Ivan Marjanovic De Tonya:

MY RETURN TO CROATIA – A JOURNEY BY HUMAN REASONING

Why would a man, after 42 years of human adjustment to the New World, return to his roots in the Old World? Why the ideals of human belonging to each other and to the world remain the foundation to the idea of who we are and what kind of the world we create on our short life journey by human reasoning?

I finds myself astounded by the fact of how the materialism abound of the world has little influence on my thinking and on my belonging to the world. I pay respect to material advancement through human mind, yet it is actually the spiritualism that I find in each and every human being I come in touch with that projects my belief in myself and in the brotherhood that often finds itself on unsteady foundations of political even religious teachings that often divide us as human beings, instead of uniting us in our celestial environment.

This we know: the Earth turns in a celestial dance around the Sun, not the other way around. The Sun in turn ensures life on Earth, provided there is plenty of water for all sorts of life and plenty of shade for the living creatures roaming the Earth. We humans are creatures? Wow! Someone in my old country might say with glee: “Let us celebrate, somebody, a Croat, just discovered America!”

Sorry, too late! America, the New World, that is, was discovered long before first European voyagers, Croats included, landed on its shores. Dinosaurs roamed all continents before any human being ever thought of his or her tribal identity, before anybody was able to utter that forceful “I”, and long before anybody believed in fire, even less in God. But, astonishingly true, we humans claim today, as we have claimed, millennium after millennium, that Earth belongs to us, instead the other way around, and that we will somehow outlive the Sun and the stars. What a futile concept of everything belonging to us and of us not belonging to anything! Poor contemporaries of any time!

How in the world can we exist without belonging to each other and to our people? How is it possible, that one can be uprooted, “planted” to a “different” part of the world, every trace on earth to his heritage beginnings wiped completely out? Nonsense… It could not happen to me. Not after 42 years of intellectually and spiritually nourishing belonging to my Croatian people and after years of nurturing my love for the American people and for all the peoples of the world.

Does anybody in the world have the right to question my love for my Croatian people, my love for the American people, and my love for all the peoples of the world? Wow!  These are big words, huh? It’s getting complicated, does it? Well, not really, not at all. If we do not love ourselves, if we do not love our people, if we do not love each other all over the globe, and if we do not see the good in each other, then nothing matters – we become nobodies shelled in our own greed of not sharing our values and our goodness of life with each other.

Now, here is something I want to be clear about: America is beautiful. American people are beautiful, for they come from all over the world, Croats included, to share the world.  What generosity on part of America! What love on part of the American people! Yet how often we the humans forget about the fact of what we are, of where we come from and of where we belong to once we come to America. Of course, we belonged to the world before we departed to the American shores centuries ago, and we belong to the world after we land at the international airports in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Dallas, San Diego etc. now days.

The Old World, the New World. Not any more… Today, everything is the world. We all belong to the world, as we should have belonged to it from our beginnings. I was born in Bosnia, was “transplanted” to Croatia at the age of five, grew up to love Croatia, Croatian Language and Croats and our Croatian neighbors; I was “transplanted”, at the age of 22, to the United States of America. It took this author 42 years to grow in love both of my Croatian people and in love of the American people, and in love of the people of the world. Hence, why every nonnative ever came to America for?: to live and love this land and its people and to live and die in America or in his or her native land, in love for the world?

Remember the famous Croatian sculptor Ivan Mestrovic? His magnificently sculptured Indians (“awesome barbarians on epic horses”) “guard the Michigan Avenue in Chicago and his works enchant the American churches. Remember Nikola Tesla, the Serbian electronic and Niagara Falls wizard born in Croatia, who was equally proud of his Serbian mother and of his Croatian homeland, but who died in America improving the future ways of life throughout the world beyond any possible expectation? Remember hundreds and thousands of Croats who planted first American vineyards and who improved world vines? Remember those Croats who loved two countries, who worked in American coal-mines, who helped industrialize America, who died under the American flag and thus made America and the entire world, Croatia included, a better place to live in? Their minds were not corrupted by coming to America; they caused no wars; by leaving their dear Croatian and native Adriatic seashores, they did not cause the bone digging of those killed in various crimes against humanity in distant and in most recent wars.  They lived their American dreams to better their lives and to better the world. They carried on, for centuries, their love for their Croatian people and for their “old” country (stari kraj) wherever their journey by human reasoning took them to, America included. They helped each other in America; they shared America in private lives; they share love for Croatia and America through their Croatian associations, Croatian Fraternal Union of America included. So it was. So it still is today. So it is with this author…

