Abstract
This work questions the common sense paradigm according to which it is “self-evident” that Catholics are the majority and not a minority in Croatia. The work aims to penetrate into the sphere of contemporary taboos.
Where the statistical majority is a sociological minority, and a sociological minority the statistical majority, the promotion of minority rights takes on entirely different connotations—increasing “minority” rights is actually maintaining the position of power and privilege of the minority, and denying the rights of the statistical majority to be in a position of power and to gain civil rights equal to those of the privileged minority.
Through an analysis of potential reasons for this situation in Croatia, the authors conclude that only once the elites in Croatian public space are reproduced by the law of greater numbers, and not by the power of privileged minority interest groups, can we expect the promotion of human rights to replace the legitimization of the power of these minority interest groups disguised as the promotion of human rights.
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Notes
- 1.
Here it should be noted that many of the movements that are formally committed to promoting human rights or the recognition of certain groups, realistically do not actually fight for human rights, but for the legitimacy of the effective power that they already possess in a society. This is a new impulse that should be taken into account because in the future it will have a great significance and impact on social dynamics.
- 2.
See the official EU website.
- 3.
The Partisans were organized by the Communist Party. The Ustasha were installed by the Nazis when they occupied Yugoslavia in 1941 because not one democratic party in Croatia wanted to cooperate with them.
- 4.
In colloquial jargon in Croatia, when one says the Party, this means the Communist Party or the League of Communists, as the Party called itself during its transformations.
- 5.
The Agreement on legal matters, the Agreement on Cooperation in the field of education and culture, the Treaty on the spiritual guidance of the Catholic believers in the armed forces and police of the Republic of Croatia and the Treaty on economic issues.
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Črpić, G., Tanjić, Ž. (2015). Religion and Human Rights in Croatia. In: Ziebertz, HG., Črpić, G. (eds) Religion and Human Rights. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-09731-2_2
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