Bob Dylan Was Right About The Croats-- Most Are Still Fascists To The Core

Croatian fascist leader Ante Pavelić with enthusiastic Franciscan monks

Today Croat voters overwhelmingly-- and true to form-- chose to institutionalize the idea that their own LGBT community is less equal than other Croats. With four-fifths of the votes counted, a solid majority appears to have backed the move to amend the Constitution so that gays and lesbians can never get married. I drove through Croatia in 1969. The scenery was beautiful and I remember thinking how awesome Dubrovnik looked, even though it was kind of like Disneyland, the original city having been destroyed in 1296 (fire) and again in 1667 (earthquake), and rebuilt. Croatian history is complicated and the country has been ruled by every country in the neighborhood at one time or another. During the 1940's Croatia broke away from Yugoslavia and, under the guidance of the fascist Ustashi Party and it's chief, Ante Pavelić, became an ally of the Nazis. They were brutal to non-Croat minorities and established extermination camps for Jews, gypsies, and Serbs. There was something creepy about the country for me and I've never wanted to go back, despite the lovely scenery and rebuilt castles.

Recently, Croatian expatriates living in France were so outraged that Bob Dylan referred to the country's love affair with fascism that they're suing him. Croats don't like people thinking of them as fascists, history notwithstanding. It started with Dylan being awarded the French Legion of Honor last month. It is France's highest cultural award and Dylan had been blocked from receiving it in the past because he opposed the U.S. War Against Vietnam and because he is rumored to have smoked marijuana. The French version of Rolling Stone interviewed him about the honor.

When asked about parallels he sees between Civil War-era America and today, Dylan told the magazine:

"Mmm, I don't know how to put it. It's like . . . the United States burned and destroyed itself for the sake of slavery. The USA wouldn't give it up. It had to be grinded out. The whole system had to be ripped out with force. A lot of killing. What, like, 500,000 people? A lot of destruction to end slavery. And that's what it really was all about.

This country is just too fucked-up about color. It's a distraction. People at each other's throats just because they are of a different color. It's the height of insanity, and it will hold any nation back-- or any neighborhood back. Or any anything back. Blacks know that some whites didn't want to give up slavery-- that if they had their way, they would still be under the yoke, and they can't pretend they don't know that. If you got a slave master or Klan in your blood, blacks can sense that. That stuff lingers to this day. Just like Jews can sense Nazi blood and the Serbs can sense Croatian blood."

It's those last few words that caused the stir. Harking back to centuries-old religious conflict between the majority Roman Catholic Croats and the Christian Orthodox Serbs as well as further rivalry that sprang up during World War II, Dylan referenced the bad relations that exist between the two groups. Amid lingering memories of the Croatian War of Independence that lasted from 1991 to 1995, the France-based Croatian community group in question has brought a lawsuit after finding Dylan's comments unsettling.

Oddly enough, even as Croats are once again portraying themselves as more "western" and "progressive" than the "backward" Serbs, and are just horrified that Dylan would remind anyone of their fascist natures, the country was sponsoring a referendum on proposals to ban marriage equality for LGBT citizens. Croatia was accepted into the European Union this past summer but now the powerful-- and very reactionary-- Catholic Church there is demanding that the constitution be rewritten to define marriage as between a man and a woman only. 104 members of Croatia's 151 seat parliament support the position and opinion polls were overwhelmingly in favor of the fascist position, exactly what anyone who has ever looked into Croatian history would expect. The government, sensitive to European sentiment, is embarrassed and urged people to vote NO.

Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic argued that the referendum threatened people's right to happiness and choice. But leaders of the opposition HDZ party are behind the referendum.

Gay rights protesters, under a heavy police presence, marched for an hour through the city and unfurled a giant rainbow flag outside parliament.

"We urge voters... to protect minority rights so that no-one in Croatia becomes a second-class citizen," activist Sanja Juras told a crowd in Zagreb on Saturday.

The plan for a referendum was allowed parliamentary scrutiny after a Catholic group called "In the Name of the Family" gathered enough signatures to pass the required threshold of support.

"Marriage is the only union enabling procreation. This is the key difference between a marriage... and other unions," said Croatia's Cardinal Josip Bozanic in a letter read out in churches.

