Thompson, Insignia And The War

Coincidence being what it is, who knows whether the beginning of Thompson's tour in Vukovar on Friday or the escalating controversy over its Sarajevo leg prompted the singer to give an interview to Jutarnji list at the weekend.

Needless to say, the opening exchanges relate to the Sarajevo concert, regarding which Thompson emphasises that 'the most important reason for me going to Sarajevo is the charity concert whose profits are intended for the construction of a Croat Catholic Home, at the invitation of the Croat Catholic Society and Father Ante Jelić' - and that the rumour that 'they are even calling on Sarajevans, Bosniaks, to come to the [concert venue] Zetra and demonstrate' is an unneccessary 'invitation to conflict'.

As regards the Ustaša merchandise often seen among sections of the audience at his concerts, Thompson argues:

'As far as iconography is concerned, on stage I've often said that everyone who feels the need to wear military insignia ought to wear the insignia of the victorious Croatian army from the Homeland War. I always emphasise that, but again, I repeat, I can't dictate what people wear. Moreover, if there's anything illegal there, services exist which are responsible for dealing with that.'

There's a fair point here: why has 1990s military iconography failed to resonate with young people (or with the people who order and sell the merchandise in the first place) in the way that Ustaša imagery has done, for all the short-lived cult status which attached to various contemporary army brigades in 1991-92? Where are the T-shirts, caps and football scarves commemorating the 1st Guard Brigade (Tigers), the 4th Split Guard Brigade, the 101st Zagreb or the 204th Vukovar? Why should it be so much easier to find Jasenovac i Gradiška Stara on the internet than the briefly famous anthem of the 101st?

Talking of Jasenovac, which Thompson was infamously accused of performing in 2004, he'd be glad to clear that up as well:

'I have my own official repertoire, and that song has never been in it. Of course, I didn't even write it either, I've never recorded it nor do I stand behind those lyrics. Those aren't my principles, nor are they any sort of human principles. My songs are about love of God, the family, the homeland and man. There's no way I'll allow people to attach things to me which are nothing to do with me.

--But there were still occasions when you used to sing that song too.

--Those weren't occasions, that was a time when everyone sang all sorts of things. The Honmeland War wasn't just a physical fight with the Četniks, but also a psychological war. We know what all the Četniks sung and how people sang to them. Dragging all that out of the context of that time isn't fair. All that was a crazy time. But, I say again, I won't allow people to burden me with that. Only a sick mind could have done what Denis Latin did when he played that song on his show edited with footage of corpses floating down a river and then asked his guests "What do you think of this Thompson video?". I still have lots of problems because of that today.'

That would be that for the Thompson interview, if the interviewer himself hadn't dedicated his regular column in the same newspaper today to a post-mortem of it, reflecting particularly on Thompson's defence of the 'Za dom spremni' slogan (used as the introduction of his wartime debut hit Bojna Čavoglave (Čavoglave Platoon)) and going on to lament that:

'there are few people who can and will express with equal strength both their love for their homeland and disgust at every sort of crime which has ever been committed under the mask or in the name of that love. Just as there are terribly few people who are prepared to defend the principles of antifascism and, with the same bitterness and with no excuses, reject and condemn all the hideous crimes committed under the mantle and insignia of that civilisational and human commitment.'

Hail To The Chief?

Civil service incompetence stories are flavour of the month here at the moment (when we aren't being distracted by mechanical elephants), but even the ex-Home Secretary might be relieved not to be in charge of the Croatian Ministry of Defence, which has been compiling a register of Homeland War veterans for welfare purposes.

As Jutarnji list revealed yesterday, the register contains the names of 489,407 Croatian branitelji, ranging from front-line soldiers to 'numerous [female[ secretaries, cleaners and officials who worked in the Interior Ministry and the Ministry of Defence during the war'. The position of Franjo Tudjman, President and Commander in Chief throughout the war, at the top of the list would obviously go without saying.

Indeed, it went so far without saying that nobody at the Ministry of Defence thought to say it, and the register was drawn up without Tudjman's name, providing tabloid gold dust and the chance to blame the Ministry of Defence, Jadranka Kosor's Ministry of Branitelji, or both.

Under pressure from branitelji and members of her own (and Tudjman's) party, such as Andrija Hebrang from the party presidency, Kosor stated that the omission was 'absurd', since 'President Tudjman ran the army in the most difficult times' and it had 'never crossed her mind that the Commander in Chief would not have the status of a branitelj'.

The defence minister, Berislav Rončević, is sticking to the letter of the law, arguing that Tudjman's C-in-C status derived from the Croatian constitution rather than a working relationship with the Interior Ministry of the Ministry of Defence, and that he had not belonged to any particular unit. To get Tudjman on to the list: 'If you want Tudjman to get branitelj status, the Sabor will have to change the Law on Branitelji' for 'commander-in-chief' to be recognised as an eligible category.

Friends of the Tudjman family are - perhaps not unreasonably - upset, according to Večernji list, and see further evidence of his neglected memory in the fact that Zagreb still has no street or square named after Tudjman. (Possibly because the city council would have to agree on what to re-name first.) They'd be happy with Zagreb airport instead, or so we're told.

There's a definite West Wing feel about this story, although the chances are that C.J. Cregg wouldn't be doing any better or worse than Kosorica right now.

Croatia's Number One Brands

Via Roma Roma, news that Goran Višnjić has been offered the lead role in a forthcoming biopic of Ante Gotovina - to be directed by Antun Vrdoljak, the eminent Croatian director whose last major project, in which Višnjić also starred, tackled the period from the 1930s to the establishment of the socialist Yugoslav state.

When the Fund for the Truth About the Homeland War was founded in January this year to finance Gotovina's defence and carry out educational activities in the same vein, the president of Matica Hrvatska, Ivan Zidić, described Gotovina as 'the number one brand in the country' at its launch event. Millions of ER viewers, who have been entertained by Višnjić's smouldering Dr Luka Kovač for several seasons now, might disagree with that.

In fact, the Višnjić-Vrdoljak story has been going around Večernji list for several days now, and the newspaper is understandably quite pleased with itself for getting the report on to the BBC. The last time Večernji list came up with such an I-can't-believe-they-just-said-that idea for a collaboration, it was the one about Severina having a song arranged by Goran Bregović; and look what happened to that.

Vrdoljak described the concept of the film to VL on Monday:

'Goran and I have been working on a film project about General Ante Gotovina for a long time. We reached the idea in the moments of the first emotional shock, in the situation everyone knows when we had to defend a man like that. But the Gotovina story is a full-blooded film story, I'd say not just a political one but an action one according to all the rules of the genre, from the clearly-profiled central hero to the dramatic elements of the content, where one can present both the people and the events through film.'

Some anonymous Photoshoppers obviously reached the same conclusion just after Gotovina's arrest in December, adding his image to film posters ranging from We Were Soldiers to Troy and The Return of the King.

The Gazette was going to wrap up with a throwaway comment that the number-one-brandedness of the project could only be improved if Severina were to appear in the role of Gotovina's wife Dunja. But as it happens, Seve's one ahead of me.