Bosnia: Politics and Current Events

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  • DraganOfStip
    Senior Member
    • Aug 2011
    • 1253

    Again,provocateurs inflating an issue to the extent of mass hysteria for propaganda purposes.
    The referendum was whether or not a specific date should keep being celebrated as a national holiday in the mostly Sebian-populated entity of the federation.
    This was presented (overblown) in the bosniak-croat entity as the first step towards a referendum for independence of republika Srpska from Bosnia.Like,if Bosnia allows this referendum this would lead to an attempt of separation by the Serbs.
    I believe this is just a "pulse check" by the Russian-American propaganda machinery aimed at the Bosnian citizens.
    Last edited by DraganOfStip; 09-26-2016, 02:38 AM.
    ”A people that elect corrupt politicians, imposters, thieves and traitors are not victims... but accomplices”
    ― George Orwell

    Comment

    • tchaiku
      Member
      • Nov 2016
      • 786

      Yugoslavia wars were a BIG MESS.

      Comment

      • Tomche Makedonche
        Senior Member
        • Oct 2011
        • 1123

        An interesting development...

        In an escalation of the bitter row between the Netherlands and Turkey, Tayyip Recep Erdogan accused the Dutch of responsibility for the massacres of Bosniaks from Srebrenica in 1995.


        Turkish President Erdogan Blames Dutch for Srebrenica

        In an escalation of the bitter row between the Netherlands and Turkey, Tayyip Recep Erdogan accused the Dutch of responsibility for the massacres of Bosniaks from Srebrenica in 1995.

        Turkish president Recep Tayip Erdogan blamed the Dutch for the Srebrenica massacres during a live televised address on Tuesday, causing outrage in the Netherlands.

        “We know the Dutch from the Srebrenica massacre. We know how rotten their character is from their massacre of 8,000 Bosnians there,” Erdogan said in the speech.

        Dutch premier Mark Rutte hit back at Erdogan’s accusation in an interview broadcast by Dutch broadcaster RTL Z on Tuesday afternoon, calling the comments a “disgusting distortion of history”.

        After Bosnian Serb forces overran the eastern Bosnian in July 1995, several hundred Bosniaks sought refuge inside the UN peacekeepers’ base in nearby Potocari, but were handed to the Serbs by Dutch peacekeepers and subsequently killed.

        Serb forces then executed over 7,000 more Bosniak men and boys in massacres that have been defined as genocide by international court rulings.

        Erdogan’s accusation was the latest escalation in a high-level diplomatic spat between Turkey and the Netherlands, which provoked the Turkish premier’s ire at the weekend by banning his foreign minister and family affairs minister from attending rallies in the country.

        The ministers had planned to join rallies attempted to convince Turks living in the Netherlands to vote for the president’s powers to be expanded in a referendum on April 16.

        In response to the ban, Erdogan has suspended high-level relations between the two countries and accused the Dutch of behaving like Nazis.

        In July 2014, the District Court in The Hague ruled that the Dutch peacekeepers had failed to protect the Bosniaks who sought refuge in Potocari, and ordered the Netherlands to pay compensation to hundreds of victims.

        However, in August 2015, a Dutch military appeals court ruled that the commanders of the UN peacekeeping mission in Srebrenica could not be prosecuted.

        Hasan Nuhanovic, a Srebrenica survivor and former translator for the UN peacekeepers, and the family of Rizo Mustafic, who was killed by Serb forces, had appealed against a decision not to charge three former ‘Dutchbat’ peacekeepers with war crimes.
        “There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part, you can’t even passively take part, and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus and you’ve got to make it stop, and you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all” - Mario Savio

        Comment

        • tchaiku
          Member
          • Nov 2016
          • 786

          Rebulika Srpska should give up.

          Comment

          • Soldier of Macedon
            Senior Member
            • Sep 2008
            • 13669

            What do you mean by "give up"?
            In the name of the blood and the sun, the dagger and the gun, Christ protect this soldier, a lion and a Macedonian.

            Comment

            • Tomche Makedonche
              Senior Member
              • Oct 2011
              • 1123

              Fiddling in Sarajevo as Europe Unravels



              Fiddling in Sarajevo as Europe Unravels

              The pointless summit in Sarajevo showed only that Brussels remains in the grip of a dangerous illusion that the Balkans can remain perpetually unstable but peaceful in Europe’s waiting room.

              The recently concluded summit of the Western Balkan Prime Ministers in Sarajevo was a drab affair.