Correspondents say attitudes towards gay rights in Croatia-- which joined the European Union in July-- are slowly changing.

In Zagreb's first gay pride parade in 2002, dozens of participants were beaten up by extremists.

Parades are now held regularly although under heavy security.

Is There A Significant Correlation Between Right Wing Politics And Living One's Life As A Closet Case?

As I've mentioned several times before, Boehner can get away with embracing a kook like Ohio Republican Party Nazi Rich Iott because, as Iott explained to an incredulous Anderson Cooper on CNN, the SS thugs he likes dressing up as were just "freedom fighters" and "champions of liberty." And by right wing definitions of those concepts-- wrapped up as they are in the right of the rich and powerful to prey, unfettered, on the vulnerable-- it all makes perfect sense. Especially inside a party with a special place in its black heart for fascists in general and Nazis in particular.

No one knows for sure where or when Iott was born or anything about his actual heritage. He was adopted by a well off family of grocers who assigned him a 1951 birth date and claim he was born in Columbus, Ohio. There are no actual birth records available. I have no way of knowing if Iott or his biological parents are Croatians or not, although the name Iott may be. During World War II Croatia was an independent fascist state-- one of the worst-- allied with Germany. The local fascists were dreaded genocidal maniacs, the Ustashi. They hunted Jews, Serbs and gypsies, shipped them to the Jasenovac concentration camp 62 miles southeast of Zagreb and had them exterminated. That's part of right-wing "freedom" to a racially pure society. Am I saying Rich Iott, John Boehner and the American Republican Party are the same? Absolutely; they just haven't had the chance to let their freak flags fly yet.

Why bring up Croatia today? Well, across Europe no one would have to ask where I'm going with this. It's about another right-wing asshat, Vladimir "Vlatko" Markovic, born into a fine Ustashi family in 1937. Now he's the head of the Croatian football federation, best known for saying gay soccer players would be banned from playing for Croatia. In the right-wing mind, that, of course, is a natural part of "freedom." As if to emphasize the extent to which homophobia is still rife in soccer, after saying that "only healthy people play football," he added that there was no room for gay men in the sport. This week saw protests against Markovic all over Europe led by he European Gay and Lesbian Sport Federation, which represents 17,000 active sportsmen and women.

Ulrike Lunacek, the Austrian Green MEP and active participant in the Gay Games, warned that if the Croatian government failed to take action against Markovic his outburst could affect its application to join the European Union. One of the conditions is that the country implements EU-standard anti-discrimination legislation.

Markovic told both the Croatian daily Vecernji list and the Serbian tabloid Vecernje novosti: "As long as I'm president [of the football federation] there will be no gay players. Thank goodness only healthy people play football."

The 73-year-old, who is campaigning for a fourth term as federation president, later said he had been misunderstood and apologised. The Croatian gay rights groups Kontra and Iskorak have called for Markovic to prove the sincerity of his remorse by raising the rainbow flag, a symbol of gay rights, during Croatia's Euro 2012 qualifier against Malta this Wednesday. Markovic's remarks were followed by an appeal from a leading German player for gay players to muster the courage to come out. Mario Gomez, 25, the Bayern Munich striker, said it was time to stop treating homosexuality as a "taboo topic", adding that if players felt they could come out, they would "play as though they had been liberated."

Coming out of the closet is healthy for individuals and healthy for society. Imagine how different the twisted life of Catholic priest Bruce Ritter. Do you remember him? Reagan singled him out during his inaugural speech as a paragon of American virtue. His whole life was built around seducing underage boys at the time. That's what people who live in closets, their minds and spirits inevitably diseased, do. Reagan didn't single out Ritter for praise because of his work on a presidential anti-pornography commission-- that came the following year-- but because Ritter, in 1972, had founded Covenant House, ostensibly to help runaway teens. Of course he was helping himself to the runaway teens. And to generous contributions people were making to Covenant House. I was planning to write about Ritter and his sick closeted existence when I started this post but... how many times have I told that story? So just go read it at Wikipedia if you want the sordid details of another demented, hypocritical authoritarian character-- Republican, Catholic priest, homophobe. As yes, of course, Mother Church covered up for him and Covenant House tried whitewashing the whole ugly affair.