Have I given up the fight for Motovun a bit too quickly? The question pops up in my mind every now and then, and then it takes me a while to push it away. Each time I remind myself of all the stages in the fight, of which three were crucial. Each of them took about a year. And everything started almost exactly three years ago, when I learned what sort of future was planned behind closed doors for the town and its surroundings. The stages are worth revisiting now so as to repel that pestering question once and for all.

I started with an international petition in English and Croatian asking several key politicians, including the president and the prime minister of Croatia, to ensure that Motovun develops in a sustainable way. “I Love Motovun” was its name. More than sixteen thousand people from sixty-two countries signed it on the World Wide Web. The signatories included forty-eight people from Motovun, of which less than a half were true locals rather than newcomers.

Next I opened a forum in Croatian to inaugurate a sustained discussion on sustainable development of Motovun. There I offered extensive guidelines for such development, which focused on tourism and organic agriculture. “The Forum of Green Istria” attracted about forty regular members, of which at most a quarter was from Motovun. Again, no more than a few were true locals rather than newcomers. Although many others visited the website regularly, they remained silent.

Last I formed an international association concerned with sustainable development of Motovun. The official language on its website was English. “Motovun – Eco Town” attracted nearly one-hundred and forty members from sixteen countries, of which nearly sixty were from Croatia. One more time, at most a third of that number was from Motovun, and only a few were true locals rather than newcomers.

The petition was considered to be an empty gesture by the politicians because it had no legal basis. In other words, they were not forced by law to do anything about it. The goodwill shown by so many people around the world was simply irrelevant. The forum was thought to be a dud because few local people joined it in earnest. This is a fair point, but the locals at least had a chance to voice their concerns about their future. And the association can be judged a failure because all the newcomers to Motovun and foreigners have little or no legal power in Croatia. When it comes to power, Croatia is about the law and nothing but the law.

Returning to my question, I do not think that I have given up the fight for Motovun all that quickly. Three years, three different strategies, and three websites behind me, I cannot come up with any alternative way of fighting for the town and its environs that I am good at. Which is not to say that they do not exist, of course. My own fight behind me, I can only hope that someone else will pick up the fight for Motovun and try all the alternative ways forward. And there must be many, indeed.

Addendum (November 9, 2008)

For completeness, I should add here my texts in Croatian for the on-line edition of Regional, an Istrian monthly whose editor was kind enough to make them a regular feature last year. All told, I wrote sixteen short articles that appeared over some six months. Together they counted ten-thousand words. This series went into a wide range of issues pertaining to the environment in the broadest sense of the word. Motovun came into focus from time to time, but only as an example I knew well from personal experience. The most dispiriting part of this failed attempt to get in touch with the so-called general reader were the comments left by anonymous readers. Although a few of them responded in an appropriate manner, most of the comments were no less than inane. Some were outright malicious. Most of them, I suspect, came from Motovun, too. In the end, I gave up in disgust. At any rate, this was my fourth unsuccessful attempt to promote civil society in Istria so as to ensure sustainable development for Motovun.