Patriots or Traitors?

This chapter demonstrates how the politicisation of this issue became an entrenched feature of Liberal and Labor ideologies as both adopted different interpretations of what violent Croatian nationalism was. This chapter is especially significant as it demonstrates how partisan and venomous the debates over this issue were. The Liberal Party adopted an extremely sympathetic view on the history of Croatian nationalism in the twentieth century, whereas the Labor Party adopted the most unsympathetic interpretation. Indeed, the Labor Party’s conceptualisation of Croatians as articulated by Whitlam was so unsympathetic it denied the existence of a Croatian identity. Understanding the extent to which these worldviews were entrenched is vital in understanding the policy debates and ongoing understanding of the problem.