Golubic-2013-Darko-G

Darko Gavrilovic Faculty of Science, University of Novi Sad CONTEMPORARY ANTI – SEMITISM IN CROATIA AND SERBIA AND URGENCE FOR STRONGER CONNECTIONS BETWEEN HOLOCAUST EDUCATION AND HUMAN RIGHTS EDUCATION ABSTRACT: In this article I will examine the manifests of contemporary anti-Semitism in Croatia and Serbia. In according to that, I will insist on need for Holocaust education and Human Rights education same as on making a network between them in the region. The analysis focuses mainly on Holocaust deniers, conspiratorial explanations of western policies both among the Serbian and Croatian writers who were drawing on an established tradition of conspiratorial explanations but also on incidents inside these two societies. In article will be suggest that the proliferation of conspiracy theories during the war in Ex Yugoslavia same as after the war led to a shifting of the boundary between acceptable and non acceptable political explanations, with the result that formerly unacceptable anti-Semitic themes became respectable. KEY WORDS: anti-Semitism, Jews, conspiracy, Holocaust education, Human rights education AN UPSURGE IN CONTEMPORARY ANTI-SEMITISM Contemporary anti-Semitism manifests itself in overt and subtle ways, both in places where sizeable Jewish communities are located and where few Jews live. Anti-Semitic crimes range from acts of violence, including terrorist attacks against Jews, to the desecration and destruction of Jewish property such as synagogues and cemeteries. Anti-Semitic rhetoric, conspiracy theories, and other propaganda circulate widely and rapidly by satellite television, radio, and the Internet. Traditional forms of anti-Semitism persist and can be found across the globe. Classic anti-Semitic screeds, such as The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion and Mein Kampf, remain commonplace. Jews continue to be accused of blood libel, dual loyalty, and undue influence on government policy and the media, and the symbols and images associated with age-old forms of anti-Semitism endure. These blatant forms of anti-Semitism, often linked with Nazism and fascism, are considered unacceptable by the mainstream in the democratic nations of Western Europe, North America, and beyond, but they are embraced and employed by the extreme fringe. In countries where anti-Semitism was not very widespread prior to 1945, such as in Scandinavia, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the Czech Republic, the population today is less anti-Semitic than in those countries with a more deeply rooted tradition of anti- Semitism, such as Germany, Austria, Italy, Russia, Ukraine, Lithuania, Romania, and Slovakia. The role the country played in the Holocaust is decisive for the content of attitudes toward Jews, naturally above all, in Germany and Austria. But this factor also strongly influences attitudes in Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Hungary (partially in Poland as well), and more recently, in Switzerland.1 Governments are increasingly recognized as having a responsibility to work against societal anti-Semitism. But instead of taking action to fight the fires of anti-Semitism, some irresponsible leaders and governments fan the flames of anti-Semitic hatred within their own societies and even beyond their borders. This new anti-Semitism is common throughout the Middle East and in Muslim communities in Europe, but it is not confined to these populations. In muslim communities and states such as Iran, the Iran‘s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has actively promoted Holocaust denial. The Syrian government routinely demonizes Jews through public statements and official propaganda. The government news media in Saudi Arabia and Egypt have become vehicles for anti-Semitic discourse. In Europe Union, in Poland, the conservative Catholic radio station Radio Maryja is one of Europe‘s most blatantly anti-Semitic media venues. In France2, Germany, the United Kingdom3, and elsewhere, anti- Semitic violence remains a significant concern. The Interregional Academy of Personnel 1 Werner Bergmann, Anti-Semitic Attitudes in Europe: A Comparative Perspective, Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 64, No. 2, 2008, p. 346. 2 In France, 371 reported anti-Semitic episodes, a 24% increase over 2005, including 112 physical attacks, a 45% increase over 2005. However, statistics for the first half of 2007 reveal a 28% decrease in overall incidents compared to 2006. Source: Service for the Protection of the Jewish Community. 