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ABSTRACT
In Croatia, the war of symbols and the rise of hate speech has been manifested most prominently through Za dom spremni (“Ready for the Homeland”); the official salute of the WWII fascist quisling-state the Independent State of Croatia. The case that triggered a broad public dispute occurred in November 2016, when a memorial plaque containing the inscribed salute was installed near the WWII concentration camp Jasenovac by radical right-wing politicians and war veterans. As a consequence of being intertwined with the controversial legacy of WWII and the 1990s Croatian War of Independence, the salute on the plaque gave rise to an enclosed meaning-making sphere characterized by the invocation of existing cultural texts and the creation of new ones, the reinforcement of the us-them boundary, and the strengthening of existing taboos. In line with the abovementioned, the overarching aim of the study is to place the Croatian WWII Ustaša salute into a broader theoretical meaning-making framework while demonstrating the importance of cultural functions of the salute and nationalistically fueled hate speech more widely.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Andreas Ventsel, Mari-Liis Madisson, Nebojša Blanuša, and Vjeran Pavlaković on their feedback on earlier versions of the paper. I would also like to thank the three anonymous reviewers of Social Semiotics for their detailed and helpful feedback.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Since the dominant narrative on the war refers to it as Domovinski rat (Homeland War), the term suffers from ideological saturation. For this reason, it will be used in italics throughout the article. The 1990s Homeland War (alternatively, the Croatian War of Independence) was one in the series of large scale conflicts resulting with the Yugoslav breakup. There were a number of causes for the Yugoslav wars, such as clashing visions of political regimes, territorial autonomy, and independence, minority rights implications, and ethnic separatism. For a thorough overview see Catherine Baker’s The Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s published in 2015.
2 Hrvoje Klasić, a historian who continuously points towards the implications of historical revisionism and the relativization of the Ustaša regime in Croatia, found a death threat in August 2019 in his office signed with the Za dom spremni salute, as reported by Novi list online on 28 August 2019. Despite reporting the case to the police, there were no concrete outcomes and the overall situation was characterized by Klasić as creating an atmosphere of verbal hate and aggression that can very likely lead to physical attacks, especially with the lack of functioning of the legal state.
3 For an in-depth study of the role of popular music during and after the Croatian War of Independence, see Catherine Baker’s Sounds of the Borderland: Popular Music, War and Nationalism in Croatia since 1991 published in 2010.
4 While it is challenging to establish a clear definition of the far right or extreme right movements and parties, it is possible to distinguish specific patterns and features. According to Cas Mudde, certain organizations, parties, and/or movements can be characterized as more extreme than others, and the recurring features include the presence of nationalism, xenophobia, racism, anti-democratic sentiment, and support for a strong state (Mudde Citation1995, 206; Citation2000, 11).
5 After their defeat in WWII, fleeing NDH troops accompanied by civilians surrendered to the British Army and Yugoslav Partisans in Bleiburg, Austria, on 15 May 1945. Following their repatriation to Yugoslavia, the Partisans executed many of them or transferred them to labor camps throughout the country. Many of those who escaped found safe haven in Argentina and other South American countries where they “developed a specific identity due to the historic context of its exile: the military defeat, the loss of an independent state, the post-war killings and forced migration represented a trauma that served as a unifying force of identity across generations” (Židek Citation2019, 211). Most members of the Croatian diaspora in Argentina (and elsewhere) are still closely linked to their homeland, while some maintain close ties with Croatia’s extreme right and advance a sympathetic view of the NDH and the Ustaša regime.
6 Coming to terms with the past in the context of Croatian politics and culture deserves far more attention than I am able to provide it in this paper. For instance, a relevant complication for remembering communism in Croatia “is that it was exactly the Ustasha and their apologists and sympathizers who were the strongest organized anticommunist forces in twentieth-century Croatia” (Subotić Citation2015a, 193). Another piece in the puzzle of post-1991 Croatian identity construction was the complete rejection of the communist past; communism was interpreted as an early project of Greater Serbian domination, and the “true” Croatia of the twentieth century was represented by the anticommunist forces (193). When it comes to the so-called “dealing with the past” agenda, it is also worth pointing to Lea David’s contribution. David traces the emergence of the “dealing with the past” agenda and its adoption in processes of moral remembrance and the implications of advancing a “proper way of remembrance”. Furthermore, she explores the effects of the institutionalization of the “dealing with the past” agenda on affected communities, such as psychologizing discourses of memorialization, blurring of the boundaries between the national and the individual that consequently strengthens categories of nation and ethnicity, and competition over victimhood, which leads to new social inequalities (David Citation2020, 11). Lea David’s recent book on the topic is titled The Past Can’t Heal Us: The Dangers of Mandating Memory in the Name of Human Rights published in 2020.
