It is no accident that members of many nationalities have adopted Australia as their home. It is a well known haven of freedom and democracy vigorously sought by all those who have been or are deprived of these basic elements of human existence after food and shelter have been secured. In addition, the latter needs are often left wanting in many parts of the world and hence there is an incessant flow of would be immigrants to these shores on political as well as economic grounds.
Many adult newcomers find comfort in a foreign land by living together in large numbers in ghettos. Often they have their own clubs or societies based on their ethic origins and culture: Italian, English, Greek, Chinese, Russian, German, Croatian, Serbian, Slovenian, Hungarian, Jewish to name a few.  These clubs or societies often bear a name of some distinguished personae well known within its ethnic community (Dante Alighieri, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Nikola Tesla)…..  otherwise quite often innocuous to the uninformed.

 Imagine the hurt public sensibilities if there existed the German Club Adolf Hitler, or Italian Club Benito Mussolini….! It is not too difficult to imagine  intervention of the government of the day to erase these objectionable names – because they are well known by everyone for their  notoriety as the perpetrators of the WW2 and the atrocities they instigated. Yet, on a smaller scale, and in “microcosm” there were collaborators even more vicious and bestial – but relatively unknown in the world at large because of their local relevance. One such was Ante Pavelic[1] leader of the German puppet “Independent State of Croatia” during the WW2[2]. Even the German and Italian military under the above fascist creators of the rogue country  of Croatia were appalled by the genocidal bestial manic meted out to the Orthodox Serbs, Jews and Gypsies  who found themselves within the borders of the “new state”.

Many of the diehards of the defeated Axis Alliance escaped justice by fleeing as far from the war torn Europe as South America and Australia. Using the freedom that democracies offer, they began to create pockets of political activism harking to the restoration of their lost causes. Over the subsequent years this resulted in a series of terrorist attacks against the political regimes that replaced theirs. In the case of the former Yugoslavia, it is their militancy that precluded negotiated partitioning of the country, such as in the case of Czechoslovakia, and precipitated a bloody civil war instead. The connections with the Nazi past are now there for all to see in some Croatian clubs (e.g. Fig 1.and Fig 2.)

Figure 1. “Miss Croatia Geelong” in Geelong Victoria posing with runner-ups in front of the picture of Ante Pavelic on the wall (www.hkc.com.au)

Figure 2. Photo of Croatian Catholic Centre Adelaide, picture of Ante Pavelic on the wall
(http://www.hkc.com.au/foto/displayimage.php?album=topn&cat=0&pos=1)

venerating past Nazi leaders such as Ante Pavelic and his associates including  open provocative media events with the obligatory Nazi salute and inflammatory anti-Serb songs and rhetoric[3].
There are numerous examples of public displays of such sentiments in the current state of Croatia, as well as elsewhere, even Australia. At sports’ events, such as the current Australian Tennis Open Tournament in Melbourne, there was a provocation by young Australians of Croatian origin who grew up in parts of community that is fed hatred of their forefathers. Their action is the logical consequence of their such upbringing amid symbols of shameful and inglorious past of their forefathers seeking continuation of the pogrom they meted out to their non-Croat compatriots.

Emboldened by the global lack of understanding of their actions which produced almost an ethnically pure Croatia (there are now only some 5% Serbs left of the original 15%), the Croatian government (whose state religion is Roman Catholic) is doing nothing or not enough to curtail an initiative within Croatia, which effectively undermines the religion of their remaining Orthodox Serbs. This initiative insists on changes that were first instituted in 1942 by the then “Independent State of Croatia” with the aim of diminishing the nexus with Serbia. It begs the question as to the fate of other Orthodox Christians such as Greek, Macedonian, Montenegrian, Rumanian, Russian, Bulgarian, etc.  residing within its borders and is yet another example of religious intolerance.

The democracy and freedom we are all privileged to enjoy in Australia is a precious gift we should not take for granted but dearly cherish and therefore actively discourage any elements within our society that seek otherwise.

At Sydney,

30 January 2010

Managing Committee of
Serbs for Justice & Democracy Inc
A U S T R A L I A

[2] http://rapidshare.com/files/139163069/pavelic-papers.pdf (20mb PDF File)
       or http://www.krajinaforce.com/dokumenti/pavelic-papers.pdf (20mb PDF file)

[3]:
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2626589/Fascist-rocker-Marko-Perkovic-whips-up-racist-football-fans-in-Croatia.html

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCFjjGBmwxc

 http://s201.photobucket.com/albums/aa60/borosoft/Thompson%20Maksimir%202007/?action=view&current=DivaGrabovceva.flv