Zvonko Busic on the purpose of Croatian life

Zvonko Bušić (hakave.org)
Translated by Pave Jusup

Good evening. From the bottom of my heart I’d like to thank you for coming this evening. It’s really heartening to see such a great number of you here, especially because most of you are still in your youth. It’s true, this evening’s proceedings were aimed at students, but not only those from Zagreb, but be they from Hercegovina, Bosnia or various other Croatian regions. I know that the student’s locality unions are divided as such, but for me there was only one united Croatian people, one Croatian national corpus.

I have travelled all of Croatia, and met with various people and only once did I see so many young people at one place, and that was at Thompson’s concert. Usually at book launches there are only older people. That kind of annoys me because if the youth don’t have an interest in seeing where their nation is going, what is happening in their Homeland, if young people are not interested in the heroes from our past, then that Homeland, and state for that matter has no future.
The nation without heroes is a sad one. And look, to those whom Croatia is enemy number one; to those who fight on all levels to annul and destroy everything that was achieved during the homeland war, they are trying to prove to us that we have no right as a people to have our place under the sun. It looks as though they are upset that we didn’t live through another Bleiburg.
They certainly have other plans for our beautiful homeland. We must give them a message and say clearly that their plans will not succeed. Despite today’s apathetic society in Croatia, the Croatian people will not be overrun so easily. The spark of our glorious nobility, from solid stone, will ignite and the Croatian man will once again stand as one as he did 20 years ago and defend his homeland.
When Mate Kovac asked me to come to the Regional club of Hercegovinian students I asked myself what would I say to these young people today?
I am a man with a special story, a man that has experienced something that is very distant and foreign to you all, and likewise your life experiences are different as you grew up in a different time, you have lived through totally different fates. For people to have a mutual understanding they need to live through similar circumstances, they need to feel the same pains, otherwise it is hard for them to find mutual ground.
Then I came to the conclusion – there’s no chance I’m going to speak to them in a distant and sterile manner, I am going to these young people to share my thoughts, my pains and experiences and what I learnt from them.
And there we have me this evening, and I’m ecstatic that you have attended. We had a small technical problem, although I don’t know whether it was only a technical issue, as we were meant to hold this gathering in another hall but maybe it was cancelled there because we were speaking about Croatia. If any breathes Croatian, if anything thinks Croatian – it is not welcome in Croatia – that’s the feeling that I’m getting, not just here. It’s not popular anymore.
They wish to convince us that it was a crime to defend our homeland. In some way we accept that. We agree. We have shut our mouths. Do not be afraid! Do not fear anything as God is on our side, because nature is on our side, it’s human nature to love your family, your homeland and your people.
There are many people in the world who wish to destroy all ethnic identities, are attempting to destroy love for our family, our people and our whole community.
The have declared nationalism the greatest crime in this world. They compare it to a crime against humanity, with humanity being an abstract idea. Nationalism, is the love for your people, it’s the human feeling of belonging somewhere on this planet. Just as food and water are necessary for human survival, as is shelter, humanity has a strong feeling and yearning for belonging somewhere. If you don’t belong anywhere then you are a grain of wheat in the wind. Belonging is a natural necessity.
I want to say one thing to you all. Converse with yourself and ask yourself the questions; who am I, where am I going, where did I come from, why am I alive and what is the point of my existence? Do I live because I was born or is there a deeper meaning? What do I yearn for in this life? Remember these questions and remember your answers. You will see how over time they will change.
I spent a large amount of my life in a place I could only describe as hell. I had a lot of time to think about myself and my life, I thought about the political, philosophical, faithful, spiritual and economic questions of the world. I am happy and grateful to my fate that I had such a hard life and that I was where I was. A life without its ups and downs, without adventure is a life not worth living. It’s absolutely necessary to ask yourself these things, to think and to converse within yourself. We are brittle mortals but while we are alive we tend to forget our humble beginnings, we become strong and our ego grows like a large mountain range. We forget our weaknesses.
After all of my experiences I came to the deep belief that if a person in their life does not look deep within, at least once into their own soul, and does not recognise these weaknesses and looks upon their humble beginnings, on the short nature of human life and if he doesn’t cleanse his soul and rebuild his personality, that kind of person I’m afraid is not worthy and not able to life a moral life.
That’s the kind of person that loses themselves in this materialistic world.
Materialism in the western civilisation is so strong; it has such a deep effect on people, that it does not allow a higher meaning to life. Without a higher meaning to life, there is no point to live.
We have become so materialised, we have forgotten our own spirituality, forgotten our traditions, for god’s sake we have forgotten the HOMELAND WAR! That’s a real shame.
15 years on, after the Croatian warriors won us our independence, defended and secured our homeland after all of that, the everlasting flame of the altar of the homeland is extinguished. And there’s no protests or demonstrations. Our heroes fight like lions in the Hague against an international apparatus that wishes to equalise the roles of victim and aggressor.
Our newspapers do not print a word about it.

