True, the leaders of one of the two political parties [representing Croats in Vojvodina] are correct in their assessment of the general conditions of life of Croats in Vojvodina. But their seemingly deliberate omission of some achievements is rather suspicious. Namely, vice-president of the DSHV Antun Skenderovic in the mentioned report stated that Croats in Vojvodina "have no rights of any sort" and that they should get "schools and media [in their mother tongue]". In connection with that the facts are as follows. It is not untrue that Croats in Vojvodina do not have too many recognized rights, but the leaders of the DSHV treat our achievements as irrelevant or nonexistent instead of doing everything in their power that the achieved rights are implemented as fully as possible. Namely, they advocate the paternalistic attitude to the rights ("the rights should be obtained from the state and only then implemented"), while they ignore the fact that some rights must be won through our own initiatives and activities.
Let me use the existence of the daily one-hour program in the Croatian language on Radio Subotica as an example of the latter. True, this program is the product of an initiative by the DSHV and the readiness of the local authorities in Subotica, led by the political party representing Vojvodina Hungarians, and mayor Jozsef Kasza. However, after the beginning of work of the editorial office for the program in the Croatian language (late 1998), the DSHV did nothing to make sure that the program has appropriate equipment and necessary staff (only one employee!), to provide CDs with Croatian music... The DSHV had the obligation to do that. Instead, they left the people working on the realization of this project stranded. The only reason for this is that the editors did not accept DSHV's concept of editorial policy which implied that we were expected to be spokespersons of a political party rather than a public medium.
There were also a few other successful attempts to do something in the field of the Croatian language press. For five years an independent biweekly publication in the Croatian language, Zig, was published in Subotica. This publication ceased with publication in the early summer of the last year due to the lack of funds. But, the DSHV failed to provide both lobbying and logistic support to Zig. On the contrary, they did everything to sabotage this publication. I mention this since I am convinced that it is easy to blame others or general difficult economical situation. Nevertheless, that is only a way to hide one's own inaction and failures. The public in Croatia as well as other instances should be aware of that, regardless of the fact whether the new Matica will be founded for us or not.
Tomislav Zigmanov is the editor-in-chief of the Croatian Language program on Radio Subotica, Subotica, FR Yugoslavia