Barbara Matejčić is a freelance journalist and editor whose work focuses on social issues andhuman rights. She was born in Split in 1975 and today lives in Zagreb where she graduated Croatian language and literature at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb. She regularly writes for Croatian and foreign print and online media. She cooperates with the Third Channel of Croatian Radio, Documentary Program and with numerous international research, media and human rights organisations. Croatian Journalists’ Association awarded her with the Marija Jurić Zagorka Award for excellence in written journalism. She has also received Krunoslav Sukić Peace Award presented to her by the Centre for Peace, Nonviolence and Human Rights in 2013. Her work has been recognised for the best coverage of LGBT topics in Croatia from 2000 to 2010 (Zagreb Pride, 2011). She has also won several European scholarships for her journalistic work.
As Barbara Matejčić concludes in her book, we do not all have the opportunity to enter the lives of others, even when we would, but that is why journalism, or journalist, can convey someone else’s experience. Her profession gave her the opportunity to credibly tell the stories of socially marginalised people, the opportunity which she embraced. Her book How Are You? represents thefruit of her desire to awaken the reader’s awareness of the life situations of unknown people and inspire empathy. Through six short stories, written in a very unbiased manner, in the style of good literature, readers get familiarised with difficult existences and their characters. The pages convey the fears they face, their pain and anxieties, but in spite of everything, their positivity, persistence, strength, faith and will to live. The characters of these stories, their life circumstances and the ways in which they deal with them, are completely different, but what connects them are prejudices that, as the author herself says, are based on physical and psychological difficulties, race, ethnicity or sexual orientation , and social injustice as their byproduct.
What do we really know about others? – is the fundamental question that inspired the author to write this book. In a kind of preface Before Reading, Barbara writes about prejudices that make us draw ad hoc conclusions about people we do not know: … is it possible to keep the space in our heads empty when we meet strangers and start filling it only when we really know something about them? She points out that the prejudice generator is always the same – ignorance that is replaced by mental fossils. Mutual ignorance and misunderstanding are also mentioned in Hinkemann (1923), the tragedy written by the German writer Ernst Toller: You sit there and I sit here. How do I see you? I see a few gestures, I hear a few words. That’s all…that’s nothing, we don’t see a thing…we know nothing of each other… Although there are almost a hundred years between these two books, almost nothing has changed on the social level. Even today, superficial human relationships are not uncommon in a world where many are uninterested in other people’s problems.
Life is unpredictable, so even when we follow our envisioned direction, it often interferes with our plans. Ivana, the main character of the first story August: Šarić Corral, is aware that she does not live a merit-based life and instead of spending time imagining what her life might look like if she could walk, she thinks of today, not tomorrow: She used to ask herself what had she done to deserve her life to be crippled to the limits of tolerance, but she knows life is not merit-based.” Despite the constant pain and fear that overwhelmed her after a car accident, after which she was diagnosed with tetraplegia, completely loosing her function from the neck down, she does not give up and wants to live. Family and friends are very supportive of her, but: ‘My parents need their old ages, and I need life’ , she concludes, realising that she has to stand up for herself.
We learn about what it is like to live with a mental illness from Jadranka’s diary entries, compiled in a short story One in a Hundred. There is hardly any other disease associated with as many prejudices and myths as schizophrenia, she points out. Although schizophrenics are credited with insensitivity, Jadranka is emotional and possesses spirit, opinions and humanity just like others. Diminished intellectual ability does not describe her illness, but she often has to prove it to people: The general view is that a mad person is essentially a stupid person.“ All she wants is to be accepted and given the opportunity as normal people.
It is very difficult to live in segregated Rroma settlements, often without a bathroom, running water, infrastructure and any facilities. Unemployment is high and poverty and hunger prevail. The young Rroma girl Bojana, the protagonist of the third story An A Student Last Bencher, is a resident of such a settlement. Although marked by stereotypes about her nationality, statistics relating to children of her ethnicity, and the working status of her parents and siblings (unemployed), she is the best student in her class. I miss a good life and that is why I will educate myself“, she concludes, recognising education as a bridge between her present life and the one she would like to have.
An Ordinary Day in Branimir’s Life is the story of Branimir Šutalo. He suffers from Leber hereditary optic neuropathy, and his mutated gene manifested itself when he was seventeen and he lost his sight. Although the adjustment process was lengthy and complex, and in fact it has never stopped, Branimir completed his high school education as a full-time student, graduated history and philosophy from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, and got a job as expert advisor to the Mayor for people with disabilities. If, however, by a miracle he got the opportunity to see only one thing in the world, it would certainly be the face of his son Toma, but reconciled with his fate he accepts himself the way he is: This is me, with all my genes, even this one. There is no other me, Branimir who can see does not exist.”
The Lovrić Family from Osijek talks about the tragic fate of a family that was forever separated by the events of the Homeland War. Branko Lovrić, Marija’s husband and father of Aleksandar and Srđan, was the victim of the war in Osijek, but not the victim of great Serbian aggression, but of his fellow citizens. He was tortured and killed because at the national census he declared himself to be of Serbian nationality, though his nation, city of birth and religion did not mean much to him, and despite his wife being of Croatian nationality. At that upsetting and uncertain time, Marija and the children barely survived and experienced injustices due to Branko’s nationality. Despite the constant struggle to prove that her husband was an innocent victim of a war crime, Marija did not treat with hatred many years of unsettled justice, deprived of dignity.
The people who appear in this book are not representatives of their groups, but speak only on their own behalf. Last short story Long Live Pussy! is about Lana and Tea who share their experiences of being gay in today’s Croatian society. Lana realised she was gay only when she first kissed a girl, and she perceived her sexual orientation as betraying parents who expected her to marry and have children. Unlike her, who could not handle the situation, Tea’s first felling in love did not bother her at all. She spoke confidently about it, not paying attention to who would hear it. The specific event discussed here is the physical assault on Lana, which has resulted in traumatic consequences for her. She was not given adequate protection and assistance by the police either, since it did not act according the law.
