On Nationalism in Croatia and Former Yugoslavia
Growing up in small-town Western Australia, my exposure to Croatia and the former Yugoslavia was minuscule. Like most things, my first memories are through sports: specifically the players with Croatian and Serbian ancestry playing for the Socceroos, Australia’s men’s soccer team. They were the ones with the funny sounding last names, at least to our Anglo-centric ears, with names like “ Viduka ”, once our main striker. Otherwise, the main memory I have relating to the region is doing a class project on the war impacting civilians in Bosnia and Herzegovina in second grade. I made a poster on a pin-up board, sticking on pictures and text with glue, describing the innocent children there. Our teacher tried to impart upon us how these were normal kids just like us, going through a very sad experience. Despite these occasional encounters with the region—a Croatian friend from high school, some Serbian democracy activists who I saw speak during college, gorgeous beach images of Croatia—I r