7 The show aired on 29 November 2018 on the Croatian Radiotelevision. Retrieved from https://hrti.hrt.hr/live/tv and https://vijesti.hrt.hr/475247/otvoreno-o-optuzama-za-toleriranje-povijesnog-revizionizma on 29 December 2020.
8 The NDH was founded on 10 April 1941 after the Axis occupation of Yugoslavia.
9 It should be noted that every time the HDZ party is not in power, the war veterans’ dissatisfaction tends to increase since they feel their position is jeopardized. As emphasized by Ivor Sokolić in his study about Croatian war veterans and how they construct the world around them within the frames of the war narrative, veterans are a highly important object of study for three main reasons: “their potential to cause public disruption, their role in the transmission of norms, and their political closeness to the Croatian Democratic Union” (Citation2019, 143).
10 In order to become a HOS member, it was necessary to take an oath that stated the following: “I (name and surname), swear to God almighty and everything I find sacred, that as a member of the Croatian defense union on land, sea, and in the air, I will obediently perform the duties entrusted upon me. That I will keep every secret and will not reveal anything to anyone. I swear that I will be a loyal, persistent fighter for the freedom of the Croatian people, that I will guard the restored statehood and defend it from internal and external enemies. If I sin, I am aware of the responsibility. For treason I am willing to answer with my own life. Let the almighty God be my witness along with the present Croat brothers in front of whom I take this oath and single-handedly and willingly sign it. Za dom spremni!” (Veselinović Citation2019, 120 – my translation from Croatian – K.D.).
11 For example, a nationalist T-shirt shop and online store in the Croatian city of Split, Patriot Hrvatska, created a T-shirt with a stylized letter U (standing for the WWII Ustaša regime) and incorporated it into a smiley-face emoticon. It is advertised and sold as “Uncle Smiley.” The shop also sells a collection of shirts and stickers that include the Za dom spremni salute. In order to avoid potential legal consequences, the word “home” is omitted and replaced with a picture of a house (Rudić, Vladisavljević, and Lakić, September 13, Citation2018).
12 The codes can be various; from an economic code that fuels the narrative about refugees “stealing jobs,” a conspiratorial code that fosters theories about powerful political groups operating in the background, and an enemy code that establishes a specific group perceived as external as the one responsible for the adversities of the in-group.
13 “[…] smatrajući da su temeljne vrijednosti Domovinskog rata jednoznačno prihvaćene od cijeloga hrvatskog naroda i svih građana Republike Hrvatske” (my translation from Croatian - K.D.).
14 The Croatian Youth Human Rights Initiative called for the abolishment of the Homeland War Declaration because it monopolizes and prevents free speech related to the 1990s wars, and consequently closes any space for analysis, research, and discussions that are based on established facts (Novosti, November 29, Citation2017). The effort, however, was to no avail.
15 The dissenting opinions are available only in Croatian and their summaries can be found on the following link: https://www.vecernji.hr/vijesti/procitajte-izdvojena-misljenja-sedmero-clanova-vijeca-1229932
16 For instance, in 2015 a well-known judge and the president of a County Court asked for changes be made to the Criminal Code so that the negation of the Homeland War as solely defensive would be punishable by prison.
17 In order to shed some light on this aspect, I started conducting interviews with members of war veterans’ organizations in the beginning of 2020 with the aim of exploring the meanings they attach to the Za dom spremni salute. Due to the onset of the Covid19 pandemic, I have had to postpone meetings for the time being.
18 The fact according to which the 1990s war veterans have been caught up in the centrality of the war narrative is fairly discouraging and worrisome since their role in advancing the reconciliation process and opening a constructive dialogue concerning the war could be invaluable (see Clark [Citation2013]; Sørvold [Citation2016]).
19 “Svatko ima pravo na svoje mišljenje. Stojim iza toga da pozdrav 'za dom spremni' koristimo samo zato što su HOS-ovci pod tim natpisom krenuli oslobađati Hrvatsku u Domovinskom ratu 1991. Za to su ginuli i za to su bili masakrirani. […] Mi imamo svoju slobodu i osloboditeljski Domovinski rat, a nas dalje od toga ne interesira” (my translation from Croatian – K.D.)
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Katarina Damčević
Katarina Damčević is a PhD student at the Department of Semiotics and a teaching assistant at the Center for Academic Writing and Communication at the University of Tartu, Estonia. She is also a research fellow in the Dangerous Speech Project that explores the roles and patterns of dangerous speech in different countries and develops responses to such speech and other forms of harmful expression. Katarina’s research focuses on hate speech, contested symbols, and nation-building narratives in the post-Yugoslav context.