On 21 February, I travelled with my family to Trieste in Italy for a daytrip of sightseeing and gastronomic indulgence. Since we moved to Rijeka, a charming port on the northern Croatian coast, such trips to Trieste and elsewhere in Italy became a matter of course, the proximity meant we could often nip for grocery shopping and good food. Trieste is an hour-drive from Rijeka.
However, this trip was different for two reasons. My elder son Tarik was visiting from New Zealand and we made the trip to Trieste to visit the wharf from which my two uncles boarded a ship in 1958 for an incredible journey to the north of Africa and on to Australia. One of the would ultimately settle in New Zealand, a decision that will shape the lives of most of the members of the Hodzic clan when the war in Bosnia broke out in the 1990s, ultimately resulting in Tarik being born in Auckland. But that is a story for some other time.
The second reason this trip was different was the background noise of the impending horror that was to befall Italy. Although the atmosphere in Trieste buzzed with carnival festivities, droves of children playing and throwing confetti in the historic Piazza Unita d’Italia, restaurants crammed with jovial locals and tourists, there was an almost imperceptible awareness that only two hours-drive further north-west, in Milano, the capital of Lombardy, the Corona virus was already spreading in alarming numbers.
Looking back, the density and the speed of events which unfolded since that trip to Trieste make it seem as if it took place much farther in the past then seven weeks ago.
Tarik left back to New Zealand on the 25th of February and I travelled to Geneva on the same day. During the three days I was there, Switzerland reported the first case of COVID-19. The perception of the epidemic started to shift in my mind with most conversations gradually overtaken by a single subject – the pandemic. A threat that felt as other people’s problem - happening far away, in physical spaces populated by others and in virtual spaces like Twitter, which often displaced real life into abstraction – started becoming real, with instinctive retreat and distancing from fellow commuters and anyone who would cough or sneeze in shared spaces like supermarkets.
I returned to Croatia worried. The first case was reported in the country’s capital Zagreb, a patient with acute symptoms was hospitalized after returning from Italy. No measures had been enacted yet, but the situation in Italy was gaining more attention with each passing day. In early March it became clear that what was happening there was far from “just a flu”. When Lombardy went on a full lockdown in the first week of March – 11 million people were ordered to stay at home – my worry increased to the state of deep concern about how Croatia would respond to what clearly was a dangerous, deadly virus.
There was every reason to worry. Although Croatia is in the European Union, which supposes a certain degree of adherence to higher standards of governance and democratic institutions, the country is still burdened by the legacy of the bloody break-up of Yugoslavia and the ensuing transition marked by corruption, entrenchment of virulent nationalism and clericalism. The current government, led by the nationalist Croatian Democratic Union of the late “father of the nation” Franjo Tudjman, is beset by recurring corruption scandals involving its national and local officials. One such scandal will prove decisive for the Croatia’s success in confronting COVID-19.
Just a month before the pandemic reached Croatia, the minister of health Milan Kujundzic, a party soldier who was caught trying to hide a number of properties he acquired during his mandate. The scandal was not atypical for the Croatian political arena, but its outcome would be significant. Kujundzic’s replacement, Vili Beros, a neurosurgeon with an impeccable and internationally recognized career, was chosen to blunt the public’s anger over the government’s affinity for choosing loyalty over ability. Beros had hardly warmed his minister’s chair when he was thrown into possibly the most important task of his professional life.
The new minister of health was appointed by the Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic to lead Croatia’s response to the pandemic. The steps that followed made Croatia one of the most successful stories in the struggle to contain the spread of one of the most infectious viruses to affect humans to date.
After the early, and very sketchy lessons the world learned about COVID-19 from the experience of the initial outbreak in China and the responses of neighbouring countries like South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong, it became clear that social distancing was a key element in the containment stage. However, as the examples of Italy, Spain, the United States and various other countries around the world has shown, achieving the right balance between getting the majority of people to exercise responsible behaviour in this respect, while not resorting to dictatorial (and subsequently ineffective) enforcement, depends on two factors: a strong degree of social responsibility and solidarity among citizens who will accept that their individual comfort must be sacrificed for the good of the community and those most vulnerable in it; and that messaging coming from authorities must be clear, consistent, coherent and coming from experts who command respect and legitimacy.
Mixed messages delivered by politicians, who (especially early on, while the virus was ravaging China) were minimizing the threat only later to change the tune and start enacting draconian measures or act as saviours plugging yet unproven medicine, proved to be as deadly as the virus itself. Like all pandemics in the history, Corona revealed in all its ugliness the weakest, most rotten bricks in the foundation of each society. Exceptionalism, corruption, leaders’ dictatorial tendencies, fetishizing of individuality above all other social norms, inequality, decay of institutions, neglect of healthcare systems, corporate greed, and various other obstacles to a unified, solidarity-based responses transformed into deadly winds fanning the COVID-19 fires from Iran to the UK, from Spain to Ecuador, from Sweden to New York.
Croatia heeded these lessons. Despite the proximity of Italy, Croatia’s largest trading partner, and an unrelenting flow of people and goods between the two countries, despite the strong earthquake that rocked its capital Zagreb on 22 March and caused people to fan out across the country in the middle of a lockdown, it managed to contain the spread of the virus in a remarkable way. As of the 10th of April, it registered 1495 cases and 21 deaths from COVID19, with some 220 people recovered.
The country does not have the same capacity to test, or the number of ICU beds of Germany, nor did it impose mad, crippling curfews on its people like the neighbouring Serbia, for example. The measures include ban on travelling between places of residence; schools, pubs and all non-essential work have been closed; and people are strongly advised to stay at home, with those coming from outside and those in contact with known patients ordered to self-isolate. And so far it has worked to the degree that, quite frankly, astonished me.
The secret to it success was in the fact that politicians largely withdrew from the discourse, leaving the management of the response and, most importantly, the public messaging to Beros and his team of experts. All the measures that were taken were clearly explained in advance, properly justified and always steeped in the call for solidarity and kindness to the fellow citizens, especially those most vulnerable. The mistakes were acknowledged and addressed in a relatively quick and efficient way. The impression that was created was one of competent people who know what they are doing guiding the rest of us to help ourselves and those around us by listening to their instructions.
In fact, the only cracks in the response to date occurred on the rare occasion when the method was abandoned and the Prime Minister Plenkovic spoke about the situation and mentioned possible relaxation of measures. This led to an increased number of people coming out to shop in advance of Easter holidays and could result in the worsening of the situation in two weeks. The Church did not help by insisting on Easter processions and mass services of faithful which ignored the instructions on social distancing. These transgressions were ignored by the police enforcing the rules on social distancing, as the government is reluctant to anger the all-powerful bishops.
These incidents, together with the virus spreading in three homes for the elderly over the last two days, show that Croatia is not a model in perfection when it comes to the response to the greatest global challenge in recent history. But, by placing experts ahead of political messiahs and elevating solidarity over rabid individualism, it certainly made me feel lucky to be here with my family at the time of this crisis.
Refik Hodzic is a journalist and an independent consultant for Transitional Justice processes.
