CROATIA MUST BE RESPECTED (January 19, 2014)

On our tour of the open market next to the main square in Zagreb, we heard a man yelling from some distance. There was a lot of anger in the voice. “Oh,” sighed a woman tending a stall by which we were passing at the time, “it is still morning, but he is drunk already!” Indeed, he had just walked out of a café at the edge of the market. “How is it possible that there still are people who do not respect Croatia?” he yelled at the top of his voice. In his sixties, tall and rather fat, he addressed the entire market. “Fuck their mother,” he continued. “Croatia must be respected!” The tirade continued for quite some time, but the message was always the same. Croatia must be respected, or else. Apparently, all the people tending stalls at the market knew the drunk pretty well. Perhaps they also knew the tirade by heart. A few of the men behind stalls shouted a word or two in mock support of the drunk, but everyone was weary of him. After a few minutes, he was gone in the direction of the cathedral, which towers in the neighborhood, but his yelling could still be heard from afar.