BOSNIĆ: SILENCE OVER THOMPSON CONCERT IN STUTTGART BETRAYS EUROPEAN VALUES

BELGRADE, NOVEMBER 9 /SRNA/ – Mile Bosnić, president of the Movement of Krajina Serbs, said it was shocking that Marko Perković Thompson had held a concert in Stuttgart featuring neo-fascist symbols and the salute "Za dom spremni" during the days when the world marks the anniversary of Kristallnacht and the 1938 pogrom against Jews. He said it was even more shocking that no one had yet responded.

"This is the spread of the worst form of fascism. It is the extinguishing of core European values, and there is no reaction from Germany. The organizers are already announcing another concert soon," Bosnić told SRNA.

He said the event proved that the disease of Ustasha ideology and neo-fascism was now spreading openly across Europe. He said Germany, as host of the concert, was once again not shy about showing affection for its allies, with whom it had treacherously torn apart the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia /SFRY/ in the 1990s.

"Thompson’s concerts are still banned in many European countries, in Switzerland and France, but not in Germany, where evil took its most extreme form," he said.

Bosnić said the Croats, whose constitution enshrines anti-fascism, had at least publicly presented themselves as anti-fascists until now. But footage from the Stuttgart concert showed they were now openly celebrating the period of the Independent State of Croatia /NDH/ from 1941 to 1945 as the high point of their struggle for statehood, he said.

Bosnić said that as one of those behind the initiative for the Serbian parliament to adopt a resolution on the genocide in the NDH, which has not yet happened, he felt powerless seeing how far Croatia's impunity for the NDH period had gone.

Bosnić said he would bring the initiative before parliament again once a government was formed in Serbia, and would not give up.

"Pandora's box has been opened. The only question is whether we will sleep through it and look for someone to blame in Croatia, in Germany, or partly in ourselves, because we stayed silent and helped fascism find its voice," he said.

At the controversial Croatian singer's concert in Stuttgart on Saturday night, some members of the audience displayed flags and scarves with neo-fascist symbols alongside Croatian flags, including the Ustasha slogan "Za dom spremni", the official salute of the Ustasha movement during World War II.

According to the organizers, all 6,500 tickets for the concert at the Porsche-Arena sold out within three hours.

The organizers said that despite criticism of the singer, there had been no legal grounds to cancel the venue rental contract.

Thompson’s management has applied for permission to hold another concert in Stuttgart in a much larger venue with a capacity of about 15,000.

Meanwhile, in Frankfurt, the ruling Christian Democratic Union withdrew its initial objections to a Thompson concert in the city on November 13, after the organizer promised that songs with controversial content would not be performed.

The International Day Against Fascism and Antisemitism is marked today in remembrance of Kristallnacht in 1938, when a pogrom against Jews took place in Germany.