Recently, I have been behaving like a blonde in a joke: ‘What does a blonde do when she tightly holds her hands over her ears? She is trying to hold onto a thought.’ That’s somewhat how I feel. But not because my thoughts are panicking and fleeing my head (although such a practice could occasionally be beneficial) but rather to take a little break from the noise of words that pour into my ears from all directions.
First, I listen to how a desperate father broke into a pharmacy to feed his baby. For that, he could get up to 5 years in prison!!! Then follow the bursts from Minister Milinović, whose biggest life and political problem is the composition of the president’s economic advisors. More precisely, is there a mismatch in the running between the Banski dvori and Pantovčak. That’s not all! President Josipović assures that his advisors are not only better than the advisory team of his predecessor but also better than the ministers in the Government. As if we are at a Miss competition! Does Milinović hear himself? Does he realize how meaningless what torments him and his boss is? Does Josipović understand that advisors are not caught fish that fishermen boast about by measuring their size and weight? Does anyone realize that it is no longer time for the media and voters to entertain themselves with trivial topics of form? Is anyone else troubled by this terrible clash of two worlds – the desperate father and the conceited minister and president?
I am troubled by something else. I accept that everyone has adorned themselves with advisors like a Christmas tree. That is now in fashion. But I am troubled by their tied hands. Josipović’s advisors speak freely. Josipović will probably listen to them. But Josipović does not have the executive power to actually change anything in the economy. The Prime Minister is already showing that she will not allow him to do that. The Prime Minister’s advisors would gladly speak. But they are not really allowed to. Nor are they listened to much. In fact, everything they say is listened to. And then politics reshapes it according to its party (usually wrong) cut. To be fair, the advisors have nothing new to say. Everything is clear to everyone. The first and last station is – the budget! There, we need to seek solutions for unemployment, there we need to seek the right incentives for the economy, there we need to find that biblical: if you feed a man fish, you have fed him for a day. If you teach him to fish, you have fed him for a lifetime!
