Croatia reaching US levels of political poralization

[Wikiy]

Don't post unless you read all of this.

Ever since my country became independent, the trend in choosing governments was mostly based on waiting for the current government to make mistakes and choosing the opposition the next time regardless of your political opinion. This is, essentially, why the current government is in power, because of massive failures the previous ones committed. However, in the last year or so, I've noticed that things have been getting more polarized than ever in Croatian politics. People are taking sides. Unfortunately, it used to be the people vs. the government. Now it's the supporters of the government vs. the supporters of the opposition. Which does indeed sound like the more democratic option, but yeah, it's kind of scary how conflicting the opinions of one person are compared to the opinions of another.

The reason this polarization has been happening is because, well, the ruling coalition (made up of 4 parties, of which SDP, the social democratic party, is often taken to be the ruling party of Croatia at the moment) decided to do what it essentially promised during the campaign; that it would introduce civil unions (and later gay adoptions, probably by the end of the mandate, right now we've only got step parent adoption for gays) and health education in schools.

The real "issue" here is health education. It has 4 modules, of which one is sexual education. Among other things, it promotes tolerance of people of any sexual orientation and gender identity and teaches that any sexual orientation or gender identity is perfectly natural. It also teaches that masturbation is a perfectly normal and healthy thing, as well as watching pornography. In addition, it encourages the usage of condoms and other contraceptive measures but doesn't promote abstinence because it's based on the assumption that humans are sexual beings that have no reason to not have sex.

The opposition (the right wing party) and the Church (which holds a lot of influence given the fact 84% of the country say they're Catholic) are in complete disagreement with the sex ed module and want it removed. This has essentially split Croatia in 2 politically; between the tolerant and the intolerant. Furthermore, the opposition invited Judith Reisman to hold a speech in the Parliament, which will indeed happen.

The problem is, this woman thinks homosexuals caused the second world war. She's under the impression that Hitler and everyone around him were homosexuals. She also believes that sex ed, homosexual propaganda and homosexual recruitment (apparently, we gays are preparing an invasion on something) is going to cause the current 1-2 percent that is the population of gays (it's actually more like 10% if you count in bisexuality) to rise to 30%. She also thinks pornography causes the excretion of a non-existent chemical called eritotoxin (that she made up) that destroys the structure of the brain. Actual scientists call her a pseudoscientist because none of her works were ever published in any peer-reviews magazines.

She held a lecture at a uni yesterday. I attended it. After the lecture (which was hideous, full of lies about Alfred Kinsey), she took questions. One of the students asked her about all of her controversial opinions and Reisman refused to answer. Another told her she watches pornography daily and isn't promiscious and asked her how she would explain that. The question was as simple as that. Reisman replied by saying that she doesn't know the details of the student's sexual life, but that she does know indoctrination when she sees it. She told the student that she had been raised in a communist environment (I hadn't noticed we were still in Yugoslavia, personally, or that we were so recently that students could have been raised in a communist environment) and that there's no help for her.

At this point, the dean stopped Reisman and told her that she was wrong to come to a country completely uneducated about it with prejudiced opinions, assuming it's a third world communist shit hole. This whole deal has become a huge issue in Croatia and it's still ongoing seeing as Reisman is still here. She's still supposed to hold a speech in the Parliament which is supposed to criticize sex ed using all those hateful arguments about homosexuals for example. The ruling socialist party, SDP, can technically not allow her to hold a speech, but some argue it would be called out for being undemocratic by a lot of people so they probably wont do it.

Currently, on this issue, the country is divided in 3. Those that want her lectures banned and her forbidden from holding a speech in the Parliament based on the argument that it's hate speech (no, we don't have endless freedom of speech here in Croatia and we do ban hate speech, same as all of Europe), those that want to allow her speech and lectures but don't agree with her and those that agree with her. It just seems to me like in this 1 year that the left-wing coalition has been in power, the country has been splitting up politically in opinions for the first time. It's scary.

Personally, I'm extremely pleased with the government. The president, the prime minister, 15/17 ministers and the majority of the Parliament are atheists (in an 84% Catholic country). They're preaching tolerance and increasing minority rights. They've virtually removed all signs of corruption, they've prepared the country for the accession to the EU, and they've been introducing strict policies that are supposed to overturn the crisis fully and cause GDP growth next year. They've done all of that in 1 year, after the mess the right-wing party left the country in. They're also mostly socialist which fits my world view.

So yeah, sorry for the huge wall, but there isn't really any way to shorten this down. I'm simply fishing for some international opinions, 'cause, frankly, I'm rather sick of the usual rhetoric that goes on here. Thanks for bothering to read this huge wall. Those of you that get this far at least.

