Willkommen

By: Jagoda Radojcic

'Hello, I'm the Croatian prime minister and I wish you a pleasant stay in our country!'
This was a shocking sentence our prime minister, accompanied by the minister of
tourism Damir Bajs, used to greet foreigners arriving in our country and heading
towards the Adriatic at the paytolls in Lucko last summer. My heart skipped a beat.
For God's sake, it has been only two decades since our liberation, have our officals
already forgotten that fighting against foreigners is at the core of our national being?
Welcoming them like this can only be done by someone who has forgotten about our
love of freedom and independence. Erase the thousand-year fight against foreigners
trying to get hold of our wealth (the Romans, Illyrians, Avars, Tatars, the Turks,
Serbs, Hungarians, Germans, Italians, the French, the Russians..) from our history,
heritage and collective memory, and what's left? A mere shell deprived of any
meaning whatsoever.

After I started to think about high treason, newspaper articles covering the stay of the
aforementioned foreigners in Croatia caught my attention: Hungarian tourist attacket
in Sibenik; Italian citizen beat up; 22-year old Brit suffered major physical injuries in
Zadar; Slovakian girl raped; Vodice resident attacks a group of Serbian tourists; a
drunk Dutchwoman accuses local boys of rape in Hvar; a car with a Serbian licence
plate gets smashed in Rijeka; our boys attack a group of arrogant Slovakians, Irish
citizens get beaten up; a Czech acting group Stvanci gets banished from Croatia...
Well done! This is how you defend your country, The Croatians of today answeres
the historical call of their ancestors and headed to fight foreginers by all means
possible. And when the economic dimension of it all came to my mind, it was as if
someone removed a veil from my eyes, and my patriotic blood pumped harder: a
group of Slovenians robbed; a German citizen pays a vodka-tonic in a Split club 3
thousand euros; an Italian couple lost everything in their holiday; a yacht got stolen; a
camp-trailer got stolen; a Czech couple lose their car with all their belongings; a
careless Dutchman pays 20 thousand euros for a night out with his friends...
Hundreds of foreigners lose their assets in Croatia every day, and robbing them
becomes our speciality and a profitable business.

Since inhabiting these lands in the 7th century, the Croatians have developed a way
to make money out of foreigners who happened to pass by. They would set up a sort
of a trap in a convenient place, made for naive tourists to fall in, followed by our
ancestors ambushing them and robbing them of everything they had. This was
ethically justified by the fact that honest people sit at home, and the dishonest
wander about. For example, the inhabitants of the area around the river Neretva,
under leadership of prince Deodat robbed poor Italian tourists around 830, and it took
them an entire century to be seen near our coast again. Robbing Italian tourists is
prominent even in folk poetry. Similarly, it was common to rob Hungarian cattle
transports, or a silly Austrian who happened to stumble along somewhere. To rob a
foreigner was considered a highly patriotic act in the previous millenium, and
acquiring profit that way a perfectly legitimate act approved even by God (as they
would say at the time – 'he helped himself a little'). Prominent Croatian outlaws
became heroes of folk poems, and their endeavours inspired legends that are alive to
this day.
And what happened in the end? Our reputation started to spread unstoppably around
Europe. There wasn't anyone crazy enough to pass through here anymore. Our traps
remained empty for years, weapons became neglected, the outlaws let down their
guard, the robbers gained weight, and over time our national business was
jeopardized. Foreigners' passing through our country and our attacking their
caravans, kidnapping them and asking for ransom became a vital issue for our
survival. Croatia's best and brightest gathered to figure out how to solve this problem.
After long debates, they came up with two conclusions. Firstly, we mustn't rob every
foreigner that passes through our country, because we that will get a bad reputation
again. It's enough that we rob every fifth or sixth passenger, and when we are called
upon for it, we will call it an isolated incident and express our deepest regret over the
matter. Secondly, our prime minister will put a big smile on her face and, along with
her minister of tourism and a whole entourage of officials, will greet tourists at the
borders of our land and welcome them into our country. After the stupid fish believe
us and walk right into our trap, and until then.... Willkomen foreigners, willkomen.