              Despite leaders from the entire region gathering at the table, including EU Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn, the best any of them could muster was vague promissory notes about a future customs union.

              This was not just a missed opportunity - it was reckless endangerment, packaged as boredom.

              Even the usual grandstanding lacked bluster. Serbia’s Aleksander Vucic insisted Kosovo should not be referred to as a state, while the president of Bosnia’s Republika Srpska entity Milorad Dodik, alone and forgotten in East Sarajevo, convened a press conference to explain that, “actually, technically, you know, Bosnia and Herzegovina doesn’t even have a prime minister!”

              For his part, Chairman Denis Zvizdic seemed almost embarrassed when he proclaimed that the premiers had agreed to create 80,000 new jobs across the region, with his party’s leader Bakir Izetbegovic’s promise of 100,000 jobs in Bosnia alone still ringing in his ears.

              Were the region in any shape stable or prosperous such a listless gathering might be excusable. But Macedonia is in the grip of a dangerous constitutional crisis, the standoff between Kosovo and Serbia continues to escalate, Montenegro nervously awaits confirmation of its NATO membership from the US Senate while Bosnia’s government apparatus is completely moribund.

              Nor are the Europeans in much better shape.

              The Brexit vote has accelerated the UK’s drift towards dissolution, German Chancellor’s Angela Merkel’s visit to Washington was a disaster, while the far right across the continent continues to gather strength even as it loses elections.

              None of this received any play at the meeting, as though the whole summit were taking place in a vacuum, as though the fates of Europe and the Balkans were not inextricably tied together, as though we could afford to squander any major meeting at a time like this.

              Of course, Vucic and Zvizdic shared an unconvincing hug to calm the waters after weeks of blood-curdling rhetoric following Bakir Izetbegovic’s cynical, failed attempt to re-open the International Court of Justice’s 2007 genocide case against Serbia.

              Yet it was a gesture at odds with the fact that Vucic nearly had a physical altercation with Kosovo’s Isa Mustafa the night before.

              In the meantime, did anyone think to draft a joint letter on the Macedonian crisis? How about a joint declaration stating that the Balkans are not the playground of great powers after months of international reports about Russian spies running wild from Belgrade to Podgorica? Or perhaps a dignified, joint request that foreign leaders like Turkish President Erdoğan stop invoking the Srebrenica genocide and similar massacres for their partisan purposes?

              None of this happened. Instead, they convened a meeting apparently for the sake of convening another meeting. Meanwhile, in sharp contrast to the ennui of local leaders, the Western media is still in fits over the prospect of another war breaking out in the Balkans.

              Even Balkan Insight has joined the fray, publishing an article on Macedonia’s government paralysis by Timothy Less who only weeks earlier called for the country (and the region) to be partitioned. Such ignorance on the one hand and overreaction on the other are a terrible combination for everyone involved.

              As frustrating as the fly-over tendencies of the media may be, they are merely symptoms. The disease is the complete lack of leadership and accountability in the Western Balkans, exacerbated by the directionless approach of EU policy in the region.

              Of course, we should all know by now that local elites would as soon join Russia’s EAEU as the EU if only it would guarantee their own political survival. What remains unclear is what future, if any, the EU sees for itself in these processes.

              For every impassioned speech by MEP David McAllister on the need for the EU’s serious, sober re-engagement in the Western Balkans for instance, there are a dozen vacuous press conferences by High Representative Federica Mogherini or equally shallow press releases by Commissioner Hahn.

              It is hard not to conclude, as did Dejan Anastasijevic recently, that the EU “[doesn’t] really want us to join.” Mind you, while that may indeed be the case, it still does not answer the question of what comes after; after the EU, after NATO, after there has ceased to be even the fig leaf of a Western program for the Western Balkans.

              If we were generous, we might say that both the EU and local leaders lack “vision” for the region. The reality is worse though. Brussels remains in the grips of a dangerous illusion that the Balkans can remain perpetually unstable but peaceful, perpetually in Europe’s waiting room as all around us the world order unravels.

              In this respect, at least, local elites have been transparent. Vucic could scarcely contain his disgust with the pointlessness of the summit in Sarajevo while Dragan Covic, the Croat member of Bosnia’s state presidency, opted instead to attend a nationalist rally masquerading as an academic conference in Neum rather than meet the dignitaries assembling in the capital.

              Elites in the Balkans are making contingency plans, re-investing in chauvinism and irredentism, just in case European rhetoric never again lives up to European will.

