Mutual Aid and Solidarity in the Aftermath of Croatia’s Devastating Earthquake
“Strong communities make politicians obsolete.”
— Jere Kuzmanić
Photo: Jakov Prkić
In the last week of 2020, Croatia’s central region was struck by a series of earthquakes, the strongest hit with 6.4 of magnitude, doing unimaginable damage to one of Europe’s poorest regions. The earthquake was felt as far as Italy, Austria and Serbia. Towns Petrinja, Sisak and Glina are seriously damaged, whole neighborhoods and villages are destroyed, many are injured, and more than 200 families lost their homes. Unfortunately, seven people were killed. The mayor of Petrinja, where around 25000 people live, states that “half of the city no longer exists.”
The affected regions, known as Banija and Moslavina, are a mostly rural, impoverished areas with isolated towns and villages, some of which are the last parts of the European Union that are not connected to the electricity grid. Organization Solidarna set up the disaster response fund immediately after the earthquake describing the situation with the following words:
We must secure help and support for our fellow citizens as soon as possible. Namely, this is one of the poorest regions in Croatia already devastated in war in the 1990s’ and chronic economic marginalization over the past two decades. Petrinja, Glina as well as other towns were severely stricken, just like thousands of scattered rural households with nowhere to go in the midst of pandemic, wintertime and their obligation to take care of their cattle. (Solidarna)
People often patronize the Balkans by illustrating it through the collision between East and West, as a minor pawn in the oldest geopolitical brawl between civilizations. Although this is untrue as a general description, and there is nothing to romanticize about the history of ethnic and religious conflicts anywhere, including in this case, the regions that found themselves in rubble are a historical border zone in which many wars, tragedies and genocidal atrocities happened. ‘In that region, most of the towns were founded as military camps to defend the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s border from the Ottoman Empire. During the Second World War, some of the earliest self-organized partisan units emerged in this region as a response to fascist armies burning Serbian villages. Every war and disaster left terrible marks on people’s houses and faces. Last one lasting from 1991 to 1995, following the collapse of Yugoslavia.
Although writing about this topic carries a weight for the underlining tragedy defined by it, there is something politically relevant that happened following the earthquake. It is the scale and speed of the self-organized solidarity response, outpouring within 24 hours from all parts of the wider region and transnationally. There is no need to explain complex shades of nationalist and progressive forces within the support that was sent to the affected area, only to present the overwhelming power of mutual aid and solidarity in which the state and formal institutions had a marginal role. The scale, the amount and the variety of support that came to those in need is, fundamentally, an example of Kropotkin’s mutualism. So blatant and vast, it is hard to decide where to start from.
This kind of grass-roots disaster response and direct action of care is not uncommon in the area (arguably anywhere where people live together). Self-organized responses to flooding in 2014 in Serbia and Bosnia ensured shelter and relief to those left without homes. Wildfires that endangered Split in 2017 brought to the first lines hundreds of self-organized civilians that evacuated people, fought for each house, and organized tree-planting actions afterwards. The current situation with the so-called Balkan route along which the migrants reach the EU through Croatia is horrific with torture and pushbacks by the police. At the very beginning, before the cops and dogs were sent to ‘defend Europe,’ the grass-roots initiatives working on the Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian borders were surprised to see many acts of solidarity, direct action and civil disobedience by the local population with the intention to help migrants pass. Therefore, it is not surprising that this earthquake mobilized many people outside the directly affected territory to respond to an immediate call out to act in mutual aid and build quick hand-to-hand chains of supply and distribution. Still, this time the magnitude is what leaves an impression.
The list of examples is long, and there is no point in presenting any as more important than the other. For example, within the first 12 hours after the earthquake, according to the media, two thousand people went to the area and started to work on moving rubble, rescue actions and emergencies. Without any central organization, civilians and experts travelled to the main affected county out of their own initiative. Football fans of all divisions, professional and amateur alpinists, speleologists and construction workers, scouts and locals were there side by side with the army from the town and the Croatian Mountain Rescue Service. In Split, 350 km south, the public transport company Promet sent three buses to drive football fans to Petrinja just hours after the earthquake. There was no chance to organize this respecting the company’s hierarchy and administration. Some of the first people to arrive were four high-end chefs that came with mobile kitchens and started to hand out food portions for about 1000 people. Much before any Red Cross kitchen was there, functioning.
