scandal occurred precisely there.

Listeners of the "Parliament Show", a radio programme which goes twice a week on Radio 101, were shocked by a report of the mother of a child attending this most elite gymnasium. Very upset with all that was going on in that school, and mostly at history classes, that mother told the radio about all activities of the fanatic history professor Branko Horvatinovic who forces his pupils to march at attention at his classes, to hate Serbs, who teaches his pupils to glorify the person and works of the Ustashi leader, Ante Pavelic, who takes them for outings to Jazovka under the Ustashi banner, who enlists them for the Croatian Home-Guard Youth which he is the President of and who holds his classes under the chequered flag with the first field painted white (the Ustashi coat of arms) with a motto under it "For Croatia, for Fatherland". And it has been going on for several years now. Listening to the distressed mother the scandalized host of the programme managed to utter: "Madam, you must be joking", obviously flabbergasted by this story. The listener was not joking.

Although the story reached the public, Professor Horvatinovic did not worry. Only several days later passers-by below the overpass at the Zagreb bus terminal could actually see for themselves all that the mentioned mother had described directly over the air. Some three hundred pupils, led by a rather short and grey-haired professor, many adorned with Ante Pavelic's picture on their lapels, led by standard-bearers of Croatian, HDZ and the Ustashi banners, some even in army boots hailing with their arms up in the air and outstretched right hand, were going towards the Jazovka pit for their outing. As a reporter described, it all reminded of Hilterjugend units.

The pupils had learned all this at Horvatinovic's history classes. Hating Serbs "as they will be the end of us", skipping the chapter on former Yugoslav republics as he would not "teach about these and similar backward nations", omitting Pippin the Little who "screwed his sister", teaching on Kuharic's "anti-Croatian activities" - these are some details from Horvatinovic's teaching arsenal. Parents, dissatisfied with this Ustashi indoctrination unsuccessfully tried several times to intervene with the head-mistress of the Gymnasium. "We are appalled and shocked with the lectures of Professor Horvatinovic. We do not wish our children to grow up surrounded by hate and nationalistic fanaticism. We particularly object to Ante Pavelic being glorified as a hero of the homeland", they said. Ministry of Education was also informed, but apart from small talk with the morning coffee in the halls "about a strange professor", nothing more happened. "Let them keep informing against me, I will continue to spread the truth", said Horvatinovic to his students.

For him the truth meant adding Ante Pavelic's picture - when it is missing - along with those of the Croatian kings, Stjepan Radic and Alojzije Stepinac. His truth touches upon Franjo Tudjman who, as he says, "claims to be a great Croat although he has a daughter Nevenka, i.e. Sutjeska, and a Belgrade grandson Dejan", According to him the SDP is a communist gang. He warned a student who drew Dinamo's coat of arms that "both of them could get a rap on their knuckles for that". "We have won the democracy in order to be able to freely say what we think", said Horvatinovic to the press.

Other teachers in the school knew what was going on, but claimed that no one had seen any of the mentioned incidents. The inspection which attended Horvatinovic's classes several times always found everything to be in order while the pupils did not dare say anything about the events in fear for their future. However, there were those who responded to the objections against Horvatinovic and his teaching methods with a petition signed by almost one hundred pupils in which they demanded that their favourite professor be left alone. Some obviously liked to be lined up in a "Zrinski - Frankopan" regiment, as Horvatinovic had named it, divided into three companies. A second grade girl is at the helm of the regiment, while the rank of captains have three pupils who did not qualify for the regiment leader. Anyhow, Horvatinovic has proclaimed the Gymnasium for the General Staff of the Croatian Home-Guard Youth which he is heading (although he is 55 years old), and not a hair on anybody's head was harmed.

But, was anything expected to happen? In a state in which the Minister of Education by her ruthless behaviour brings into question the entire peaceful reintegration of Podunavlje, it is hard to say whether anything else could have happened. Her despotism, supported with the increasing centralisation and bureaucratisation of the entire educational system, recently forced the whole cabinet to react in order to rectify Vokic's spitefullness and show of force of the Dinaric type. In order to avoid another scandal of world proportions - which the aforementioned Minister afforded Croatia with her instructions to the Italian schools - a "compromise" was struck according to which a moratorium was declared on the teaching of the history from 1989 till present times in the region of Podunavlje so that the local children, mostly of Serbian nationality, are exempt from it. After the Horvatinovic case - it is perhaps better that way.

MILIVOJ DjILAS