3 In the • United Kingdom, 594 reported anti-Semitic incidents, a 31% increase over 2005. This number of reported incidents is more than any other year since 1984, when statistics began to be kept. Source: Community Security Trust. Management, a private institution in Ukraine commonly known by the acronym MAUP, is one of the most persistent anti-Semitic institutions in Eastern Europe. In Russia4 and other countries where xenophobia is widespread, such as some in Central and Eastern Europe, traditional anti-Semitism remains a problem. Recent increases in anti-Semitic incidents have been documented in Argentina5, Australia, Canada, South Africa, and beyond.6 As Chief Rabbi Sacks found, today, we are faced with three sources of the ‗new anti- Semitism‘: ―First, a radicalized Islamist youth inflamed by extremist rhetoric; second, a left-wing anti-American cognitive élite with strong representation in the European media; third, a resurgent far right, as anti-Muslim as it is anti-Jewish.‖ MODERN ANTI-SEMITISM IN CROATIA AND SERBIA In the Serbian and Croatian context, none of the three factors mentioned by Chief Rabbi Sacks are to be found. Firstly, radical Islamic youth is an insignificant political force in Serbia and there are none of them in Croatia. Secondly, anti-Semitic rhetoric is devoid of references to Israel or the Middle East and cannot be traced back to the ideological tradition of left-wing anti-Semitism (for a discussion of left wing anti-Semitism, see Billig, 1987). Finally, Serbian and Croat anti-Semites do not justify their argument through the rhetoric of sympathy with the Palestinian liberation movement or the Arab world. But we can find fourth source of anti-Semitism. It can be found in the attitude adopted by the governments and societies of the ex communist countries in FRY toward the murder of their Jewish populations during World War II that can be taken as the current anticommunist reaction which naturally seeks to rehabilitate their image of fascist and Nazi collaborators. It aims to show that because communist governments suppressed both the actual existence and 4 In Moscow, Russia, on January 11, 2006, a man entered a synagogue shouting anti-Semitic epithets and attacked worshippers with a knife during evening prayer, injuring nine people before being subdued. 5 In Buenos Aires, Argentina, on July 18, 1994, the most lethal anti-Semitic attack since World War II occurred when terrorists struck the Argentina Jewish Mutual Association (AMIA), which housed the Argentine Jewish Federation, killing 85 people and injuring more than 150 others. 6 Source: Contemporary Global Anti-Semitism: A Report provided to the United States Congress, Unite States Department of State, March 2008, p.5. the memory of prewar right-wing nationalist political formations for over forty years by tarring them as fascists and Nazi collaborators, the current anticommunist reaction is trying to ―clean‖ theirs nationalistic roots from the murders and war crimes. Because, that image has been damaged by association with the slaughter of Jews, they try to denying the complicity of local nationalists in the killings or by denying the fact of the killings altogether. Except that fact, we are also faced with rise of anti-Jewish discourse in Serbia and Croatia which is self-absorbed, focused solely on the victimization of Serbs (and sometimes other Orthodox peoples) or Croats (and sometimes other Catholic peoples) in the hands of the imagined international Jewish conspiracy. Also it is important to mention that in Serbia and Croatia anti-Semitic sentiments have assumed not only political but also social and cultural importance although there are hardly any Jews in the country at all. The exact number of Jews living in the territory of the Republic of Serbia (not including Kosovo) is not known. The last official census conducted in 2002 put the number of persons declaring themselves Jews at 1,1587 and in Croatia, the number of the persons declaring themselves Jews is 568. Most of its members are descended from mixed marriages, and are fully assimilated into the local culture. Current analysts regard it as an outcome of the radical and extremist tendencies in society brought on by the changed social and economic environments in evidence at the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st centuries. In the past twenty years or so in Serbia anti-Semitism has not existed as an isolated phenomenon; it should therefore be sought in the radicalization, intolerance and xenophobia permeating politics and society as a result of a disastrous, destructive policy. In view of the traditional perception of the Jews as ever others and foreigners, anti-Semitism in Serbia may, in a broader sense, be interpreted as a problematic attitude to difference rather than as a purely anti-Jewish ideology, practice, or discourse.8 Recent analyses of anti-Semitism in post-communist Serbia and Croatia suggest that, for much of the 1990s, anti-Jewish ideology was a marginal phenomenon without strong 7 Jews by ethnicity and religion. Slighly more than half of them were Jews by religion,

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