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how it works - not to mention that the country has no democratic tradi–
tion or culture at all. This creates yet another kind of confusion: people
ask themselves whether what they have now is really a democracy. It's
hard to expect anything beyond a theoretical democracy that fails to work
in reality, when the ruling party and the political elite it represents is
dominated by the converted old Communist cadre and right-wing ex–
emigrants who have returned to Croatia. Many high-ranking party and
government officials are originally from Herzegovina, the least-developed
part of the country, and the citizens of Zagreb swear it is easy to detect
this new political elite: they wear white socks, the backs of their heads are
flat, and they drive the latest-model BMWs. These people came with
money they had made abroad and gave it to "the Croatian cause" - for
the HDZ, for independence, for arms. One might forgive them their love
of white socks and even the primitive attitudes they display while
demonstrating their power, if only they would strive to really build a
democracy. But they see democracy as a golden apple they themselves
plucked and handed to the Croatian people, a gift one may look at but
not touch. Since democracy here is constantly referred to as "our young
democracy" and since the word for it in our language takes the female
declension, perhaps it is perceived as a young maiden who was held pris–
oner by the bad Communists until a brave knight (the President himself?)
came and freed her from their demonic hands. "Democracy" is on every–
one's lips, so much so that it is becoming one more empty idiom, just as
socialism
and
communism
once were. Even though the new constitution le–
galized a multiparty system and free elections, this alone doesn't make
Croatia a democratic country. The well-known liberal intellectual and
publisher Slavko Goldstein says, "I think that the majority in the govern–
ment wants a democratic Croatia, but some think that it is not yet time
for democracy. Others think that the most desirable democracy is one in
which they themselves will be in the position to decide because they
know best. Yet others think the state has to take a decisive role because it
is
in a transitory stage moving towards God-knows-what, much the same
as in Stalinist times when state repression supposedly preceded the dying–
out of the state itself . .. However, the most dangerous kind of totalitari–
anism develops when the state becomes the owner of the economy and
bas
a monopoly over the mass media."
Besides the war and the political changes in the direction of democ–
racy,
a third phenomenon has taken place in Croatia: the total national
homogenization. Compared to the other post-Communist countries,
Croatia was extremely unlucky, because her destiny was linked to Serbia.
In
Serbia, the reform process was kidnapped by the national Communists,
asserts the sociologist Vesna Pusic: "The reversal of political transforma-
