Bosnia-Herzegovina Social Briefing: Troubles with Chetniks, Ustashe and Banal Lies Ivica Bakota

ISSN: 2560-1601 Vol. 16, No. 3 (BH) March 2019 Bosnia-Herzegovina social briefing: Troubles with Chetniks, Ustashe and banal lies Ivica Bakota 1052 Budapest Petőfi Sándor utca 11. +36 1 5858 690 Kiadó: Kína-KKE Intézet Nonprofit Kft. [email protected] Szerkesztésért felelős személy: Chen Xin Kiadásért felelős személy: Huang Ping china-cee.eu 2017/01 Troubles with Chetniks, Ustashe and banal lies Banal and blatant lies A main problem with blatant lies, as Hannah Arendt would suggest, is not that they, if repeated enough times, would eventually become a truth. At least not to everyone and not immediately. Given the circumstances under which a blatant lie is planted in the world, at least someone will take it as a frontal insult to a commonsense. The problem is when a lie is served in a way that renders a populace unable to pay due attention, when an avalanche of easily refutable “preposterous lies” becomes a commonplace so a reaction on them becomes irrelevant and banal. When a lie destroys “the sense by which we take our bearings in the real world” and category of truth versus falsehood becomes blurred, we succumbed to a terror of a banal lie. On Sunday, March 10, members of Ravna gora Chetnik movement (named after a birthplace of the Chetnik movement from WWII) organized a rally in Bosnian southeastern city of Visegrad. According to reports, around two hundred members and supporters of Chetnik movement gathered to commemorate the arrest of a Serb general and a leader of Chetnik movement during World War II, Dragoljub, Draza Mihailovic. Many members and supporters came wearing Chetnik uniforms, worn also in a recent Bosnian war by Bosnian Serb militia and volunteers. Apparently, a slogan reminiscent of atrocities committed by Chetniks in both wars was chanted on the rally. During the speech that preceded parastos (religious memorial service), Draza Mihailovic was described as a: “JNA commander, a man who gave his life for the freedom of the Serb nation; and not only for Serb nation, but for development of democracy, defense of the homeland against fascist aggressors and against terrible slaughter done by Ustashe.” (Croat fascist movement during WWII). These set of claims, reported by media to be uttered by a certain Dusan Sladojevic, a president of Ravna gora movement of “Srpska Homeland”, one of organizers of Visegrad rally, strikes as an example of a blatant lie. It is so blatant that even a high school student will give up defending Mihailovic`s alleged antifascism confronted with the facts delivered by a mainstream historiography where is unmistakably proven that he was indeed a Nazi collaborator and opportunist war roader. In the same sense, hardly anyone rational would claim he fought “not only for Serb nation” or that he did not collaborated with Ustashe, whom, as presented, he perceived as archenemies. However, in this particular piece of story-telling more striking is the banality through which a blatant lie becomes a legitimate lie. Not legitimate truth, but legitimate lie. 1 Unsophisticated manner (a speech delivered to anonymous bunch of supporters) and ludicrous argumentation (with obvious factual mistakes – JNA commander!? – and permutations from modern political discourse – “fighter for development of democracy”) only help to deliver true banality of a legitimate lie. After the Visegrad rally all relevant media and politicians condemned such an event. Yet, there was no single reaction to why this blatant lie matters, and to whom it matters. No one cared or felt appropriate to comment what actually this resurrect Ravna gora movement tried to substitute for truth. Nor it was important that this Chetnik rally has been organized in relative anonymity, as some media has reported, for many years, “and only now the public called upon relevant institutions to react”. Reactions on a “Chetnik parade” were also caught in Serbia and Croatia. Croatian politicians were mostly appalled, Serbians were divided. British and US ambassador on the same day sent a “strong note” criticizing the parade. The government of Sarajevo Canton requested BIH Public Prosecution Office to charge Ravna gora movement for organizing an event for stirring national, ethnic, racial and religious hatred. War-victim organizations were more vocal in condemning the event. Bakira Hasecic, in front of Women War Victims, accused Bosnia and Herzegovina, international community in BIH and the whole world for allowing same uniforms under which heinous war crimes were committed to be displayed on public event. Women of Srebrenica, Islamic Community of Visegrad, some political parties such as the Democratic Front called authorities to investigate how this movement was registered as a legal civil organization. Legitimate lies Soon, an