              Intelligent, passionate, pro-European analysts, activists, and academics have been pleading with Brussels for years to shift gears in the Balkans. Since the Brexit referendum and Donald Trump’s election, many of us have grown almost hoarse from making constant appeals.

              Alas, the good ship Europe remains on course, as the crew rearranges deck chairs, the band fiddles away into the night, and the icebergs come into view on the horizon.

              Dr Jasmin Mujanovic is a political scientist specializing in the politics of southeastern Europe and the politics of post-authoritarian and post-conflict democratization. His first book, “Hunger and Fury: The Crisis of Democracy in the Balkans” is now available for pre-order from Hurst Publishers.
              “There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part, you can’t even passively take part, and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus and you’ve got to make it stop, and you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all” - Mario Savio

              Comment

              • Tomche Makedonche
                Senior Member
                • Oct 2011
                • 1123

                Stagnant Bosnia Awaits its “Macedonian Moment”



                Stagnant Bosnia Awaits its “Macedonian Moment”

                Events in Macedonia have shown that genuine change remains possible in this region – but only if ordinary citizens are prepared to lead the way

                Macedonia’s recent change of government is arguably the most positive development in the Western Balkans in the past half-decade.

                Montenegro’s simultaneous entry into NATO is likewise encouraging - but Podgorica remains problematically dominated by Milo Djukanovic and his proxies.

                By contrast, events in Macedonia have shown that genuine change remains possible in this region and that, above all, civil society is responsible for creating new democratic facts on the ground.

                Accordingly, a great deal of Macedonia’s future success will depend on the architects of the “Colorful Revolution” movement keeping the Social Democrat-led government in Skopje committed to its so far promising agenda.

                After all, ousting the corrupt and authoritarian government of Nikola Gruevski was only a pre-condition for change. The actual project awaiting completion is to restore Macedonia to the path of Euro-Atlantic integration and, more importantly, democratisation.

                But before we bathe ourselves in the intoxicating nectar of hope, we need to reflect on Macedonia’s past two years as a warning to the region as a whole.

                Recall, it was only after months of protest, international pressure, especially from the US Deputy Assistant Secretary Hoyt Yee, and after violent attacks by VMRO-DPMNE supporters on the opposition in parliament, that VMRO-DPMNE leader Gruevski and President Gjorge Ivanov finally, begrudgingly, accepted that they had lost their right to govern.

                In the intervening period, however, they demonstrated a terrifying willingness to bring Macedonia to the edge of virtual civil war in order to preserve their regime.

                No one in Brussels or Washington should therefore feel this whole situation went well. Had the Social Democrat’s leader Zoran Zaev or Radmila Sekerinska been killed by one of the VRMO-DPMNE goons who stormed the parliament we would not now have the luxury of debating the timeline for Macedonia’s accession to NATO and the EU.

                Despite stilted lectures by Commissioner Johannes Hahn, Macedonia just survived a near-miss by the skin of the country’s collective teeth. Others might not be so lucky.

                Nowhere is this more obviously and urgently the case than in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 2014, the short-lived but dramatic “Bosnian Spring” protests exposed a fundamental cleavage between mainstream nationalist politics and the actual divide in Bosnian society - namely, between the criminal-political nexus of the SDA-HDZ-SNSD triumvirate and the marginalised and impoverished citizenry.

                The rage and disillusion from which those fiery scenes in Tuzla, Sarajevo, and Mostar were born have not dissipated, even if the protests have momentarily disappeared.

                But it is in Bosnia’s Serb-dominated entity, Republika Srpska, that the situation is most acute.

                Largely unaffected by the protests in 2014, relations between the ruling Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) and the opposition bloc led by the Serb Democratic Party (SDS) have since frayed so far that the two sides increasingly flirt with physical altercations in the entity assembly.

                The respective party leaders have sued and counter-sued each other, organised rival rallies in Banja Luka, and routinely accuse their counterparts of everything from petty corruption to treason.

                Above all, President Milorad Dodik has responded to his government’s growing unpopularity by stoking nationalist tensions and redoubling his intransigence.

                Yet while the SNSD-controlled media celebrate his commitments to and defence of the “statehood” of the Republika Srpska, his attacks on the returnee communities in the entity, and his desperate attempts to increase the Russian presence in Bosnia (in order to prop up the entity’s failing economy), Dodik remains, in reality, an avatar only of his own personal interests.

                After more than a decade in power, Dodik fears losing his position not only because it will mean the loss of his sprawling patrimonial networks but because, like Gruevski, he fears legal repercussions for his time at the helm.

