Ustashis and culture? What is the relation betweenthese two phenomena? Do they mutually exclude each other, as is believedby the majority of democratically oriented Croatian citizens, or do they,by some miracle, mutually support each other? The answer to this questionis not simple at all and could start from very curious thesis: In contemporaryCroatia, there is no Ustashi ideology without culture, but there is alsono culture without Ustashi ideology! How come ?
The whole thing evolves around the phenomenon of contemporaryfolk music ("narodnjaci"). As it is known, with the arrival topower of Croatian state formers, "Narodnjaci" have been exiledfrom the Croatian media and the Croatian culture in general. This is notonly because of their supposed low cultural quality. The second, and moreimportant reason for the exile of 'narodnjaci' from the Croatian scene wasthe belief that they belong exclusively to the Serbian (un)cultural identity.Serbs, and not Croats worship "narodnjaci", which is another proofof their primitivism, their culturally less worthy national character, theirBalkanism, etc. First then, where "narodnjaci" exiled from Croatianculture, which was rationalized as a high cultural act, but then, as thecontinuation of the same, political and military means, were exiled alsothe concrete, as identified in the ethnic sense, Croatian Serbs. Which isquite logical and consequential, since here the politics was most oftennothing else but the continuation of culture by other means.
So, 'narodnjaci' are coming back, and lets say it immediately,that is good news. Good in the cultural sense, because the political oneis of secondary interest here. It is hard to say what is more importantamong the numerous positive moments that are brought to us again by 'narodnjaci':is that cultural vitality, dynamics, inventiveness of the expression, spontaneouserotization of the ideologically sub limited cultural and living surroundings,cultural anti-elitism, democratic elements, libertarian passion which exitswith "narodnjaci" on the cultural scene - from the underground,from the obscure ghetto of the fringe where they were exiled by the ideologyof pure cultural and ethnic identities. It is a matter of culturally deprived,it is a matter of a real small cultural revolution.
The Balkan inn, liberated from the pressure of theelitistic hypocrisy and self-pitying culture-pessimistic outrage is shownhere in its best light - as positively charged metaphor which suggests emancipation,and even in the midst of Balkans, the female one.'
Against this background of lively cultural identificationwhich fully establishes the continuity with the past and a connection withthe future, come as pitiful and base ideologically motivated project offorceful division of national cultures.'
But what about our Ustashis? The journalist of /state-favouring/ 'Slobodna Dalmacija', who wrote on the subject, sees as the onlyguarantee that newly reborn love for "narodnjaci" will not takeus back into new Yugoslavia , the open favoring of Ustashis of these Crotswho are "falling into exctasy as soon as they hear Dragana or Brena".They are sincerely in love with (Serbian) 'narodnjaci', but this is no pro-Serbianstance, since they are convinced Ustashis, meaning the most exposed hatersand stoppers of Serbdom. Ustashi stance has been liberated here of any politicalmeaningful content. It is a pure label, brand on a cultural product enablingits distribution, in the rank of veterinarian control, some form of an ideologicalcustoms declaration which comes along with a cultural import. Everythingis ok, consume freely, no danger of contamination.
The Ustashi stance is here their mask turned towardsthe Other, meaning the Serbs, in difference to which Croatian cultural andnational identity has yet to be constituted as a specific entity. That iswhy it is not strange that Croats do not see their Ustshi stance, becauseit does not exist for them, as it does not exist by itself. It is even lessstrange that Serbs in every Croatdom see an Ustshi stance, because Ustashistance is nothing else but Croatdom directed towards the Serbs, Croatdomfor Serbs, a mask which shows the threatening convoluted death wish of theCroatian national culture. But, behind the mask there is no real, true faceof the Croatian culture, since the Ustashi stance is no unlucky and bumblingdeviation of the of the pure political wish for national independence. Behindthe mask - there is nothing !, there is nothing substantial. National identityis nothing essential, but historically derived and historically passingsymbolical construction, whose authorship belongs to the national culturaland political elite. The representatives of this elite are those that needa political framework - national state - so that they could be able to establishtheir intellectual identity. Without Croatdom, they are nothing. But eventhat Croatdom is nothing without a radical and complete separation fromSerbdom. Ustashi stance is an ultimate tool of this separation and in that,a form in which the Serbs see a Croatian message, a specific Croatian mediumof communication with the Serbs.
The Ustashi stance is a message which the Croatiannational culture sent to the Serbs so that, in a violent political separationit would succeed in establishing its particular identity. Under the Ustshistigma, this message is rebounding - as the message of a living culturalunity. The Ustashi political mask of Croatian cultural urge of death broughtback the Eros which is connecting and unifying.
This is a big difference to the stance representedby the elite national culture in Croatia and its most renowned institutionaland individual representatives, the stance that the Serbian culture is initself foreign and strange to us ! On the contrary, the fact that "nothingSerb is strange to us" is a spontaneous discovery of the devalued,marginalized and excluded mass popular culture. Today in Croatia, it isthe only place of reproduction of those basic humanistic principles on whichmain cultural, political and civilisational values of the modern world arebased. Even when it is functioning under the Ustshi label.
'Serbs are also people' is uncovered to us by the cultureof the folk music. But we should be even more grateful to it due to theepochal discovery that so are the Croats. Only in that discovery is thatpositive charge which definitely turns us towards the future, life and theworld, and not towards the national culture of death.