No one was particularly surprised by the content, but the intensity and vulgarity of the comments from leading HDZ officials—led by Prime Minister Plenković—did shock people, after they were confronted for the first time last weekend with the fact that there are people who do not want to live in a fascist society and who are ready to take to the streets en masse for the idea of freedom. They did this despite the atmosphere of fear, threats of violence, the relativization of the Ustasha mob by the government, and the police’s cooperation with that mob.
So, after civic, anti-fascist Croatia finally overcame decades of fear and stopped retreating into silence and internal exile, expecting everything to calm down on its own, and after realizing that it simply had to take to the streets and show that things could not continue this way, having done all this from the ground up and without logistical support from political parties – SDP and Možemo members did participate in large numbers in the protest marches, but nothing more – the right wing first reacted with consternation. And then with a hateful counteroffensive, in which HDZ once again showed its true chauvinistic, totalitarian, and thoroughly undemocratic face. As well as the face of numerous people who stand in the so-called center and who claim to be equally annoyed by the red star and by the Ustasha mob attacking peaceful protesters, singing “Here comes the dawn” and chanting “For the homeland, ready.” But those who think they are above the situation and who believe they have fooled everyone about where their sympathies actually lie – and which side this false equivalence serves – are currently irrelevant.
Let us therefore return to HDZ and, to begin with, the Prime Minister himself. He spent the weekend engaging in Catholic traditions, as befits every proper Croat and patriot, but when asked, he said he saw Cyrillic signs and flags of failed states, desires for a return to Yugoslav and Balkan frameworks – all of which are a major problem and unacceptable in his eyes – and added that these Yugoslavs are fighting against minor groups that may or may not be advocating for the NDH.
The Minister of Defense reinforced this by bluntly concluding that the protest was “against Croatia and for Yugoslavia.” The Minister of the Interior said they would extract recordings showing Cyrillic signs and red stars, while the former mayor of Split wrote on Facebook about “Yugoslav vermin.”
There are plenty more examples, but we need not go further. We already have more than enough from relevant sources to conclude that this is what HDZ actually is: a chauvinistic, deceitful, totalitarian, pro-Ustasha, and undemocratic party in every sense of the word.
First, it would be completely irrelevant if there had been hundreds of flags of the Socialist Republic of Croatia – and there was in fact one, compared to the significant number of official state flags – just as it would be irrelevant if all the signs had been in Cyrillic and calling for a Balkan federation – there were only a few such signs across four protests and more than ten thousand people. In any free and democratic country, everyone has the right to express their political views, as long as they do not advocate violence or breaking the law. It is also true that Tuđman’s Croatia, in panic as much as in euphoria, passed a unique legal provision banning association in any Balkan or Yugoslav organizations. However, the only way to respond to this tragicomic hysteria over a single sign is to point out that no one said anything to that effect, and additionally – as a prominent Yugoslav and public enemy among in the eyes of the right wing – I can personally assure them that no one intends to restore Yugoslavia, nor is anyone, alongside their own nationalists, interested in dealing with nationalists from Serbia or other neighboring countries. And even if someone did have such plans, none of the people they might hypothetically unite with in those countries would be willing. Even if such a program existed, it would receive only marginal support. And if, by some miracle, that support became massive, it would mean that the nation and society want something like that. At which point all the hysteria would be pointless.
So, what we have here is a clear lie, manipulation, and the manufacturing of panic.
The issue of Cyrillic only reveals the genuine Ustasha sentiment among HDZ members, since only such people could be bothered by Cyrillic script in and of itself. After all, the protest was in many ways motivated by attacks by Ustasha mobs on Serbs, who are equal citizens of Croatia, so the use of Cyrillic in solidarity is completely logical.
When it comes to the red star and the flag of the SR Croatia, as well as all those cynics who claim they would support the anti-fascists if only they were “real anti-fascists” and not Yugoslavs and communists, we are dealing with a surreal sequence of stupidity. If Croatia is constitutionally defined as the successor of ZAVNOH, and not the NDH – and it is – and if the red star is the symbol of ZAVNOH and anti-fascism – and it is – then what exactly is the problem? Where is the controversy? And how, precisely, is one supposed to be anti-fascist in Croatia without the symbols of the local anti-fascist movement?
In the end, all of these arguments are just pathetic excuses for expressing in a slightly nicer way what the former Split mayor wrote – and what everyone in HDZ actually thinks about the Partisans and their anti-fascist heritage.
But the issue here is not about heritage – it is about the future of this country. And that future will be quite dark if HDZ, together with its extremist satellite, remains in power. Because the violent Ustasha street mob – who repeatedly physically attack ordinary peaceful citizens, people who dance folklore or attend the opening of an exhibition, who attack female journalists and demand bans of cultural festivals, a mob that fills stadiums chanting the Ustasha salute – is defended by the HDZ as “minor groups that may or may not want to restore the NDH,” And those would do that, who even describe this mob as less of a problem than the “enraged Yugoslavs,” i.e., peaceful demonstrators – are in fact deploying that mob to act in their name.
And after last weekend, this has become perfectly clear.
Translated by Marijana Simić
Peščanik.net, 12.12.2025.
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