Croatia: No Time For Passive Patriotism

“We are fed up with affairs of theft and corruption, we are fed up with the communist government, we are fed up with networked cells and everything. Everyone!” – chanted protesters against the Croatian HDZ (Croatian Democratic Union) government on Saturday 10 September 2022, outside the Party headquarters in Zagreb.

The grand theft of about US$107 million from the country’s major oil and gas company “INA” recently uncovered, and dubbed the heist of the century, was without a doubt the trigger for this protest that openly flagged its intention to sack the government. On a visibly large scale in Croatia (as well as in its diaspora, which is economically very important to Croatia) people are sick and tired of the corruption and scandals occurring in the country against which the governments since 2000 have not in earnest waged any real attack – particularly at the grassroots where it counts the most and where real changes to the culture of corruption commence and solidify for the whole nation. This latest eruption of scandalous theft seemed the last straw of tolerance towards the government to quite a few people even if the Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic had swiftly and ceremoniously, a couple of days before the protest, announced that the funds stolen from INA had been found and secured and that “the money will not be running away anywhere”.  But still, a significant proportion of the Croatian population does not trust Plenkovic or his political party nor do they trust SDP (Socialist Democratic Party) that was also in government from time to time since year 2000.

What is more alarming in Prime Minister Plenkovic’s reaction to Saturday’s protest, after a 17-year old lad had been arrested for possession of two Molotov Cocktails and an improvised knife, is that he said that in Croatia there are “people who are ready to use force to overthrow the democratically elected government, and that there are people who are organised, arming themselves and trying to change the government by force.” He and his political party have stood behind this blatant threat to freedom of expression and democracy, dressed up as some deserving comment for the good of all. How would the public know that the 17-year-old Molotov-Cocktail-carrying youth was not planted there by the government!? It’s not as if the public can trust the rotten and corrupt police services (led by former communist operatives) to get to the truth of it, especially if that truth points to the government or its associates. But, if it was true that extremist, violent groups exist in Croatia and are organised with intent of toppling the government, even by force, why has there been no such item of the nation’s security program, said members of the parliamentary opposition a few days after the protest!?

 Well, of course there are people everywhere expressing publicly their dissatisfaction with their government, their democracy, and tax-paying, guarantees them that right and obligation. Just look at the human history of mass anti-government protests. One does not try to intimidate all protesters just because one or two are found to have had “weapons”, which could have been planted there for political gain or intimidate the public against future protests of the same goal. One does not cast aspersions of violence or violent intents against a group of concerned citizens demonstrators just because one or two acted badly, independently. But to HDZ it seems that “the son is responsible for the sins of the father”. How tragic for a democracy.

Many, including myself, wish that there were more people that joined the peaceful protest on 10 September, all of them surely have no objection to police dealing with individuals who bring along weapons that could injure or kill people.

The painful truth that must be eradicated in Croatia is that the fight against corruption has been a lot like a cosmetic job whereby only a handful of large lumps of sums stolen from public coffers into private ones of politicians and highly positioned directors of public companies had been pursued for correction and convictions. Overall, court cases for this corruption and theft tend to drag on for a decade or more and somehow most of the money stolen remains mysteriously unaccounted for to the public. Plenkovic as Prime Minister has done absolutely nothing to change this media spinning profile of “corruption fighting” to include fighting corruption at all levels of public administration and services, from the lowest to the highest. 

From living as part of communist Yugoslavia for half a century Croatia inherited a profoundly infectious and destructive disease known as corruption that is heavily laden with nepotism, embezzlement, and theft. Abominably, odious corrupt habits for personal gain at every level of public administration have defined Croatia as a “economic basket case”, heavily reliant on EU handouts for survival. Corruption and nepotism are the number one problem and yet independent audits, and financial controls are largely missing or scandalously ineffective and national standards of service delivery under any legislation are inexistent and certainly not in circulation for purposes of rule of law, checks and balances. The life of ordinary people plunging into increasing poverty as the country’s economy plummets into an abyss of failed companies, thieved companies, failed farmers and fisheries particularly due to EU imposed quotas… the definite feel one gets from it all is that bribes are rampant at every public service counter, at every public service job opening at every appointment with a medical specialist in public health, at every enrolment in public schools of praiseworthy repute…    

While there are quite a few people who believe that nothing can be done to rid Croatia of corruption, that it is too deeply rooted into the public administration machinery and culture. Many people who have grown accustomed to perks from a corrupt government that dishes out rewards to those who don’t stir the pot, as it were, tolerate corruption just as many did during the era of communist Yugoslavia. Thankfully, there are also many who feel a strong sense of fidelity to Croatia’s democracy as intended by the War of Independence or Homeland War of the 1990’s. It is to the latter that this predicament of widespread corruption presents greater challenges with intent to eradicate corruption than what it does for those who are willing to abandon or be complacent towards meaningful fight against corruption and are supporting (or tolerating) the governments whose main impetus since 2000 has been to act in concert with the Serb aggressor and its cells in Croatia with view to equate the victim with the aggressor.

