INTERNATIONALE - on Croatian

I am NOT a communist.  I had to say that right away because these days almost everyone connects the "Internationale" to the communist movement.   But that's because very few people know that the song was in both the Baptist and Methodist hymnals in North America quite sometime before the modern communist movement sprang up.   The song is about brotherhood and holding hands across all social boundaries in a spirit of cooperation for the good of all.  All in all, unless you are an avowed autocrat, the "Internationale" is really a wonderful song no matter what your politics.  Its too  bad politics has marginalized the song in a lot of the West.

I'm putting the "Internationale" here for the sake of one very wonderful young person still full of ideals.  I was young once and full of ideals.  I'm not young any more but guess what?  I'm still  brimming with ideals.   My young friend, you know who you are.  This is for you.  I saw that you did not have the "Internationale" on Croatian language, so this is for your collection.  By the way, you can not watch this on my channel.  You have to have the URL to see it, or watch it here. 

Please watch the video first and then let's talk about the images in it.

The first image is Marshall Tito who led the Balkans in the quest to throw out the Nazis and the Fascists of all sorts.  Then there is the Bleiburg Memorial commemorating the deaths of perhaps a million Croats many of whom were also idealists and dreamers.  They had dreamed of an independent and free Croatian nation after nearly a thousand years of foreign domination.  History precluded them from trusting the Americans or the West.  They trusted someone who, as it turned out, was not to be trusted.  Their dream turned into a nightmare - and for this they were massacred.

And then there is another image of Tito followed by the flag of the new dream, a "people's" dream.  Look at the flag again please.  The traditional red and white checker board is missing.  We are asked to follow the dream of the "Internationale" without  being allowed to be us.  How can we stand with the nations of the world when we have disappeared from among them?  

Came the spring.  The Croatian Spring.   Savka Dabčević-Kučar  was the first female head of state in Europe outside the monarchical system.  Woot!!! We Croats were way ahead of the game!  Savka made a mistake.  She trusted the people.  For this she was asked to resign her position. 

Are you beginning to get the picture? The people's" government couldn't stand one of the "people" who trusted the people.   In a way they were right, you know.  The people can't be trusted.  Ooops, that sounds so un-marxist, but that's the one place Marx went wrong.  The people, not any of them, not any one person even, is to be fully trusted.  The Holy Scriptures say "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God."  The Scriptures are right in this of course.  All.  

So now there are two choices left.  One is to accumulate all the power into the hands of one, or a few.  Bam!   That's fascism.  That's what happened, and in the Balkans, Fascism wore a Red Star on its cap.

The next image is an image of the water tower at Vukovar and shots of the Vukovar monument commemorating the atrocities committed there in the name of the people against the people.

Next you see a photo of a young man half carrying an old man who is a victim of the aggression against the people.   Then you see some soldiers escorting some young men out along a road way and then you see the shadows of the soldiers as those same young men lay there dead, executed, massacred.   The old man in the graveyard, Srebenica, the woman weeping tell their own stories.  Don't see these as just some Muslim radicals like the ones who did the Twin Towers or someone from Grozny.  These people are Hrvatski just like us who happen to be Muslim largely  because of history.  They are ours, people like us, and they were killed because of that.

The power was collected into a central government controlled by people not like us who wanted our language, our history, and our churches and mosques and synagogues to disappear into thin air.  And they didn't mind a bit if we disappeared too.  I'm not blaming the Serbs.  That's not it.   Read a couple of posts back where I commemorate the life of a wonderful Serbian singer.  I am not anti-Serb.  Its not the Serbian people who are to blame.  I am blaming the system.  The system did not respect the people and did not trust the people to take care of themselves like they had always done for thousands of years. We Croats had our selo system long long before Marx thought it up.  We predate him in this by about three thousand years so don't nobody go telling us how to do this.   For us, Marx is kind of like Al Gore "inventing" the internet.  We know how to do communal when its in our interests to do communal and we know how to do it individually when that's best too.  The problem here is that the central system felt threatened by us and so it had to kill us.   Fascism wore a red star in its cap.

A better system would be to see the people as sovereign, to keep the government severely limited, to stay out of the people's business, to trust the people, and to let the people do their own thing in their own best interests the way they want to do it.  Until we have this, the dreams and the ideals of the "Internationale" are just idle dreams and nothing more but idle dreams that lead to a swath of dead bodies and tears.

Canovals a.k.a. Slavonac

7 Listopad 2011

He is dead. Thanks God.

He is dead. Thanks God.  

As for me, I doubt that I should much look forward to such an epitaph, yet there it is:  On je mrtav. Hvala Bogu.

