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back to
the 1940's, but without the partisans For
years now, when visiting Croatia, I experience an uneasy feeling of the
revival of nazism (or fascism, if there is a difference which matters).
First, I’ve noticed the trend on a local level, city of Bol
[090628],
but currently it is a kind of "popular" movement across the
country. To think of it, it’s not unexpected: Croatian puppet state NDH
(Nezavisna Država Hrvatska), 1941-1945, was a fascist state and its
fascism was not imposed by Germany and/or Italy, it was of Croatian roots,
it just "blossomed" under the protection of those two countries.
And
thinking of it, I recall what Noam Chomsky, interviewed by David Barsamian,
said in1992, the year of intensified Serbs-Croats conflict, on the subject
of bloody disintegration of Yugoslavia. (The interview was published in
1993 under the title The Prosperous Few and the Restless Many.)
from
The Prosperous Few and the Restless Many
by
Noam Chomsky (1993)
Q:
Would you comment on the events in the former Yugoslavia, which
constitute the greatest outburst of violence in Europe in fifty
years.
A:
In a certain sense, what’s happening is that the British and
American right wings are getting what they asked for. Since the
1940's they’ve been quite bitter about the fact that Western
support turned to Tito and the partisans, and against Mikailhovich
and his Chetniks, and the Croatian anti-Communists, including the
Ustasha, who were outright Nazis. The Chetniks were also playing
with the Nazis and were trying to overcome the partisans.
The
partisan victory imposed a communist dictatorship, but it also
federated the country. It suppressed the ethnic violence that had
accompanied the hatreds and created the basis of some sort of
functioning society in which the parts had their role. We’re now
essentially back to the 1940's, but without the partisans.
Serbia
is the inheritor of the Chetnics and their ideology. Croatia is
the inheritor of the Ustasha and its ideology (less ferocious than
the Nazi original, but similar). It’s possible that they’re
now carrying out pretty much what they would’ve done if the
partisans hadn’t won. |
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