Modern Croatia’s founding values are without a doubt those that were set in motion with the overwhelming national determination to secede from communist Yugoslavia and it is almost past the time of reckoning with the extent of damage perpetrated against the Croatian national story by any political party or government since year 2000, strongly laced with communist roots and operations from former Yugoslavia. Hence, protests such as the one that occurred in Zagreb on Saturday 10 September may indeed be a sign of strength in the people rather than a whim of few individuals, would be leaders or politicians. The disabling factor, though, is that there are too many individuals in Croatia who tend to their own handful of followers, form a political party or movement, and claim they, and only they, can “change the world”. A leader must be identified and supported for any joint political force in Croatia that would indeed be successful in “sacking” or dismissing any government that harbours communist Yugoslavia values and morals, that places the aggressor above those who defended the country from that aggressor.

It is a fact that every nation is a unique story upon which its survival depends.

That fact remains regardless of the globalist and leftist push to muddy those individual national stories and blend all into an amorphous mass of subservient people across the globe to a powerful few.

A national story is almost never a simple one. National identity itself, and therefore – prosperity, invariably depend upon how we tell the story of our nation – about our past, our present moment, and our future. Croatian story in essence is the one that tells us that Croatia started as rightful Kingdom of its own in early 10^th century, continued independent until 1102 AD to be forced into becoming a subservient nation to various occupying and imperialistic foreign kingdoms, empires, or republics to be finally freed in 1995 because of the victorious Homeland War, defending itself from brutal Serb and Yugoslav forces of aggression. The latter, therefore, is what in its story the Croatian nation must accentuate for the sake of its own survival and prosperity, regardless of the fact it is now an EU member state. Neither the HDZ nor the SDP have shown the capacity to tell the story of the Croatian nation. They both missed or downplayed intentionally the crucial significance of the 1990’s Homeland War for the nation’s story. They insisted and still insist on inflicting pain upon the Croatian nation by collaborating in government not with the Serb minority that fought in the war to defend Croatia from Serb aggression but with the Serb minority directly associated with the anti-Croatia aggression, murders, destruction!

Many national stories are rooted in a particular ethnicity or religion that forms the core of that national identity. In Croatia, as in some other countries around the world, things are more complicated. Since the founding of modern and independent Croatia that sought secession from communist Yugoslavia, Croatia’s national identity has been the story that is constantly poisoned by former communists and their descendants. Be that from the writing of Croatia’s Constitution by former communist operatives just before the Serb and Yugoslav aggression started, to the failure in changing promptly that Constitution once the victory over the aggressor was achieved. At that point in time all references to any communist Yugoslavia “achievements” for independence of Croatia should have been removed from the constitution because communists/partisans in World War Two fought to keep Croatia within Yugoslavia, not to free it from it. But such changes to the Constitution were not made!

There lies the greatest culprit for the boldness of former communists and their descendants for the licence they have written for themselves to underplay the victory in the War of Independence or Homeland War as the centre of the Croatian national story.

The door opened to democracy in Croatia by the Homeland War victory is worth saving indeed. If not via elections (which are reputed to be corrupt) then on the streets with more and more peaceful protests. No government had ever welcomed a protest against it, and it rings so true that if a government told and lived their nation’s story then there would be no protests against it in the sense of bringing it down completely.

Croatian people need to save the soul of Croatia. The soul that achieved its independence in the 1990’s. That was the last time Croatia had a real sense of purpose and that sense was felt nationwide.

To achieve such a national sense of purpose the success will require political leadership and the mobilisation of citizens and various sectors of Croatian society—including cultural, media, and business institutions that have often been reticent to engage in debates that drift in the direction of politics. The wielding of political leadership and power achieved via dismal voter turnouts is no real national leadership.

This is no time for passive patriotism!

Croatian democracy will not survive if Croatians lazily assume that enough people will just come to their senses and recognise that it must be saved—that there is something fixed in the national character that ensures people will live decently and have all opportunities for advancement a democracy offers. There’s nothing inevitable at all about the verdict of history because the history depends on the people creating it. The reliance upon government coffers and corrupt practices has given many families in former Yugoslavia an acceptable standard of living – that was simply the political way communism sought to survive; this though cannot last but Croatia is significantly impoverished through corruption and poverty is on the increase. Croatians must fight for their national story to be weaved into their legislation, into their everyday lives and it is becoming very clear that organised massive and peaceful protests in the streets are becoming the only tool available to the promise of success in living the national story for which rivers of Croatian blood were spilled in the 1990’s.  The transition from communism to democracy demands people power. It is everyone’s responsibility and duty to ensure Croatia becomes free of communist Yugoslavia completely. Ina Vukic