There is a small fact most Croatians who live in Croatia do not know.  Perhaps most Croatians in the world don't know this either.  Most Croatians do not live within the borders of  Croatia.  We probably never have.  There are rather a lot of us and the greater number live in North America, especially in the United States. Dear reader, if you are not Croatian, the chances are that you have met one of us.  If you go to church at all you know some of our music.  Bach was one one of us.  He was a Croat - a Croat in the diaspora.  Earlier, in another blog, I related my response to the Croatian Embassy noting that " identifying one-self as Croatian, could be dangerous, not only in Yugoslavia, but even in the United States."  Until perhaps a decade or so after Croatia became independent, for the most part, we remained silent and invisible.  There was often a price to pay if you did not keep your mouth tightly sealed.  None-the-less Croatia is dear to us.  It is Home.  

And, as much as Hrvatska is Home, so is Texas, so is San Francisco, so is New Orleans, so is Madison, so is Seattle, and so is the United States - home.  We see little, if any, conflict in that matter.  For the Croatian-Texan, the notion is easy to see.  Alone, unique among the States of the United States, the proper manner in which to fly the red, white, and blue of the Texas flag is side by side as an equal nation with the red, white, and blue of the United States flag.  Teksikans serve in the United States military and see no problem with that.  

Now that you have a glimmer of understanding about that, bear in mind that several administrations in Washington past, the Federal Bureau of Investigations uncovered a plot for an "insurrection in Texas" and promptly dispatched a horde of armed agents to to deal with the matter probably as efficiently as they had dealt with such a matter earlier near Waco resulting in the deaths of women and children. As much as Texans did not like what was going on in the compound in Waco, when the children died we felt mighty grim.  Just don't go killing our babies.  Just don't.  We don't like it none.  When the matter of this "insurrection" came up, the Governor of Texas requested that the FBI withdraw and let him handle the matter.  I believe what the Governor said was something like "Go 'way, go way fast," and they went away fast.  They had crossed that invisible boundary line into the sovereign business of the State of Texas.  The Governor sent a single unarmed ranger up to the hills to talk to the old man who was at the helm of the "insurrection."  The fellows drunk some whiskey and they drunk some coffee.  Don't go tellin' me that I should have written "the fellows drank ,,,"  Unh uh, they drunk it.  Trust me, they drunk it and they threw the tin cans they drunk out of into the camp fire and the matter was settled.  It used to be that pert near every one's pickup truck had a "Republic of Texas" bumper sticker.  Now you can't find those bumper stickers no more, dang it!  Even so, the red, the white, and blue flies side by side with the red, the white, and the blue.  That's how it is.  

We Croatian - Americans have in our hearts the red, the white, and the blue flying side by side with the red and the white and the blue.  We stand at attention when the "Star Spangled Banner" is played and a tear might leak from our eyes while we sing it.  We stand at attention when the Lijepa naša domovino is played and a tear might leak from our eyes while we sing it.  God help us if there is ever an important soccer match between the Croatian team and the American team.  The whole stadium would probably cheer for both sides all during the game.  Can you imagine the noise?

In the first session of the 102 Congress, on September 19, 1991, Mr. D'Amato, Mr. Dole, Mr. Glenn, Mr. Pell, Mr. Gore, Mr. Nickles, Mr. Pressler, Mr. Riegle, and Mr. Seymour introduced a bill into the Senate of the United states entitled "To restrict United States assistance for Serbia or any part of Yugoslavia controlled by Serbia until certain conditions are met, and for other purposes."

The bill cites: 

"The Congress makes the following findings: 

(1) In 1990, the republics of Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia, and Bosnia-Hercegovina held free and fair elections.

 (2) In 1990, the republics of Serbia and Montenegro held elections which were not free and fair.

...

(4) Since the Declaration of Independence by the Republic of Slovenia on June 25, 1991, more than 100 people have been killed, including civilians, by the Serbian-controlled Yugoslav federal army.

 (5) Since the Declaration of Independence by the Republic of Croatia on June 25, 1991, more than 500 people have been killed, including many innocent civilians, by the Serbian-controlled Yugoslav federal army and Serbian guerrillas.

(6) The Serbian-controlled Yugoslav federal army is actively using both ground and air forces in Croatia to attack the citizens that they are constitutionally bound to protect.

(11) The Serbian-controlled Yugoslav army's invasion into Croatia constitutes an illegal effort to alter the borders of Yugoslavia by force.

 (12) The leaders of the Serbian republic and the Serbian-controlled Yugoslav army are pressing an unacceptable agenda in an effort to hold onto power and privilege."

The bill was was read twice and referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations where it mouldered for a long long time.  We wondered why the American government didn't seem to mind that thousands of Croatian men, women, and children were being slaughtered and that did create a conflict in our hearts because our lady who wears a blue skirt and red blouse with a white sash and her children are dear to us.  Don't go killing our babies.  We don't like it.  We don't like it none.

