“Making a difference does not have to be super hero stuff”

A diplomat’s life is a perpetual journey of permanent discovery. It requires the suppleness to engross incessant measures of information, study and learn peoples and places; only to move on to learn a different people, new places.
The more apt you are at this ‘art’, the greater are your chances of “making a difference” in people’s lives. This is how Tomislav Bosnjak, ambassador of Croatia to Qatar, believes a diplomat’s career ought to be.
These are not mere words. Talk to him and you would know he utters each one of them in earnest, and from experience.
“Badakhshan province, Northeastern Afghanistan, 46,000 square kilometres, less than 200,000 population, the average elevation above the sea level well beyond 2000 metres, very rugged and difficult terrain. At the time I was posted there, there was not an inch of paved road in the entire province,” Bosnjak says reminiscing about his posting as first acting civilian leader in the Badakhshan provincial reconstruction team in Afghanistan.
Although for one year only, this posting in Afghanistan proved to be one of the highlights of his quarter century diplomatic career, and counting. He feels he did make a difference that gave him a sense of achievement.
“Making a difference does not have to be super hero stuff; saving the whole of world, etc. It has to be in that one area that you are responsible for,” Bosnjak tells Community in an interview at his official address in Dafna.
A keen observer with an immaculate memory and a sense of purpose, Bosnjak reveals how he, towards the end of his term there, underscored the need for trained nurses in some districts of Badakhshan. The shortage of such trained nurses was one of the causes of high mortality rate among infants and mothers during labour.
Conversant with local Afghan customs and culture, he involved his country’s government in building a nurses’ training school in Badakhshan itself, instead of taking female nurses to Croatia for training.
“Husbands in Afghanistan would not have allowed those nurses trained in Croatia to attend to their wives. So we decided we will build a school in Afghanistan and train them on location. That is what we did and the project is running,” says the Croatian ambassador. This he considers as one of his stand out achievements.
With his experience of the democratic world, he also helped his country set up a new political, economic and administrative system soon after independence in early 1990s. He started working with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the end of 1991 even before Croatia got international recognition.
His first diplomatic posting was to Toronto, Canada, followed by Tehran, Iran, as Croatia’s second ambassador. Bosnjak has also been posted to Tel Aviv, Tripoli, Libya and Afghanistan. In between, he headed the desks for political and economic bilateral relations for all the non-European countries at his ministry.
Unlike many other diplomats, this was an unusually high number of postings. Croatia was a relatively young country, so they had to do things in an intense way and in shorter intervals, Bosnjak explains.
He arrived in Qatar in 2012 when Croatia established its embassy here. He was not new to Qatar though. Bosnjak had seen Doha in 1987, 1997 and 2011. And he feels Qatar has witnessed a “spectacular growth” in the last 10 years.
Quoting references from the country’s history, the ambassador says Qatar’s ruling elite has always taken the right decisions at the right time to put the country on the path to development and growth.
He has been living here with his wife and the youngest children for the past four years; however, Bosnjak concedes a diplomat’s life does take a toll from the constant travel that is attached with the job.
“We are nomads — the Bedouins of public service, there is no doubt about it,” Bosnjak, attired in a crisp grey suite, says smiling. “It is all fine for the person doing it but the spouses and children need stability. When your children have to change schools every three or four years, it gets a little difficult,” he elaborates.
“So you try to compensate, and you try to dislodge the children from their familiar environment as little as possible but unfortunately there is a price to be paid. Some families cope with it better than others,” says the ambassador, adding he was fortunate to be blessed with a family that, at least part of it, could follow him to places.
Four of his six children have been in Australia for some time. Before Croatia was an independent state, a large number of Croats were refugees around the globe.
Every third living Croat became a displaced person or refugee and Bosnjak’s family suffered the same fate, he says. A part of his family stayed back in Australia while others moved to Croatia after independence.
His youngest daughter, 11, is studying here in Doha, while his youngest son joined his elder four children in Melbourne, Australia to finish his secondary education.
There are about 500 Croats living in Qatar, working as professionals and tradesmen, and Bosnjak regularly interacts with them through community gatherings and events. Croatian community is relatively new but developing.
Qatar and Croatia are collaborating in the fields of sports, particularly handball and football; security and defence, building and construction sectors and others.
Qatar’s under-19 football team was in Croatia recently while Croatia is undertaking multiple football related projects in Qatar.
“The two countries enjoy warm bilateral relations. We recently established a Croatian Businessmen Association here and in Croatia, there are moves to set up a friendship society. We have recommended to the Shura (parliament) here for a friendship group between the Shura and the Croatian parliament,” says the Croatian ambassador.
“Croatia is a big tourist country. We are a population of just over 4 million and we attract almost 14 million visitors per year. We get three times our population in visitors. The number of visitors from Qatar to Croatia has been rising,” he goes on to add.
Last year, there were about 2,000; however, these numbers are not exact as the people holding Schengen visa do not require visas for Croatia. So there could be more.
From wellness spas and medical treatments of international standards to clean naturally grown organic food, Croatia offers a lot besides its unique cultural heritage sites, natural parks and scenic towns and cities.
“People who go there and come back, they usually accuse me of not telling them enough in advance. They say why did you not tell us? And I say I did. But it is always a pleasure to listen to those remonstrations,” he laughs.     
Croatia, he says, is a hunter’s paradise. People there hunt with falcons and eagles. You can hunt for a number of games in different seasons for different trophies. Small in size, Croatia is rich in tourism offerings.