Introduction & Updates in National Landscape
A verbal attack, in broad daylight, on Zagreb’s European Square, on the delivery man Wolt and the attackers raising his right hand in the air and exclaiming “Heil Hitler” during the arrest, then in the night hours, on Ilica, a verbal and then a physical attack on two workers who then take refuge in a nearby cafe where they are attacked again, a chronicle of registered attacks in which the victims were foreign workers from India.
In both cases, the police responded and arrested the thugs. The registered attacks, both on a racial basis, open up new troubling topics for our society. There are certainly more similar racist attacks in Croatia, but the victims do not report them because of the fear they experience. The fear of foreign workers on the Croatian streets is largely the result of years of fueling the right-wing atmosphere, which reacts to every difference with anger and hatred. The problem for foreign workers is hate, speech, physical attacks, and unregulated working conditions. There will be more and more foreign workers from India, Nepal, the Philippines, and Bangladesh in the demographically declining Croatia, from which many have left for Western countries.
Professor of Sociology Dragan Bagić says: “According to some international research, for example, the European Social Survey, the attitudes of Croatian citizens towards immigrants are more positive than the average of the European Union. However, this is not because Croatian citizens are extra tolerant, but because we have not had the experience of life before and coexistence with different immigrants. Croatia is only at the beginning the process of shaping attitudes and the social atmosphere toward immigrants. We can expect a tightening of the social atmosphere, not necessarily attacks, but certainly the politicization of the issue of the status and position of immigrants. It’s just a question of when some political entrepreneur will see that opportunity and begin to problematize and politicize it in order to win political points.”
Transnational Activities & Group Interactions
On February 28, 2023, a scientific colloquium was held at the Croatian Institute of History (HIP), where Serbian historians Bojan Dimitrijević and Nemanja Dević presented their research on the topic “Bosnian Golgotha of the Chetniks in 1945”. It is a continuation of the cooperation between the revisionist and anti-communist historical institutes of Croatia and Serbia. In the last ten years, the Croatian Institute of History has issued at least 17 publications that victimize the Ustasha and demonize the communists and Yugoslavia.
Bojan Dimitrijević advocates for the rehabilitation of Serbian Nazi collaborators: Draža Mihailović, Milan Nedić, and Nikola Kalabić, and believes that collaboration with the occupier is not a crime. We know him as the co-author of the book “Ustaška vojnica” and that he likes to wear shirts with the insignia of the SS Prinz Eugen. Dimitrijević is the author of a book about the war criminal Ratko Mladić. He writes that “there is no evidence that General Mladić ordered any of his subordinates to liquidate prisoners in Srebrenica in July 1995.” Nemanja Dević mocked the Serbian aggression against Dubrovnik and compared the suffering of Ratko Mladić at the trial to the suffering of Jesus on Golgotha.
Ustasha greetings from Ukraine
Dynamo fans from Kyiv congratulated Dinamo Zagreb fans on their 37th birthday with messages on mortar shells. The original greeting card spread across social networks with the Ustasha greeting “Za dom spremni” on the middle shell. The Croatian media mostly presented the congratulation as “genius” and decided not to mention the Ustasha salute, which is banned in Croatia by the Constitutional Court.
Citations:
Cooperation between Serbian and Croatian revisionist historical institutes, Antifašistički vjesnik https://www.antifasisticki-vjesnik.org/hr/vijesti/3/Ustaskikrizniputicetnicka_/492/
Who are Dimitrijević and Dević, Antifašistički vjesnik https://www.antifasisticki-vjesnik.org/hr/vijesti/3/DimitrijeviciDevicnavisoko/493/
Man in Zagreb insults foreign deliverymen: “Here he is, niger. Fuck off. Sieg Heil”, index.hr https://www.index.hr/vijesti/clanak/video-u-zagrebu-vrijedja-strance-niger-mars-sieg-heil/2445772.aspx?indexref=naslovnicavijestinajnovijed
Croat Detained for Posting Videos of Him Racially Abusing Foreigners, balkaninsight.com https://balkaninsight.com/2023/03/13/croat-detained-for-posting-videos-of-him-racially-abusing-foreigners/
Banner of support for the detained neo-Nazi, Novosti https://www.portalnovosti.com/pravda-za-idiota
Second racist attack, attackers immediately released from custody, Jutarnji list https://www.jutarnji.hr/vijesti/crna-kronika/rafael-i-antun-primitivci-koji-su-napali-indijce-u-zagrebu-ekspresno-na-slobodi-evo-i-zasto-15317408
Comments on racist attacks, Novosti https://www.portalnovosti.com/rasizam-na-europskom-trgu
Ustasha greeting card on mortar shells, Novosti https://www.portalnovosti.com/ukrajinski-navijaci-boysima-cestitali-porukom-za-dom-spremni