The field of Croatian media is sown with weeds. Soros did not come here and invest 50 million dollars because he loves Croatia. He came here to cultivate this atmosphere and situation in which we live in. I can forgive him; he has his goals, his plans. Those Croats who lead Croatia today into new associations and unions, talk of the ‘western Balkans’…I’m afraid that they will take us to this ‘Western Balkans’ and we will lose everything that we gained during the homeland war. My friends, what will be of us then?
There will come a time when we can’t even gather and speak. I remember a time when people would sing a Croatian song and they would be sent to prison…
A long time ago Plato said that in this, in this life the only sacred things that we know are ours are our children, our fathers, grandfathers and forefathers – our people, our identity. It is for this precise reason that we are sure that they are ours.
If a person does not have inner strength, if he doesn’t have a soul, when the inner part of us dies then we are dead people walking. We absolutely don’t exist.
The worst fate is; the toughest and hardest life of person is when they feel that life has no point. How can a person have a reason to live? They can have it through faith in God and everlasting life; he can find it in the confirmation of self through his family and his nation. The meaning of life is not only to live, but to have something to live for.
My dear people, everything we see in Croatia today, everything we see in the world today is a catastrophe. I have a feeling that I have come to some sort of cemetery or mental institution. People have become afraid. Nobody has any will for anything anymore. Ideals have died, old stories have dies, the truth is dying. If we don’t find ways to continue these truths through our own soul in our hearts, these old ideals will dies. We will not be worth a grain of salt as a people if we allow this to happen.
As a youth I was carried away with some dreams and ideals and looking at what were happening to our Croatian people. Croats were being liquidated left, right and centre and that Croat name was not mentioned…All you could hear was on a rare occasion the stories which were whispered in confidence about the death marches after the second world war, about Bleiburg and the struggle of Croats throughout the centuries to secure their freedom and ideals.
I remember once as a ten year old I found a page out of a book which had been ripped out and on that page was a poem written by A.G. Matos. , Domovino moja, tvoje sunce pada, ni mrijet za te Hrvat snage nema, dok ti tuđin majko propast sprema. (My homeland, your sun is falling, even to die for you a Croat has no strength, while a foreigner plots your demise). My dear people in those times you really couldn’t mention our name, and even less so work for a Croatian ideal. A sort of defiance and contempt for the system was born within me, I believed in my ideals and said to myself, If there’s no one else then it will have to be me, and then I ended up where I did.

I do not regret that. I’m not crying over the things I endure because they taught me what life really is. There’s not one life without hard times. And let me confirm to you that a life without ideals is not a life.
If a person has certain ideals and if he is not ready to sacrifice everything for them, even his life then either the person has no worth or the ideals have no worth.
My whole life is a testimony to my faith, my struggle for my Croatian ideals. Many see me as a fanatic, idealist, some even say terrorirst but I was only a man who loved his people and wanted to work for his people. The enemies of our people persecuted me and didn’t give me peace here or in foreign lands.
You felt that same feeling during the Homeland war when Croatia was attacked.
There you have it, the Serbs took us thirsty over water twice and poisoned our seeds. Once again our political elite awaits new associations and unions…
Croatia is a land so beautiful and wealthy that is from this very fact that our problem stems. If Croatia was in some sort of desert no one would come here to poison our waters. They want our Slavonian plains, our cristal clear waters, our beautiful Adriatic…that’s what they want!
But, to our credit we have survived for 1300 years. After so many centuries of a united dream, let’s say that Croatian partisans, communists and Ustaše have together won their freedom and passed that historical test. Those that were against Croatia saw what was happening and have attempted to create an atmosphere in which the average Croat will say, Why did we need that country for? It was better before.
The 21st century will be a battle for ethnic identities. We need to be wise as Croats and save this state which we have today. We need to be conscious of the fact that the years ahead of us will decide whether we are to be or not to be.
My life dream has come to fruition in some way. But we are so divided, so petty. We have no common vehicle. We allow all sorts of things to happen to us. A friend of mine once said to me that we are a weird bunch, we don’t know how to swim until the water is at our ears and then we try to learn.
To those among you who are happy with this current situation, then there is either something wrong with you or you truly don’t know what awaits us.
Don’t expect me to have some sort of magic wand, I can’t wave a stick and give you some sort of hope or renew your soul – especially those amongst you who won’t look into your own souls first.
It’s up to us as individuals to look inside and find inner strength to move forward. Talk to your friends, let’s build a collective soul and community, to never give in and to not allow them to manipulate us. Cleanse your language, do not be vulgar, be polite and move forward from within yourself with small steps.
Maybe then hope will exist. We need to fight. We have nothing against anybody who isn’t Croatian and lives in Croatia today. To the contrary we salute every person who accepts Croatia as their homeland. But to those who are returning to Croatia or live in her already and hate her, do not accept her as their homeland, let me give them an American view on the world – America, Like it or lump it.
The same goes for Croatia, like it or lump it. That is love your homeland, and if you don’t – leave.
Our homeland belongs especially to you, the youth. Our forefathers left her, defended her and died for her and you must pass that on to your children. I hope that you will always show the readiness to defend her from conquerors and their pillaging appetites. Thank you.