Everything that has happened these days in Velenje, the Slovenian city where a certain Miroslav Pačnik beheaded Augustinčić's monument to Tito, identical to the one in Kumrovec, and by "everything" I mean the act itself, its explanation and the subsequent political debate, tells us only one thing. And that is that, contrary to the established narratives that one of the reasons for the impossibility of Yugoslavia's survival was the insurmountable civilizational difference between its countries and regions, and that the most radical contrast between Slovenia and Kosovo or Macedonia was often cited, is significantly smaller than the identity of the nationalisms here. Moreover, if one were to try to imagine a new Yugoslavia, with which the local nationalists are scaring the citizens, it would be more likely to be imagined as a right-wing clerical-conservative stronghold of extreme nationalisms, whose representatives cooperate fantastically and completely share all beliefs and views on the past. In fact, the only reason such a country, fortunately, has not been created is the eternal obsession of all right-wingers, which is territory and borders.
There is, in fact, no essential or conceptual difference between Šešelj's former attempt to open the tomb in the House of Flowers and pierce the vampire heart of the deceased with a hawthorn stake, between the political action of Zlatko Hasanbegović who, with the help of Milan Bandić, removed the name of Marshal Tito Square from the center of Zagreb, and what Pačnik has now done in Velenje. It is always the same argument about the evildoer who destroyed their people, about the undesirable symbol of totalitarianism, and similar things. The only difference is in the change in the specific words with which these acts are explained, although the content is the same, i.e. Šešelj simply could not then refer to the now famous resolution of the European Parliament on the two European totalitarianisms, which today's Tito haters refer to.
Where Tito himself is irrelevant in the whole story. On that side, on this topic of destroying the memory of a city, nation or society, it is completely wrong to analyze his good and bad sides. Right-wingers destroy Tito not as Tito, but as a symbol of a time, which they do not actually mind because it was not democratic or because it was totalitarian, as they claim, especially since they would gladly introduce right-wing totalitarianism if they could. This symbol bothers them precisely because it defeated the collaborationist armies and their ideology, and then showed that the common country that was created on the partisan victory and the idea of internationalism and socialism, could have made an incredible modernizing leap. Which also bothers them in a spiritual sense. Because, in addition to the fact that socialist Yugoslavia as a whole functions as a scarecrow among such a world, its additional problem is the essential modernity of its society. Right after the first multi-party elections, local nationalist societies did everything to clericalize and become profoundly conservative, in which they actually succeeded to varying degrees.
However, leaving aside all this, which is the primary key to understanding the persistent attack on Tito as a symbol. The second, slightly less important, one speaks of the complete immaturity of local nationalists and their distrust in their own story.
A new Yugoslavia, with which local nationalists are scaring citizens, could rather be imagined as a right-wing clerical-conservative stronghold of extreme nationalisms, whose representatives cooperate fantastically and fully share all beliefs and views on the past.
Recently, Marko Perković Thompson, the iconic face of the revival of the pro-Ustasha revolution in Croatia, told his "comrades" at that first Zagreb concert that Yugoslavia was dead, as proud as if he had discovered a perpetuum mobile. However, all their efforts and confrontation with the symbols of that country show that they themselves are the first to not believe in this obvious fact. Yes, Yugoslavia has been dead for a long time and there are no signs that it will be restored, but the common Yugoslav cultural space is very much alive. Just as it was alive before any Yugoslavia. That, after all, will never change, and they themselves testify to this in a twisted way, by confronting the long-dead Tito in the same way.
The maturity of societies is measured by how unburdened and even understanding they are towards their own past, which is best illustrated by their memory policies. And no matter what Janez Janša, the obvious political role model of the vandal who beheaded the monument, would be completely unaware that he was doing exactly what they had as an official policy in ancient Rome called damnatio memoriae, or what Enver Hoxha practiced by constantly deleting partisan comrades from joint photographs, so that they would fall into his disfavor, putting the entire heritage of Yugoslavia in museums and removing it from public space, such an idea is initially insane. Because it looks roughly like the reaction of a child who covers or closes his eyes so as not to see someone or something he does not want to see, thinking that then the scene will actually disappear.
This is all the more ridiculous in the city of Velenje, which used to bear the prefix Titovo Velenje. However, the problem is that people like that have long since lost their sense of irony.
Bonus video:
