On umbrellas and patriotism

Yesterday I took a day off from my #NYR to post daily. I was steeming until 1 AM, woke up a few hours later to go to the doctors and my day was full of family activities so I practically passed out at 6 PM and slept until this morning. My condition makes it hard for me to function my best all the time. I'm kind of like the Steem power battery.

Back to yesterday morning. It was raining and I was late for the bus so I left the house in a hurry without an umbrella. The only umbrella we have at home is half functioning and without a handle anyway. So when I came to town the first place I went was Hrvatska Pošta. The post office. Why, you might ask, my dear fellow Steemer. To buy an umbrella. But not just any umbrella. I went to buy Hrvatski Kišobran.

I mentioned before how I rarely buy anything new for myself but when I do I try to buy locally made stuff, handmade stuff and stuff made in Croatia. I even got my man to buy boots at Borovo, legendary Croatian shoe factory. The same goes when I buy gifts. It's either that or books. I already bought a present for a friend this year made by Ugly Recycled Dolls and the umbrella was on my list for a while now but me being...well...me...I postponed buying something for myself as long as I could. Until water reached my throat...sort of speak.
So my NewYearResoultion #3 is to become as much of a conscious consumer as I can. I am not that rich or that good at planning yet. Because let's be honest, you need to plan and think about what you buy and many times pay more to spend money continuously. But it's a noble cause in my mind and one worth striving too.

Hrvatski Kišobran

Hrvatski Kišobran, internationally known as The Croatian Umbrella is made by a firm called Tabacco. d.o.o. placed in Zaprešić that started producing umbrellas 30 years ago. It employes 20plus workers now, which may not sound much but when you take into consideration that the Croatian textile industry is on its knees, to say the least, and our lovely state tries their best to make it as hard as can be for small business, you'll find that number to be impressive. Not only is it possible to buy Croatian Umbrella in over 700 locations in Croatia but export makes up for 20% of their overall sales. I really like the thought of my 50 kunas, which is the price of the umbrella I bought, went to a worker here in Croatia that actually produces something. I'm all for the working class. I also love their vision and mission stated on their website:

Our vision is a prosperous Croatia, and we are firmly convinced that the path to it is through the initiation and development of Croatian production with competitive prices.

That sounded incredibly patriotic to me. I have long struggled with the concept of patriotism. I was raised in a pretty right-wing nationalistic family. We had a picture of Franjo Tuđman over our dining table. But as I have grown up I found that the nationalistic ideas are not something I feel comfortable standing behind. It is common knowledge that Croatia is a country torn by war and while the physical wounds pass by the time but the equivalency between nationalism and patriotism seems to stay. So instead of struggling with finding my national identity or finding patriotism in me, I dismissed it altogether. And it worked for a while but then I got kids and I found that I will have to find something that rings true to me that I can teach them, some kind of national pride or identity or the society would do that for me. And our society sucks at that. The history keeps being twisted to fit particular political narratives, both left, right and center. Past keeps being interpreted all kind of ways depending whose political agenda it suits best. I mean, identity politics are a trendy thing now, right? How hard can it be?

The idea of borders somehow defining who we are as people or making us somehow better, more civilized or holier than some of the ''others'' still makes no sense to me but I started to shift my focus from what I think is wrong with being patriotic to try and define what makes me proud to be here and from here. What is that I can try to teach my kids to be proud of when living here. You may notice my incoherence here. that is due to me not quite being there yet when it comes to defining patriotism for myself. But I have come to some conclusions that I would like to make my starting points and that is, first and foremost, that my Patria are my people. And the best thing you can do for somebody you consider yours is to give them work. Work is what makes folks feel valuable. No matter their physical or intellectual abilities if one can provide for them self it makes them feel better and when you have a job you have a sense of security. Then you have the money to spend and by spending you put food on other folks plates. You can contribute through taxes to provide medical help and education for others because, thank God, we still are a partially social state that offers semi-decent medical care for most of the folks and free education. But the key is to buy locally. To buy handmade and locally grown. To avoid giving your money to big corporations and even if I buy at big stores or supermarkets I try to buy Kaladont or Ornel and cosmetics from Sapunoteka or Biobaza. Lidl Croatia has a nice line called Okusi Zavičaja (The taste of our homeland)that sells products made in Croatia. I know Lidl is a German company but in deciding where to buy I found it was more patriotic to buy there because their workers have better pay and working conditions. The next thing I found to be patriotic is knowledge. I noticed that many folks who consider themselves to be super Croats don't know the first thing about Croatian history nor Croatian geography. They don't know customs from parts of the country that aren't their, words that are other dialects or even basic Croatian pop culture. I find that unacceptable and in order to be a more patriotic parent, I started to make some decisions in that regard. Besides doing my best to teach my kids as much as I can about all I've just mentioned in our day to day interactions I also set some future family goals for us.

If you follow any of the many awesome Croatian Steemers here on the platform you might have noticed how beautiful Croatia is. How diverse and breathtaking it is, no matter where you go and what time of year it is. So our goal is to visit at least one national park and at least one nature par a year. There is 8 national and 11 nature parks I think. I'll steem about it, promise. That's like 8 years worth of posts there.

What's the conclusion? The conclusion is I'm still kind of lost in all of that and being patriotic is definitely something I'm not quite comfortable with yet. What's your definition of patriotism? Do you consider yourself patriotic? How do you present the whole patriotism thing to your kids and do you think that love for their country and nation is something children should be taught to value? I would like to know your thoughts. Maybe I'll see things clearer thereafter.