Last Saturday marks a sad day for Croatia. A mass protest took place in the state's capital of Zagreb and it seems things continue to go downhill more than ever. I was never into politics and I try to avoid the news as much as I can because there aren't any good news in sight and the negative energy coming from the media on a daily basis is just too much to handle. All things considered, this is my first music related post that deals with personal feelings and the musician's role in society.
THE SITUATION
First, some context. Croatia only recently entered the EU (July 1st, 2013.) and struggled with meeting the EU standards ever since. Although it may seem that the problems Croatia is facing are somewhat universal, they are impacting the country to a much larger extent then elsewhere in Europe. The country is heavily corrupted, the politicians are not doing any work, the church intervenes where it isn't suppose to (politics, education etc.), the government is promoting so called ''traditional Croatian values'' that are stuck in the Middle Ages, more and more people are out of work every day and if they do work, they are underpaid, have no rights and could loose their jobs any second. On top of that, several underdeveloped regions are facing a mass exodus of people looking for work in other countries. Buses full of people leave for Germany and the UK every day, more and more regions are left with an old, retired population with no hope of getting things running again and young, educated people are leaving because their knowledge is worth more in other countries. The nation is also dying out as people don't feel financially stable enough to have children. There are more poeple dying then there are being born and we have now reached a point where the government is trying to pursuade people to have children because we have hit the lowest population numbers ever, being somewhere under 4 million people. You can read about the summary of these problems here: https://www.total-croatia-news.com/politics/23953-croatia-experiences-largest-decline-in-population-in-20-years. All of this has reached its peak with the latest mass protest in the country's capital - Zagreb.
THE PROTEST
Croats have protested before, with little result every time. We protested against the government and nothing happened, we protested about the church and nothing happened, we protested about poor education standards and nothing happened and now we have protested against a document that in fact protects us, all of it because the majority of the population doesn't understand and doesn't want to understand what the document is all about. The document in question is the Istanbul Convention. It's a document written by The Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence. It is known as the Istanbul Convention because it was open for signatures in Istanbul, Turkey in May 2011. As the name of the document itself says, its aim is to further protect women against violence and against domestic violence. It was hitherto signed by 46 countries + the EU and it is now about to be ratified in Croatia. However, problems hit. The majority of the Croatian people are poorly informed about the document and have misinterpreted it and the vast majority of the politicians are also against it because they hold it to be against ''traditional Croatian values'' and the values of the Church. An alarmingly large number of people hit the streets in order to protest against the convention but when asked ''why'', almost none of them gave any real arguments. Many believe it means the Church will no longer exist, others think it means ''pedophiles will teach pedophilia in school'', some feel it means we will have 35 official genders and that it's all ''Satan's work'', others believe it was brought on by communists, some feel women don't need more protection in the country as it is and there are many who said something like ''we know how Turkey treats its women, we've seen it on turkish soap operas, we don't want it here, why should we look up to Turkey?''. All of it is nonsense and you can see just how ignorant people here can be. Also, the media spreads false information about the convention, only putting more oil to the nonsensical fire that already burns amongst ill informed people and nobody really seems to put any effort into explaining what all of it really means. The ''traditional Croatian values'' that people and some of the politicians are talking about have nothing whatsoever to do with the tradition in Croatia. They try to present fascist values (a remnant of the dark part of Croatia's history) as traditional Croatian values as well as claiming the country must look up to the Church and to God before anything and/or anybody else. Because of such false ideas and false presentation of the matter, the protest took a dark turn. It was filled with nationalistic symbols (said to be ''patriotic''), fascist songs were sang and fascist paroles were shouted, some of the people threatened women that were against the protesters with violence, the government was accused of treason and the parole ''God and Croats'' was put above all. More here: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-croatia-protests/croatians-protest-against-european-treaty-they-say-threatens-traditional-family-idUSKBN1H00GW
All of this has left me with a ton of mixed emotions - I felt sad, angry, disappointed, ashamed, helpless and shocked, all in the same time. These emotions linger on and it got me thinking about my role in this society as a musician and what (if anything) I could do in this situation.
A MUSICIAN'S ROLE
I couldn't help but wonder what I can do to try and make an impact on the situation. At first, I felt completely lost. I couldn't grasp the situation because the amount of ignorance amongst the general population completely eludes me. I simply couldn't understand how it is even possible in 2018. for such a thing to happen. I couldn't understand why people would be AGAINST something that protects its citizens. Why would anybody be AGAINST a law that gives more rights to women, protects our children and the female part of the population? The only conclusion I came to is that the majority of the male population does not care about women and in fact feels they should have the right to mistreat them. After the initial shock, I decided to do the only thing a musician can do - write a song about it. The inspiration came from all of those mixed emotions and on Saturday evening I've sat down to write a song about the situation in question. I felt obliged to do it as a musician. I felt every musician in Croatia should speak out about it in the work that they do and at least try to make a difference. I strongly believe that music can transcend such a situation and reach out to people. I strongly believe that music can speak out about such problems and that it should because it reflects both the opinions of the musician performing the music and the opinions of the minority sharing those beliefs. The title of the song is ''Istanbul'' and it's an all out open outrage against those who don't understand the impact of the situation. The lyrics are harsh. I wanted to use direct and strong language that often preceds the act of violence against women, to show how serious the matter is. I also used vocal modulations to make my voice sound as it does when mistreated women talk about what happened to them - you know that pitched down muffled voice you hear that masks the true identity of the victim. I tried to sang in my most vulnerable and gentle voice to further illustrate the helplesness of a woman being victimized by a man and the fact they often don't speak out about the problem and choose silence instead. The fact that their voice is seldom heard. The music is also harsh. I produced my guitar sound to be as ugly and metal as possible and added a drumbeat that evokes the sounds of violence and war. I wanted the listener to feel nauseous, I wanted the listener to feel the anxiety women feel every day when facing such problems. I wanted the listener to fully experience the overall toxic feeling of the situation. That's what I felt I had to do. That's what I felt was the only thing i could do. I want to share the song with you and I would like all of you to tell me what's the situation on the matter in your country because I think this is happening around the globe. What do you think? How do you feel about it?