                Because of this, again like Gruevski, Dodik will not be removed easily from the presidential palace, even if his party loses the 2018 elections.

                Short of a landslide win by the opposition, the SNSD will find the votes to stay in power. They did as much in 2014, when the party explicitly bought the support of two opposition MPs to ensure their parliamentary majority; a fact that caused great scandal in the Bosnian press but no change in direction from the Dodik government.

                The question thus becomes how much longer the opposition and civil society in the entity are willing to tolerate being strong-armed by Dodik and his apparatchiks? If the 2018 election is as close as it promises to be, will anti-SNSD actors have the wherewithal to create a movement like their peers in Macedonia?

                Will civil society and the opposition follow the lead of Macedonian activists and leaders in presenting a multi-ethnic, united front against the regime? Or will they, as in the past, attempt to “out-Serb” Dodik and almost certainly fail in the process?

                Perhaps the biggest question concerns the international community’s reaction to any such “Macedonian scenario” in Banja Luka.

                The sudden (re)appearance of op-eds attempting to rehabilitate the region's nationalist-authoritarian elites as unavoidable evils in the eyes of Western policymakers in the wake of Donald Trump’s election and the Brexit referendum, for instance, are cause for concern.

                As the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) documented in Macedonia, illiberal governments in the Balkans are spending millions to lobby Western lawmakers to turn a blind eye to their authoritarian agendas. Dodik has spent nearly 30 million dollars in the US to that end.

                As a result of both lobbying and general incompetence, the EU has a long, shameful track record of tolerating Dodik’s adventurism, most recently with its non-reaction to the September 2016 “holiday referendum,” which Bosnia’s Constitutional Court, and both the EU and US, had deemed unconstitutional. Importantly, Barack Obama’s administration did not follow this course. Thus, as in Macedonia, American leadership will again be indispensable in Bosnia.

                But, given the current climate in Washington, the US role is very much in doubt – even if the professional diplomatic corps at the State Department have largely insulated themselves from the broader Trump-era mayhem.

                Yet, ultimately, the international community can only have a supporting role in all of this. The onus is on local leaders and activists to make democratic changes in the Republika Srpska and in Bosnia as a whole.

                Indeed, across the Balkans, confronting and ousting entrenched strongmen will require more than measured communiqués and roundtable discussions.

                It will require mobilisation and organisation, social movements and protest, and courageous leaders in the streets and in the parliament. It will require a genuine commitment to politics, not mere technocracy and punditry.

                What Macedonia has done is throw into sharp relief the options available to the policymakers and citizens in the Western Balkans.

                We can either allow the Gruevski and Dodik types to turn our already fragile democracies into full-blown authoritarian regimes or we can resist and together chart a new, hopeful course.

                The latter route will not be without turbulence and danger. But, as the Macedonians have shown us, the reward - a genuine crack at democracy - is more than worth the risk.

                Dr Jasmin Mujanović is a political scientist specialising in the politics of southeastern Europe and the politics of post-authoritarian and post-conflict democratisation. His first book, “Hunger and Fury: The Crisis of Democracy in the Balkans” is now available for pre-order from Hurst Publishers.
                “There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part, you can’t even passively take part, and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus and you’ve got to make it stop, and you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all” - Mario Savio

                Comment

                • Risto the Great
                  Senior Member
                  • Sep 2008
                  • 15658

                  OMG, Macedonia is a feel good story now. Kill me please
                  Risto the Great
                  MACEDONIA:ANHEDONIA
                  "Holding my breath for the revolution."

                  Hey, I wrote a bestseller. Check it out: www.ren-shen.com

                  Comment

                  • Skolovranec
                    Junior Member
                    • Mar 2017
                    • 52

                    Originally posted by Tomche Makedonche View Post
                    Events in Macedonia have shown that genuine change remains possible in this region – but only if ordinary citizens are prepared to lead the way

                    By contrast, events in Macedonia have shown that genuine change remains possible in this region and that, above all, civil society is responsible for creating new democratic facts on the ground.
                    These portions of the article make one have difficulty reading without bursting into laughter.

                    civil society is not what was responsible for the change, but I expect nothing less of Balkan Insight, a media slut to one of Soros' proxies.
                    Anti-EU Pro-Guns National-Libertarian Trekkie Minarchist
                    Anti-NATO Pro-United MK Agnostic Secularist Magick Occultist
                    Anti-UN Pro-Military Meritocratic Integrationist Altruistic Socio-Darwinist
                    Anti-Globalist Pro-Choice Intellectual Pirate Spiritual Vagabond

                    Comment

                    • Soldier of Macedon
                      Senior Member
                      • Sep 2008
                      • 13669

                      Looks like the Bosniaks who recently betrayed Macedonia have inspired their kinsmen in Bosnia. A new fad this renaming thing, perhaps someday Albania and Montenegro will change their Latin names, Kosovo will change its Serbian name, Serbia will change its supposed Iranian name, Bulgaria will change its supposed Turkic name, and dumbasses will roam and reign in the Balkans for eternity.

