Zvonko Bušić: Sadašnjost je iluzija…

Zvonko Bušić vjerovao je kako dobre stvari trebaju biti dostupne svima. Ono za što je živio, radio i vjerovao, za što je podnio žrtvu, objavljeno je u knjizi “Zdravo oko”, koja je dostupna na Amazonu. pod nazivom “All Visible Things”. Taj djelić hrvatske povijesti odsad ćete moći čitati svake druge srijede na hrvatskom i engleskom jeziku, na portalu dijaspora.hr. Poglavlje po poglavlje, kap krvi po kap krvi i život dan po dan u 33 dijela – samo s jednim ciljem! Trajat će…

Često sam, kao što se iz prethodnog poglavlja može zaključiti, razmišljao o odnosu pojedinca i naroda. Zamišljajući prošlost svoga hrvatskog naroda, čini mi se da jasno vidim put koji je prošao. Nikome međutim nije dano da vidi cijeli put, znam samo da pripadam naraštaju koji je tek karika u dugačkom lancu, koji će se nadograđivati dok živi naš narod.

Pitam se ipak, što smo bez prošlosti i budućnosti naroda kojemu pripadamo!? Budućnost ne znamo, ali postojimo dok je zamišljamo i dok se za nju borimo. Čovjek je onaj u kome živi prošlost i budućnost, u pravom smislu te riječi, jer samo su takvi pojedinci iznad trenutka sadašnjosti. Toliko puta mi se otkrilo kako je sadašnjost iluzija, a samo je vječnost uistinu stvarna.

Bio sam zaigrano dijete, penjao se tamo gdje se nijedno drugo dijete nije moglo popeti; bio sam uplakano dijete zbog neke banalne stvari koju sam u međuvremenu i zaboravio; bio sam mladić i u zagrljaju držao prekrasnu ženu; bio sam otmičar zrakoplova koji je očajnički želio skrenuti pozornost svijeta na porobljenost svoje domovine i svog naroda; bio sam hrvatski politički zatvorenik u američkom zatvoru, okružen ubojicama, silovateljima i pljačkašima; bio sam povratnik s robije kojemu je klicao narod na aerodromima i gradskim trgovima; bio sam toliko puta bez ručka, ali i u situaciji gdje su se moćni i bogati natjecali da mi plate ručak; doživio sam da me slave, ali i da me kude, konačno bio sam čovjek koji gleda smrti u oči.

Pa ipak sve je prolazno, ono što od mog života ostaje nije nijedan od tih trenutaka ili doživljaja sam za sebe i izoliran iz životne cjeline. Ono što ostaje, usudio bih se reći, ono je što me cijeli život tjeralo da idem naprijed otvorena srca, spreman vlastiti život položiti u ime životnog ideala. Nadživjeti vlastitu smrt, čini mi se, može samo onaj tko se smrti ne boji, tko nije panično zabrinut za vlastiti život i prolazna dobra koja mu se posrećilo prikupiti tijekom života.

Narod mi se u tom kontekstu činio kao proširenje pojedinca, kao zalog njegova preživljavanja u vremenu, dok je Bog zalog vječnosti. Za one koji su pali u borbi za domovinu nikada ne smijemo kazati da su mrtvi. Oni su heroji koji će za nas uvijek biti živi. Zato dok šetamo Lijepom Našom, zastanimo, sjetimo se i izmolimo kratku molitvu za one vrle i hrabre ljude koji su patili i ginuli da bi Hrvatska živjela. Moja osobna sudbina bila je takva da sam ostvarenje svojih snova morao doživjeti na robiji. Čini mi se da ću i preostalu bitku za našu proširenu domovinu – zapadnu civilizaciju – dobiti nakon života, no to me ne čini sumornim i pesimističnim.

Nacije su dio prirode formirane kroz mnoga stoljeća, izrasle poput stabala. Nacije su plan i volja Božja, pa ih treba braniti i njegovati, svaku s njezinim posebnostima. Nacija je velika proširena obitelj koja je krvno i duhovno povezana, i zato svaka nacija posjeduje svoj specifičan karakter, moral, tradiciju. Svi normalni i zdravi članovi te zajednice, te proširene obitelji vode brigu jedni o drugima i ćute uzajamnu bol. Nacija je društvena organizacija koja je najprirodnija pojava u svijetu i povijesti. Svaka nacija pripada određenoj civilizaciji, koja joj je organski srodna i u čijem se krilu formirala. Eto tako sam nekako racionalizirao odnos pojedinac – narod – Bog, ključno pitanje svake filozofije vrijedne proučavanja. Ipak, svjestan sam da je temelj tog odnosa duboko afektivan i intuitivan i da ga nijedna filozofija ne može dokraja racionalno razjasniti. Tom odnosu nijedan pojedinac, ma koliko sebičan bio, ne može sasvim izmaknuti.

