Politically effective revisionism

By: Sead OMERAGIC

Whole worlds knows that, what happened in Bleiburg was a crime, as there was no trial and killings were massive. However, if one glimpsed the first row at the commemoration, where Dragan Covic sat with his team, one would have concluded that it was HDZ Croatia and HDZ BiH together. If a political party appears in the front row, doesn't it indicate a primarily political assembly?

The fact that always mobile Mladen Ivanic did not react... is another story.

Would it not be logical, instead, to see descendants of the victims sitting in the first row? Would it not be more appropriate to have in the first rows the international and local historians who have been trying to provide answers as to the Bleiburg tragedy? Instead of the politicians who do not seek answers, as their own political profit is nested in the darkness of their own and others' ignorance.

Historical revisionism is punishable in the whole civilized world. Such kind of revisionism is particularly encouraged by HDZ. And that revisionism comes from the nation that had given more than 50 percent of Tito's partisans and has a valuable antifascist history.  

Serbian public will condemn the Bleiburg assembly as shameful, yet they will keep quiet every time their own football and basketball fans yell 'Noz, zica, Srebrenica' (Knife, Wire, Srebrenica). If 'friendly' Russia vetoed Resolution on Srebrenica in front of the UN, could the conscience of the neighboring country be calmed?

It was in Serbia where chetnik commander Draza Mihailovic was rehabilitated; they also have done everything in their power to rehabilitate Nazi affiliate Milan Nedic. Entering Belgrade in World War II, a German general was told that, Belgrade had been the first town in Europe to 'have solved the Jewish issue'.

Speaking of the World War II victims, according to the official research of Bogoljub Kocovic, and also Vladimir Zerjavic for the UN, the biggest victims within the Yugoslav population were the Jews who had lost 36 percent of the nation. Then come the Bosniak Muslims who lost about 10 – 12 percent of the nation. That did not seem to be enough – Serbia was sending chetnik units to march and scare off families of the victims of the WWII and the latest genocide from 1992.

Revisionism has become politically effective as the international community does not want to present its official opinion as to what took place here between 1991 and 1995.

It would suffice at least to show respect to the tragedy and suffering of the victims and their families. It would also mean a kind of satisfaction. One cannot escape the impression that everyone – on every side know the truth about the scale of crime from 1991 to 1995.    

But they all pretend not to know. And they all lie and enjoy that they can do so without punishment. Who cares if that humiliates the victims and their families?  

That's why our children flee these psychiatrically fenced spaces. They are taught one version in school, they see something entirely different in reality. And everything is opposite of what they hear from behind the fences of the neighboring countries.

Not even historical textbooks among the Bosniak majority have registered the genocide in Srebrenica. The Croatian and Serbian public do not tend to re-examine the crimes. Ghosts of fascism ride again. Lie has become essential as there's no country with a government free of those who instigated the war. They had become politically active so as to be able to lie at the national level, peacefully so. Massively and whenever required.

After all, their whole political engagement is based on lies. Their countries are making progress, their nations are living well, unemployment is reducing, debts are becoming smaller and everything is in bloom. Revision of history and deceit is just part of their big lie which keeps them in power.