intellectual debate started to wrap up the incident in Visegrad. Academics warned that Visegrad rally is a product of political atmosphere which “allows and even welcomes” gatherings of Chetniks and other nationalists. Sarajevo University professor, Enver Kazaz, believes ideological strategy of all three main nationalisms present in BIH (and advocated by the Bosniak, Croat and Serb nationalist parties) is rehabilitation of fascist movements and values and their “moral normalization”. “Chetnik upsurge in Visegrad is only a lawful consequence of such an ideology.” Departing from a book “How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them” recently published by, Jason Stanley, a Yale University professor, 2 columnist Kemal Kurspahic wrote that nationalist leaders employ fascist tactics when vivifying a glorious past and allowing revisionisms to be at play against various challenges arriving from globalist, liberal or cosmopolitan camps. It is not difficult to imagine that these and similar movements are close to hearts of nationalist leaders, regardless of ethnicity. Religious leaders for numerous times served as a proxy to this tactic, either by clearly depicting “dark times” for their respective ethnic community (usually after 1945 and/or after 1995) or preaching doomsday for the community. Cardinal (Croat) Vinko Puljic has been vocal in criticizing “anti- Croat” forces that infiltrated within Croat representatives. (Especially after Komsic was elected for Croat member of Presidency in October 2018) Bosniak religious leaders are reported to give support to a “true” origins of SDA ideology based on Alija Izetbegovic`s thought. Serb clerics were declaring support to leaders that are able to keep the Serbs united “just like in the past”. All three ethnicities and respective political parties supported ideologies that were based on exclusive imaginations of their own golden age, heroes and foes and have rewritten history to fit these contending narratives. Some of them included examples of blatantly inaccurate historical revisionism that succeeded in getting some parochial legitimacy, some hardly have any historical justification and are only meant to provoke “the other side”. “Fascist toponymy” practiced after the war provides numerous examples manifesting blatant lies of arbitrarily revised historiographies. Every ethnicity “experimented” with street, square or building names. Draza Mihailovic is also namesake to a few other civil organizations and to a football stadium in Istocno Sarajevo (RS). Croats have their own examples with controversial Ustasha leaders and NDH (Independent State of Croatia, German puppet state during WWII) who were described as patriots. In Mostar and Siroki Brijeg there are streets named after Mile Budak, one of the chief ideologists of the Ustasha movement. Apparently, Mostar also has “Jure Francetic” street, a “Crna legija” (SS-style) commander who was directly responsible for killing Serbs, Jews and Roma. Bosniaks also have some examples of Nazi- collaborators after whom were given names to streets, schools and associations. This trend was especially “cultivated” in Republika Srpska where every township has streets named after some historical personalities which are deemed controversial to Croats or Bosniaks. Exclusive taxonomy culminated in a campaign by RS authorities to remove prefix “Bosnian” from all city names in Srpska. It was only after the reaction of the High Representative that previously “Bosnian” cities were prefixed with some moderate, neither Bosnian nor Serb, namesake. Other examples include language and education policies by different ethnic communities. As highly decentralized country, entity and cantonal institutions are in charge of education, language and culture policies, which as result has not only uncoordinated but often mutually 3 exclusive set of policies. Institutions in Croat-dominated areas, for example, for a certain period tried to revive policies of linguistic purism “popular” in Croatia during Tudjman era. Strongly enforced “Cyrillization” in Republika Srpska and refashioning vocabulary from the Ottoman period to invent Bosnian language by Bosniak communities are all coterminous to a “fascist” tactics employed by nationalist parties from three different ethnic communities. This situation is even more pronounced in cultural history, where “Bosnian” label is given only to those artists, writers and other historical personalities whose identity is difficult to classify in ethnic brackets (Nobel prize winner Ivo Andric, for example). The rest of “national heroes and cultural giants” are usually secluded in physically almost indivisible, but parallel cultural contexts. It is not surprising that secluded cultural taxonomy could promote various historical revisionisms that can

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