Having to deal with police four times a day on average on the part of the journey through Croatia is insane. I’d have given up and flown to the next country.
It’s pretty wild, although if I were Mr. Kato I might be somewhat more grumpy about being jailed for 3 weeks in South Sudan, apparently on the authorities’ opinion that their immigration laws required ministry approval for his run [0].
I have to say I don’t find myself too surprised that anybody non-local doing extreme-long-distance running through insular Croatian towns might arouse the interest of the local constabularies—and I imagine the runner being a Ugandan guy would be an especially surprising sight to people in Croatia (91% Croat, 3.2% Serb, officially recognize 22 other ethnic minorities, none of them from Africa) [1]. Which I suppose is the point he was trying to raise.
> I have to say I don’t find myself too surprised that anybody doing extreme-long-distance running through insular Croatian towns might arouse the interest of the local constabularies
I don't live in Europe, but just help me out, why call the cops on a guy running down the road, in running gear, even if he's an ethnicity you rarely ever see?
Most of the comments here are missing the mark IMO.
The primary reason why he got so much police harassment is because Croatia is a EU Schengen border country, the patrols here are much stricter than everywhere else, and the associated problems are much worse as well.
I don't think it's entirely due to racism - if you were a border policeman, and you are tasked with bringing in people illegaly entering the country, what would you do seeing a person of color running on back roads near the border of an otherwise extremely ethnically homogenous country?
For every case of someone who entered legally and got harassed, they probably bring in thousands of people which they are supposed to bring in (ie. entered ilegally).
How can it not be entirely due to racism, if race is the only factor determining whether you stop someone who is jogging on the street in jogging clothes and likely athletic supershoes?
Ya know, this is an incredibly interesting question. Because my instinct is to say that, if the patrols duty is simply to analyze anyone who stands out, and they do so in the proper channels without malice or harassment, then that would be the least racist possible scenario in which this occurs, some may say, not racist. But then even if the guard is kind and helpful, is the guideline "people who stand out must be questioned" racist itself? It sounds like yes. But then what justification do they have for that, is it genuinely that the vast majority of illegal crossings come from people who stand out? Or do most of them blend in, or is it just the stand outs that get caught, thus making it appear in data as if they're the problem and intensifying the patrols around them? Like the airplane problem.
Then the hypothetical, what if it were true that the people attempting to harm your society singularly visually differed? Would that be racism, some strange "justified racism" or simply not racism? If you say, we are not prosecuting on race, but on propensity to crime. Well that starts to sound like some things I've heard in my country, which we believe is racist. Interesting questions.
Well, the neighboring country to Croatia is Bosnia and Herzgovina. The ethnicy is similar and some from there also have motivation to enter illegally. Basing on race ignores those.
Also turning it around: Is it right for somebody, like the runner, who legally entered to repeatedly be treated bad just because others who share skin color do bad?
after reading the article i found the links to other articles on the guardian site linked to this: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/oct/10/p... "Croatian police accused of burning asylum seekers’ phones and passports". the problem seems to be more than just never having seen a black person.
To add relevant context Croatia is at the edge of the Schengen zone. On the other side of the border are Serbia and Bosnia with less strict border controls and visa rules, so this is one of the roads for illegal immigrants to reach rich western countries. This and Hungarian borders are what's between them and their goals. Connect that with the fact that Croatia doesn't have non-white minorities, there were probably zero cases before this of black person wondering down the roads who was not an illegal migrant.
Passport are also needed for deportation. I can not see any reason, why police would burn their documents. It creates a lot of extra paperwork and headaches.
Destroying passports is a normal practice for illegal immigrants. It extends their stay in EU by several years. Most countries are considered safe, and it is hard to claim you are from Syria with Egyptian passport.
Rarely... I was 20 years old when I first saw a black person in real life. This was in a center of a big city, and it surprised me so much that I remember exactly where and when it was.
Nowadays times have changed and it's not that rare in my country - at least in big cities. But I imagine a Croatian farmer seeing a black person - running! - and calling the police to investigate what the hell is going on.
For a laugh I used to read the local paper which published a log of police calls, they were along the lines of "A dead racoon was reported on Oxbow Rd. When officers investigated they found it was a hat."
