While all over Croatia the prayers or kneelers, as they are called, pray, she joins them in their silent masses and it often happens that someone hits her or the police physically takes her from the place where she stands and remains silent, even though every time she reports to the police her arrival and silent mass
Author of the convesation: Rubina ČENGIĆ
Arijana Lekić Fridrih, artist and director, is an activist who holds a participatory performance throughout Croatia, calling for respect for women’s rights. We are talking with her just after on of her silent masses.
How did it all begin?
INTERVIEW: What are the silent masses?
LEKIĆ FRIDRIH: Silent masses are participative performances that I do on various topics in the context of the suppression of women’s rights and I try to deconstruct that narrative that we hear from the prayers which surely affects the position of women in society, I believe it does, I am sure of it. My first silent mass, and this was the 21st at the end of the seventh month of 2024, was a month after the appearance of the prayers on the city square in Zagreb, and today they are held already in 15 cities throughout Croatia and are well organized and connected with the prayers from Poland and Sweden who come to us. What inspired me was that I was walking past them with my niece and she asked me what it was, and at that time it was a small group of men. When I got home I googled and noticed that they started appearing in Poland 5 years ago and then it was a small group of men, and then it formalized into a movement in many cities in Poland, lobbying for the policies that came to power there, and it is an ultra-conservative policy that is dangerous especially for women. It led to women literally dying because abortion was prohibited. A 33-year-old woman died because doctors were not allowed to remove the fetus from her womb due to strict laws even though the child was dead. Since in Poland they did not react to the prayers because they thought that they would disappear if they were ignored, and they did not disappear, and since we are a country very similar to Poland, primarily and in a large percentage, a Catholic country, I think it is very important to react and warn that this movement has nothing to do with the church, religion and Christianity, it is a purely political movement.
So far, the 21 silent mass has been held
INTERVIEW: Why does the Church not react if it already has nothing to do with them?
LEKIĆ FRIDRIH: One year after the appearance of the prayers, we received the reaction of the Church, although not in writing, but three high-ranking people in the Croatian Catholic Church dissociated themselves from the messages from those gatherings, before any political party. We are now waiting for any political party to come forward and say what they think about the messages from those gatherings. Namely, no one is against the gathering, but if the messages coming from there are unconstitutional, and they need to be reviewed, not a single party has commented on them and no one is answering questions about what their attitude is. The first reaction we got was in the middle of the seventh month, after we had the parliamentary elections in which what we feared the most happened, which was that the HDZ and the ultra-conservative movement won a majority, a narrow one, but a majority, and they organized a round table together with Željka Markić (conservative ultra-right activist, op.aut). At the same time, there was also a round table where politicians and activists of the opposite opinion gathered, but I personally think that it was not good and that it would have been smarter what the ombudsman did, which is to go there and ask all the questions, and not to go to a round table where we agree that rights should be protected.
Hit the head with a flag
INTERVIEW: It happens to you personally that the police take you away at silent masses, that the prayers hit you…
LEKIĆ FRIDRIH: It is not the police, it is the orderlies. In all cities except Zagreb, and I visited all cities, because I think that Croatia cannot be measured by Zagreb, the situation is much worse in smaller cities, in the interior. I started going from Zagreb when they started to spread, I started following them because we did not manage to organize well and agree on these activities. I go to cities like Split or Šibenik, which are extremely violent and where there is nobody, after that I count the bruises, but I often return to Split because it is the second largest city in Croatia and I studied there, but both there and in Šibenik behavior of the police who do not react to the violence towards me is questionable.
INTERVIEW: What kind of bruises, who made them?
LEKIĆ FRIDRIH: Those peaceful prayers. In Šibenik, I got a flag on my head, and in Split, the head of the orderlies took me away from the place where I stopped, even though I had all the permits that they do not have. There are those videos on YouTube, I am always bagged. First, the chief of police and the orderlies had an intimate conversation about whether to let me go or not, even though I had permits. And the head of the orderlies said that he could not guarantee my safety if I set foot on the Peristil. It is a violation of the law because citizens must be able to pass, it is freedom of movement. But he lifted me up, taking me around the neck with the same hand in which he holds the rosary and carried me away even though I did not enter among them. He assessed my safety, and not the police. It is not a problem to lift me, I am 1.62 meters, and he is more than 1.90. That is when the photo that we exhibited at Ban Jelačić Square was created because he is holding my neck and holding a rosary in his hand. I also experienced an attack by a former parliamentary representative, he grabbed me by the chest on Ban Jelačić Square and I won that dispute. The reaction of peaceful prayers to my presence often escalates into violence, and I am the most prominent, I probably seem like a red rag to them even though there are many of my colleagues who do the same things in their cities and I think it is much more courageous because they are among the people they know. The fact is that for the past two years the silent masses have been marked by violence and threats through all possible channels because this is a very well organized and financed group.
Attack on Fridrih Lekić in Split
Among the prayers there are also bullies
INTERVIEW: Where did the prayers come from, how did they appear, where did the rebellion against women’s rights come from after decades of fighting for them?
