When facts go crazy

By: Jagoda Radojcic

I hate ideology. Not a particular one, but all of them. As soon as someone tries to pull
me into some ideological nonsense, I hold on tight to my wallet and become
aggresive. Stay away! Although I'm aware that, by definition, ideology is more than
just a delusion technique used by wannabe politicians to get money out of crazed
poor people, here it usually comes down to just that: an instrument used by half-
educated noncomformists to surround themselves with a mob, with which they
attempt various political endeavours. After you've done that, you can steal, kill, lie,
cheat and commit all sorts of unthinkable crimes all you want, because, when
observed through an ideological prism, it will all become pure, sublime politics.
People used to say that numbers were the best cure against ideology. We've evolved
since then.

Here is another example. According to the latest data, the price of agricultural land in
Croatia, depending on its categorization, cost between a thousand and seven
thousand euros per hectar, depending on its location and soil categorization.
Although according to an arithmetic mean the average price would be around three
and a half thousand euros, we have to consider the amount of love our people have
for this country and agree to the price of the hectar being five thousand euros.
According to CIA, our entire country consists of 56.542 square kilometres. If we were
to sell our entire country as agricultural land at an average price of five thousand
euros per hectar, we would get a total of 28,3 billion euros. However, as we know,
our country also has the Adriatic sea, whose area is automatically included into the
total area of the country by every Croatian patriot. According to the CIA again, we
have exactly 33.200 square kilometres of sea area. If we were to add up the total
area of sea and land (89.810 square kilometres), turn it all into hectars and sell it at a
price of five thousand euros per hectar, we would get the current amount of the
Croatian debt – 45 billion euros.

Then, these rock solid numbers, which apparently cannot be challenged neither by
the political left nor right, nor a Martian, nor a shepherd from Dinara, become the
target of politicians with corresponding ideological and media apparatus. The
notorious facts seem to lose their basic attributes after the politicians' intervention.
For example, a politician close to the government will interpret the fact that we're in
as much debt as the whole country is worth as a sign of extrodinary trust that the
developed world has given us. He will draw attention to the well-known fact that our
country's greatest value lies not in the land nor water, but Croatians themselves, and
throughout their glorious history they were never for sale. The left side politician will
protest against insolvency in a high-pitched voice, and keep promising that they will
introduce a Croatian square kilometer which will be at least twice as large as the
current one, as soon as they are in charge. The right side politician will label the
whole thing as a despicable conspiracy of the American intelligence agency while
counting the blood corpuscles and checking the racial heritage of the man who
published these „so-called data“ („Why CIA, we wonder“, their stiff official will ask
himself in front of a bunch of reporters while raising his eyebrow in a well-studied
manner and glancing at the height of the corn) Depending on whether it's Thursday,
when they're in the government, or Friday, when they've stepped down and became
the opposition, the liberal will protect the right of the Croatian man to decide about his
assets on his own, or they will scream against the robbery which can be stopped by
one man only – their president. The media will loyally grasp the subject (is there any
other way than loyally?) and use methods of research journalism to discover that a
hectar in Honduras cost a 135 times less than here and that Simonica doesn't even
know what a hectar is. They will discuss the value of water in Sahara, and straits,
and then publish a huge affirmative interview with a greatest advertiser who really
loves his hectars and his bulls. . The Church will accuse former communists of
everything, followed by sending the govenment their newest agreement bill.
And the facts? After all of these ideological interpretations, stretching, political
renaming, discourses, it's like they go crazy. They become less important and end up
being tied into a strait jacket somewhere in the dark cellars of various ideological
headquarters until they are occasionaly brought back in the spotlight by some
hotshot when he needs material for some new political endeavour for the greater
good.