In Spain people call the cops for seemingly everything. I had a bunch of race motorcycles I was unloading at my house and some idiot neighbor called the cops because they thought I was running an illegal repair shop. I had to spend almost an hour proving that my four kids raced semi-professionally. Even had to show them their race licenses before they realized that I was telling the truth. I have found in many places in Europe people have a very hard time minding their own business — especially old ladies. For reference, I’m a white American. So some Croatians calling the cops after seeing a black dude doing a Forest Gump in the middle of nowhere would certainly attract the attention of the local busybodies.
This is schengen area border country, dealing with tons of smuggled immigrants, most of which are coming from Africa. While having from 0 to next to 0 local population of same/similar ethnicities.
First thing to many occur to especially older folks watching news is illegal immigrant running ie from busted police operation, not some epic runner. They definitely dont recognize running sportswear.
Who would you nominate? The US certainly has severe problems with racism, but everything I've ever read about other countries has led me to believe that this isn't actually a totally implausible claim.
> The WVS survey asks respondents from more than 80 countries dozens of questions, including one that asked respondents to identify types of people they would not want as neighbors. The more people of a particular country responded that they would be happy to have a neighbor of a different race, the more racially tolerant the respondents' country would be considered
It depends a lot on which part of the US you look at. Here’s a high school having its first ‘integrated’ (i.e. not racially segregated) prom a mere 11 years ago: https://youtu.be/fDla-r2uj7U?si=Zun-NdDnjnSq0Yk4 The idea of formally separating an event like this by race would have been shocking 11 years ago in many Western countries. The US is ahead of the curve in some ways regarding racism, but it still has incredibly high levels of de facto racial segregation. As a Brit who lived in the US for a while, this was the aspect of US life that surprised me the most. Many white Americans still quite openly regard majority black towns or city districts as no-go areas (even though they don’t openly talk about it in racial terms). You see segregation on a smaller scale too (e.g. the common pattern of the restaurant with all white serving staff and all Latino kitchen workers). I’m aware that this kind of segregation isn’t usually the result of a deliberate evil plot to segregate people, but it’s still notable.
I am not saying that the UK is necessarily ‘less racist’ overall than the US. I think racism manifests itself quite differently in the two countries, so it’s hard to compare.
Thankfully our hero is made of sterner stuff than either you or me:
"On other occasions, however, he almost packed it in. In Uganda, his one-man support crew resigned, leaving him without a support vehicle or help at a time when his funding for the run was almost exhausted. To compound matters, all routes ahead involved either conflict or extreme risk."
maybe he was planning to get more funding along the way (by selling his story for example) or some expected funding fell through. for something like this you don't have to have all funding sorted out the day you start. i mean, it would probably help, but i don't think it's wrong to start and see how far you can get.
This surprised me too. I am from Croatia, and while there is a fair bit of discrimination against anyone that's different in the country, I am very surprised about this magnitude of it. I'm curious about the route he took. Some road types are illegal to run along, and coincidentally the one going from south to north along the coast is illegal to be on for pedestrians to my knowledge. I wouldn't be surprised if any pedestrian was stopped on that road, it's dangerous to run where the speed limit is over 100 km/h.
I was surprised but apparently I was dumb, and people see a black person and think "criminal migrant" all the time and that it's somehow not racist to think that, lol. Very many comments in this thread saying exactly that.
I delt with up to five extortion attempts a day for three years when I drove around Africa. Tons in Honduras too. I NEVER pay, because it makes it worse for those behind me, and now everyone has a cellphone worse for me too - if I pay $20 for them to leave me alone they’ll call the next checkpoint and let them know I’m an easy target.
You get used to it, and believe it or not I started looking forward to the game.
I have to say I don’t find myself too surprised that anybody non-local doing extreme-long-distance running through insular Croatian towns might arouse the interest of the local constabularies—and I imagine the runner being a Ugandan guy would be an especially surprising sight to people in Croatia (91% Croat, 3.2% Serb, officially recognize 22 other ethnic minorities, none of them from Africa) [1]. Which I suppose is the point he was trying to raise.
What an astonishing extreme of human endeavor.
[0] https://archive.is/4T13g [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Croatia#:~:t...