For many years now I have spent a good part of each year on Šolta, the island in central Dalmatia where I was born. Whenever I read the papers or listen to the news, I hear the word “anti-fascism” with unbelievable regularity: how the “anti-fascists” are protecting me from the Ustasha-ization of Croatia, how “the black fascist snake is raising its head again” to poison the people, and on and on. Every single day!
Simple soul that I am, the words go in one ear and out the other, and I can’t make sense of what they are saying. Mr. Sanader, then prime minister, tells us that modern Croatia was founded on “anti-fascism”.
Either I’m a fool or I’ve truly got it all wrong. I thought the heroes who defended Croatia, when they so selflessly risked their lives, had a free and democratic Croatia in mind.
Simple soul that I am, I always believed that any government that rules by terror, fascist or communist, is something nobody should want.
To hear many of our worthy journalists tell it, when a communist terrorizes you “in the name of the people”, that’s lovely and sweet, but heaven help you when a non-communist does it; now that is ugly.
My dear friends, it makes no difference to me who is terrorizing me, the left or the right. I am a follower of Radić, free and democratic.
To tell the truth, it seems to me that the communists, gasping their last, are “looking for enemies”, and in their wretched state, lacking the courage to call themselves by their proper name, they shyly go about labelling themselves “anti-fascists”.
I have no other explanation.
Josip Cecic