Endless scapegoating constitutes latest piece of vilification of Australian Croats

Dr. Tom SUNIC

MELBOURNE - Whenever an article appears in the Australian media that deals with the role of Croatia during WWII, the reader must expect a deluge of surreal fables, torrents of unacademic speculations and quasi-hallucinogenic body counts all of which unfailingly fly in the face of truth.

For their part, Australian Croats must resort to apologetic disclaimers and self-accusatory mea culpas in order to prove their political rectitude.

This endless scapegoating of Croats, with the aid of a factually shaky victimology, constitutes just the latest piece of vilification of Australian Croats - courtesy of James Campbell's article in last weekend's Sunday Herald Sun, entitled ''Restaurant honours mass murderer" (see sidebar)

To complete his hyper-real narrative, the author of the article might just as well have proceeded one step further and gone on solemnly to declare that present day Croatia represents a Xerox copy of the former fascist WWII Croatia - since, after all, this newly reborn state uses the same insignia and officially rejects the hyper-inflated number of WWII victims of Serbian descent.

And from what fever-swamp exactly does the author dig up his historical data?  On what field of fantasy does he plough for facts? What in fact are the empirical sources that he mines when he discusses the proverbial Croatian "bad guy", Dr Ante Pavelic, and his alleged massacre of a half a million Serbs, Muslims and Jews?

Is Professor Bob Miller fully fluent in Croatian and German? Has he ever visited the German Federal Archives in Koblenz in order to give free reign to his emotional outbursts against "disgusting Ustashi Croats"?        

The whole piece smacks of the old style Yugoslav communist "normative agitprop locution" or the Soviet-styled "double talk"  - which a B-student would have a hard time swallowing. 

Croatian history, or for that matter European history as a whole, is not an arraying of black against white. In order to garner more credibility the author might at least have mentioned that the head of WWII Croatia, Dr Ante Pavelic, employed four Muslim ministers in his government and that over twelve Croatians of Jewish extraction served as high ranking officers in Ustashi military units.

The author of the article might have mentioned the large-scale genocide of hundreds of thousands of Croatian and German civilians carried out by the Western ally, the Yugoslav communist strongmen Josip Broz Tito, in the months after WWII.

As usual these communist killing fields are consigned to oblivion. Instead of wasting time on trivial wall paper featuring the Ante Pavelic depicted in that plush Croat restaurant in Melbourne, serious research should be done on all the bare bones of the ex-Western darling in the ex-communist Yugoslavia.

(Dr Tom Sunic is a visiting Croatian intellectual and a former US based professor in political science, an author and translator. He was in attendance at Melbourne's Croatian Dom last Thursday, on April 10. The above article was submitted as a 'Letter to the Editor' to the Herald Sun on Monday)

Restaurant honours mass murderer

An acclaimed Melbourne restaurant has sparked multi-ethnic outrage for paying homage to a fascist warlord and mass murderer. The plush Katarina Zrinski restaurant attached to Footscray's Croatian Club has been branded "disgusting" for its celebration of genocidal World War II Croatian leader Ante Pavelic.

Pavelic, who historians say was responsible for the deaths of up to 500,000 Jews, Serbs, Muslims and gypsies, has been described as the Heinrich Himmler of the Croatian nation.

The popular restaurant during the week displayed a big portrait of Pavelic on its wall and T-shirts depicting Pavelic for sale at the bar.

The T-shirts also showed two commanders of the Ustashe's notorious Black Legion, which murdered thousands of civilians and Cardinal Alojzije Stepinac, who was jailed for collaborating with the Ustashe.

Drinkers at the bar were also toasting "The Poglavnik" - the name fascists use for their Fuhrer - and on Thursday the restaurant commemorated Hitler's establishment of the puppet state of Croatia on April 10, 1941.

On Tuesday the restaurant was reviewed in a Melbourne newspaper's food section, with its "large, airy downstairs dining room perfect for large, extended family groups".

Dr Bob Miller, a Balkans expert at the Australian National University, has hit out at the club's feting of Pavelic.

"It's disgusting. This would be the equivalent to the German community honouring Himmler," he said.

"Even the Nazis found the Ustashe regime's actions so brutal as to be counter-productive."

Serbians in Victoria have also expressed their distress.

"How can they do this?" George Marinkovic, publisher of the Serbian Voice, said.

"Can someone explain this? We are in one beautiful country and you are going back and promoting fascists from the Hitler era. I cannot understand it."

Dr Colin Rubinstein, executive director of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council, said: "While it is entirely understandable that Croatian Australians would want to celebrate the self-determination of modern democratic Croatia, to celebrate a fascist World War II Nazi puppet state and its war criminal leader is totally contrary to the norms of multicultural Australia and should be condemned by Australians committed to a tolerant, diverse and democratic society."

Club president Tony Juric acknowledged the restaurant honoured Pavelic, but said the leader had nothing to do with the Nazis.

"What the Nazis did was a disgrace and we had nothing to do with that," he said. "I have never received one letter of complaint from a Jewish or a Serb organisation."

James CAMPBELL

(Sunday Herald Sun, April 13, 2008)