The above could be taken as the abridged contents of my first homeland package. Nevertheless, as a child I still had mixed feelings about my homeland, because my mother had a different homeland to me. My first encounter with her homeland, and another language — I was seven at the time — raised the confusing possibility that there were lots of homelands, and that homelands could also be replaced. My mother had two: the one she was born and grew up in, and the other, which she chose out of love. Out of love for this homeland? No — out of love for my father. Truth be told, a child — the future me — was also on the way.
Yugoslavia helped constitute my Yugoslav identity. Its disintegration, the war, and my new Croatian identity, not to mention the bureaucratic ritual of changing passports — the old Yugoslav one for a new Croatian one — destroyed every shred of belief in the seriousness or genuineness of identities that are tied to homelands. The phrase from the Pioneer’s pledge about guarding brotherhood and unity like the apple of my eye was suddenly turned on its head, becoming a snake devouring its own tail, a hook on which many necks hung, a silver bullet that ripped apart the “vampiric” heart of federal Yugoslavia. Former brothers rushed to gouge each other’s eyes out. Patriotism suddenly appeared as a divine promise; one merely needed to make a choice — and the majority chose correctly. Everyone became patriots. For some, the less agile, patriotism simply meant a guarantee they could stay where they were; for the more agile, it brought pennies from heaven. The homeland was a goldmine — and those who understood the metaphor literally rolled in it. On the back of a verse written to the glory of the homeland, people became ambassadors overnight; on the back of public declarations about the glory of the homeland, others became government ministers. Denouncing a neighbor who didn’t love the homeland could mean an unforeseen extension of one’s apartment — into the neighbor’s of course. Patriotic commitment brought hotels, companies, ministerial chairs, and directorships to the committed. Patriotism was even a currency: entire factories could be bought with a heart-rending patriotic word. It was enough to place one’s hand on one’s heart, turn on the tears, sing the anthem, curse the enemy, and there you go, people became political power-brokers: one a TV bigwig, another a hospital boss, one the ambassador to Malaysia, another to Washington. Overnight, frogs turned into princes. People understood that it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and made their play to woo the homeland. The deposit was peanuts, the profit enormous. Thanks to the magic power of patriotism, people who hadn’t even been to university became university professors, public opinion-makers who held forth on anything and everything, local stars, desirable lovers, owners of villas with swimming pools. Patriotism was hard to resist and had the same effect as Viagra. Patriotism was like a magic shirt, the kind that in Russian fairytales protects the hero against every evil, and helps him vanquish the serpent and win the princess, the kingdom, and the crown. The other truth is that in the race for patriotic gold, in the race to defend the honor of the homeland, some lost their lives. Surviving defenders of the homeland’s honor were generously compensated in their place.
My third initiatory homeland package is almost empty; there’s just a passport and a tax number. My new homeland doesn’t want my love, and neither does it promise to love me. We don’t have any mutual illusions in matters of the heart. I’ve heard it said that new Dutch citizens attend a low-key ceremony, during which they are presented with a Delft-style china potato, as well as a passport. I got a passport, but not a potato. In any case, unlike for the first two, I am bound to my new country by choice. Half-hearted or unequivocal, confused or clear-headed, good or bad, hasty or considered, it doesn’t matter, the choice was mine. Sometimes, when coming in to land at the airport, I look out at the surface of my new homeland, so skinny and pressed up against the sea. And I feel a sympathy I can’t quite articulate. In these moments, in my imagination, I put my finger in the hole of a dike to save it from imaginary floods.
In the forests of the Amazon there are little birds called “architects.” During the mating season, the males, the “architects,” build nests of various shapes with incredible inventiveness, decorating them with forest berries, little feathers, and leaves. Every nest is a miniature architectural masterpiece. Then a female appears, and she carefully inspects each nest before finally settling on a single one. The chosen “architect” wins the right to mate — in another words, to continue the species. In an ideal world, it would be the same with homelands. We should be able to take a quick look at each, check it out, and give it a grade, and then, if we must, choose the best — the best being the one which secures the future of our descendants.
Homelands should promote themselves like tourist destinations, something which many countries actually do. Croats themselves have declared Croatia paradise on earth, and a little country for a big holiday. Tourist agencies, of course, lie. You pay for a hotel with five stars, and you get a wonky bed, a shower that doesn’t work, and a pool that leaves you with a fungal infection as a memento. Many states are cunning; they know that free choice could be damaging, so they come up with laws, visas, passports, an entire system of complications, which prevent open inspection and free choice. In this way, many states turn their citizens into hostages, and so the majority of us — citizens — mate in the nest in which we’re caught. What’s more, this nest is where we find our own greatness, particularity, identity, strength, and glorious history: Hey, it’s the same nest where our parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents mated! We derive perverse satisfaction from the thought that our children will also mate in this same nest. We’ll warble away, inventing legends about how our nest is the most beautiful on the planet. We’ll force ourselves and those around us to love our nest. We’ll declare our neighbors’ nests filthy and hostile. We’ll decorate our nest with crests and flags, surround it with wire, see our love for it blossom, force children to love it — we’re ready to defend it to the death.
Asked what communism is, a child replied: “I don’t have communism because I drink my milk regularly.” Asked how I feel about patriotism, as a woman I could cite Virginia Woolf and her famous line: “As a woman I have no country. As a woman I want no country. As a woman my country is the whole world.”[1] However, as the gossip rags have it, Angelina Jolie has that quote tattooed on her body. As a writer, I unfortunately can’t quote private tattoos. So, all things told — how do I feel about patriotism? I don’t have it: I drink my milk regularly.