Society, like man, gets used to nastiness. It is probably something like social training that, through persistent repetition and constant increase in the load, raises the threshold of collective endurance, so that once unimaginable atrocities are tolerated by the community as if they were a joke. What was considered abnormal yesterday is today part of everyday routine. What caused revulsion becomes commonplace. With good trainers, society is able to perfect itself so much through patient practice that it even brings its own death to self-evident. This happened, for example, to both vocal and silent supporters of fascism in the last century.
When last year, on the instructions of the Government, and implemented by the Council for National Minorities, the budget of the weekly Novosti was drastically cut – by over 35 percent – this attack on democracy resonated in the so-called media scene. After all, it was a cardinal example of chauvinistic discrimination and a savage attack on freedom of the press, as a consequence of the formation of an extremist right-wing coalition government of the HDZ and the Homeland Movement. When, however, the same thing happened again this year, and the annual budget of Novosti was drastically reduced again (although the total funds for the needs of national minorities were significantly increased), the so-called media scene followed the event with almost unanimous – anguish.
Apart from the president of the Croatian Journalists' Association, only the Telegram portal commented, and the overwhelming majority of leading media outlets did not even publish Hina's news about the now systematic financial strangulation of this weekly. And even that news, with its headline – "Unsatisfied in Novosti..." – suggested that the problem should be reduced to an internal drama of a newspaper editorial office.
The abomination has thus been successfully absolved and incorporated into the routine. The trained collective organism overcomes yet another obstacle and makes it known that, with regular fitness training, it is ready for further feats. Dragan Markovina warns on Telegram about precisely such a “logic of political processes”, because – as far as Novosti is concerned – “now it is no longer about excess, but about practice”. And established practice is, according to general journalistic judgment, the kind of boring hassle from which interesting news cannot be distilled. Regular practice is not inspiring to report on, even when it in itself represents murder. Stupefy and rule! – is the user’s motto.
The murder thing didn't slip my mind by chance. Namely, Novosti is condemned to liquidation in the highest spheres of political power. The fact that the execution will not be carried out by shooting, but by strangulation, so that the act of murder itself will take a little longer, does not call into question death as a planned happy epilogue. The pious silence with which this form of state terror is followed by the leading news media, formally interested in issues of freedom and democracy, is yet another testimony to the highly developed ability of Croatian journalists to not recognize even a shred of their own perspective in the fate of others. There is certainly no lack of suicidal fervor here. The profession is adorned with courage and there is no chance that it will be afraid of the abyss towards which it voluntarily marches.
Far from it being the case that the rise in the rate of habituation to filth is characteristic only of the media field. Recently, for example, Dalija Orešković was justifiably horrified that Marko Perković Thompson appeared in a black T-shirt with Zvonko Bušić's prison number on the chest, thus promoting a convicted terrorist (who hijacked a plane in 1976 and planted a bomb that killed an American police officer during the deactivation) as an ideal Croatian patriot. "Are we normal?" the parliamentarian rightly asks. "How long does the SOA intend to pretend to be deaf, blind and stupid, along with the government that allows all this?"
The government, however, does not allow this, but creates it. A monument to the Ustasha terrorist Mira Barešić – who in 1971 killed the Yugoslav ambassador to Sweden and cheered Ante Pavelić during his arrest – was erected in Drage near Zadar ten years ago, and the opening ceremony was attended by two ministers from the HDZ government. One of them, Tomo Medved, still holds that position today, and then, at the foot of the monument to the killer in unnatural size, he declared Barešić “one of the greatest Croatian patriots whose work and sacrifice we must respect”; for him, he was “a defender before defenders” and “a symbol of the fight for freedom”.
If, therefore, we declare the marble beatification of Ustasha terrorism in the government's arrangement, with great difficulty, an excess, Thompson's glorification of the victim Zvonko Bušić is merely an expression of established practice, just as Pjevač himself does not figure as an exception, but as a show promoter of new social conventions within which earlier incidents become the rule. The community has long been accustomed to nastiness, so much so that it does not even understand those who consider it controversial, which condemns the protest-minded Dalija Orešković to cosmic isolation.
If we return from state-building terrorists to state terror, it is worth recalling that it was precisely last year's financial attack on Novosti that set the dynamics of the accelerated fascism of Croatian society, because the authorities then sent an unequivocal message that chauvinistic criteria should not be shunned, nor should one cultivate a painful respect for superfluities such as freedom of expression. What followed, as we know, was an avalanche of threats, bans, "spontaneous gatherings," vandalism of "leftist festivals" and Serbian cultural events, with an abundance of Ustasha iconography.
The street actually listened carefully to the instructions of the political leadership, so that in the second round there was further synchronization, with the government supposedly listening to “any people”: in addition to the weekly Novosti, budget funds were also reduced for the Days of Serbian Culture event without any coherent explanation. Thanks to the balletic harmony of the mob and the regime, the hated Serbian folklore will therefore be expelled. This also eliminates the argument that Novosti was punished for not staying within the boundaries of the ethnic and cultural ghetto, but for, well, “engaging in politics”.
The media's indifference to the attack on the media is part of that same darkness. For some reason, it seems to be believed that the current pro-Ustasha initiative will retain an exclusively national motivation. It is forgotten, for example, that a year ago, Prime Minister Plenković's father published a "scientific study" on the media's attitude towards the Croatian Government, in which literally all the media outlets that nurtured a critical attitude towards his son's administration declared it "unprofessional", "uncredible", "biased" and, in general, socially harmful. The embrace of narcissism and neo-Nazism could yield exciting results. And within the septic tank we call the media space, there is an unwritten rule in effect: whoever does not speak out, even when they are up to their necks in shit, will not have a chance later, because their mouths will also be physically shut.
Recently, the HTV show “News from Culture” aired a segment in which the Minister of Culture Nina Obuljen Koržinek took on the role of a journalist, and with a smile from ear to ear and a microphone out, interviewed a photographer who was opening an exhibition in Dubrovnik. Intended as a benign joke, the “joke” perfectly illustrated Croatia’s news situation and the umbilical connection between the media and the government, with a journalist whose importance stems from the fact that he is unnecessary. Really, why would the regime’s propaganda service waste resources on members of the profession who, if they were truly doing their job, could only hinder the desired form of communication with the audience? In the next episode, perhaps the minister will interview the minister, holding a banana instead of a microphone.
By remaining silent about Novosti, the Croatian journalism industry is showing the extent to which it is uninterested in its own destiny. It is no consolation that it will be shaped by a troupe gathered around a leader who cultivates European manners, wears suits made of better fabric, communicates confidently with the Brussels elite, uses hair gel, brushes his teeth regularly, and speaks several languages fluently, including fascist.
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