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Specifically, after his interview, besides the Feral case, there is also the Dežulović case - a rogue who is undeservedly trying to get hold of dissident status and who writes in 100,000 copies (but under which conditions - has S.P. Novak spoken about that?). Dissidents aren’t what they used to be. It seems as if even S.P. Novak has slipped into a little bit of Yugo-nostalgia himself. It was easy to stand for dissidents in a system that didn’t aspire to classical civil democracy but what will we do when dissidents suddenly appear in democracy and freedom where they do not belong? It seems that we are left with nothing else but to intelligently defend the regime and the elite in power which do not (so far) put people in prisons. (However, it is democratically refusing to issue certificates of Croatian citizenship, but that’s another issue entirely, obviously outside the sphere of the literary-congress interests of S.P. Novak.) How is it that the president of a respectable international association in Croatia defends the ruling order? With an exchange of views, allusions, a certain dose of perfidy and as usual, double standards: some are for home and some are for Rio. Human rights and freedom of speech there, feigned dissidents here. Once again, Mr. Novak jumps to Serbia, showing a rather common literary and petty-political move which is not so expected from the P.E.N. office and by which he has disowned the alleged Croatian dissidents (and denounced a young poet who dared to ask P.E.N. for help) and draws a comparison: There are no dissidents in Serbia because they aren’t snitching and we are. So we are then, of course, traitors of the homeland and conspirators against his Congress which we cannot undermine but we are degrading Croatia’s image what could be dangerous for the Congress itself. But Mr. Novak is forgetting the notorious fact, with which he probably agrees, that there is no democracy in Serbia. So, why aren’t there dissidents? Who cares, it’s important that a comparison has been drawn.
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