                      Bosnia's inernational overseer, the Office of the High Representative, OHR, has slated a Bosniak move to dispute the name of Bosnia's Republika Srpska entity as 'irresponsible'.

                      Bosnia's OHR Condemns Push to Rename Republika Srpska

                      24 JAN 19

                      The OHR, the international institution overseeing peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, on Thursday condemned an initiative by the leading Bosniak party, the Party of Democratic Action, SDA, to challenge the name of the country's mainly Serbian entity, Republika Srpska. The SDA has said it wants the country's top court to rule on whether the name of entity was discriminatory against non-Serbs.

                      “The announcement of an initiative to challenge the name of Republika Srpska in front of the Constitutional Court of BiH in the midst of discussions on government formation is irresponsible and counterproductive, and further undermines the trust between constituent peoples and their political representatives,” the OHR said in a statement. Commenting on the initiative, High Representative Valentin Inzko recalled that the constitution of Bosnia recognises that the country consists of two entities, called the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Republika Srpska. Zeljko Komsic, Croat member of Bosnian presidency, told N1 television on Thursday that he suspected the row was designed to benefit the SDA and the main Serbian party, the Alliance of Independent Democrats, SNSD. “All this seems to me as an agreement between SNSD and SDA. Both draw benefit from such a situation,” he said. “The SDA, to put on extra pressure to be part of the new government. And the SNSD benefits because it 'kills' the little remaining opposition in RS, and completely 'kills' the NATO story in Bosnia,” he added. Bosnian Serb political leaders at a meeting in Banja Luka, the administrative centre of the RS, issued a joint statement that said: “The initiative is anti-Serbian and anti-constitutional, and a direct strike at the integrity and sovereignty of Bosnia and Herzegovina”. “If this appeal is accepted by the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, we will consider this a flagrant violation of the [1995] Dayton Peace Agreement and we will call for a session of the RS National Assembly to decide on the future status of Republika Srpska,” Milorad Dodik, the Serbian member of the Bosnian presidency said. But the SDA has not backed down entirely. In Sarajevo, SDA leader Bakir Izetbegovic told an extraordinary press conference that Republika Srpska was not only a Serbian but a Bosniak and Croatian entity, as well as the entity of all other citizens living there. “It is not the intention of the SDA to abolish the name of the RS. We will [only] ask that Bosniaks and Croats be included in everything, including in the name of the RS,” Izetbegovic said. He said that they would give RS six months to change its attitude toward the state of Bosnia and that the SDA was then ready to change its appeal decision. The initiative comes at a time when Bosnia is confronted with great difficulties in forming a new government both at the entity and state level, and when views on future membership of NATO are also bitterly different.
                      In the name of the blood and the sun, the dagger and the gun, Christ protect this soldier, a lion and a Macedonian.

                      Comment

                      • Carlin
                        Senior Member
                        • Dec 2011
                        • 3332

                        Originally posted by tchaiku View Post
                        Yugoslavia wars were a BIG MESS.
                        Dubravka Stojanović 29/11/2018

                        Yugoslav wars – A snapshot of European past or future?

                        URL:
                        Were the Yugoslav wars the final European wars of the twentieth century, or should they be understood and studied as the first wars of the twenty-first century?


                        Were the Yugoslav wars the final European wars of the twentieth century, or should they be understood and studied as the first wars of the twenty-first century? Historians love these games and debates about chronology, and especially question whether a specific century is longer or shorter than the nominal 100 years. Historians also enjoy searching for evidence that would show whether a historical phenomenon belongs to one or another period, and whether it marks an end or a beginning. To locate examples of such tendencies of historians, one would only have to recall the countless debates about the nineteenth century or the discussions about the century to which the First World War belonged.

