October the 13th, 2026 – An environmentalist has issued a damning message that while every country has a mafia, in Croatia, the mafia has a country. He added that people are “lobotomised by football” as Croatia slowly disappears into oblivion.
Environmentalist Vjeran Piršić recently spoke about pollution, waste management and habits that harm nature. Index reports that the well known mathematician and computer scientist who has been involved with environmental protection for decades assessed that Croatia is, as a nation, merely turning into a geographical concept and that the Croats will simply disappear as a people if the attitude towards resources does not change. He said that in Croatia, the mafia has the country and that people must wake up, reports HRT.
from maths to ecology…
Piršić’s story about ecology began back in 1980 on the island of Krk, where during the winter holidays in a cold house, he started thinking about energy efficiency. “It was absolutely freezing. I realised I couldn’t heat the house. I was under two blankets for seventeen days, listening to Pink Floyd and dreaming of living in an energy-efficient house, that the bura wouldn’t blow through and that I would be able to produce my own energy,” he said. Four decades later, he realised that idea and today lives in an energy-renovated house that produces more electricity than it consumes. At the beginning of the 2000s, his interest turned into a concrete struggle. The turning point was the Družba Adria project in 2002, which planned the export of Russian oil via Omišalj. Piršić, together with a group of like-minded people, decided to oppose it and founded the association Eko Kvarner.
“That would’ve been five million tonnes of muddy waters, with a heap of dangerous microorganisms and invasive species. A small group of us met at my home and we realised we had three options. The first was to move away, the second was to ignore the problem, but then it would only explode later. Or, we could try to fight. And us six lunatics decided to put up resistance to a project behind which stood Bush and Putin and Mesić and everyone else,” he said. After four years of struggle, with the help of other associations and people, the project was stopped.
“people in croatia are totally lobotomised”
Piršić warned about a system in which environmental impact studies, he claims, often serve to justify projects instead of objective assessment. As one of the hardest examples he cited Vranjic and the remediation of asbestos waste. “Vranjic is the evil of evils. That is the bottom of the bottom. I cried there many times,” he said. He was particularly affected by the absence of a wider public reaction to a problem that directly endangers people’s health. “One hero, Grgo Mandić, stands in front of a truck to stop a vehicle that is not for hazardous waste and is transporting it to a landfill that is not intended for that. And the police arrest him. There were maybe ten citizens, five activists. At the same time, a few kilometres away, at Poljud, thousands of Split residents were celebrating Niko Kranjčar’s transfer from Dinamo to Hajduk. I have nothing against Niko Kranjčar or Hajduk. But that is the madness. What matters is that Kranjčar came to Hajduk,” Piršić said.
Such a disproportion led him to the conclusion that citizens are reacting less and less to important problems, for which he also holds the media responsible. “People in Croatia are completely lobotomised. They are lobotomised by football, Turkish soap operas, Big Brother, by who anointed whom,” he said.
“this poison must be removed from the land”
He also spoke about the waste scandal from Gospić and explained that the proposal for temporary relocation to the area of Udbina arose after consultations with Swedish experts. He believes the first step is to remove the waste from the existing location, and then separate it and seek a long-term solution.
“You have poison under your skin. Those 35,000 tonnes of waste is poisoning this land. And believe me, it is poisoning everything,” he said. According to his proposal, the waste would be moved into appropriate bags and temporarily placed in the area of abandoned military infrastructure in Udbina. After that separation would be carried out, and as one of the options for storing the remainder he mentioned a protected part of the Željava tunnel complex, with appropriate protection and controls.
Piršić said that thermal treatment of waste is often presented as a simple solution, although its effectiveness depends on the whole system. “I don’t understand incinerators, but I have seen that in all countries where a proper waste management system has been set up, incinerators have nothing to burn. Those are huge and expensive facilities,” he said. He emphasised that even after incineration slag and ash remain which also need to be disposed of, and he warned about the importance of technology and supervision, mentioning reports of irregularities in Croatian cement plants. “So an incinerator is not the Joker so that we’ve solved everything,” he concluded.
“croats seem unable to understand very basic, elementary concepts”
He also commented on the problem of illegal dumps. He assessed that such a state shows serious shortcomings of the system, but also insufficient awareness of the general public. “That we are barbarians. That we are heavy barbarians who don’t even understand very basic, elementary things. Secondly, this is the crowning proof of my thesis that the environmental protection system has collapsed,” he said. As key steps he highlighted the education of young people, reduction of consumption, repairing of devices and proper waste separation. “If we really separate waste and teach children that the environment must be protected, then such ‘filth’ will not exist after some time. And there is no other way,” he said.
He also spoke about food waste. He said that this problem can be significantly reduced by better meal planning, thoughtful shopping and proper separation of biowaste. He explained that organic residues in landfills create methane, a greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change. He also shared his own experience, where his family by planning weekly meals and shopping according to a list significantly saves money and reduces waste. He considers food waste an environmental, ethical and financial problem.
“croats will simply disappear as a people”
Using the example of plans for the construction of large poultry farms, Piršić asked the question of who such projects benefit. He believes that development must not be based on megaprojects that neglect small producers, but on the preservation of space and domestic agriculture.
“Every country has a mafia. In Croatia, the mafia has an entire country. The key question is: who needs this? For whom was this Croatia created? Is this country intended for ordinary people with family farms or for big players with mega-projects that will wipe everything and everyone out? Croatia is disappearing. It is turning into a geographical concept. Croatian agriculture is destroyed, even though billions have been invested in it. Now, they will destroy Dalmatia and the Adriatic as well by seizing space and mega resorts. And the Croats will disappear as a people. Demographically, we’re already broken,” he said.
He was asked whether or not there is hope for Croatia, given the clear statement that in Croatia, the mafia has the entire country. Piršić drew a parallel with historical periods of national awakening. “People in Croatia tend to wake up every 100 years. For the protest in Gospić, we gathered in the square where the monument to Ban Jelačić is. So… the Croatian revival did something good. A hundred years after that there was Stjepan Radić. Maybe the time has come for us to finally wake up and realise that the point is not football, Turkish soap operas or Big Brother,” he concluded.
The post Environmentalist: Every Country Has a Mafia, in Croatia, the Mafia Has a Country appeared first on Total Croatia.