LEKIĆ FRIDRIH: Danka Derifaj (NOVA TV journalist, op. out) did a great reportage for Provjereno in which she followed the trail of money, and then she talked to a priest, after which everyone in the church community was forbidden to talk directly to the media. The prayers are funded by the Ordo luris, which has a friendly organization called the Vigilare. We also have proof of payment. It was the same in Poland, and I think their goal is to abolish the right to abortion. But the first thing they pray for is that the man becomes the authority in the family, and it is not unusual to recognize men who were prosecuted for domestic violence among those prayers. When the Homeland Movement entered the Government of Croatia, they immediately demanded the deratification of the Istanbul Convention, which the HDZ refuses for now because the EU does not look favorably on it, but the HDZ will not be able to refuse that request forever. What is happening now is that the Homeland Movement is growing, and the HDZ is falling, that is, the trend of neoconservatism is growing, and we are fighting for civic education that has not been introduced. My opinion is, and I am not sure if it is right, but I came to the conclusion that these social changes were largely influenced by war and education, because our grandmothers fought for our rights, we did not get anything. But, let’s say, after the war, my mother did not have time to explain to me what feminism was and empower me as a woman, instead she left me to the education system and explained to me what war was. So there was a hole, and Sanja Sarnavka, Rada Borić and Neva Tolle appeared, but they were three women who were very loud, however no one took them seriously because why should we deal with women’s issues when there are so many other open questions. And only now, in the last few years, we are trying to keep that dialogue open.
INTERVIEW: Dialogue – with whom, because it seems that prayers or right-wingers are not listening?
LEKIĆ FRIDRIH: I do not mean with them, they do not want it, and I also think it is unnecessary, but a dialogue with citizens, because people need to be explained that if someone prays the rosary within an event that resembles an event of a religious nature – it has nothing to do with religion, rather it is a matter of politics. I think we succeeded because according to research, very few people support their actions. Dialogue in this case means debunking those events, talking to citizens, traveling, speaking in a way that everyone can understand. That we are on the right track is shown by the fact that today we have huge support from Catholic men and women.
Civic education is essential
INTERVIEW: Yes, but you say that the reputation of the Homeland Movement, which is on that track, is growing?
LEKIĆ FRIDRIH: They are growing in certain constituencies, such as in Slavonia, which is the poorest part of Croatia. And I would say that the vote for them is just a rebellion considering the state of Slavonia, how neglected it is. I am not sure that people look at their gender policies, even though they were the most transparent in the program, but they look at the fact that the leadership of that party is mainly from Slavonia and they believe that through them they can achieve the economic interests of the region because it is an extremely poor region, Osijek, for example, is empty…
INTERVIEW: But the risk of that economic interest is that under the guise of protecting economic interests, a destructive gender policy is introduced?
LEKIĆ FRIDRIH: Yes. In our country, as we speak, an initiative has been launched to establish gender studies, and it is a polemic that is unfortunately not being conducted in the right way. It is being discussed, I would say in an elitist way, which is unacceptable to citizens. It is discussed at the academic and political level, and at the political level there are always topics that are more important than gender studies. And then, parallel to that, the battle for or against gender studies takes place. We absolutely need civic education because we are raising generations that will be right-orianted. There was a survey done in 80 countries around the world on very young people that showed that they believe that partyarchy is the natural state of affairs and that feminism has brought more bad than good.
It started with misogyny
INTERVIEW: But let’s go back to the beginning – where did it all start?
LEKIĆ FRIDRIH: From misogyny! It seems to me that it is quite clear and I really believe that these men think that women should be secondary and that they should be listened to. By analyzing the groups of prayers, I realized that there are people who are paid, those who really believe that it is necessary to strengthen the position of men and return to the relations we had before the establishment of women’s rights. And there are people who have lost their way and do not understand what is going on. In Split, for example, they openly pray for the patriarchy and they pray to the Virgin Mary! This is why I think misogyny is the beginning. Women have emancipated themselves as much as they could, but they are still often dependent on men and that is the reason why we cannot fight or find the right ways to fight – precisely because of existential fear. How can we tell a woman who has two children to leave her abusive husband if we dont have a way to protect her? How will she stand and protest? No way!
INTERVIEW: At the beginning of the struggle for women’s rights, we had WAF and the empowerment of women, a high degree of solidarity – where is that solidarity now and how is it possible that empowered women raised men-prayers?
LEKIĆ FRIDRIH: It is not necessarily a matter of women, although there are those who pray along with these men, they do not enter the circle, but pray from the side and are often the rudest in their comments. However, I think that education is very important. Our education system has been functioning in the wrong way since kindergarten. Recently, a photo surfaced of a board in a kindergarten that says which jobs are for men and which jobs are for women. And you cannot undo that if you are not a very active mother, you simply have no time to get everything done. Through the project From 5 to 95, we interview women of all ages, including women of 105 and girls, and these girls repeat the same things, regardless of where they are from or who their parents are. For example, we interviewed the granddaughter of one of our activists who repeated the same sentences that are evidently passed through schools and kindergartens. And at one point, that friend of ours asked how this is possible, and it is, simply, reprogramming that comes with socialization and extremely poor education that forms young people. The family has a huge role to play in this, but sometimes it cannot do anything against collective, kindergartens and schools, against collective knowledge and values that are passed on to children. The research I mentioned talks about children who were raised by mothers of our age, and they picked up some other attitudes and values. There are also social networks where misogyny is glorified and young women and men accept it. And that is just the way it is.
