Nachricht Nummer : 512 Übertragungszeit : 4 min 25 sec Nachricht von : WAM@ZAMIR-ZG.ztn.zer.de (Wam) Antworten an : wam@zamir-zg.ztn.zer.de Betrifft : Zagreb Diary 1 September 1994 Kopienempfänger : /REG/NEWS/DIARY/WAM, /APC/YUGO/ANTIWAR, /CL/EUROPA/BALKAN, /SOC/CULTURE/BOSNA-HERZGVNA, /SOC/CULTURE/CROATIA, /SOC/CULTURE/YUGOSLAVIA Erstellungsdatum : 07.09.1994 16:35:00 S+2 Zagreb Diary (Due to technical problems I can't use a spell checker at the moment) Zagreb Diary 1 September 1994 Dobar Dan, Yesterday evening late the first participant of the summer school had the first real problem at the island. The guy, which is a representative from Slovenia (he lives in Ljubljana, but is born in Dalmatia), had a small fight with some local boys in the late night discotheque and return to the house with his lips rather changed a bit after somebody fist has landed on it. He was confused about the fact that it happened. But during a talk this morning I could convince him that even when he was not a particiapant of the summer school it probebly would have happened. From Suncokret volunteers I heard last year that the local youth is, especially directly after the holiday session real closed and that they don't really are so open to strangers in thier discotheque, after sharing it with all those "rich" foreigners during the summer. In this case however there was more than one reason. The guy is active in Metalkova, a sqauted former JNA barrack in the middle of Ljubljana, which is now used as a kind of alternative and underground cultural center. In Ljubljana itself they already have a lot of problems with the local authorities and the public opinion, newspapers write about them, they suppose to be a hell of hard drugs and other dangerous things. The head editor of the newspaper, which is mostly against them seem to be by the way a famous former hippy, who use to live in the early 70'ties in the first commune of Slovenia, but that is another story. Anyway our guy was active during the period of the Neue Sloveniese Kunst, an undergroud art movement in the early 80'ties, which was among other things more or less responsible for the end of the yearly national youthday which was traditional organised on the birthday of Tito. In 1984 they submitted a poster, which was highly appriciated by the central youth committee in Beograd up to the moment that somebody found out that it was a reprint of a Hitler Jugend poster out of World War 2. He was singer in one of the many punk bands, which in those days were active in Ljubljana, most famous one was in those days Leibach (the German name for Ljubljana), known for their nazistic tendencies in their music and enthourage (if I spell the word right). The people from Leibach said that they use it as parody on the in their eyes simular nazistic tendencies of the anti fascistic socialistic authorities. He also organsied just before the wars a small peace tour through Craotai and Serbia. Having nearly one man demonstrations in Knin, Zagreb and Beograd. With other words somebody which is and has been active in the underground movement for some years. But from his behaviour and the way he dresses you can easily recognize that the movement and the political situation in Slovenia is totally different from Croatia. Yesterday evening when he had his little fight in the Disco he was wearing a t-shirt made by the Italian young communist. On the front of the t-shirt a black and white drawing from an easily recognisable sovjet red-army soldeer on horse from the beginning of this century, with in white a red star on a type of head what is still notified as Chetnik cap in Croatia at the moment. But he said they couldn't see that when they attack, since I stood with my back to them. Then I asked if he could translate what stood on the back of his t-shirt and on that moment he realised that althought the text on the back of his t-shirt was in Italian it was spelled in cyrillic characters. "Oh, shit" was his reaction, "I totally forget. You know in Ljubljana I am also wearing a belt from the former JNA, with a big red star on it, nobody will react on it". How different the situation between Slovenia and Croatia is we noticed nearly half a hour later when two person on the next table started openly to show a lot of interest in the discussion our guy had (in Croatian) with somebody else (I heard them whispering towards eachother, "communist"). And even I for as far as I could understand about what he was talking more or less had sweat in my hands, since the subjects weren't particular the things you openly discuss in Croatia on public places. Maybe for people outside this countries it is hard to understand that you can't openly discuss everything when you are sitting in a bar. But beside the point that Croatia is still a country in war and that althought the nationalism has been cooling down a bit in last 2 years, also I am sure there are things you don't talk about openly in your own country. Maybe those things are different. But I experienced during years ago during one of the many peace marches I made through in those times still West Germany that we often better should keep our mounth when we were in some of the outskirts of the country and the people on the next table discussed with eachother how good Hitler use to be and started to sing their songs of the "Alte Kameraden". But on the other hand try to make a sexistic joke in a left wing collective bar in the Netherlands. And in this case we knew how some of the local people thought about us. You don't have to drive their feelings to the hilt you know. Later during the dinner, we were sitting with about 20 people in an open air restaurant a little bit outside of the center near the beach. We had one of our more informal discussions and joking sessions. You have to know how small the movement in Croatia really is, almost everybody knows eachother. At a certain moment an grey haired guy comes on a very small motorbike down the road, stops his bike and hides himselves at first behind one of the stones in front of the restaurant entry. Then he takes out something what is known as an idiot camera (such photo cameras with which every idiot can make photos) and start to make photo's from our table and the other table were participants of the summer school are sitting. Than he runs back to his motorbike and disappear if the devil is following him. For a moment we all look at each other and start to laugh, the local "hero" has done his patriotic duty, but we are wondering who is interested in his photo's. Especially since besides from the fact that almost everybody who is here on this meeting probebly is already known, in some of the newspapers stood even better photos. Also nobody has to hide anything, otherwise they wouldn't be here. In the weeks before this meeting it was very clear that there would be a lot of attention for it and that if a person didn't wanted to be known as opposition towards the Croatian government he or she better shouldn't be here. During the afternoon I met some people from Suncokret in the town, who were rather surprised to see me here, but when I told them that I was on that meeting from Bogdan they could imagine, "you wouldn't be there" was their reaction. They told me that indeed most of the refugees I use to know has left the island and the country, to Switzerland and the family from Izetbegovic to Turkey (as a wrote more than a year ago). There are still about 400 refugees in private accomodation in Supetar and about 250 in Sutivan, a few hunderd more in the other places on the island. But as far as the rumours are going there are plans to centralise all the refugees in Sutivan in one central huge center. We shall see, but indeed the places in the hotels, where the refugees use to live, were taken over by tourist this summer. Slowly the old geusts are returning to places further south. Mir od Mene, Wam :-) ## CrossPoint v3.02 ##