roatia has an age-old symbol of its statehood: the
red-and-white checkerboard shaped as a shield.
Serbs say that to them it symbolizes Croatian
fascism and causes them to rebel. The truth is that
this symbol has been in use for centuries and
symbolizes unity between two ancient Croatian
peoples: the White Croats and the Red Croats. Even
the official emblem of Socialist Republic of
Croatia within old Yugoslavia also contained it and
it did not cause anyone to bombard Dubrovnik or
destroy Vukovar. Serbs use the 4 S's as their
symbol. This too is a good symbol because it means:
"Only Unity Saves the Serbs." Both statehood
symbols endorse and symbolize unity but cause fear
and anger in the hearts of others. What is wrong?
he Serbian people are a tragic people. Many times in 
the past they (and many others) have suffered
tremendously at the hands of their various false
prophets. Their current political leadership are
nothing but false prophets who used deeply rooted
ethnic feelings and bits and pieces of their own
history taken out of context to manipulate those
feelings and to inject fear. Reference to the
Croatian checkerboard as a proof of the rise of
fascism in Croatia was one such political bait.
Once those false prophets succeeded in convincing
the people that their existence was in question
they proposed violence as the only path towards
self-preservation. Nothing could be more false
than that, as it is amply evident at the present
time. If the Serbs (and other peoples) do not learn
from their own history they are bound to repeat it.
imilar phenomenon can be observed in Croatia.
Croatian politicians talk ad infinitum about the
"millennium-old-dream" that the Croatian people
supposedly have of their statehood and use that to
convince Croats (and presumably others who live in
Croatia) as to the righteousness of their politics.
I fail to see how it is possible that a living
person can have a thousand-year-old dream. I only
see that this "dream" came to my mother in
Dubrovnik in the shape of 9 months of savage and
brutal attacks by the combined Montenegrin and
Serbian hordes and has left her on the brink of
poverty in today's "free" Croatia. I can only see
that this "dream" caused my daughter in Osijek to
adopt extreme and unnatural feelings of rejection
and hatred of everything that is Serbian,
including her own grandparents who are of Serbian
nationality. This is nothing else but another
example of manipulation of deep ethnic feelings
with the goal of achieving political objectives of
a minority of politicians.
can see, however, how a people could have a dream
of peace, safety, and prosperity _ all those things
that the majority of people in Croatia, Serbia, and
Bosnia-Hercegovina do not have today.
t is time for the Serbs and the Croats and all
peoples to reject false authority of guns and
physical power. We must see once and for all that
justice achieved by guns is short-lived simply
because it inevitably takes away from someone
else's understanding of what is just (otherwise
there would be no need for violence). The lesson
should be that we will continue to have wars and
suffering of all people as long as we treasure the
life-taking powers more than we do the life-giving
powers.
