I lived in Croatia for a while in 2006, and they didn’t have Pride parades till 2002. The first parade had more police then participants to protect them .. that’s how bad it was. And it was indeed a protest.

Even acceptance there has grown over the years (you can get a civil Union as a gay or lesbian and finally in 2020 they allowed the first adoption of a child by a gay couple) but it remains a. Very conservative, Catholic country.

In Zagreb now I feel the parade is a nice balance between celebration and civil rights protests.

When I visited the city of Split, I could see the vulgar graffiti to protest their first pride in 2011.

An effigy of a gay couple was burned in a village in Croatia in 2020 because the government allowed the first gay couple be foster parents in the country’s history . Two gay black American servicemen were beaten in Zadar Croatia for twerking in a club.

So in the “non Western world “ (whatever that means) people still are fighting for their lives