One of my friends from Poland said that this is right-wing populism and that we should work on left-wing populism. It is interesting to me because their content is always misogynistic – the girl puts on makeup, the man explains.
Both the media and social networks are quite toxic, this can be seen in the comments on female politicians in which hatred is implied. The most normal thing is that she is hysterical, crazy or too emotional, while the man is passionate, beautiful, shed a tear, emotional….
Reach as many women as possible
INTERVIEW: Did you find any other response to the prayers’ messages besides silent masses – following the media in the entire region, one gets the impression that their advocacy always covers some difficult political topic, and that they are very well versed in PR, that they have adopted the terminology of the women’s movement …
LEKIĆ FRIDRIH: The media image in Croatia is not black and white, I have a lot of strong support, I think I am the most covered public person in Croatia, and my friend Dunja Bonacci Skenderović did a research that was reported very affirmatively. There are portals that are meant to denigrate us, but if they denigrate me, they will also denigrate others who deal with the rights of migrants, foreign workers… But the mainstream media is open to us and I use it, I gave an interview for Glorija because I have to reach as many as possible women in Croatia. Women’s organizations criticized me for it, but it was important for me to convey the message and the journalist conveyed it. I think it is important to talk about this and to talk objectively, and the media convey my statements very correctly, and I can say the same about my friends from other cities.
The cowardice of the opposition
INTERVIEW: And what is the answer?
LEKIĆ FRIDRIH: There is not just one, there are many. The prerequisite for anything is that the people we elected as our representatives in the parliament speak up, that they say something. I think it would be a gesture that would be meaningful to a larger number of people. Another thing is to send an inquiry to the Constitutional Court to assess the constitutionality of those messages, because the Constitution of Croatia states that equality is guaranteed and hate speech is prohibited, and the messages coming from those gatherings do not meet those standards. Win or lose – they could be stopped for a while. We cannot prohibit gatherings in any other way. I really think that it is unacceptable that, for example, the city of Split does not give us permission to stand in a public place. Pressure comes from all sides, but I am particularly bothered by the cowardice of people in the opposition – being in a position where you can make decisions, and being afraid to comment on something because you think that one of those people will elect the other party, and not you, is a high level of cowardice. I often hear that they are not commentin on prayers because they receive threats in their inbox. Well, I get them every day, so I go to the police and report it. I think that silence is pure cowardice, and I despise that, and it is unclear to me why those parties that present themselves as extremely progressive are silent about it.
INTERWIEV: You say that polls show that more and more people are supporting you – what messages or channels of communication have proven to be the most successful?
LEKIĆ FRIDRIH: Instagram is a privilege, but not everyone is on social networks. Before the parliamentary elections, I went from village to village, secretly, I negotiated with libraries and presented the project From 5 to 95, which is benign. My name is not, but From 5 to 95 is, and every conversation would, without my forcing, end with the conclusion that the election site is safe for women and that they can vote for whoever they want there. It did not matter to me who they were going to vote for, but only that they decide for themselves, not the husband. We found ways for them, for example, to go for coffee with their friends, and on the way to vote and the like. It worked, but what helped them much more was the conversation. Regardless of the fact that the legislation does not work for us, we still have a number of non-governmental organizations that can provide assistance. We are under-capacitated and tired, but Solidarna covers the whole of Croatia. I am also in a position that when a woman confides in me – I have someone to refer her to and the organization will provide free legal assistance or any other type of assistance. What is being talked about, and I have been on the islands and in the villages, is violence of all kinds, from psychological to physical, and something must be done here, in small steps, but it must be done, and you cannot reach those women unless you go there in person. My colleagues from the organization Adela from Osijek do the same thing, but we are not coordinated. The next mass is in Vukovar because they started praying there too, but it is not necessary for me to go to Slavonia because they cover it, and they are true feminists and they are not interested in the third or fourth wave and this or that book, but women in trouble who need help.
INTERVIEW: Where did the Poles and Swedes you talk about come from and how did that network come about?
LEKIĆ FRIDRIH: The Swedes appeared a few times in Slavonia, but the Poles are regulars, especially in Split. They wear the symbols of their organization, pray in Polish and get lost in Split, so the orderlies have to find them. It is a form of support for that Polish subsidiary to have more of them, with the fact that the Polish model looked different. And since the public did not react – they made sure that there were not too many of them, that they would not be noticeable, and here they are now trying to be more and more massive. And when I announce my arrival somewhere, they show up in much larger numbers, they gather from Split, Zadar, a bus of Poles arrives at 5 in the morning – they get sandwiches and a daily allowance, and after the prayer they get back on the bus and back to Poland. It is an organized political movement.
This text was written in collaboration with the Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly as part of the “Our Resistance” project, supported by the Swedish foundation Kvinna till Kvinna and the UK International Development.
Text downloaded from: www.inteview.ba
