It has been a particularly surreal week in Alice in Croatland, with a couple of topics catching the eye of Tanja Radmilo in her weekly column, From Croatia with Madness on April 30, 2017.
Sometimes it feels weird living in Croatia, like in a bad dream, in which you do not know what is good and what is bad, who is right and who is wrong, whether you are asleep or is this really happening? I will try to illustrate it with a couple of examples.
Let us say that we have a public figure in a high position, like the Split-Dalmatia County Prefect, for example. This well-known public figure, ready to run again for the same position, decides to organize an exchange of public goods, concretely „beach swapping“, but in a very “cousinly”, Croatian way. Like, ok, the Prefect belongs to one party, HDZ, on the other side there is HGS, and yes, they are in opposition at the city level, but in coalition at the County level. It is complicated, just like when you enter the status of your relationship on Facebook.
What happens next? On the lower, city level everybody raises hands so that HGS (read Željko Kerum) gets one beach to use and exploit. I mean, the HGS Mayor candidate, Željko Kerum, has been using it for more than a decade now anyway, so the beach and the people are used to that kind of management. Then everybody raises their hands on a higher level, HDZ gets their beach, which is coincidentally the most famous beach in Croatia, everybody goes home happy and with full pockets. Is it in the best interests of the Croatian people? Of course not, but Party people are people, too. And the Party people are here for “the people”, particulary in election season. And then because “the people” are really very sick of all this stuff, hell breaks loose, and the situation “Zagreb, we have a problem“ evolves. The Prime Minister is in deep shit, I mean, it’s not like he hasn’t been there all the time, but anyway.
The Prime Minister decides to tell the Split-Dalmatia Prefect to step down. Well-done, bravo, and here the real problem starts. We have a bad guy who tried to fix things the wrong way, he gets caught, gets punished, in “good always wins plots” he gets killed, like the Prefect got killed politically, the good guy gets the glory and the girl, in this context that would be the beach, justice is served, everybody lives happily ever after.
What happens in Croatia? HDZ people start blabbing about the highest moral virtues of the corrupt guy who got caught in the act of corruption because he stepped down and he stepped down because he was caught. I don’t get it.
And there is another thing I don’t get. The priest in Gradište, near Županja, refused the first communion to three little angels with Down syndrome. The priest allegedly said, “Why would they need it, they don’t understand anything anyway?” But the mob, that was in front of Split Croatian National Theatre, supported by many church members and officials, obviously understands perfectly.
Well, I don’t. Somebody, tell me, is there a status RAPED?
