Democracy (also) openly mocks its fathers in Croatia

History has taught us that revolutions eat their children: from the French Revolution at the end of the 18th century through the communist revolutions of the 20th century; from the guillotine for the pioneers of the French civil revolution to party purges, gulags, and extrajudicial executions for the pioneers of communist revolutions.

Today we are faced with a new phenomenon: democracies that mock their fathers. From woke and cancel culture movements in the U.S., politically represented in the left wing of the Democratic Party; through their ideological-political brothers and sisters in Europe who, by appropriating a monopoly on the interpretation of the EU, actually mock its founders, prominent Christian Democratic politicians Schuman, Adenauer, and De Gasperi. And all the way to our local Ava Karabatić who sends a message of the absurdity of sacrifice and the struggle for democracy ahead of the Croatian parliamentary elections, three and a half decades after the idea of multiparty democracy defeated the one-party communist system.

It can always go lower

Given that we are in the midst of the election campaign for the Croatian parliamentary elections, I prefer the domestic Ava over the global mockery of democracy. So, Ava, who is officially registered as an actress and host, but publicly perceived as a starlet and reality TV star, also wished to become a representative in the Croatian Parliament. And she arrived at the State Election Commission at the last moment with her independent list for the 10th electoral district. But alas, she was missing fifty signatures. Here then jumps in knight Ivan Pernar, another from the ranks of those who help democracy mock its fathers. And he saves knight Ava, five minutes before midnight, giving her a place on his electoral list. Thus, thanks to the midnight knight, Ava will also participate in this campaign, with her slogan which, as she herself says, stems from personal experience – ‘Let’s sober up’.

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In addition, she will advocate for the fight against violence against women and other things… All of this, of course, received significant media attention, which a new party or list aspiring to seriousness cannot count on. I avoid the qualification that we have (thus) only reached the bottom because experience tells us that every bottom is temporary, that it can always go lower. But in this case, Ava and the knight (or whoever designed their participation in the elections) are not even the current bottom of Croatian parliamentary democracy, but a parody of that bottom. And perhaps they will reach their place in the Parliament, which is today the only goal of more or less all competitors and all their struggles.

In that first term of the multiparty Parliament, there were representatives who spent years in solitary confinement in Stara Gradiška for publicly expressed or signed political ideas to replace the one-party system with a multiparty one, with underground waters of the Sava in their cells or pounding and carrying stones aimlessly under the sun of Goli Otok. And while they called for multiparty democracy, they were more or less aware that they could end up as political prisoners in Lepoglava or Stara Gradiška, while Goli Otok at that time was a regime secret. When in 1990 their appeals were realized with the constitution of the multiparty Parliament, it was somehow logical to expect that the freedom of choice would result in party competition, raising quality, and political development. Instead, a quarter of a century later, Croatia has actually returned to a one-party society.

The battle for the trade of mandates

What was once the Party has now become HDZ, which governs the state and feeds members and friends tied into a comprehensive clientelist network. SDP, as the second major party, has lost its way, self-destructed, and now from that losing position, with the support of bombers from Pantovčak, tries to seize power with revolutionary rhetoric and political upheaval. The party with which multiparty democracy began (HDZ) produces one-party rule, while the party that opened the doors to multiparty democracy and democracy (SKH-SDP) today promotes the ‘river of justice’ revolution. With HDZ and SDP as the only serious political options, although ideologically completely opposite, but parties that can bring some change, for now, show Možemo! on the left and the Homeland Movement on the right. The rest is mostly a battle for a parliamentary seat, for the trade of mandates, for personal existence in the political arena, for the most expensive token… With less sense of self-irony than Ava Karabatić has.

Democracy (also) openly mocks its fathers in Croatia. But unlike dictatorships, democracies can (only) be repaired. Let’s sober up, as Ava would say, a representative in an attempt.