Nachricht Nummer : 288
Übertragungszeit : 4 min 8 sec
Nachricht von    : WAM@ZAMIR-ZG.zer.sub.org
Betrifft         : Zagreb Diary 1 November, 1993
Erstellungsdatum : 01.11.1993 16:21:00 W+1

Realname: Wam Kat

Zagreb Diary 1 November, 1993

Dobar dan,

This morning I went to Tkalceciva in order to see Boris, one of the young 
guys, who joint ZAPO (the young anarchists group) some months ago to 
hear more about Satan (Panonski). Before I got to Tkalceciva I had to 
cross the main square, there thousands and thousands of people stood 
in a line, which zig zagged as a snake over the whole place. They were 
waiting for the busses which are leaving from the cathedral to the grave 
yard. In seems to be a habit to take the bus from there, since they also 
could drive directly to the grave yard. Why they have to take the bus 
from here is not clear, people have done it always this way and that is a 
tradition, maybe. Yes it is again the day to remember the dead, in the 
last year not many extra people died in the war, but still thousands have 
to be remembered. I had the feeling that it is bigger this year than last 
year, but who knows. I didn't join the crowd, you had to wait at least an 
hour in line to come to the top and catch the bus, but still stood there 
and watch them waiting. Even the fact that you have to walk all around 
them, nobody really dares to cross the waiting line, I also went to the 
other side of the tramlines in order the pass all this.

I met Boris near the phone boxes, with in his back all the information 
about Ivica, which he could collect. For him the Satan is a kind of 
example of somebody who broke out of the regular boring life and 
protested against the small town atmosphere in Eastern Slavonia, Ivica 
came from a small town near Vinkovci. He started his rock, punk, carrier 
in the late 70'ties, already than he made it a habit of cutting himself on 
stage. In 81 he got involved in a bar fight and killed a man, in self 
defence he said later. The knife he had with him he only carried since 
he had a concert just a hour before, during which he used the knife to 
cut himself.

In 1981 he was send for at least 12 years to jail and lunatic hospital, but 
in the late 80'ties people all around former Yugoslavia started to collect 
signatures for his arrest and so he was released just before the war in 
1990. Actually he should have been released somewhere during next 
month. Directly after his release he started with some friends from 
Vinkovci the band Satan Panonski, he choose the name year before, 
since people in his home town accused him for being part of the devil. 
Thanks to his strong attacks in his lyrics on the normal society and 
claiming that he reached a higher state of awareness, in which only pain 
was left over as well as he extreme stage show he soon again became a 
national (Yugoslav) figure head.

But why did he joint the national guards (the pre "Croatian army" army) 
is of course the normal question. Somebody who is protesting against 
the institutions, who performed in Beograd as well as in Zagreb, from 
whom the record was published and bought in the whole land, how 
could somebody like that choose side. He explained his decision in 
December, 1991, during one of the rare performances in the last months 
of his life, on stage as a normal thing to do. He was not fighting for the 
"holy fatherland", he actual didn't give a shit for it. But his mother was 
attack in his birth village (which is now in the "occupied" zone). He loved 
his mother and felt the strong need to defend her, his birthhouse and his 
friends against this inhumane beings, which destroyed the peace and 
the things he loved.

During that concert he had to play with a new line-up, since one of his 
band members was blown to pieces and another one was lost in action 
during the fights in and around Vinkovci. He promised the people on the 
concert not to cut himself this time, since he had seen enough blood, but 
at the end of the gig he forgot his promise and carved with his razor 
blade deep into his body, the crown get wild and the teenage girls were 
fighting to get a part of his blooded scarf, according the article a Dutch 
journalist (Teun Voeten, who I met a few times in this area) wrote in an 
American newspaper about the rockscene in a country at war.

A few weeks later he died, just after some interviews he had given on 
radio. He accused the military leaders of bad organisation and politics, 
which made him and his fighting force withdraw on moments that it was, 
in his opinion, absolute not neccessary. Soon afterwards he left, totally 
pissed a bar in Vinkovci and slipped over the ice in front of it, his riffle 
went of and hit him fatally in the head. That is the story a good friend 
told, which was with him that evening. The most likely true story also 
according Boris, since why should the friend not tell the true. Ivica just 
told his friends some days before that he expected to be killed soon by 
some kind of secret police. But if they want to let him disappear, Boris 
tells me they would never have done it when he would be with 
somebody, or they would have kill them both. That Ivica hardly even was 
alone is the other side of the medal.  

Boris goes on telling me more about "Satan", shows my photocopies of 
his original song texts, a letter he wrote to the presidency of the Croatia 
Socialist Republic, when he was in jail, decorated with his own blood, a 
photo of his grave (with "Croatian Soldier" on it). He explains me that he 
now can understand why somebody cut himself and why somebody 
drops out of normal life. Like Ivica, he just cut school, he don't want to 
be brainwashed anymore by teachers, who present political views as 
facts, about nobody can discuss.

I am punk, really punk, not like those fashion punks (it hurt me a lot 
when I found out that they were only fashion punks, he confesses me), 
who you see walking, being punk, in the streets of Zagreb. Punk is 
getting on a higher state of awareness, like Zen I reflect and he looks at 
me with question marks. I explain that the lyrics he just translated for me 
could as well has been from a Zen teacher, instead of from a punk 
singer.

He is a soft person, full of emotions, he reminds me on a punk ten years 
back on a punk festival which came to me asking if he was real punk, 
since he never was arrested for anything. Boris is just one of those 
hundreds, thousands of youngsters, who are local for the true in a 
country where it is often very hard to find.

Bok I Mir from Zagreb,

							Wam
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