Čovjek je s jedne strane društveno biće, a s druge strane svaki je čovjek Božje stvorenje. Najveći dio života proveo sam vodeći bitku koja se većini običnih ljudi činila unaprijed izgubljenom, doživio sam mnoga razočaranja, nagledao se ljudske niskosti, ali i istinskoga herojstva, međutim još uvijek vjerujem da se i u onim Hrvatima kojima hrvatstvo ne vrijedi lule duhana krije zapretana iskra hrvatskog osjećaja. Da nije tako, zar bi se jedan Titov general kroz studiranje povijesti i bogato životno iskustvo mogao prometnuti u najvećeg hrvatskog političara novije povijesti!?

Sjećam se kako mi je Bruno Bušić pričao kako mu je šezdesetih godina u iznajmljenu sobicu došao narodni heroj Većeslav Holjevac, ogorčen i pripit. Pištoljem je udarao po stolu ponavljajući: „Bruno, zajebali su nas, krvavo su nas zajebali, majku im srpsku! Kakav socijalizam, kakva ravnopravnost, kakva Jugoslavija! Uvijek se radi o jednom te istom – o Velikoj Srbiji!“

I sad ti usporedi tog Holjevca s onim Holjevcem koji je zločinački ubijao ranjenike u karlovačkoj bolnici! Jedan čovjek, a dvije tako različite osobe! Pa i sada kada je narod potpuno dezorijentiran čini mi se da ta iskra nacionalne svijesti i zajedništva nije ugašena, vjerujem da je samo prigušena. Sada kada je Hrvatska formalno slobodna država ima naoko blaže, ali puno moćnije neprijatelje. Ideologija globalizacije polako preobražava cijelu zapadnu civilizaciju, rastačući pri tome nacije na nesretne pojedince lišene identiteta. Zapadni je svijet dosada u velikoj mjeri preobražen nizom revolucija.

Stoga mi se čini da se nalazimo pred vremenom velikih, prijelomnih događaja i sukoba koji će odlučivati o opstanku naše civilizacije i svijeta kakav poznajemo. Ali kad sam već potegao pitanje Titova generala koji se spletom životnih okolnosti i vlastitog sazrijevanja prometnuo u najvećega hrvatskog državnika od vremena kraljeva hrvatske krvi, ispričat ću jednu Bruninu anegdotu o Tuđmanu.

Bruni je tada, kako sam već spomenuo, ulogu neformalnog tjelohranitelja imao Nedo Vegar, još jedan mladi zanesenjak hrvatske slobode iz hercegovačkoga krša. Nedo nije bio kršan kako se od Hercegovca očekivalo, no bio je dobro utreniran, okretan i spretan – živa vatra. Kada je Bruni potajno dolazio Tuđman radi nekih dogovora, Bruno reče Nedi:

• Nedo, dolazi iz Zagreba jedan Titov general, trebamo ga dočekati na pravi način.
• Bruno, sami reci kad i gdje, bogami, gotov je, neće stići ni ‹moca› izgovoriti!
• Ne, zaboga, Nedo! To je naš čovjek, pravi Hrvat i budući predsjednik Hrvatske ako ikada bude Hrvatske! – trudio se Bruno smiriti žestokog mladića, a kako je teško govorio, to je i potrajalo. Usput, Nedo je dočekao da se Brunine težnje ostvare i da sudjeluje u borbi za oslobođenje Hrvatske s Tuđmanom na čelu.

U ratu je prošao gotovo sva bojišta i stekao visoki časnički čin. A svoju ljudsku veličinu dokazao je, između ostalog, i time što se nije osvetio udbašu Radi Vukojeviću, svom sumještaninu, ali i svom mučitelju. Taj zlosretni Vukojević progonio je i mučio Vegara i cijelu njegovu obitelj zbog Nediljkova brata Pave, jednog od pripadnika Bugojanske skupine. Svejedno, Nedo ne samo da sam nije poduzeo nikakve osvetničke radnje protiv ostarjelog udbaša, nego je i drugima u mjestu, koristeći svoj autoritet prekaljenog ratnika i domoljuba, zabranio da to učine. Takvih ljudi u hrvatskoj emigraciji bilo je podosta, cijeli su život proveli u borbi za Hrvatsku, često zbog toga nisu dospjeli zasnovati obitelj, a kada je došao trenutak da se uzme puška u ruke, došli su u domovinu i krenuli na najteža bojišta ne pitajući što domovina može učiniti za njih, nego što oni mogu učiniti za nju.

