Christmas, Čović, Džaferović

Strange are the ways of the Lord. You can have firm stances, clear views, articulated thoughts, and tomorrow find yourself in a situation of retracting your own words. Such is language. It always hangs over a person like a taut stake and threatens to strike them on the head.

Last year, Cardinal Puljić did not attend Dragan Čović's Christmas reception. Similarly, offended, no one from the SDA attended the reception. Both the exemplary cardinal and the SDA leaders resented Čović for his anti-Bosnian policy, which has been proven dangerous for Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croats, like some medieval plague.

Here is how the Archdiocese of Vrhbosna and its head, Puljić, viewed the HDZ's policy before last Christmas: "The policy of Herceg-Bosna seeks to bury living Croats outside its territory," the cardinal said in an interview on TV1, and continued with surgical precision: "A third entity would further legalize ethnic cleansing in BiH." Thus, the archbishop did not shy away from openly speaking about the suicidal policy of Čović and the HDZ, due to which more Croats have emigrated from Bosnia and Herzegovina in the last ten years than were expelled during the horrors of the war in the nineties.

When asked by journalists why he did not attend Čović's Christmas reception, Šefik Džaferović replied: "I think the answer lies in Mr. Čović's attitude towards November 25th and his attitude towards Bayram holidays... As far as I know, Mr. Čović did not respond to the Bayram receptions hosted by the Rais (Grand Mufti), and we decided to behave accordingly this time. This is not our attitude towards Christmas, and I extend sincere congratulations to all Catholics on this holiday. This is an attitude towards Mr. Čović and his behavior."

Much has changed from last Christmas until today; dear people like Oliver Dragojević, Nada Đurevska, and Milena Dravić have left us. Scientists at the Mount Sinai Beth Israel Medical Center in New York have discovered a completely new organ in the human body, which could help them better understand cancer spread in the future. Dodik dismantled the SDS. Ivanić firmly said no to Dodik... Only the president of the HDZ has not budged an inch from Tuđman's policy of the nineties, judged and convicted in The Hague for war crimes in BiH, not only because of the suffering of Bosniaks in the Herceg-Bosna camps but also because of the expulsion of his own people from Posavina in attempts to divide Bosnia with Milošević.

So why were Puljić, Šefik Džaferović, Bakir Izetbegović, and Denis Zvizdić at Čović's Christmas reception on Thursday? Why is this year's Čović reception more Christmassy than last year's? The cardinal has forgiven the displaced Posavina Croats to the HDZ president, and Džaferović has let go of both the Rais, the Bayram reception, and November 25th.

Ever since the radical Čović lost to the leftist Komšić in the October elections for the Presidency, everyone has rallied to soothe his wounds and pamper him, and he, devoid of any empathy for anything other than his own bank account, a proven communist, a Croat out of dire necessity, now defiantly refuses even what he wants. The more they yield, the tighter Čović pulls.

Boris Dežulović made a brilliant description, outlining the Ustasha contours of the Zagreb Muslim Zlatko Hasanbegović by recounting his legal dispute with the Split columnist Ante Tomić after the author's column in the Belgrade NIN: "The poor man tried desperately to be accepted as an equal and proper person; in high school, as a veteran of the Bad Blue Boys, he skipped classes to attend Dinamo matches, during his studies, he wrote anthems for Pavelić's army for obscure Zagreb Ustasha newspapers, in Orešković's government, he removed plaques bearing the name of Zagreb's Marshal Tito Square, and all to no avail: everywhere, like a late afternoon shadow, his Hasanbegović, non-Croatian, and non-Zagreb surname followed him."

These words echoed just as loudly from the atmosphere of Čović's Christmas reception: "The poor SDA members tried desperately to be accepted by Čović as equals and proper, they gave him all the finance ministries in the country at joint meetings, appointed a one-party Supervisory Board of Aluminij, ceded the insurance market in the Federation to him, handed Energopetrol to him on a platter, ceded space for Konzum retail chains to the HDZ, and all to no avail: everywhere, like a late afternoon shadow, their unitarian, non-European leadership followed them."