Mostarkić Gobbo: Only the Truth Can Remove the Shame
Commentator criticizes the silence of Milorad Pupovac and SDSS after the desecration of a monument to murdered children in Slavonski Brod, while recalling the words of penitent Milan Babić.
Commentator criticizes the silence of Milorad Pupovac and SDSS after the desecration of a monument to murdered children in Slavonski Brod, while recalling the words of penitent Milan Babić.
On the very anniversary of the suffering of the children of Slavonski Brod and on the eve of the celebration of Victory and Homeland Thanksgiving Day, the monument "Interrupted Childhood" in Slavonski Brod was defaced with a disgusting graffiti. This monument was erected in memory of twenty-eight children who were killed by shelling, in playgrounds, and on the doorsteps of their own homes.
While the citizens of Slavonski Brod expressed outrage and demanded the cleaning of the monument and the identification of the perpetrator, the public is faced with the familiar silence. The same silence that occurs every time the target of vandalism is not the "right" one.
The commentator in the text on Narod.hr raises the question of where Milorad Pupovac, the leader of SDSS, is now. It is recalled how Pupovac and his party react swiftly to graffiti directed against the Serbian minority or damage to Cyrillic plaques. Then they issue statements and express concern about the climate in society.
"The monument to murdered Croatian children can stand defaced, and you won't hear a word from SDSS. Selective outrage is not outrage. It is politics," the commentary states. It is precisely this selectivity, it is noted, that is the reason why Pupovac and his party comrades, like Šimpraga, do not celebrate Operation Storm with the majority of Croatian citizens.
The columnist recalls the words of Milan Babić, the political leader of Croatian Serbs and "prime minister" of the so-called SAO Krajina in the early 1990s. Babić was sentenced to 13 years in prison for crimes committed in Croatia from 1992 to 1995, and he ended his life on March 6, 2006, by hanging himself in a Hague detention cell.
After, in his own words, coming to know God, Babić delivered a message that the commentator highlights as universal: "Only the truth can give the Serbian people a chance to relieve themselves of collective shame."
Babić testified before the Hague Tribunal in the cases against Milan Martić, Momčilo Krajišnik, and Slobodan Milošević, calling for open confrontation with the past.
"I prayed to God to help me repent and I thank God for the opportunity He gave me to express my remorse. I ask my Croatian brothers to forgive their Serbian brothers. I beg my Serbian people to leave the past behind and turn to a future where goodness, compassion, and justice will in some way alleviate the results of the evil in which I myself participated."
The commentator concludes that Babić offered the only possible way out: truth, then forgiveness. In contrast, today's offering is silence when a monument to Croatian children is desecrated, and noise when someone else's interests are touched.
"That graffiti in Slavonski Brod is not just vandalism. It is a measure of how far we are from that truth and how far are those who claim to speak in the name of reconciliation," the text published on Narod.hr states.