                        However, these debates, apart from being appealing to the general public, are also important for our understanding of the processes and the crystallization of fundamental features of a certain period. Such debates are also ultimately important for our understanding of the present because it is with the present in mind that we evaluate a historical period and thereby mark out the processes and determine when one thing ended and another began. It is this last point that makes it worthwhile to re-examine the Yugoslav wars. When concluding our consideration of these questions, regardless of the point in time that we select as the beginning or the end of an era, this chosen moment in time becomes a juncture of European history and one of its possible periodizations.

                        I said that it is important to return to this question now. This is because many occurrences in today’s Europe both hark back to and promote the very ideas that had triggered the bloody Yugoslav wars. The EU crisis, Brexit and the division between the “old” and “new”, the “Eastern” and the “Western”, the “North” and the “South” – these are reviving the arguments that in the 1980s foreshadowed Yugoslavia’s unhappy demise. Therefore, today’s analyses of these arguments are important not only for the study of European history of the twentieth century, but of the twenty-first century as well.

                        In Yugoslavia in the early 1980s, we began to hear that our nation was better than the neighbouring ones, that our country was older, our alphabet more perfect, our history more heroic, our victims greater, and our footballers the best. At first, we found these sentiments funny. In time, it became embarrassing, and, finally, dangerous. Then the war started. These sentiments might sound trite, but all the studies now show that the arguments that were used to break up Yugoslavia were not much deeper or more complex than those listed above.

                        Departure from ideals of the twentieth century

                        This is why I have been finding it difficult to listen to everything that has been discussed by the united Europe in these recent years. The arguments employed for Brexit or those in the American elections painfully resemble those in Yugoslavia of the 1980s. From “We want our country back” to “Let’s make America great again”, to everything that was said in the Dutch or French elections, the pronouncements in Budapest, Warsaw, Prague and Barcelona – all of these reflect a departure from the great ideals of the second-half of the twentieth century: the ideals of integration, open borders and an open society; the welfare state; the protection of minorities; the right to diversity, and so on. Is the abandonment of those ideals only relapses and anti-modernizing reactions to the rapid changes in our globalized world? Has the pendulum of European history only temporarily swung away from integration, co-operation, solidarity and unity? Does this mean that the concepts of reconciliation are outdated and that peace is no longer a priority?

                        The Yugoslav wars appeared to be “ancient” wars for territory, built on old and ostensibly spent arguments and fake news. Many of us were embarrassed back then, ashamed that our country was waging a backward war for new borders at a time when Europe was uniting. We felt defeated that after all the European and Yugoslav experiences in the twentieth century, we were once again seeing occurrences of ethnic cleansing, torture, rape and genocide. We accused our elites of being retrograde, and our societies of being backward and anti-European. We used to say that fake arguments such as these would only be accepted “only here”, “only in the Balkans”…

                        We thought that the wars of the 1990s proved that “we” had failed to overcome the vicious circle of ethnic hatred, beliefs in the superiority of one’s own nation, as well as the idea that there was a “final solution” for “the other” or “others”. As historians, we analyzed how it had been possible, in such a short time, to upend the previous model of the collective Yugoslav memory, one that had been constructed for decades and that was founded both on “brotherhood and unity” and on reconciliation after the Second World War. We asked how it was possible that historical “oblivion” had been able to transpire so quickly and with so little resistance, to run into the narrow national, ethnocentric, paranoid memory models that were focused on threats to the nation and the need for revenge against all those who had “stabbed us in the back when push came to shove”.

                        For historians, it was as if they had been witnessing an experiment, watching a “live” broadcast of the changing of the memory model, and seeing how quickly the collective historical consciousness could be altered, and how little it took for such change to be effected… We could almost feel the ideas moving from the “heights” of academic and intellectual institutions, to the media, to local authorities and to “ordinary people” who were to become combatants. The responsibility of historians for the production of these wars was immense, because the Yugoslav wars were largely built on forgery, the abuse of history, the emphasis of differences and conflicts, as well as on “forgetting” what we had in common.

                        We were almost able to track how ideas could be disseminated, how society would receive, adapt and change such ideas accordingly. We also saw the transfers that we had learned in school by analyzing European history, especially the history of the 1930s. We were able to test theories about the elites and the masses, as well as theories about the impulses of individuals and the society as a whole. We wondered if it was possible, after the experience of the Holocaust and all that had happened in Yugoslavia in the Second World War, for everything to be repeated. Might it really be true that people do not learn anything from history? Inevitably, the question is raised: What good is the knowledge that we collect, analyze and interpret? Once again, this put the role of our scholarship, its function in society, as well as its responsibility, under scrutiny.

