The first discovery
>Two years ago, in his article for the New York Times Umberto Eco wrote that for the population of Europe the discovery of beans was one of the most important ones in the whole millennium. This expert of the Middle Ages explained how before this discovery millions of poverty-stricken European peasants were falling victims of exhausting labour, ailments but also of malnutrition resulting from lack of proteins, or better, meat in their daily diet. Domestic animals were kept just as the means of paying various due to feudal lords. Beans and other leguminous plants (leguminosae) brought over from America to Europe thrived in most part of the European continent and made it possible for the most indigent ones to get some proteins, so necessary to those who are exposed to enormous physical efforts. It also allowed the human lifetime to significantly extend. Umberto Eco refers to some scientific premises according to which the present European populations would be just a half of the actual one if there had not been for this discovery.
In terms of distributive justice, the article by Eco points out the tremendous significance of widespread breeding of this leguminous plant which allowed a more equitable distribution of - survival opportunities. Or, in more dramatic words, he reminded us of how the presence of proteins in the diet can be a question of life and death for millions of people.

The second discovery
Late in the past century, in Croatia, then a part of the Socialist Yugoslavia, at the May Day parties the beans were celebrated in a different way. The state and party leaders used to gather together with union leaders at May Day open air parties and had their free bean meals in company of the “working people”. It was a public manifestation of the proclaimed unity of all classes “regardless of the position they held”. In terms of distributive justice the message political and union leaders used to send out was: that in the socialistic order the social scale differences are conflict free; those on the top always act in the best interest of the whole society.
The tradition of May Day social mingling between party and union leaders and the people, with plain bean meals kept on after the 1990 democratic elections as well, although less enthusiastically than before. Now it was not about the class but about the national unity. It was the national unity to provide social well-being in our own state which, not for long, was to become an equal member of the community of democratic and economically successful countries. That was the path that the state, party, and union leaders and the people should follow side by side.

The third discovery
Year 2002. Due to disagreement with the Government’s social policy and especially with the changes in labour legislation, union chiefs demonstratively canceled the invitation to state and parties’ leadership for the beans party. Except for a celebration program they organized the protest against the Government measures meant to reduce labour rights and social welfare instruments. After decades of representing the symbolic unity between the state, unions and the people in all vital social issues, the beans gained a new symbolic meaning but now, with a different sign - a sign of discord in the most important social issues and became a portent of independent union policy.

New discovery of protein values
Nevertheless, the symbolic “values” of free portions of beans started to shade away before the plant’s substantive protein values. In the past few years the May Day parties have been increasingly frequented by those who are ready to spend hours in long line-ups in order to, at least for one day, improve their meager daily diet. They number in tens of thousands. At the dawn of new millennium the beans are coming back in the most amazing way, for numbers of people this meal emerges again in its most important mission - as deliverance from malnutrition.

Momo Kuzmanoviś