The past is another reality, increasingly

Nasty comments have already been made by East Ethnia about the law in Serbia declaring the Četnici, collaborationists from the second world war, to have been antifascists. Now, Asaf Bećirović reports in Oslobođenje, Dušan Sladojević, president of something called the «Ravna Gora movement of the fatherland of Srpska,» wants the parliament of Republika Srpska to pass a similar law. Young rightie politician Goran Sikima has an original idea: «We can just copy the law that was passed in Serbia.»

Mr Sladojević defends his interpretation of who was on what side in that war with the unassailable argument, «they have documents about that at Harvard's institute.» Note: The link to the article is above, if somebody made this quotation up, it is not me.

This initiative is likely to go only so far—there is not much chance that even if the RS parliament were to pass it that it would be approved by the federal parliament. Also it is likely to have only very limited material consequence on its own. But the ripple effect could be greater, since the existence of groups that might have a reason to seek redefinition of their role in processes of violence is not limited to the second world war era.