                        The dark side of history

                        We wondered, if all of these could happen in Yugoslavia – a country grounded in an anti-fascist narrative, and where there was no doubt about who was or was not a collaborator, what would happen if such ideas appeared in societies where fascism was not clearly rejected and the limits not clearly set out. And how was it possible that many “warriors” in the Yugoslav wars had put on the uniforms of precisely those armies that had been defeated in the Second World War? Many historians argued that the Second War had merely been resumed, or had even reappeared. There were debates on whether the ideology on which they were based was fascism or something new. Have we returned to that dark part of history, or have we never come out of it?

                        There was also a very unpleasant, but also very European question: Is it possible that the ideas that had led to the war could have been kept restrained or at least dormant only under a totalitarian regime? Does one kind of totalitarianism prevent another kind of totalitarianism? In other words, is a totalitarian state that does not engage in ethnic massacres better than another that does not? Are there better and worse kinds of totalitarianism, or are they all the same, as claimed in the European Parliament’s Resolution? Ever since I began to hear stories about politics and to learn about Yugoslav history, it has been said that as soon as the one-party monopoly is abolished and a multi-party system emerges, national and nationalist parties would triumph. This would in turn mean the end of Yugoslavia and the beginning of the war. I could not accept these arguments, because they would mean that democracy in a multinational federation was not possible, and that Yugoslavia and democracy would not be incompatible. And again I was wrong, because it was kind of what eventually happened.

                        The belief that socialism was better than what we managed to create post-socialism was also shared by the famous 1990s Belgrade graffiti artist, who wrote: “Come back, Comrade Tito. Everything is forgiven.” This graffiti implied that for many people, because of the Yugoslav carnage of the 1990s, the memory of communism became a memory of a “golden age”. For many, especially the young, it is still the case to this day. I was thinking about this intensely after the Arab Spring wars erupted in many countries that had hoped for democracy. Once again, the question was raised about the possibility of the transition of power and democratic capacities. Today’s tendencies in some former Eastern European countries are again bringing up these same issues, and it looks as if they would only have to overthrow the imposed anti-democratic regime in order to return to what they had before. But what exactly was there before? The answer to this question requires a serious re-examination of European history.

                        This is why I opened this article with those questions. The chief question is this: In today’s Europe, does the re-emergence of arguments from pre-war Yugoslavia mean that the Yugoslav wars marked not an ugly, regressive end of the twentieth century, but the beginning of the twenty-first? Returning to the games of chronology mentioned from earlier, we can justifiably argue that the Yugoslav century lasted from 1918 to 1991, or for as long as the country existed. This is not, however, because the formation and dissolution of this or any other country is a good framework for historical periodization, but because Yugoslavia was understood as a symbol. In 1918, it symbolized the victory of new ideas about people’s self-determination and the demise of the great European empires. In the Second World War, it was a symbol of partisan, anti-fascist resistance and victory. In the Cold War, it was a symbol of the “third way”, an attempt to build a different kind of socialism and non-alignment. It gave hope that the European nations’ integration could be a project of reconciliation and that a multinational federation could be a solution to earlier conflicts and bring peace to those involved. It also supported the belief that a multi-confessional community could indeed be functional, and that disagreements between the developed north and the less-developed south not only could be resolved, but that they could even be motivating for both sides. Furthermore, those who move more quickly and those who are slower could find a middle ground and move in unison. These were Yugoslav attitudes in the twentieth century.

                        And then, at the time of the economic and political crises of the 1980s, first there appeared doubts, followed by arguments – which European historians and theorists believed were unproductive – that nationalism was historically outdated, and that the arguments that called for disintegration, secessionism, favouring the national over development were impossible on the eve of the twenty-first century. Because of the Yugoslav wars, some of the greatest names in the field of social sciences returned to the subject of nations and nationalism, with the basic question of whether this was an old or a new phenomenon.

                        An interesting historiographical question also arose: Was Serbia, which carried the greatest responsibility for these wars, some sort of precedent in European history, that is, an incident of sorts? And consequently, was Yugoslavia a special case? Some found it easier to believe that the answer to both questions is affirmative, and that a special historical road led this country – formed twice in the world wars – to break up for the second time. They liked to believe that Yugoslavia was entirely unique because it would then follow that this cannot happen anywhere else. This analysis provided a historical interpretation and some consolation, a hope that these kinds of ideas would no longer occur to those countries that are more developed, more literate, more urbanized, more modern, more democratic, and so on. Therefore, paradoxically, we found the thought consoling. It carried some historical optimism, a progressive faith in improvement – an improvement that would make the return to the arguments that sparked the Yugoslav wars impossible.

