Julian Spalding, who has led several leading galleries in Britain, has come up with a book attacking “con art” by Damian Hirst and others from his generation of so-called young British artists. Con art is a play on the term “conceptual art,” it goes without saying. Just as Hirst is about to have his retrospective at Tate Modern, which is billed as a momentous cultural event, the book recommends selling his art while there is still time. Spalding predicts that the con art bubble will soon burst, and he likens it to the sub-prime mortgage crisis. The prices of the worthless art will soon plummet, he predicts. So, sell as fast as you can.

Now, it is interesting how I read this story in several British newspapers, whose online editions I regularly follow. To begin with, I wholeheartedly agreed with Spalding. Con art is worthless and it cannot keep its puffed-up prices much longer. But then it crossed my mind that Hirst will sue Spalding for libel. After all, much money is involved. It took me a while to realize the origin of my worry: Croatian jurisprudence. Having lived in Croatia for nearly ten years already, and having been sued for verbal crimes thrice, I would think twice in Spalding’s place.

I, too, repeatedly argued against con art in harsh terms while I was living in Britain, but I am a different person now. I have been tamed by Croatian courts, that is. Repression, political and otherwise, works wonders rather quickly. And I have never lived in a country as repressive as Croatia. Former Yugoslavia was at least clear when it came to dissidents like me. The game was obvious to all, which is why I published some of my writings abroad, as well as under a pseudonym. In America and Britain I learned to think truly freely. Croatia came as a harsh surprise, though. Socialism is still alive, albeit in a treacherous form. The courts are the new police. Con art, indeed.