The answer is simply that "Lawerence of Serbia" was at work.  According to Wikipedia "Lawrence Sidney Eagleburger (August 1, 1930 – June 4, 2011)[2] was an American statesman and former career diplomat, who served briefly as the United States Secretary of State under President George H. W. Bush. Previously, he had served in lesser capacities under Presidents Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush. Eagleburger is the only career Foreign Service Officer to have served as the United States Secretary of State."  Under Nixon he was assistant to Henry Kissenger.  Under Carter he was ambassador to Yugoslavia.  He was advisor to Bush for south east European matters.  When Eagleburger denied that Serbian paramilitaries and the Yugoslav National Army had committed atrocities in the breakaway republic of Croatia, the European Press nicknamed him Lawrence of Serbia.

Lawerence of Serbia also served on the International Commission on Holocaust Insurances Claims. According to Jweekly.com which covers Jewish matters in the San Francisco area, on June 8, 2001, Waxman, congressman from Los Angeles said the commission was poorly managed.  Lots of money was flowing, but not to the survivors of the Holocaust.  

Does it surprise you to know that Eagleburger, Brent Scowcroft and former Ambassadors to Belgrade John Scanlon, along with Ambassador Warren Zimmerman spoke Serbian among each other in US Security Council meetings?  Does it surprise you that Eagleburger knew Slobodan Milošević when Milosevic was still a banker?  House Banking Committe Chairman Henry Gonzales from Texas, pointed out the connections between Eagleburger and the Serbs.  First there is Ljubljanska Banka, and Global Motors/Yugo of America, a subsidiary of the Yugoslav arms maker Zavodi Crvena Zastava on whose boards Eagleburger served and, acting as a consultant for them was compensated millions of dollars.  Milošević tells us that he became friends with his buddy Eagleburger while he served on the board of Beobanka in Belgrade.   Now does it surprise you to learn that Eagleburger testified against the bi-partisan bill introduced into the Senate?

Does it surprise you that this same fellow wrote in the Washington Times on 8 December 2008 "We believe U.S. policy on Kosovo must be re-examined without delay, and we urge the Bush administration to make it clear that pending the results of such re-examination it would withhold recognition of a Kosovo independence declaration and discourage Kosovo’s Albanians from taking that step."  I was ambivalent toward the Kosovo Albanians until I read who was opposing it.  Now I know and now I pray that God help my brothers in Kosovo to achieve their dreams of freedom.  The Amerikanski press often portrays the Kosovo matter as a conflict between Muslim Albanians and Christian Serbs.  This year I met a Christian Albanian who lives in Great Britain so guess what?  This is not about some wild haired jihad after all, is it?  Croatian troops are in Kosovo as part of the NATO force there.  I have a video on YouTube honoring Croatian forces who served in Afghanistan.  Several comments on my video wonder why Croatian soldiers are somewhere not Croatian.  When I first read those comments I understood them as being simply xenophobic like many Americans were during the Viet Nam matter.  I went back in the wee hours this very morning  and looked at those comments again, at who wrote them, and now I understand. Do I have to spell it out or do you understand too?  

Eagleburger claimed to be a "moderate" Republican.  Some Teksikan Republican commented one time that "moderate" usually means they do not believe anything.  Lawrence of Serbia seems not to have believed in anything but his bank account.  

Because of Eagleburger, the Americans did not step in decisively to assist Croatia until after the massacres at Vukovar, until after the massacres at Srebenica, until after the siege of Dubrovnik and other atrocities came to light.  If he were yet alive, I would say that Eagleburger should stand trial for the deaths of all these people - hundreds of thousands of them, but alas, he is dead.  Lawrence of Serbia is dead.  On je mrtav. Hvala Bogu.

do sljedeći put, blagoslov - until next time, blessings,

Canovals a.k.a. Slavonac

14 Rujan 2011

Jugoslavija?

CJ, Clary, Cider, and Guinness, and Theodore and Teddy all remembered my birthday in a special way this year.  I liked that.  The youngest daughter did too.  I liked that too. So did a lot of my old classmates from high school years ago.  Marijan and Marina and Tatanja and Andrej and Gregor and a bunch of others from Home came by to say for sretan rodjendan too.  Altogether there may have been a hundred or so well wishers for my sixty-fifth birthday. Nice. Mucho dobro.  

My parent's daughter sent a card in which she commented on the photo I was using for whatever reason as my Facebook profile at the time.  She said "I see you have been fishing."  Yup.  Mmmm hmmm, I was impressed.  She wanted me to believe she was keeping abreast of my life.  She had been there three years ago Gospodin M. and I had stopped in for a few days with Tata before we wandered off to the Sabine pass where a boat was waiting for us.  A few weeks later a hurricane had struck the area we passed through.  No more little coastal fishing towns, no more boat.  

