Archives for January 18th, 2005

Strah (Fear) by Željko Pervan. Click to enlarge.

This article by Croatian columnist Željko Pervan wonders what there is to fear about Slovenia. Although he throws a few insults this way, he manages to raise some interesting points. I won’t translate everything, but the first paragraph, which pretty much sets the tone, reads:

"We have a thousand islands, Slovenes have none. We have hundreds of beaches, they have two. We have thousands of fishermen, they have fourteen. Who are we fighting with? Whose access to the sea are we preventing? What are we afraid of? Both of their fishing boats, Kmet Silni and Napaka, catch exactly as many fish as I leave on my plate after lunch."

Pervan criticizes Croatians for being too "stingy" with the Adriatic, and later describes Slovenia as "very likeable and harmless." He can be a bit condescending at times, with this joke about Slovenes being particularly annoying:

"When they go to the seaside, not all of them can go at once. Someone has to stay in Slovenia. Even if they all hit the road, they just lock up Slovenia and go. There are so few of them that if one of them catches a cold, they’re all sneezing, coughing and sniffling."

The way he jokes, you’d think Croatia was some densely populated urban zone. In fact, Croatia has only 4.5 million people — not even half of the population of metropolitan Chicago. Globally, Croatia is ranked about 118th in the world, behind countries like Togo and Papua New Guinea. That doesn’t mean Slovenia isn’t a small country. It is. But Croatia laughing at Slovenia for being small is like a dwarf calling a midget short.

You can read the article (in Croatian) here: Željko Pervan: Strah.

(Thanks Jana!)