The Manual. Today’s age is marked by two facts: the need for ongoing education and money as the measure of all things. The book was made for the 11th Istanbul Biennial, 2009, as a kind of continuation of the workshop Undergraduate education. The manual was conceived as a string of 14 chapters. Each chapter is devoted to one kind of criminal activity, and they are all divided into 7 parts for easier interiorisation of the knowledge put forward. Almost all the chapters also contain a “Warning” and “Word from an expert”. The introduction is “Behaviour in criminal circles”. At the beginning are chapters that deal with criminal acts with a personal relationship between perp and victim, such as “Cadging” and “Spiritual counselling”. Then come chapters about the classic types of criminality as malign phenomenon in society, mostly involving criminal gangs, such as “Dealing”, “Prostitution”, “Extortion” and “Corruption”. The peak of all in this incrementally conceived sequence is “Politics”.
Naturally, the main recommendation of the book is that you change your spiritual and ethical stance to yourself and society and adopt an approach more appropriate to capitalism, which views everything in the world as a tool for self-advancement. Forget the classic virtues of sincerity, truthfulness, honesty and loyalty, and adopt those that ensure advancement in the new (or perhaps in all) times: ambition, greed, mendacity, hypocrisy.
The reason for writing the book lies in the obvious failure of Croatian education. Carpenters, drivers, engineers, hairdressers, chemists, nurses, waiters, sales persons, teachers, garment workers and all similar schmucks – what kind of outlook do they have? The only ones to have anything to look forward to are computer geeks, and that’s a boring, all-day job. But criminals, from cadgers to politicians? Yachts, Mercedeses, models, champagne, work in a community in which there is no order and that protects its members. With a minimum amount of risk you can give the rein to all your pathologies and share them with your friends and neighbours, indeed, let them suffer your woes.
Not everyone always had the access to the occupations set out above and they were often transmitted, down the bloodline, with all kinds of aristocratic limitations. This manual wants to democratise these skills and knowledge sets and thus get close to the American dream of equal opportunities. Admit that one day it would be nice to see your daughter being president of the European Parliament, your grandson running the Ministry of Construction and Intergalactic Affairs.
All chapters are embellished with the educational drawings of Igor Hofbauer, and the design is by Boris Greiner.
