Winds of Change: Religious Nationalism in a Transformation Context

Abstract

The indictment of two Croatian army generals, Rahim Ademi and Ante Gotovina, by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia at The Hague on 8 June 2001 soon prompted an attack on the legitimacy of the Tribunal by the Roman Catholic Church in Croatia. On Monday 23 July the Croatian bishops issued through their Justitia et Pax Committee a statement hinting at an international conspiracy against Croatia and portraying the Tribunal as an onslaught on national independence. 'We cannot rid ourselves of the impression that there is collusion among influential persons from foreign countries and likeminded persons in Croatia who ... obstruct the free path toward full sovereignty'. Furthermore they stressed the alleged political motivation of the Tribunal, implicitly denying the possible gUilt of the accused war criminals. They stressed the necessity of nationwide reconciliation, which should entail a single vision of the nation among all strata of society. 'On the domestic front, it is necessary to have a consensus about essential matters,' said the statement. 'The positions of the various factions within the Croatian state should contain all the essential elements of our statehood.' 1 In a broader context the statement drew attention to another perplexing reality: the Catholic Church's attitude towards the ethnic war in Bosnia in the first half of the 1990s. The Croatian Bishops' Conference unanimously decided to celebrate mass in all churches on Victory and Homeland Day on 5 August, a date which marks the anniversary of Operation Storm, the entry by the Croatian army into Knin region in 1995. The Bosnian conflict was one of the most violent manifestations of postcommunist nation-building and a painful illustration of what can happen when nationalist and religious sentiments are fused. Religion then became perhaps the most important marker and filter of national identity. The question as to whether this war was a religious one has been debated from the outset and remains a tricky problem of definition. Nevertheless it is clear that the various denominations, ~specially the Roman Catholic and the Serbian Orthodox Churches, did indeed contribute to the conflict and lacked sufficient means, or maybe even the simple determination, to dampen it down. Public statements by denominational representatives and attempts to influence the respective believers or, behind the scenes, the political leaders of the belligerent parties, apparently remained without results. Two features stood out. First, it was apparent that in adopting an anticommunist stance and focusing on their