The old man’s hands rested on the arms of his chair, a pair of gnarled artifacts. They were more than hands; they were the legacy of a life spent in the cold, wet cathedral of British Columbia’s forests. Ned Jukic. Tree faller. Our father. The room, his East Van house filled with the smell of pine and slow-cooked pork, seemed to hold its breath around him.
Bruno, ever the bulldog, had circled back to his argument. He needed our father’s blessing, his confirmation that the world was a brutal, simple place.
“It’s what you lived, Tata,” Bruno said, his voice earnest. “In the woods. It’s the purest form of it. The chain breaks, the tree kicks back, the man who isn’t strong enough, isn’t fast enough… he’s gone. It’s nature. No excuses. Survival of the fittest.”
Ned’s pale, watery eyes, set deep in a face cross-hatched with scars from flying splinters and branches, watched the fire. He was a man of few words. Words were cheap in the woods. Action was everything.
He took a slow sip of his whisky, not the rakija we drank, but good Canadian whisky. He savored it, letting Bruno’s words hang in the air like wood dust after a fall.
“Survival of the fittest,” he finally repeated, his voice a low gravelly rumble, like the sound of a far-off skidder. “This is what you think I learned?”
Bruno nodded, confident. “It’s what you taught us. To be tough.”
Ned set his glass down with a deliberate thud. “I taught you to be tough. I did not teach you to be stupid.” His eyes, sharp as a saw’s tooth, locked onto Bruno. “The forest is not a philosophy lesson for boys in a warm room. It is a place of death. And the first thing you learn is that you are not fit. None of us are.”
He leaned forward, his large frame still imposing. “You think the strongest man always wins? The strongest man gets confident. He gets lazy. He misses the rot in the heartwood. The fittest man is not the one with the biggest muscles. He is the one with the sharpest eyes. The one who knows when to run. The one who listens to the man next to him, even if that man is small, or quiet, or scared.”
He gestured out the window toward the North Shore mountains, invisible in the rain and dark. “I saw a man, big like a bear, pull a saw through a cedar like it was butter. He was strong. The fittest. He didn’t see the widowmaker tangled in the canopy. It killed him. I saw a small man, a nervous man, who jumped at every crack. He was weak, by your measure. But he is alive today because he was afraid. His fear made him careful. His weakness was his strength.”
His gaze then shifted to Luka, on the floor, his entire being focused on the geometric perfection of his blocks.
“You look at that boy and you see a weak tree,” Ned said, his voice dropping, becoming something more terrifying than a shout. “I look at him and I see a man who notices things. A man who sees the patterns the rest of us are too loud to see. In the woods, he is the one you want on your side. He is the one who sees the lean of the tree you missed. He hears the creak that signals the fall.”
He picked up his whisky again, his wrecked hands cradling the glass with a surprising tenderness.
“A logging crew is not an army of one man. It is a body. The faller is the heart. The choker setter is the nerves. The whistle punk is the voice. The weak link? There is no weak link. There is only a chain. And the chain is only as strong as the crew that cares for it.”
He finished the whisky in one swallow and fixed Bruno with a look that could fell a tree.
“You want to talk about fitness? About strength? The strongest thing a man can do is not break something. It is to mend something. It is to look at what is broken and see not a problem to be disposed of, but a thing to be fixed. To be cherished.”
He nodded toward Luka. “That is your crew, Bruno. That is your chain. You do not leave him behind. You listen for his song. Because his song might just save your life one day.”
Silence. The only sound was the rain and the soft click-click of Luka’s blocks.
Ned Jukic had spoken. The argument was over. The law had been laid down, not from a philosophy book, but from the woods.
The silence after our father’s words was total, broken only by the spit of the fire and the rhythmic tick-tick-tick of Luka’s blocks finding their perfect place. Ned Jukic had laid down the law of the woods, and it was a law of community, not cruelty.
Bruno stared into his glass, chastened but not yet converted. The old ideas ran deep.
I couldn’t let it rest. Not now. The clarity was too sharp, the stakes too high.
“Tata is right,” I said, my voice cutting through the quiet. I looked at my brother, my gaze hard. “But you need to hear it in terms you think you understand, Bruno. You talk about Croatia. You want a strong Croatia. Good. So do I.”
I stepped into the center of the room, feeling the eyes of my family on me.
“But the Croatia we build will not be some shitty Spartan war-camp,” I said, the profanity cracking through the room’s formality. “It will not be a remake of that damn *300* movie you love so much, where the king tosses a baby off a cliff because it might not hold a shield one day.”
