Breaking with Antifascism: What Europe is Proud Of, the Balkans is Ashamed Of

By Haris Ljevo

With the breakup of Yugoslavia, a total revision of history began in all post-Yugoslav states. First, street names, schools, public institutions were changed, and even monuments to national heroes were demolished and desecrated, often occurring at night accompanied by loud explosions.

In most cases, the perpetrators were never held accountable for their actions, and it was very rare for vandals to publicly boast about their misdeeds. However, as time went by, self-proclaimed fighters against the communist legacy slowly surfaced, and today they openly brag about it.

More than twenty years after the war, fascism has become a public matter in all former Yugoslav republics, with no one publicly declaring themselves a fascist, but rather hiding behind the new term "struggle against all totalitarian regimes," while trying to erase any mention of the socialist past, and presenting proven fascists – Chetniks, Ustaše, Handžars, and other collaborators of the occupier – as innocent people who suffered at the hands of partisans, simply because they were "nice Serbs, Croats, and Bosniaks.".

Croatia has gone furthest in this process of societal fascization, where today it is a rarity to find streets with names that recall the not-so-distant past. Zagreb resisted nationalist attacks and attempts to change the name of Marshal Tito Square for a long time, and Zagreb's antifascists lost that battle a month ago.

Dalmatia, which boasted in Yugoslavia of having one of the largest partisan movements, today represents the most nationalist part of Croatia. Šibenik, which gave the most fallen fighters in the entire Yugoslavia in the famous Battle of Sutjeska, can today hardly be recognized as an antifascist city, except perhaps by individuals from the non-governmental sector.

The situation in Serbia is no better. Serbian courts have rehabilitated Chetnik leaders Draža Mihailović and Nikola Kalabić, and the monument to Dimitrije Tucović, one of the leaders of the struggle for workers' rights and founder of the Social Democratic Party of Serbia, was removed from Belgrade under the pretext of being moved to a "better location"...

As for Bosnia and Herzegovina, the situation is quite varied depending on the location. Cities in Herzegovina with a majority Croatian population got rid of everything that reminded them of socialism the day Yugoslavia collapsed, and Mostar today is unrecognizable compared to its pre-war state.

The city's symbol, Velež, was driven from its stadium with no hope of ever returning. The partisan cemetery in Mostar, which represents one of the most beautiful antifascist monuments in Europe, is today completely neglected, while monuments are defaced with swastikas. When you walk through the streets of the western part of Mostar, you get the impression that you are living in the era of the Ustaše NDH. For example, there are streets named after Mile Budak and Jure Francetić.

In Republika Srpska, many monuments to partisan heroes of Bosniak and Croatian ethnicity were destroyed, while those of Serbian ethnicity were mostly preserved. This was done systematically with the sole aim of presenting Serbs as the only nation that carried out the antifascist struggle, while others were fascists. In this way, the crimes committed by the Republika Srpska regime in the last war were sought to be justified. Along with this, the rehabilitation of Chetniks took place, leading to a paradoxical situation today where in Banja Luka we have the Park of Heroes of the Uprising in the Kozara region, Mladen Stojanović, and a street named after Chetnik commander Rade Radić, who killed Doctor Stojanović.

Due to the greatest suffering in the last war, parts of BiH with a majority Bosniak population resisted the revision of history the longest and had the most empathy for the partisan movement. It should also be kept in mind that large parts of BiH, which were completely underdeveloped and neglected regions during the socialist period, became serious urban, industrial, and cultural centers, which also contributed to the "delay in the process of historical revision compared to Croatia and Serbia.".

However, today, with the emergence of some younger cadres who do not remember the socialist period at all, the situation is changing significantly. Those who do not even remember the last war, let alone what it was like before the war, speak most negatively about the communist period today.

Tarik Dautović, a councilor in the Municipal Council of Stari Grad, went so far as to threaten that Sarajevo's Marshal Tito Street would soon be renamed, and he even called the leader of one of the strongest antifascist movements in Europe a criminal, which provoked various reactions, from condemnation to public ridicule.

His, at best, thoughtless move coincided with the day the US State Department published its annual report on religious freedoms and freedoms in the world, in which the report for BiH stated that it is inappropriate for the cantonal authorities in Sarajevo to name a school in Dobroševići after Mustafa Busuladžić, a controversial figure who had close ties with the Ustaše authorities in the NDH during World War II. The US Embassy in Sarajevo also condemned such a move.

The State Department's report also angered right-wingers in Croatia, who dismissed the American assessment of the increasing rise of Ustaše ideology in Croatia as "left-wing propaganda.".

It is sad that today the role of the partisan antifascist movement is valued far more in Europe than among its own people.