March 2011 wave of protest in Croatia

[storming_heaven]

Here are three interesting articles about the large (anti-capitalist) protests in Croatia in March 2011:

March 2011 protest wave in Croatia (http://www.hap.bloger.hr/post/march-2011-protest-wave-in-croatia/9076799.aspx)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/apr/02/croatia-protests-economic-slump

http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/485.php

[punisa]

Unfortunately these are already dead by now.
If anyone wants my take on why they failed tremendously, ask away.

[Rusty Shackleford]

Unfortunately these are already dead by now.
If anyone wants my take on why they failed tremendously, ask away.

ok


WHY

[storming_heaven]

they are *currently* dead. but the people (many of them young) are still here and they'll go to the streets again. my guess is there'll be another wave of protests before the end of the year.

[punisa]

ok


WHY
Because they were hijacked and many genuine lefties fell for it.
I agree with storming_heaven, they can be resurrected once again, but only if the same mistakes are not repeated.

Number of people protesting were increasing each time, at one point they peaked around 15,000 people. I was there since the beginning.
It was beautiful and spontaneous, until we allowed idiots to take the lead. The radical neoliberals, christian fundamentalists and "revolutionary" leftists who haven't got the slightest idea of what left really is.

I'm not happy that I have to criticize the whole movement, but mistakes should be pointed out and argumentatively discussed.

Also, if you consider all major protests that are taking place - if they are allowed - they occupy the main square and hold it tightly so the numbers increase.
Why didn't this happen in Croatia (Zagreb)? Because certain infiltrators turned protesters into a flock of sheep and made them march for hours around the city, just to wear them down so they give up eventually.

The left (both anarchists and communists) were extremely marginalized and had no real chance to take the lead. Simply because the majority of people distrusts all leftists and such (historical reasons).

The protests were extremely non confrontational and all the time you had groups who did everything they could to calm people down, so the situation never escalates.
Peaceful revolution? Umm... I disagree.

I still believe that the whole "Croatian spring of 2011" was in a way orchestrated by the ruling elite just to show to the whole nation - there you go, protests don't work in this country, so just drop it !

Good side of the story is that I did indeed meet a lot of leftists during the protests. The bad side is that there are a lot of them who are just idiotic juveniles in expensive sneakers.

[pranabjyoti]

The radical neoliberals, christian fundamentalists and "revolutionary" leftists who haven't got the slightest idea of what left really is.

At present, Revleft is full of such samples of "left". With them, there is no hope for workers in the Eastern part of Europe. They will suffer until and unless they scrap their anti-communist views. They will be just left behind while the rest of the world will go forward.

[storming_heaven]

Because they were hijacked and many genuine lefties fell for it.
I agree with storming_heaven, they can be resurrected once again, but only if the same mistakes are not repeated.

Number of people protesting were increasing each time, at one point they peaked around 15,000 people. I was there since the beginning.
It was beautiful and spontaneous, until we allowed idiots to take the lead. The radical neoliberals, christian fundamentalists and "revolutionary" leftists who haven't got the slightest idea of what left really is.

I'm not happy that I have to criticize the whole movement, but mistakes should be pointed out and argumentatively discussed.

Also, if you consider all major protests that are taking place - if they are allowed - they occupy the main square and hold it tightly so the numbers increase.
Why didn't this happen in Croatia (Zagreb)? Because certain infiltrators turned protesters into a flock of sheep and made them march for hours around the city, just to wear them down so they give up eventually.

The left (both anarchists and communists) were extremely marginalized and had no real chance to take the lead. Simply because the majority of people distrusts all leftists and such (historical reasons).

The protests were extremely non confrontational and all the time you had groups who did everything they could to calm people down, so the situation never escalates.
Peaceful revolution? Umm... I disagree.

I still believe that the whole "Croatian spring of 2011" was in a way orchestrated by the ruling elite just to show to the whole nation - there you go, protests don't work in this country, so just drop it !

Good side of the story is that I did indeed meet a lot of leftists during the protests. The bad side is that there are a lot of them who are just idiotic juveniles in expensive sneakers.

I don't want to get into a big discussion, but your analysis is completely of track and naive. And the thing about the ruling elite orchestrating everything is nothing else than a completely crazy conspiracy theory. I was there since day one and I know what I am talking about. I urge the non-ex-Yugoslav comrades to read the articles I linked. They present a much more realistic picture of the protest.

[punisa]

I don't want to get into a big discussion, but your analysis is completely of track and naive. And the thing about the ruling elite orchestrating everything is nothing else than a completely crazy conspiracy theory. I was there since day one and I know what I am talking about. I urge the non-ex-Yugoslav comrades to read the articles I linked. They present a much more realistic picture of the protest.

I don't plan to discuss this in length either.

Just some qoutes from your articles:
"The beginning was also characterized by violent clashes with the police. After that the demonstrations became peaceful and took the form of long marches through the city with a lot of 'ordinary' people taking part, while slowly being taken over by the far left although the protests remained quite heterogeneous until the end."

What far left are we talking about here? 4 people holding an anti-capitalist banner? And who is being naive now?
Indeed, when this so-called leftists and all other "direct democracy" egomaniacs tried to take the lead, what happened?
I'll tell you exactly what happened - 10,000 people went home and never showed up again. What does that tell you?

How do you explain that the momentum died so quickly?

Now, please don't get me wrong, I'm sorry that it failed as much as you are. But let's learn something from that - why it failed and how to avoid that in the future?

To cut the story short - direct democracy idea worked until sectarian elements decided that its time to play their juvenile leadership games.

[storming_heaven]

Anti-capitalist banners were there since almost the very beginning (of March). The biggest protests (10.000+) were only a few weeks later. It was quite obvious that the far left had nothing to do with the end of the protests. On the contrary, nobody minded anti-capitalist banners, the ordinary people were against crazy right wingers with burning crosses etc.



How do you explain that the momentum died so quickly?

Quickly? A month of protests is 'so quickly'? People just grew tired and it was difficult to transform the protests...


To cut the story short - direct democracy idea worked until sectarian elements decided that its time to play their juvenile leadership games.

This is completely bogus...

Were you at the protests at all? It doesn't seem so... And your political stances are quite anti-left, since you seem to have a clear stance *against* the only far left there is in Croatia. And you base it on nothing. Just on empty slurs (like 'egomaniacs') and completely non-factual hypotheses like the anti-capitalist banners ruining everything... You can easily check the reports on the web. The first anti-capitalist banner appear right at the beginning of March, when the protests were growing and had a 1000-2000 people. They grew until they were 10.000-15.000 strong couple of weeks later and then they slowly diminished.

But I guess you'd rather believe right winger media commentators like Butković...