                        This begs the question: What can we conclude about history in general, and European history in particular, from the fact that lately those tired arguments were not only heard in the most developed countries of the world, but that they also triumphed in societies that we consider to be the most developed, which reached the highest rates of urbanization, literacy, living standards, education, democracy? How did the fake arguments of Brexit manage to captivate a majority of the voters? How is Trump’s reign even possible? Does this prove that the Yugoslav wars marked the beginning of a new era, that they were the vanguard of a new world, not the relic of the old? Are Brexit and Trump signs that we should redefine old socio-political theories? And by the same token, should we redefine our view of contemporary European history?

                        Journal of Modern European History, Minchen, vol. 16, 2018-2, pp.153-158.

                        Translated by Ivica Pavlovic

                        Peščanik.net, 29.11.2018.

                        Comment

                        • Carlin
                          Senior Member
                          • Dec 2011
                          • 3332

                          In nearby Bosnia Serb Leader Dodik Reiterates Call For Secession

                          Lawmakers in Bosnia-Herzegovina’s Bosnian Serb entity have gathered for an extraordinary session to discuss a response to a ruling by the country’s Constitutional Court opposed by the Serbs.


                          BANJA LUKA, Bosnia-Herzegovina – Lawmakers in Bosnia-Herzegovina’s Bosnian Serb entity have gathered for an extraordinary session to discuss a response to a ruling by the country’s Constitutional Court opposed by the Serbs.

                          Tensions have flared in the divided Balkan country since the Bosnian Constitutional Court earlier this month rejected a regulation passed in Republika Srpska on farmland that used to belong to the Yugoslav state as unconstitutional.

                          The law, adopted late last year, declared such land as property of Republika Srpska, but the court ruled that the state of Bosnia was the owner.

                          Addressing Republika Srpska’s legislature in Banja Luka on February 17, Milorad Dodik, the Serb member of Bosnia’s multi-ethnic presidency, said: “Goodbye [Bosnia], welcome [Republika Srpska] exit.”

                          Dodik has repeatedly called for a referendum on the status of the Serb-led entity, saying Bosnian Serbs had a right to decide their own future.

                          Last week, the United States and the EU office in Sarajevo joined Britain, Germany, France, and Italy in saying that “unilateral withdrawal from institutions, or blockages of decision-making within them, are unacceptable and counter-productive.”

                          The decisions of the Constitutional Court are “final and binding, and must be implemented,” they said in a joint statement.

                          Bosnia remains deeply divided along ethnic lines. The country emerged from a 1992-95 war as two autonomous regions -- the Bosniak-Croat Federation and Republika Srpska -- united under a weak central government.

                          Comment

                          • Gocka
                            Senior Member
                            • Dec 2012
                            • 2306

                            If I'm being honest I couldn't give a flying fuck about the Serbs. Serves them right as far as I'm concerned.


                            Originally posted by Carlin15 View Post

                            Last week, the United States and the EU office in Sarajevo joined Britain, Germany, France, and Italy in saying that “unilateral withdrawal from institutions, or blockages of decision-making within them, are unacceptable and counter-productive.”

                            Having said that I sympathize with them when I read or hear these kinds of statements. Kosovo anyone?

                            So the Serbs in Bosnia have to live with the Bosnians and Croats but the Albanians in Serbia couldn't live with the Serbs and support the "institutions". Will the Albanians in Macedonia be encouraged to not take unilateral actions?

                            Comment

                            • Soldier of Macedon
                              Senior Member
                              • Sep 2008
                              • 13669

                              Originally posted by Gocka View Post
                              If I'm being honest I couldn't give a flying fuck about the Serbs. Serves them right as far as I'm concerned.......Having said that I sympathize with them when I read or hear these kinds of statements. Kosovo anyone?
                              I thought the same when I read it. Ultimately, they're all hypocrites. The West arbitrarily imposes its own set of rules when it suits them, whereas the Serbs push for ethnic self-determination outside of Serbia and whinge when others do the same inside of Serbia. Kosovo could have been retained if they were more sensible and consistent, but clearly such concepts are absent from the minds of most politicians in the Balkans.
                              In the name of the blood and the sun, the dagger and the gun, Christ protect this soldier, a lion and a Macedonian.

                              Comment

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