[Deleted]

I thought UK politics was messed up, we have nothing on you guys.

[Rukentuts]

There's nuts in every tree.

It's best not to take ignorants' bigoted babble personally and just do what you can in the confines of the electoral process to rid the government of their kind.

[Reeve]

Sounds like this Reisman needs to be "validated." Badly.

[Wikiy]

I thought UK politics was messed up, we have nothing on you guys.

Well it's never reached this level before. I think even the opposition right wing party are sorry for having invited her. xD

[Reeve]

Let me just say too that your description of the proposed sex ed program sounds like it's exactly how sex ed SHOULD be taught.

[Honzi]

Well someone give that dean a tap on the shoulder and buy him a beer.

[Reeve]

Well it's never reached this level before. I think even the opposition right wing party are sorry for having invited her. xD

Well yeah, with someone like that spewing the BS she's spewing, it sort of makes a pretty convincing argument against the right's position. It's probably especially unhelpful that she's sort of acting condescending towards Croatia too. Seems like she's more likely to hurt the right's cause than help it.

[Wikiy]

Well yeah, with someone like that spewing the BS she's spewing, it sort of makes a pretty convincing argument against the right's position. It's probably especially unhelpful that she's sort of acting condescending towards Croatia too. Seems like she's more likely to hurt the right's cause than help it.

To be perfectly honest, the right has already been demolished. I reckon it will take them a few decades to actually win a majority again. They really, really screwed things up. The then-prime minister and like 5 out of the 17 ministers were all arrested and recently put in jail for corruption. It's a farce, really. Them mostly supporting the extremist opinions of the Church that recently called for a new storm (The Storm is the name of the operation with which the independence war was ended and Croatian territories liberated in the Homeland War) to bring down the argument (because of sex ed!!!) doesn't help.

[Smece]

I am from Croatia and i don't know what you are talking about.
Sex ed splitting the country in two - you read too much trash left winged newspapers like jutarnji and 24sata - nobody i know young or old doesn't give a shit about it.
HDZ party was a corrupt plague on Croatia, but SDP which you favor does the exact same thing as they did. Cant you see that all this "splitting the country in two" is just a political ploy to divert the eyes and questions from the real issues.

[Wikiy]

I am from Croatia and i don't know what you are talking about.
Sex ed splitting the country in two - you read too much trash left winged newspapers like jutarnji and 24sata - nobody i know young or old doesn't give a shit about it.

I don't read 24sata. That's not a newspapers. I do read Jutarnji List, but I also read Vecernji List which is biased towards the right. So all in all I'm getting biased news from both directions and I make my mind up based on which is least full of shit. Also, I said sex ed is splitting the country in 2 politically. Which it is. There are 2 distinct sides.

Cant you see that all this "splitting the country in two" is just a political ploy to divert the eyes and questions from the real issues.

Except it's not a ploy because they're not even saying the country's been politically split in 2. In fact, they're surprised at the amount of opposition to sex ed. They didn't expect this and they certainly didn't plan this.

This endless anti-government rhetoric (regardless of who is in power) is getting rather sick to be honest. I don't know if I've ever met a Croat in my life who actually didn't consider his or her government to be Lucifer incarnate.

[Mongoose19]

Who gives a damn about such little country. OP NO ONE cares.

Please post constructively.

[Reeve]

Who gives a damn about such little country. OP NO ONE cares.

I care. NO ONE seems to encompass quite a lot of people.

[Deleted]

Who gives a damn about such little country. OP NO ONE cares.

Correction, it is your opinion nobody cares about. I found the topic to be both amusing and educational.

[Deleted]

Who gives a damn about such little country. OP NO ONE cares.

Who gives a damn about such little poster. MONGOOSE 19 NO ONE cares.

I wish people would just stop posting such bollocks

[Shaqur]

Who gives a damn about such little country. OP NO ONE cares.

Maybe you should starting giving a shit, since other countries may follow and you will end up in same crap.

[Deleted]

I'm not sure what we're supposed to discuss here, sounds like politics alright.

Every country has a right wing extremist fascist party but it's usually a ignorant vocal minority, but hey, if you got a socialist leader that cares about his people and country you're good off i'd say.

[Mongoose19]

Maybe you should starting giving a shit, since other countries may follow and you will end up in same crap.

Ye because Croatia is the leader of Europe heck leader of the world. Give me a break

[Deleted]

Ye because Croatia is the leader of Europe heck leader of the world. Give me a break

And where do you come from so we can mock it?

[Rukentuts]

Ye because Croatia is the leader of Europe heck leader of the world. Give me a break

So people that live there should just consider themselves insignificant by comparison or something?