Never again

On May 9, the Day of Victory over Fascism, I am convinced that "never again" is an empty slogan. Of course, it is important to teach history to young people and try to learn lessons from the past, but we also see in the war for Ukraine that people's capacity to commit the most terrible crimes has not disappeared.

Civilized society serves to limit such impulses. Obviously, being human also means being capable of violence. We must therefore create an appropriate political and moral environment in order to make such behavior impossible, to prevent it, which obviously did not happen in the Balkans. Tendencies towards nationalist authoritarianism are stronger after each election process, so I no longer have faith in the strength of mass movements that oppose the restriction of freedom of speech and human rights.

Many times we have heard and seen in our public space how vulgar nationalism is openly supported and fascist ideas are glorified. In such a society, politics is no longer a public address for a serious discussion of what is good, necessary and useful for our society, how it can be achieved. We have been deprived of such discussions for decades, we have lost trust in the institutions where charlatans and demagogues sit, guided by the populist instinct to stay in power, because the context in which they rule is a society ravaged by crises which, unfortunately, has not learned anything from the lessons of the middle and end of the twentieth century . In his book "Anatomy of Fascism", the respected historian Robert O. Paxton warns us that in the 21st century no fascist will claim the title "fascist", because we recognize fascists partly by what they say; how they act is certainly important. This new, remodulated fascism sprouts from the lack of political ideas and ignorance of universal values, and thus takes the form and color of its time and culture. And we live in a culture of denial and lies, justifying evil done to others in the name of national rights, interests and protection. Speaking morally, and even politically, our indifference and habituation to the appearance of fascism is dangerous for the future. That's why it must be openly said that the Balkan societies have taken a positive attitude towards the criminal and quintessential Chetnik and Ustasha movement from the Second World War, which is the prototype of today's fascism, which we see in a series of gallery figures of politicians who look like ghosts, the ghosts of the past that we want to see the end, but they, like a deadly virus, transform themselves in no time, creating new and unpredictable combinations, new complexities of governance and political coalitions.

In the Balkans today, it is difficult to say what is left and what is right, which brings politics to the end of its meaning and leaves no room for an alternative. We are all responsible, individually and collectively, for that fascism that was born under our windows, which is written on buildings and cemeteries, on monuments of anti-fascism and which is chanted by fans in stadiums. It is the result of spiritual emptiness, lost political vision of ideas and ideals, opportunistic academic community, criminogenic business elite, revisionist school system, politically controlled media. Sinking deeply into resignation, our societies are exhausted by the politics of failed projects, negotiations and agreements, announced pre-election reforms as a force for democratic and economic development. However, fatigue and saturation with politics cannot be an excuse for losing civic identity, turning into a submissive voter, a "man of the masses" who does not have the ability to recognize life as goodness, truth, beauty, justice and compassion. And there are fewer and fewer of them because fascism has settled again at our home address or maybe it never left?

It's hard for me to admit, as ubiquitous as he is, he won, realistically, in the nineties. The hope that he would emerge from it was not realized. Of course, part of the society remained normal, part of the society remained faithful to anti-fascist values, however, the dominant narrative of all these societies is nationalism, revision of the Second World War, exclusivity towards different neighbors, national minorities, you name it; quarrels in relation to the wars of the nineties and those narratives and a general legalization of the revisionist narrative and delegitimization of the anti-fascist struggle. This characterizes all Balkan societies where contemporary fascists and anti-fascists are not the same as fascists and anti-fascists from the middle of the 20th century, but some fundamental features have remained unchanged. Today we witness that many followers of fascist ideas often declare themselves as anti-fascists. It developed from the practice of the artificial construction of the so-called national anti-fascism, which allegedly existed during the Second World War, all with the aim of diminishing the communist role in the military defeat of fascism, although the role of the partisans led by the communists in the victory over fascism in our region is clear a historical fact, regardless of the efforts of certain academic and media circles to erase it from the memory culture of the past decades.

The author is a director and director of the Sarajevo National Theater

(danas.rs)