Neki su kao Miro Barešić poginuli, neki su kao Nedo preživjeli. On je imao sreću da preživi i dočeka ostvarenje svoga i Brunina sna, sna svih domoljuba koji su svoje živote posvetili borbi za slobodu Hrvatske. Dijelom sam se i zbog njih odlučio na pisanje ove knjige, jer njihovi su ideali bili i moji ideali, njihova je borba i moja borba. U suvremenom svijetu možda mnogima izgledamo kao anakronizam, kao brodolomci iz nekog prošlog vremena, a naši motivi čine im se nedokučivima.

Međutim, ja ne držim da idealizam ikada može postati anakron. Samo težnjom idealu čovjek može ispuniti svoju ljudsku sudbinu. Nagledao sam se ljudi burna i bogata života, ali bez one niti vodilje koja bi ga činila sudbinom. Takvi životi nalik su vrećama natrpanim kojekakvim bezvrijednim stvarima, njima samima težak teret, a ostalima beskoristan. I koliko god neki čovjek bio prizeman, sebičan i odan materijalnome, ni takav ne želi da na dan njegova pogreba u grobni otvor spuste „vreću“. Nego čovjeka!

Zvonko Bušić

EN

Zvonko believed that good things should be shared with everyone. What he lived, worked for and believed in, what he sacrificed for, is presented in his book “All Visible Things”, which is available on Amazon. From now on, you will be able to have access to this part of Croatian history every other Wednesday and print it out free of charge, in Croatian and English, on the dijaspora.hr portal. Chapter by chapter, drop of blood by drop of blood, and life day by day in 33 parts – with only one goal! He will live on…

Nation

As can be concluded in the previous chapter, I often contemplated the relationship between individual and nation. Thinking about the history of the Croatian people, I clearly see the path it transversed. Of course, no one is capable of seeing the entire path; I only know that I belong to a generation that is but one link in a long chain that will continue to grow as long as the nation lives.

But I still ask myself, what are we really without the past and the future of the nation to which we belong? We don’t know what the future holds, but we exist as long as we imagine and fight for it. A man is only a man if he lives in the past and the future, in the true sense of the word, because only such individuals transcend the present moment. The present has revealed itself as an illusion to me so many times; only eternity is real.

I was a playful child, and climbed to places no other child could; I was a tearful child, whining about trivial things I have long since forgotten. I was a young man in the embrace of a beautiful woman; I was a hijacker who desperately wanted to draw the attention of the world to the enslavement of his people and homeland. I was a Croatian political prisoner in an American prison, surrounded by murderers, rapists, and robbers; I was a returnee from imprisonment, cheered by crowds at the airport and on city squares. I went hungry many a night, but was also in situations where the rich and powerful fought over who would buy me lunch. I was praised and also reviled; and finally, I was a man who looked in the face of Death.

But everything is temporary, and what will remain of my life is not just one of those moments, isolated from the whole of life. What remains, I daresay, is what drove me throughout my life to forge on with an open heart, and the willingness to lay my life down in the name of my ideals. To survive one’s own death, it seems to me, is only possible for those who do not fear death, who are not obsessed with their own lives and the temporary possessions they succeed in amassing. My people seemed to me, in this context, an extension of the individual, a type of collateral ensuring one’s existence in time, with God providing the collateral for eternity.

We should never say that those who laid down their lives for their homeland are dead. They are heroes who will live forever. So as we walk the streets of our beautiful homeland, we should stop, remember them, and say a short prayer for the great and brave people who have suffered and died so that Croatia could live. My personal fate was such that I experienced the realization of my dreams in prison. It seems that I will witness the remaining battle for our homeland – within the expanded context of Western civilization – only after my death. But that doesn’t make me pessimistic or resigned.

Nations are a part of nature, formed throughout several centuries, sprouting like trees. Nations are the plan and will of God, so they should be defended and nurtured, each with its own specificities. A nation is a large, extended family connected by blood and spirit, and that is why each one has its own particular character, morality, and traditions. All normal and healthy members of this community, this extended family, care for one another and feel one another’s pain. A nation is a social organization that is the most natural occurrence in the history of the world. And every nation belongs organically to a particular civilization in whose embrace it was formed.

