Aleksandar Vučić, Milorad Dodik and il patriarca Porfirije (screenshot youtube)
Aleksandar Vučić, Milorad Dodik and Patriarch Porfirije have decided to commemorate the Serbian victims of the Croatian military operation Oluja (Storm), which began on August 4, 1995, in Prijedor, Bosnia and Herzegovina, a place known to have been the scene of the crimes committed by Serbs against members of other peoples
(Originally posted on the portal Novosti on July 28, 2023)
Why exactly in Prijedor? – I ask myself, not having anyone more ignorant than me next to me.
Well, you know why… – I answer to myself, because I actually have a clear idea of why Aleksandar Vučić, Milorad Dodik and the patriarch Porfirije, during a meeting in a place with the ironic name “Villa Pace”, decided that this he year the celebrations of the “Day of remembrance in memory of all Serbs killed and forced into exile during the military operation Oluja” will be held today, August 4, precisely in Prijedor.
Of course I know – I say – but I’m undecided about which expression to use to better describe this decision: obscenity, provocation, pornography, cynicism… all seem adequate, but not exhaustive.
What if we tried ‘moral idiocy’?
Now that sounds a little better, but just a little. With the clarification that it is not an exclusive characteristic of the participants in that meeting at “Villa Pace”.
Far from it. It would be more correct to say that Porfirije, Vučić and Dodik, pillars of ecclesiastical, state and parastatal power, and therefore members of the tripartite apparatus, have reached an agreement on further efforts to transform moral idiocy into a collective good and a standard generally accepted.
But what is this tripartite apparatus? – I wonder.
The Tripartite Apparatus is the supreme coordinator of the aspirations and wanderings of the entire Serbian people – I’ll shoot a definition to this answering myself. – An informal body that has set itself the task of charting the national destiny. An over-political institution that continues to relegate social and public life to a pre-political condition.
Now, the tripartite apparatus has conceived the invasion of Prijedor as an experimental idea: why don’t we go to one of the most flashy places of Serbian crimes to mourn the Serbian victims?
Exact. Circumstances are never so bad that they can’t be made worse. St. Murphy’s Law.
Well – I shrug with indifference – all the peoples of these lands have a strong propensity to inflate the numbers of their dead and minimize their crimes, especially the Croatians. But the Serbs, thanks to a wise leadership, always somehow manage to set the pace. They set the standards that others then, with great effort, try to achieve.
I agree, colleague. The decision to commemorate Serbs victims of crimes committed by members of other peoples in the very place known to have been the scene of crimes committed by Serbs against members of other peoples certainly represents a significant increase in the level of vulgarity.
At least on this point there shouldn’t be disagreements around Prijedor: in 1992 over three thousand civilians were killed, one hundred and two children, about 38 thousand inhabitants of Bosniak and Croat nationality were forced to abandon their homes, in May 1992 the local Bosnian Serb authorities they ordered non-Serb citizens to mark their homes with white sheets, and then forced them to wear a white armband, the most notorious concentration camps arose around the city: Omarska, Keraterm, Trnopolje…
Now the Serbs victims of an ethnic cleansing of epic dimensions – because Oluja was exactly that – will be honored in the place where the Serbs carried out an ethnic cleansing of epic dimensions.
Another aspect to bear in mind – I say to myself – is that for years now the local Serbian authorities have been trying in every way to hinder the commemoration of the victims of the crimes committed in Prijedor. For example, last year they banned a peaceful march for White Bands Day on the pretext that public demonstrations were planned that same day to celebrate the birthdays of Hungarian autocrat Viktor Orbán and media tycoon Željko Mitrović. For years now, even the request to erect a monument in memory of the one hundred and two children killed has been nonchalantly rejected.
Wanting for a moment to think seriously about Ernst Renan’s reflection according to which a nation is made up of a group of people who have agreed to remember and forget the same things, it clearly emerges that Prijedor is the central point of Serbian amnesia. So what does this upcoming holiday mean?
