Action on reaction

(portalnovosti.com)

Every reaction provokes action - said Defense Minister Ivan Anušić, commenting on the forcibly prevented attempt by veterans from the VeDRA association to lower a wreath into the Danube i for the Serbs killed in Vukovar immediately before the occupation and destruction of that city. If the intention of the members of VeDRA was action, while Anušić's speech was undoubtedly reaction To that disgusting idea, why does the Minister of Defense say that "every reaction provokes action"? Has he screwed up? What if he hasn't?

With the statements that these are "deliberate provocations", that "nothing happens by chance", that "a special level of hybrid warfare is at play", reaction The defense minister's statement also contained an operational dimension: "Let's try to get to the bottom of everything they're doing in an intelligent way. We haven't gotten to the bottom of it yet, but at some point we will, because we're going to start dealing with it intensively now. This doesn't make any sense anymore."

What exactly are we going to “start intensively engaging in”? How will we engage in this activity, and how will we do it “intelligently”? What exactly does the “jumping off” that Ivan Anušić solemnly announces mean?… Author reactions remains tactically enigmatic and incomplete in this regard, but emphasizes the determination that something – we do not yet know what, we do not know how – will be done soon and the problem will be resolved: “We must jump on this and protect our people, our values ​​and everything that makes Croatia independent and self-reliant, and that is primarily the Homeland War and everything that came from it.”

And then, after reactions which calls for the vigorous protection of our people and our values, i.e. a sharp division into “us” and “them”, followed actionThe body called the Coordination of Veterans' Associations of Split and Split-Dalmatia County has made specific demands: under a) “urgent removal of the term 'Homeland War' from the name of the VeDRA association”, and under b) “immediate revocation of all forms of financing and logistical support to the VeDRA association from public funds”.

This was accompanied by a series of already usual qualifications about "harmful and dangerous activities", about "undermining the fundamental values ​​of the Homeland War", about "promoters of Yugoslav myths", about "supporters of Greater Serbia politics"... or in summary: "An association that in such a brutal way pours salt on the wounds of Croatian veterans, belittles Remembrance Day, equates the victim and the aggressor, and promotes the narratives of the 'Serbian world' and those who attacked Croatia, cannot present itself as a veterans' association of the Homeland War, has no place among veterans' associations and must not receive a single cent of public money."

All in all, it turns out that the Minister of Defense did not screw up with his inversion: reaction does indeed provoke action, provided that the reaction comes from the upper levels of government, and the action that follows from the lower levels and the social ground floor. Moreover, one can also discern a kind of modus operandi of the current government in this: if the political power is strong enough reactionary, is able to initiate actions which he does not have to verbalize precisely. Because recipients, versed in coded forms of communication, understand perfectly well when the ruling by reaction they try to encourage "negative phenomena" actions against them, without using direct (usually discrediting) directives and, consequently, keeping their hands clean.

If we broaden the perspective, there are countless examples of different specific gravity, even when we stick to the same protagonists. For example: how much is reaction Minister of War's command "For home!" sent by Thompson from the hippodrome stage - to which he, by his own admission, proudly replied "Ready!" - contributed action The blackshirts who chased away participants in a folklore performance, pensioners and minors, in Blatine, Split, because they were Serbs?

In the case of the veterans' organization VeDRA, Minister Anušić and the coordinators of Split veterans' associations are jointly trying to point out that "negative phenomena" are not only Serbs, but that all those who do not harbor appropriate - presumably collectively normative - animosity towards Serbs should also be exposed to demonization. Which, again, is completely in line with the first by reaction Prime Minister Andrej Plenković on the “unpleasant events” – chauvinistic attacks on Serbian cultural events – for which he mainly blamed the hysterical, alarmist and anti-Croatian left. This was followed, understandably, by action to prevent leftists from the VeDRA association from accessing Vukovar, shrouded in black.

There is no doubt that the initiative of Ranko Britvić and his comrades was humanistically motivated: to pay tribute to the fallen Croatian defenders and civilians, but also to the civilian victims of Serbian nationality. By coincidence, this signatory was reporting from Slavonia as a war reporter in the summer of 1991 and witnessed how members of the special police, on the orders of Josip Manolić, took Tomislav Mercep and his unruly warriors away from Vukovar in vans, because they were spreading terror in the city. Although the number of Croats killed was incomparably higher, and although the suffering of Serbs was not the cause of the destruction of Vukovar (but a false pretext), it is undeniable that they jesu represented prey for the bandits from Mercep's death squad.

But what does it matter when Stipo Mlinarić Ćipe angrily declares that “no Serbian victims occurred here, nor was anyone killed except Croats”? The irony is that with their contempt for the truth and belligerent antihumanism, the self-proclaimed representatives of the victims equate themselves with the aggressor, whose “guiding idea” was reduced to the complete dehumanization of the enemy. The chatty star of the Homeland Movement uses a typically Chetnik reflex while practicing his restrictive Croatianism.

The situation is similar with the Coordination of Split Veterans' Organizations. It is striking that their request to sanction the VeDRA association operates on two levels – material (suspension of public funding, according to the model already applied to the "Serbian Novosti") and spiritual (banning the use of the name "Homeland War" in the name of the association, i.e., banning the desecration of sacred things). The latter ("Do not mention the name of God in vain...") points to the production of a sacral atmosphere in which Croatian society is obliged to deal with its war past, and thus with the present which, as they constantly remind us, the war "founded": legends and myths are preferred instead of truth, and instead of historiographical books, sacred scriptures are in circulation, which will inspire us with a votive, not a factual, force.

That's exactly why it's like reaction In response to the "unpleasant events", the government organized a roundtable discussion in parliament on the "need for legal protection of the Declaration of the Homeland War", organized by HDZ veteran Josip Đakić. Special offers The final outcome of which is still awaited leads to the formalization of the verbal tort and the implementation of the ten-year-old proposal of the current State Prosecutor Ivan Turudić to introduce the "criminal offense of denying the nature of the Homeland War" into the Criminal Code, with a penalty of three to five years in prison.

But it is already ongoing, because the famous document has been confirmed as a biblical epistle: none of the participants in the roundtable who opposed the legal ban on freedom of speech – including opposition SDP MP Arsen Bauk – questioned the very content of the Declaration. No one dared to say that it not only does not deserve legal protection, but also conveys a blatant lie, and should be rejected and forgotten, or at least renamed the Official Untruth about the Homeland War.

A hyper-patriotic society can lose everything except faith and is not unfamiliar with such ventures as the organized discrediting of the truth. Unity above all. This is what Minister Anušić's party is "intensively engaged in" - how to "get at" destructive individuals who do not agree to a lie.