Sometimes, some things, seemingly simple, are more than enough to show us how some policies are hypocritical. It doesn’t matter whether it’s the President of the European Commission, the American president, the head of a household council in a building, or a councilor in a local committee.
When politics are hypocritical, and they mostly are, it’s blatantly obvious, regardless of the level of government in question.
When I was little, a kid, in elementary school, about 20 years ago, I spent a lot of time at my cousin’s place in Zagreb, in Stenjevec, the western part of the city, on a hill, in a picturesque village, now an elite neighborhood known as Borčec. We played soccer in Borčec. On two small goals, on a nearby widening, in Rušiščak street. It was a narrow street that descended the hill, and in the middle of the street, there was a widening that served as a turning point for trucks or larger vehicles, and in the summer afternoons, thanks to the enthusiasm of a few boys, it turned into an improvised soccer field.
Two small goals would be set up, and I played soccer with my cousin and his friends at the time and felt big. Is this text starting with a story about political hypocrisy, right? And what I’m about to tell you now is also hypocrisy. And it has little to do with politics. Mate, Bistri, Zvonac, Gajšak, Tomi, Hrc, little Alen, me… There were always enough of us for two small teams, sometimes even more. I had just finished the sixth grade, and everyone knew me as Mate’s little cousin.
Two to three kunas for pastries at the nearby bakery, five or five and a half for a Sprite or Coca-Cola, and the world was ours. We played mercilessly, and there was a great struggle over which side to choose. It was important because behind one goal, there was a thick shrubbery, so if you kicked the ball there, you were screwed. Not literally, but almost literally. The shrubbery reminded me of similar woods in my village, even the layout of certain houses, meadows, surroundings.
It was similar, my uncle told me, about 20 years ago, and now about 40, when he came from a small village near Široki Brijeg to Zagreb, to Borčec. His older brother took him to a match between Velež and Dinamo at Maksimir. He says that image is still etched in his memory today, a full stadium, Velež and Dinamo playing, a big derby. After the match, his brother told him they were going to eat some cabbage. His brother, my older uncle, had been in Zagreb for years, and let’s say that he and my younger uncle didn’t look at cabbage in the same way.
One felt a romantic zeal towards it, remembering through cabbage with nostalgia, his old mother, first loves, his native village, and the slopes of Široki Brijeg and the cold Lištica river… To the other, younger uncle, it was a reminder of everything he had eaten until yesterday.
Luckily for the younger uncle, in the end, they ate pizza or cevapi, not cabbage. Let’s go back to Rušiščak. One summer, little Alen, as they called him, his cousin from Bosnia came. He was supposed to work with someone on a construction site in Zagreb, so he stayed with his uncle. Muslim, not too relevant for this story, but a Muslim.
He was five or six years older than the others, and about eight or nine years older than me. But God didn’t bless him much with soccer talent. He had sneakers, sports shorts, and some jersey, but he didn’t know, so he couldn’t. In whichever team he was, that team lost, he would try something by force, but there wasn’t enough courage to force himself too much against the local boys in their prime, so he gave up. Also, Alen, his cousin, was part of the team, so he knew that if he tried too hard, when he left, Alen would get punched.
– Where are you from, little one, he asked me somewhat inquisitively.
From Široki, I confidently replied, to which he continued: – Oh, brother, I was in Široki recently, we played at Pecara, remember when there were those riots?
I played the scene in my head and couldn’t remember any specific riots worth mentioning, but I let him continue: – Oh brother, what riots there were, we fought with the Škripari (fans of NK Široki Brijeg)…
I’m not sure whose fan he was, but it seems to me through the haze that it was Čelik. He continued: It was a real mess, we smashed all those trams, he said dead serious.
I was silent and looked at the floor, and after a few moments, I said briefly: – Is that so, well, that’s how it is with fans.
I remembered this story when I read a meme on Facebook that says: Americans have no idea who killed their president for 60 years, but they know all about Navalny’s death in prison.
Hypocrisy, whether it comes from American foreign policy, Bosnian or Croatian internal policy, or the cousin of little Alen from Borčec, from Rušiščak street, in Stenjevec, in the western part of Zagreb, from the time when you could buy something for two to three kunas in a bakery and when cola cost five or five and a half kunas, you understand, always appears and is despised.
In both cases, from the boy who came to Zagreb to play soccer with his cousin, and there found everything his uncle found twenty years earlier. Except cabbage.
Note: There are no trams in Široki Brijeg.
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