It means that, following the ingenious idea of the Tripartite Apparatus, on August 4 in the place of an organized oblivion the Serbs will let themselves be carried away by an organized memory, filling huge memory gaps with huge Serb victims.
Here, to be honest, we run into a semantic problem concerning Serbian victimsbecause it’s not always perfectly clear if Serbian victims whether Serbs are victims of atrocities committed by other peoples, or whether this expression refers to members of other peoples who are victims of atrocities committed by Serbs.
Instead for the dignitaries of the tripartite apparatus that problem does not exist, because for them the second category is always and necessarily invented. It seems that they start from the assumption that the Serbs have never brought disasters to anyone and that they have always carried the weight of suffering on their battered shoulders.
Who knows, perhaps soon, on the initiative of the tripartite apparatus, therefore of an institution with the task of regulating national digestion, a patriotic dictionary will come out in which all the controversial terms will be well regulated. For example: male – a widespread phenomenon that the Serbs only tolerate, without ever provoking it.
However – I say to myself – the most vulgar element of this story regards the attitude towards the victims of the Oluja operation. There is something cheesy in the fact that – in addition to the festive expressions of a collective love – they are openly shown that they are nothing more than a raw material to be exploited in the current clashes.
And certainly also in future ones – I always add, thinking to myself. Oluja victims, who have suffered a crime, will be invested in denial of another crime, because the gentlemen have calculated that it will be a profitable investment. Thus these victims will suffer the same humiliations – if not even greater – to which they have been exposed for decades by the Croatian political authorities.
Yes, we are faced with a big question: who is more cruel towards the Serbs reduced to poverty during the Oluja operation, those who deny their existence or those who glorify them? Croatian and Serbian political propaganda, despite being irreconcilable enemies, are fatally linked by the same indifference towards expendable cannon fodder, regardless of the national seal imprinted on that bloody mass. So much so that any defeat that the Croatian war mythomania could inflict on the Serbian one, or vice versa, would have the flavor of suicide.
That’s why the obscene manipulations of a forced memory and a forced amnesia have never stopped, and now even coexist within the same ritual. Now the real and existing victims of Knin or Gračac will be used to allow the dead of Prijedor to remain unreal and non-existent. Those we “always remember” will be pitted against those we don’t remember at all.
So is it an exaggeration to immediately call the Prijedor demonstration a commemorative farce? – I wonder – Or rather a farce? A desolating circus?
It doesn’t matter – I say. What is certain is that already the presence of the members of the tripartite apparatus, namely Porfirije, Vučić and Dodik – hypocrite, megalomaniac and arsonist – who will take turns on the stage decorated with flags according to a pre-established programme, guarantees good entertainment.
With the clarification that Janus in his tunic, as a liaison officer between God and nation also guarantees a kind of spiritual rest. Hence – megalomaniac, arsonist and ottoman.
However, we already know that one will perform the classic repertoire of false ecumenism, the other will emphasize his messianic suffering and thank his modest self for having engaged, unaided, in saving a people and a nation from tragedies and disasters, and the other one will make a list of those who, should they hinder the inevitable unification of the Serbs, will end up with their bones broken. The arsonist knows how to incite a mob. He promised to gather between fifteen thousand and twenty thousand people.
It’s a realistic estimate. Within the project called “The Serbian world“, Dodik is responsible for the sector of the Serbian demi-monde. So those thousands of people are not in question.
However, let’s try to imagine an unexpected dramatic turning point, however difficult it may seem. Let’s imagine that at least one of the members of the Tripartite Apparatus loses self-control, stands in front of the crowd and starts a speech like this: “Brothers and sisters! We have gathered in this place because terrible crimes have been committed here in the name of the Serbian nation and state. People were mercilessly killed, deported to concentration camps, driven from their homes. We acknowledge these crimes and we regret them. We will do our best to ensure that such horrors never happen again. That’s right, acknowledging the crimes and showing mercy to the victims is the best way to pay tribute to our compatriots who fell victim to the same bestial crimes in Croatia.”
Is it possible for something like this to happen? – I wonder.
Only in the wildest dreams – I answer.
So let’s end this text here. At least it remains a dead letter.
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