The Croatian media and the general public received confirmation yesterday (November 28.11) that they were right. Namely, Štefica Borjan, the grandmother of the Canadian national team player Milan Borjan, born in 1988 in Knin, who played against Croatia at the World Cup two days ago, spoke up and announced that her grandson is wrong when he speaks highly of Krajina and Serbian Dalmatia, why is known among our public. And if a grandmother says that about her grandson and if the grandmother's name is Štefica and not, for example, Radmila, then we also have the right to say whatever we want to him. That grandmother's grandson is undoubtedly a Chetnik and a fool, but this time he also performed a socially useful role: he exposed all the misery of Croatian mainstream nationalism. And this misery is first of all manifested in the triumphalism over the exiles from the so-called SAO Krajina in 1995 and the mockery of their tractors, which in the meantime have become a symbol of their backwardness and proof of their "deserved" fate.
As everyone knows, Borjan was exposed to various provocations from Croatian fans at the stadium in Qatar, from the supposedly humorous ones who labeled him an Ustasa to those who literally made fun of the seven-year-old Borjan who was running away from Knin in 1995. Borjan himself responded with three raised fingers to further justify his reputation. But those stadium charms are not particularly important here. Just as they are not important, although they are extremely stupid, thousands of messages and calls sent and addressed to Borjan and his partner after their phone numbers were spread on social networks. What is important and indicative of the social atmosphere and the nature of Croatian nationalism are the headlines and reviews in the mainstream media that would never declare themselves as nationalist and the general joy on social networks when experiencing Borjan. And extremely rare exceptions in that area.
All the media machinery, both because of the clickbait potential and because of the sincere attitude, seriously pushed the national sport of living in Borjan. And in the form of serious heating with headlines like "Did you see how this or that washed it?" and the very (intentional?) failures in understanding the basis of that experience. Namely, Borjan was not insulted or ridiculed because he is a Chetnik fool or because he systematically denies the crimes committed against the Croats in 1991 and the following years in that region, but primarily because he had to flee as a child in 1995, as is usually the case. for every anniversary of the Storm or on any other occasion. It was this triumphalism of the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Serbs that became one of the mainstays of "official" Croatian nationalism and its internal class compromise. It proves superiority over rivals, and the mentioned tractors, both real and symbolic, also serve to fill that triumphalism with class and orientalist contempt. The Serbs left on tractors, and we are going to the West in Rimce Nevere. At that intersection, the common, "people's" nationalism and anti-Serbism and the elitist one meet and embrace. And with that embrace, the normalization and taming of the worst nationalist reflexes, such as enjoying the escape of the poor, takes place. And the worst thing of all is that you are exposed so easily by a Chetnik fool.
Bonus video:
