To all the Croatians living outside of the homeland, This mail is my account of how I see the future of Croatia and it will be short and to the point (as much as I can be talking about the future of the country). I am a Chicago born Croatian, grew up there and then moved to Croatia in 1991. I came with the expectation that the country would blossom and achieve at least a small portion of its potential. That hasn't happened and the whole time I am wondering about what it is that can be done to improve the situation. At first I thought a democratic system would be the solution, giving people the freedom to prosper and to achieve their dreams. However in socialism people became so passive, irresponsible and corrupt. On the other hand, a democratic system relies on people being proactive, positive, responsible and ethical - so in Croatia democracy only exists on paper. Then I thought it was the legal system which would govern everything and weed out corruption. But you can make any system you want but if the people are corrupt they will find ways around it. And then I came to the conclusion that it was the economy. Given enough money, people would have their basic needs satisfied and then would be able to truly contribute to the development of the country and think more long term (and this is another problem, everyone thinks very short term). But this hasn't happened. You can make all the stimulation programmes for small and medium-sized businesses but if the people do not have the right business attitude and knowledge, nothing will come of it. And this has happened. There are litteraly billions of kunas that can be available to Croatians but they either do not know how to make use of it or are to lazy to make use of it. Therefore in my opinion the future of Croatia depends on the people. Concretely that means: - investing in a change in the attitude of the people investing in building up knowledge and skills of the general population - working with the top leaders in the private and public sectors to give them world class know-how and advice to carry out change There are a few (too few) of us in Croatia working in this field. My organisation, Horizon or Horizont in Croatian (more information can be found on (http://www.horizont.hr) is one working in this area. Having lived in the US, I would like to involve my colleagues abroad (not only the US) in working with us and others in the field. I believe that if we are to contribute to the country, the best contribution we can make is in the know-how of the people. I will stop here so that I do not go too much into detail and write more follow-up mails with information on what is being done and suggestions. Warm regards, Ante Glavas ante.glavas@zg.hinet.hr Distributed by www.CroatianWorld.net. This message is intended for Croatian Associations/Institutions and their Friends in Croatia and in the World. The opinions/articles expressed on this list do not reflect personal opinions of the moderator. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient, please delete or destroy all copies of this communication and please, let us know!
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