After the hurricane, all that remained of that little expedition were the memories, some memories of what came next (about which you already may have read in my last blog) and that blooming photograph of me and that fish.  I did not even have my beard back yet in that photo.  I was clean shaven at that time which in my clan means I was "available."  I am fully bearded now.    

Now look what I have done.  I wandered off the trail out into the forest somewhere so let's get us back on the trail.  The youngest daughter married with a really fine fellow.  He only had one flaw that I could find.  Sometimes he would poke my ribs a little about me being Croatian.  His family were Austrian, you see, the master race, at least the masters of Croatia in the Hapsburg days.  There was only thing, he said, that he could not understand.  He knew his family had come from a town in Austria with a seaport, but as far as he could tell, Austria is landlocked.  How could his family have come from an Austrian seaport town when there are not any.  I asked him what is name of their city.  He responded, "Split."  Mystery solved.  I showed him where on the map is Split. Of course, its right there in plain view on the map - on the Jadrana in Croatia. 

When his family had arrived in Texas, their passport showed that they were from the Österreichisch-ungarisches Reich - or simply Austria on Texicaneese.  That's a language I haven't mentioned before - its the english that Teksikanski speak when they are not speaking on teksikanski jezik.  Until after World War I, most Croats arriving in Texas came on papers from the Austro-Hungarian Empire and so they were often just called Austrians.

After World War I, things changed.  Their paper work said these new immigrants were from "Yugoslavia."  It didn't do anyone any good to try to say "I am Croatian."  The average Teksikan looked at the map and there was no Croatia anywhere to be found.  He might however however find "Yugoslavia."  Please understand that most Texans can find the nearest Walmart and that is about the extent of their geographical knowledge. 


I graded papers for a professor at Concordia University, Austin.  There was one question always on his final examinations - "The capitol of the Roman Empire was
a. Berlin 
b. Moscow
c. Philadelphia
d. Rome 
e. none of the above,
please circle the correct answer." 
The vast majority of his students chose anything but "Rome" for the capitol of the Roman Empire.  So where was a Croatian from?  Even if someone said "I am Croatian," behind his back people said "he's from somewhere in Yugoslavia.  Most Croatians who arrived in North America just shrugged their shoulders and said "we are from "Yugoslavia."

How did Croatians come to be submerged in "Yugoslavia?"  Before the fall of Austria, Hungary, or Germany, the Croatian Sabor or Parliament met in Zagreb on October 29, 1918, to declare "the Kingdom of Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia" to be a free and independent state. The Hapsburg Crown recognized Croatia and transferred the fleet to the Croatian government on October 31st 1918.  At 18:44 the following day the Royal Italian Navy sank the Croatian dreadnaught Viribus Unitis.  Almost at once the Italian, French and French African forces invaded from the west and Serbian troops invaded from the east.  On the first of December 1918, Serbian Prince Alexander announced the formation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes ruled from Belgrade.  For the first time in at least thirteen centuries, the traditional Croatian institutions of Ban and Sabor were swept away by foreign armies bent on making Croatia and Croatians disappear from the face of the earth.

The American delegation to the Paris Peace talks in 1919 commented on the revision of Wilson's famous Fourteen Points noting that "An internal problem arises out of the refusal of the Croats to accept the domination of the Serbs of the Serbian Kingdom...The United States is clearly committed to the programme of national unity and independence. It must stipulate, however, for the protection of national minorities...it supports a programme aiming at a Confederation of Southeastern Europe."  In other words, to protect the Croatian nation it was necessary to destroy it. There was no vote of the Croatian people about their future.   

Milan Sufflay was murdered by King Alexander's secret police.  Albert Einstein and Heinrich Mann joined in the international chorus of condemnation of the regime. The New York Times of May 6, 1931 quotes them:  "The facts show that cruelty and brutality practiced upon the Croatians only increase... Murder as a political weapon must not be tolerated and political Serbian murderers must not be made national heroes."  Just two years before Stjepan Radic had been publicly murdered by a deputy of the Serbian parliament and Alexander had outlawed political parties and begun the persecution of the Jews and Roma in the lands he controlled.   By August 1942, the Serbian government would proudly announce that Belgrade was the first city in the New Order to be Judenfrei or "free of Jews." Only 1,115 of Belgrade's twelve thousand Jews would survive.

After the communists left in the 1990s, mass graves were uncovered in Slovenia and in Croatia.  Hundreds of thousands had been butchered and their bodies hidden.  Neither the Russians nor the British nor the Americans wanted these graves found but the voice of the truth welled up from the caverns in the midst of the earth.  So then, who are the "Yugoslavs?"  I suppose they are the mythical denizens of a mythical land somewhere in Thackeray's "Rose and the Ring."

Jugoslavia isn't.  Croatia is.  Its that simple.

do sljedeći put, blagoslov - until next time, blessings,

Canovals a.k.a. Slavonac

13 Rujan 2011