This we know: Croatia and Croatian Adriatic Sea shores are beautiful; Dubrovnik, “the pearl of Adriatic” and many other Croatian cities and towns are architectural splendors on foundations of history dating back to Roman times, even to 5,000 years ago. We Croats are what we are by our choice of heritage belonging. I choose to be a Croat by the way of my parents’ origin and by my love for Croatian traditions, Croatian heritage and Croatian culture. I choose also to be an American by the way of naturalization and by love for American culture.

Of course, there is American culture. There are good ways of the American life. Why in the world would anyone born in other countries want to come to America? Because in America we can be what we want to be; in America, we can dream our dreams, American dreams included, for a free world and for the improved ways of life on earth, for which hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of Americans, Croats included, died around the world in wars they never caused. Remember the holocaust and the antifascist movement? Well, thanks to America and to its allies, we live in a world in which we, men and women, have a real, and perhaps the only chance to be free and equal. Freedom is not free. We ourselves are not free until we rid ourselves of the handful of corrupt minds which for centuries keep feeding their existence on greed and selfishness, be it cultural, national, economic and/or political and even spiritual. In this new millennium, America provides the best and most advanced education in the world. American educators and the common American man and woman are most generous people in the world. Blending world cultures with the American ways of life, under the American skies, ensures a good life in America for generations to come.  

This we know: it is our natural right to live and die in love for the world; it is our natural right to become the citizens of the world, depending to which country our heart takes us upon our long journey of reasoning. One should be proud to be the citizen of the world. But to become a good citizen anywhere, one shall respect the differences among us but cherish the similarities. And, this we know: the more we tolerate and love each other, the more peaceful world we will live in. Our own brothers and sisters, no matter in which part of the world they live in, no matter in which country they live in, will be the more proud of us. I happen to be a Croat by birth, Yugoslav and thereafter a naturalized American citizen by choice of belonging to the American people and the peoples of the world united in idea that we are all created equal. 

This we know: we all have the natural right to be proud of our national heritage; we all have the natural right to create things in human cycles of family life; we all have the natural right to belong to each other, to our people and to the peoples around the world, and to believe in each other in idea of a God-like creator of life. We all have the natural right and duty to learn from our mistakes. I strongly believe that God is an idea in a form of belief and spiritual belonging. I believe that God is a good idea, perhaps the best idea ever based on idealism of a human brotherhood. Christ was first a good man and a good Creator’s son. I therefore reserve the right to celebrate Christian traditions, particularly Christmas and Easter. I believe that God is the best idea there is, as long as idealism as idea’s foundation of God is not abused and corrupted. This belief encrypts my philosophy of living my life both in my Croatia and in my America. I am just humbly proud of my love for both countries, the same. I hereby thank all of those most wonderful and most caring individuals and institutions for supporting me on my journey by human reasoning…

Therefore, by returning to my native Croatia, and by reuniting with my remaining three brothers and three sisters and with my Croatian people, I pay respect to the beauties of my old country and to the beauty of my Croatian people, and to my Croatian heritage, knowing that my love for the beauty of America, my love for the American people, and my love for the peoples of the world will bring love and positive human experience to my Croatia and to my Croatian people. The tolerance and respect for human life and universal love, in which I was born and upon which I base my idealism, has been confirmed by living the culture of the American experience.

Praise those who are willing to share their life with others. For only in sharing our lives we belong to the Earth and to our Creator.

My wife Danica and I return to Croatia never to forget the generosity and kindness of the American people. My wife Danica and I hereby invite you to beautiful Croatia. Welcome to beautiful Croatia! Dobro dosli u nasu lijepu domovinu Hrvatsku! Zivjeli!   

P.S. My contribution to this page will continue.