So that is how I rationalized the relationship between individual-God-nation, the key question of every philosophy worth studying. Of course I am aware that the basis for this relationship is deeply affective and intuitive, and that no philosophy can explain it rationally. And that nobody, no matter how self-absorbed, can totally escape this relationship. On the one hand, man is a social being, and on the other, God’s creation. I spent the greater part of my life in a struggle most thought was lost from the outset, experienced considerable disappointment, and witnessed much human degradation as well as heroism. Meanwhile, I still believe that even those who profess that Croatia means nothing to them hold some small spark of feeling for it within themselves. If that were not the case, how could one of Tito’s generals, FranjoTudjman, after his extensive studies of history and personal experience, transform himself into one of the greatest Croatian politicians of recent history? I also remember Bruno telling me the story of how the national hero Holjevac came to see him in his rented room, drunk and in despair. He began to hit the table with his gun, repeating over and over: “Bruno, they’ve fucked us over totally, the Serb sonofabitches! What socialism, what equality, what Yugoslavia? It all amounts to the same thing – Greater Serbia!” (Note: Veceslav Holjevac, 1917-1970, was active in the Communist Party of Yugoslavia and founder of regional Partisan units in Croatia. He was charged with attacking the Karlovac city hospital during WWII. After the war, Holjevac was in command of many important posts under Tito’s regime. He was also mayor of the city of Zagreb for a decade.)

And now compare this Holjevac with the one who so cruelly murdered the wounded in the Karlovac hospital! (Note: charges were filed against Holjevac by some of his victims http://www.vecernji.hr/hrvatska/veljko-zguric-obozavani-holjevac-je-mucio-zarobljene-hrvate-250685.) Holjevac was accused of liquidating innocent patients in the Karlovac hospital to free a fellow Partisan that he claimed was captured by the Ustashas.) One man, and two such different people! And even though our people are now disoriented, and it seems the spark of national consciousness has been extinguished, I believe it’s only been dampened. Croatia, now a formally free country, has less aggressive but much more powerful enemies. The ideology of globalization is slowly “re-educating” western civilization, and in the process, dissolving nations into unhappy individuals stripped of all identity. The western world has thus far been regenerated, for the most part, through a series of revolutions. Therefore, it seems to me that we are now facing a period of crucial, earth-shattering events that will determine whether civilization as we know it will even survive.

But since I brought up the subject of one of Tito’s generals, Tudjman, and how through his own life experiences and personal maturing he became one of the greatest Croatian statesmen since the era of the Croatian kings, I will now relate an anecdote about Tudjman from Bruno’s Paris days.

Back then, Bruno had the afore-mentioned Nedo Vegar, a young, zealous supporter of Croatian independence from Herzegovina, as his unofficial bodyguard. Nedo was not as raw as some might expect from a Herzegovinian; he was well trained, agile, and a bundle of energy. When Tudjman secretly came one time to see Bruno on some sort of business, Bruno told Nedo: “Nedo, one of Tito’s generals is coming and we’ve got to give him a proper welcome.”Nedo answered: “Bruno, you just say when and where, by God, I’ll take care of him… he won’t have time to blink an eye!” Bruno replied, “For God’s sake, Nedo! He’s one of us, a true Croatian and future president, if Croatia ever becomes a reality!”

Bruno tried to calm the zealous young man, and since he had a speech impediment, it took him quite a while. Nedo succeeded in seeing Bruno’s aspirations come to pass, and he participated in the Croatian war of liberation with Tudjman at its head. He fought on almost all the battlefronts and was awarded a high officer’s rank. He demonstrated his human greatness in many instances, one of which involved the UDBA agent, Rade Vukojevic, Nedo’s neighbor and tormentor. This ill-fated Vukojevic had harassed and tormented Vegar and his entire family because of his brother, who had been a member of the Bugojno group. (Note: armed unit of Croatian patriotic fighters, mostly from Australia, who infiltrated into Yugoslavia in 1972 with the goal of fomenting an uprising among the population against Yugoslavia. Most died during armed actions and nine were subsequently executed.) But not only did Nedo not seek revenge against the UDBA agent later, he used his influence as a seasoned warrior and patriot to prevent the other villagers from taking revenge.

There were many people in the Croatian emigration who had spent their lives fighting for Croatia, and often, because they hadn’t succeeded in establishing their own families, they took a weapon in hand when the time came, returned to the homeland, and headed for the most dangerous battlefronts, not asking what the country could do for them, but what they could do for their country. Some died, and some, like Nedo, survived. He had the good fortune of living to see the realization of his and Bruno’s dream, the dream of all patriots who devoted their lives to Croatia’s freedom. I decided, in part because of them, to write this book, because their ideals were also my ideals, and their struggle was my struggle. In the contemporary world, many might consider us anachronisms, castaways from some earlier time, our motives incomprehensible. But I believe that idealism can never be an anachronism. Only through striving toward some ideal can the human being fulfill his destiny. I have been around people who lead tumultuous, opulent lives, but still lack that guiding hand of destiny. Lives that are like sacks, filled with all kinds of trivial objects, a burden even to themselves and useless to others. And as selfish and materialistic a man might be, nobody wants to be lowered into his grave as a“sack”, but as a human being!

Zvonko Bušić

Ključne riječi #dr. Franjo Tuđman #Zdravo oko #Zvonko Bušić