Photo: Jakov Prkić
Simultaneously, in all towns, cities, neighborhoods, schools and civic centers, there were food and aid collection points formed. One of the first was from football fans, followed by NGOs, neighborhood councils, sports clubs and autonomous and youth centers in cities like Split and Rijeka. People started collecting aid right away — bringing food, blankets, water, medical supplies and other necessities. All this much faster and sooner than State institutions, since State reserves were small and centralized, coordination was untrained for emergencies of this scale, and fieldwork was extensive and poorly administered. Social networks were full of detailed lists of what one package for a family should contain, instructions on how to pack waterproof and well-marked boxes, with bar-codes crossed to avoid reselling of aid. Very soon, bakeries and restaurants that are closed due to the pandemic opened their kitchens. In Rijeka, the first night after the earthquake, three bakeries made 1200 loaves of bread and sent them during the night to arrive fresh to the affected area. People made cues in front of grocery shops all over Croatia, Bosnia, Slovenia and Serbia, and bought food to bring to collection points. The exact amount of food delivered within the first 24 hours through informal channels to Petrinja is impossible to count. But as an example, the first self-organized convoy of help came to Petrinja from the Slovenian city of Maribor, which is 130 km away, only 11 hours after the earthquake, and counted around 20 trucks and vans full of aid. Yes, within the first half of a day there were self-organized convoys from all directions arriving at Sisak and Petrinja. As a volunteer in a warehouse described it: “At the sight [of the overwhelming amounts of items], you almost burst into tears. From happiness and sorrow at the same time.”
Also, financial aid was self-organized immediately. Since many people do not trust the Red Cross and similar institutions, individuals organize independent accounts and funds in large numbers. Dozens. They made some of them in the specific families’ name with a detailed description of what kind of help is needed. At this moment, information about fraud started to spread. However, those were exceptions. Most of the funds were trustful, and people who set them up were easily verified and reliable. The role in collecting the financial aid had scattered throughout the emigrated Croatian community, the Catholic Church, sportsmen, celebrities, etc. The above mentioned Solidarna fund (left-wing leaning) received around half a million euros in only one day.
As it is well known, Croatia’s leading economy is tourism. One of the most compelling examples of mutualist instinct is the wave of people who offered their homes, apartments, hotels and holiday houses to those who lost homes. Individual benevolence is less interesting than the sheer number of offered homes. From luxury hotel chains like Valamar to family-owned hostels, apartments, camps, many offered shelter and transport. They welcomed families with small children under their roofs or guest houses after one of the most devastating tourist seasons in decades. A person from Zadar gave 10 of their apartments to 10 families from Petrinja and surrounding villages. People also donated campers and mobile homes in large numbers. Awe-inspiring were convoy images with 40 camp houses and mobile homes driving from coastal Istria to Banija as a donation.
Photo: Denis Bernobić
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the levels of blood reserves went low. Citizens gathered and waited in lines for two hours to give blood at the Croatian Institute of Transfusion Medicine locations across the country. In Zagreb, which was still shaking with several smaller aftershock quakes, 200 people were waiting in the rain and open-air to donate within an hour after the main earthquake. The medical staff described this as ‘acts of selflessness and solidarity.’ Fear, tears and lack of sleeping emanated from people’s faces in a wide radius around the epicenter. Psychologists and mental health experts offered free help through all possible channels. A lot of advice on mental health care was circulating online. We soon adopted the consciousness of how to address the issue of stress and shock in our conversations and messages. Journalists and reporters left their cameras and mics on the floor to help and comfort shocked people. Professionalism became fluid in many ways. Care-taking and solidarity were common to see after the initial shock.
Many local administrations decided to cancel and redirect the financial costs of NYE celebrations to disaster response funds. On all levels of town, city, and village administrative bodies donated amounts for the recovery reaching around 1,5 million euros within the first day. Many regions sent equipment, tools and materials. Together with programmers, civil and geodesy engineers set up open-source sites to report damage, coordinate response, distribute aid and working hands at the location. Throughout the whole country, associations of engineers invited members to inspect houses in affected areas or fill the data sets into these new tools from a distance.
International support also came from many directions. Albania, which was struck by a similar earthquake in 2019, was among the first to send help. Serbia, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Italy, Romania, Sweden, Slovakia and others offered monetary and material support. Some sent immediate supplies of containers, personnel and rescue equipment. Greece flew 19 tons of materials over, and Austria sent a convoy of firefighters on the same day. Slovenia’s construction companies sent loaded trucks to the affected area. All this before the European Union, the United Nations or any other central authority instructed them to do so.
This recount of various ways people organized decentralized, direct and grass-roots help is not intended to leave a romantic impression of what happened, or to make the tragedy seem lesser. The act of reporting can leave very little space for contextualizing where and when all this is happening. For example, ethnic and religious hatred flamed by nationalist machines caused the history of grave injustices done in a similarly ‘decentralized’ manner to the affected areas. Also, it is untrue that this support was pouring without incidents, such as unfair treatment of Roma people who live in the area and were scapegoated in false accusations of fraud, stealing and other sins.
Hopefully, the reader can capture a very simple truth from what is presented above — Strong communities make politicians obsolete. To explain the political relevance of the scale of these spontaneous mutualist actions may seem off track from the intention of this report. Still, after a year in which the whole world was called to action and solidarity due to environmental urgencies, racial conflicts and one great health crisis, the new chapters of Kropotkin’s Mutual Aid could start to be written. The question that remains unanswered is what happens when the dust settles.
Jere Kuzmanić
(Barcelona/Split) is an urbanist, anarchist and assistant at the University of Split. His research seeks to reconstruct the historical continuity of the anarchist roots of the planning movement. Also a member of the collective Rad.Ni.K, friend, father and gardener.