Bruno’s head snapped up, a defensive glare in his eyes.
“That is a pagan fantasy! A death cult!” I continued, my passion giving the words heat. “Is that what we are? Pagans? Are we a people who worship the state, who worship strength, above the soul? Above Christ?”
I pointed at the crucifix hanging on my father’s wall, a simple, wooden thing. “Croatia is a Christian country. Or have you forgotten that? The first lesson of our faith is not conquest. It is compassion.”
I turned and swept my arm toward Luka, a gesture of presentation, of reverence.
“The Christian model is not a weak model. It is the hardest model there is! It is easy to dispose of a broken child. It is easy to only cherish the strong. Any animal can do that. It takes a beast to leave its wounded behind. It takes a man—it takes a Christian—to bind up the wounds of the broken. To carry them.”
My voice dropped, but it lost none of its intensity.
“We are not building a war machine, Bruno. We are building a nation. A home. A republic. And a home is judged not by the strength of its strongest son, but by its care for its most vulnerable. A country that disposes of its Lukas is a country that has already lost its soul. It is a country that has sold its cross for a sword and its soul for a propaganda poster.”
I looked from Bruno’s shocked face to my father’s, and saw a grim approval in the old man’s eyes.
“I am going back to help build a republic,” I said, my final word on the matter. “And I will build it on the principle that every single Croat has worth. Not because they can hold a weapon, but because they bear the image of God. Even if that image is reflected in a different, more beautiful way.”
I walked over to Luka and knelt. I didn’t touch his city. I just looked at it.
“This,” I said softly, to everyone and no one. “This precision. This order. This is not a weakness. This is the mind that could design a cathedral, or write a symphony, or find a cure for a plague. This is what we cherish. This is Croatia. Not the cliff where we throw our children away.”
Constitution of Rights of the Croatian People
Preamble
We, the Croatian people, united in faith, heritage, and destiny, establish this Constitution of Rights so that no Croat, whether at home or abroad, shall ever be second-class in the land of their forefathers. We reject all forms of tyranny, dictatorship, and oppression. We choose not the Spartan model of cruelty, but the Christian model of compassion, justice, and mercy. We declare that our nation shall be a beacon of liberty, where the dignity of every Croatian soul is upheld.
Article I – Citizenship by Blood and Birth
- Every person of Croatian blood, whether born in the homeland or abroad, is recognized as a rightful son or daughter of Croatia.
- No Croat shall ever be denied citizenship, identity, or belonging in the Republic of Croatia.
Article II – Equality of All Croats
- All Croats, regardless of birthplace, wealth, class, or creed, are equal before God, the law, and the nation.
- No Croatian citizen shall be treated as second-class, nor suffer discrimination in their homeland.
Article III – Freedom of Speech and Conscience
- The right of free speech shall not be infringed.
- No Croat shall be punished for speaking truth, for defending their people, or for practicing their faith.
- Freedom of thought, press, assembly, and peaceful protest are guaranteed.
Article IV – Protection of the Family and the Weak
- The Republic shall defend the sanctity of family, marriage, and the upbringing of children.
- No child of Croatia, however weak or sick, shall be cast aside or abandoned. The nation shall bind their wounds, heal their sorrows, and lift them up in dignity.
- The elderly and infirm shall be honored, not discarded.
Article V – Faith and Morality
- The Republic affirms the Christian moral heritage of its people.
- Freedom of religion is guaranteed, but no government shall exalt cruelty, paganism, or tyranny over the law of love.
Article VI – The Right of Defense and Freedom
- Every Croatian has the right to defend himself, his family, and his homeland.
- The Republic shall never submit to foreign domination, nor permit Croats to be dispossessed of their land.
Article VII – Government of the People
- The government of Croatia exists only by the consent of its people, and shall serve them in humility.
- Power must never concentrate into dictatorship, tyranny, or oligarchy.
- Leaders who betray the freedoms of Croats for foreign masters or selfish gain shall be removed and judged by the people.
Article VIII – Heritage and Unity
- The Croatian language, culture, and history shall be preserved and taught to all generations.
- Croats abroad are forever part of the Republic and entitled to full rights and participation in its future.
Article IX – Justice and Law
- The law shall protect the weak as much as the strong, the poor as much as the rich.
- No man or woman shall be above the law.
- Punishments shall be just, never cruel or degrading.
Article X – Oath of Loyalty
Every leader of Croatia shall swear before God and people to uphold this Constitution of Rights, to bind the wounds of the broken, to defend liberty, and to never allow Croats to be treated as second-class in their own homeland.
