GLEDE & UNATOC (Feral Tribune No. 823)

RIGHT TO MONOLOGUE

I was so happy that I would finally see the Prime Minister in the flesh after two years. And talk to him about everything, ask him to visit Split and his people, tell him not to be scared if the hungry and manipulated ones, as well as the others, fed manipulators, yell at him, threaten him and insult him, because that is also an essential part of what the people who want power have to put up with…

And I was just about to break my rule not to take part in the HTV programs under no circumstances, but after the Prime Minister had confirmed his team would come to the program Forum edited by Tihomir Ladisic, together with four journalists, the connection was simply terminated. As soon as he was told who the "scary" journalists were, comrade Ivica's chin trembled, and he said his resolute No. No, I will not talk to those doom tellers, those extreme left-wingers, nooo…

Then (Zeljka Antunovic) said: "But Ivica, we have nothing to be afraid of, you know we can say more stupid things in one minute than they can says intelligent things in one hour"; then Slavko (Linic) said: "they should be afraid of us, I'm sure they know nothing about economy, I bet none of them even has an economy school degree, they should be treated roughly"… Goran (Granic) on the other hand, said nothing. But nothing helped. Ivica continued shouting: "I want Hloverka, with her I can freely lament about the endangered condition of the Patriotic war, I can appeal to a national consensus, I can hold a monologue that no one understands, Hloverka is my comrade, a converted comrade to tell the truth, but I feel safest with such people… You know I can't stand dialogues in which those damn journalists, this Latin, Jurdana, Sanja Modric and Heni Erceg can ask me whatever they want, and after all, how come those commentators still exist, Zeljka, haven't we taken over all the media?" "But it will be inconvenient due to the public, and we promised before the elections to transform HTV into a public institution, so it's not convenient influencing which guests they will invite to the programs", said Goran. In vain. Everything was in vain.

The fear of the most powerful man in the country was stronger, and the connection between the Central Committee of SDP and Tihomir Ladisic died. And then, of course, a scandal broke out, one in the row of the scandals that have happened to Racan on his way to take over the media.

But, like always when things get screwed up, Aleksandra Kolaric, the Government's chief of the office for some relations, stood up, and revealed the worse side of the story: the Government had already made an agreement with HTV, according to which the Prime Minister was to present the results of his Government in the program Forum, but Tihomir Ladisic's intention was to change the agreement into an "unconstructive debate with journalists". How nice! So, the program, which has a character of debate, was supposed to serve as a stage for yet another Racan's monologue about the reality he sees through his pink glasses.

But if the Prime Minister really wanted to present the high achievements of his Government, which he is certainly entitled to, why didn't he simply buy an hour and a half of time on TV with his own money? Because he actually believes that the natural function of TV should be to serve his propaganda. Just as in the past, when I was a TV journalist, when the Yugoslav news was on Sundays, and we were ordered to show only positive examples. The times have changed, but Ivica Racan hasn't. And he doesn't understand the fact that democracy doesn't know and doesn't accept the communist phrase about the "constructive comradely critique", but there is only the right to be critical: the right of the public, journalists, intellectuals… Which is why he probably considers outrageous the fact that Vecernji, Jutarnji and Novi list professionally reported about the scandal unprecedented in the democratic countries, stating the names of the Government's officials, but also the names of the journalists that were to take part in the program. But he accepts the fact that Hina, Vjesnik and Slobodna, which are allegedly not Government's newspapers, "skipped" the names of the four commentators, because the editors of those newspapers know very well that it relativizes the scandal: they, just as their bosses, think that sometimes it's useful to falsify the truth for the benefit of the "general cause", or, to use the Tudjman-Racan's language, for the purposes of the reconciliation.

After all, the former editor of Vecernji list, Branko Tudjen, depicted the tragicomic character of such kind of journalism in an interview to Novi list: "I always adjust to the interests of my boss, and I offer him my knowledge of the trade, despite the fact that this might imply I am a man of a weak character." Josip Jovic also offered his knowledge of the trade recently, in Slobodna Dalmacija, in a column of an interesting title: Corpus Separatum. This high Latin expression is supposed to imply something like a "separate body", and Jovic, as Budisa's advocate and Racan's critic, appears as a body from which his own editorial team distances, but which is to prove the success of Racan's reconciliation even with the people who till yesterday promoted fascism, which caused suffering in Croatia, as well as in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is, of course, a morbid consensus about the "freedom" of the media orchestrated by the government, something like the shameful "agreement" according to which Croatia did not commit an aggression against BIH.

Therefore, it is only seemingly absurd that the most powerful man in the country and an advocate of the dangerous national homogenization fears direct confrontation with the public through a dialogue with his critics. Because the people who are not free are actually scared people.

A reader wrote to us recently how she couldn't understand whether we were completely crazy or only brave, and then she realized we were simply free. But precisely this joyous freedom of speech, writing, talking, even creating, is something Ivica Racan fears most, and where the sterility of his government stems from, and the dangerous desire to control every freedom comes from. It is the reason of his suicidal statement with which he commented on the scandal with the TV Forum: "Just as my critics, I have the right to choose with whom I will talk."

Of course that he has the right to choose. But in his living room. Not on the public TV, and not as a government's official. And this is the basic difference between a democratic politician (what Racan isn't), who rejects even a part of his own sovereignty because the public wants it, and a dogmatist, staring into the past, what Racan is.

http://www.feral-tribune.com/index.php?article=2001,824,en_glede 

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