A journey through the troubled former Yugoslavia
spiegel.de
spiegel.de
If you're going to comment on a topic like this please do so thoughtfully, substantively, and with respect for those who disagree—assume that there are a lot of them here, and their reasons for holding their views are just as valid, and just as rooted in their background, as yours are.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/the-deep-pathology-a...
https://medium.com/@micheleanderson/der-spiegel-journalist-m...
As someone with ties to the region, I am always slightly confused by these articles because they are mostly an echo of the past. There is not much new here. You can place it at any point in the last 20 years and it would for the most part be valid. There's a lot going on in the world and I understand people don't have the attention span for all the details of the globe, but they don't even need to have. As a German newspaper, Spiegel could take a look at Germany's role, or even the EU's in what happened there. There are interesting topics even today, e.g. what is Gerhard Schröder doing there now and what was his role 20 years ago? As it is now, it's mostly just a stereotypical report that riles people up and kind of ends up amplifying those stereotypes. The article could be about some islands in the Pacific, but that's not true if you are a German newspaper!
The article touches upon some interesting developments related to the EU, e.g. that it's unfortunately not really a solution as it's mostly resulted in people leaving, but it lacks focus in general, and it holds no critical views. Another interesting angle could've been the conflicts that have been brewing internally for decades now that there are clearly separated nation states, and the enemies are for the most part behind clearly defined borders.
And lastly it could take an optimistic view that surely exists if for no other reason than that I'm an optimist, and I'm not alone. Not all people had severed ties completely even during the darkest times, and it's been a long time since. It's time for new perspectives.
As the other commenter said, most of these movements have nothing to do with Eastern and Central European history, so they aren’t received well. E.g. Poland and Hungary had no colonies so anti-colonialism ideology doesn’t make much sense to be there...yet it is being pushed.
While it is true that these opposing countries no doubt each have their own problems with (local/national) corruption and oligarchies, the ideologies that are currently being forced on them are very much the product of corruption and oligarchies on a much larger scale (just better hidden). In fact, none of these ideologies are what they claim to be.
This is all about powers who have essentially hijacked the EU project for their own greedy gains. This ideological criticism in reality just attempts to crush the (relatively amateurishly organized) local competition to their own hegemony. That isn't propaganda. It's an organization who cleverly knows how to abuse the general ignorance of most citizens regarding these countries and abusing it to frame reality into a conveniently useful picture/justification for their attempt to take (even more) control.
As much as there is all kind of things wrong with these opposing countries, of which there indeed is plenty, there is equally nothing good or lofty about what the EU is doing at the moment. As ironic as it might be, the local corruption and oligarchies in these countries may in fact only be child's play compared what has infested the EU.
The main difference probably being the success with which criminal elements within the EU have managed to hide their activities from the general population. Probably not in the least by "outsourcing" a lot of its business to either outside EU, or to local shady endeavors in these countries now criticized, where it's a lot easier to hide how profits are being made.
Of course, countries like Czechia, Hungary, Poland and a few more certainly should do more about their internal corruption. But what most people forget is that the current status quo to a large degree was build up and supported by powerful figures within the EU. Most of that because these corruptions at the fringes of the EU territory just so happened to be very convenient and profitable for the people who "accidentally" let all of this happen on their watch. Mind you, figures like Victor Orban became as powerful as they are now by gaming EU rules, with the full knowledge of those who made and governed those rules!
care to elaborate? Is it about german/france hegonomy? About keeping the eastern countries for cheap labour from western coorporations?
There is lot's to dislike about the EU - would like to hear more details.
It's more about huge capital/business interests that have found their way into political parties in both the EU and most of its member states. While democracy is a great thing if it indeed represents the will of a people, even if divided by philosophical and practical disagreements, when political parties (covertly) become lobbying agencies for large business interests it becomes a very different story.
After the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the collapse of Yugoslavia, plenty of business were immediately involved with the "privatizations" of (formerly) nationalized resources and services. A lot of that was done with the assistance of local collaborators, many of which later became what we now call those local oligarchs and way too powerful politicians. What is currently happening has a lot to do with reigning back in these locals, after becoming a bit too powerful (and greedy), and taking even more than was already originally taken (if not stolen).
A big problem in all this is that shady business deals often stay below the radar of ordinary citizens, even though these same business deals might be of a huge influence of what happens in the (international) political arena.
Just as an example, think about how Royal Dutch Shell managed to score exclusive rights to natural resources in the Ukraine, for I believe as much as a decade. This happened either right before or shortly after the change of power in the country, but certainly before Crimea and the east of the country decided that they did not agree their new masters in Kiev. Now, go and guess where most of those natural resources are located. Looks to me like Shell just lost a lot of potential profit there. But of course the military/policing campaign that followed was all about crushing local terrorism. The key point in all this: I don't remember even a single EU news outlet running any story about Shell and the serious investments it just made (and then saw evaporate) in the Ukraine. This is just an example. There are plenty of other stories where business deals made in the dark end up being "conveniently coincide" with political events involving former Soviet or Yugoslavian countries.
Just like the EU government and media suffering from a case of instant autism regarding the (filmed) police brutalities in Serbia last year, despite many NGO's writing letters to both EU governments and the media alike. Of course it is a coincidence that the EU was just about to conduct talks with the country's president about Kosovo, where foreign industrialist would love to finally get their hands on the trillions (as in literally trillions) worth of natural resources. Something the "independence" war of Kosovo didn't manage to fully achieve, much to the dismay of some very powerful people.
It is said that Kosovo "happened" not long after members of the Albanian mafia made considerable campaign contributions to US lawmakers linked to the Clinton administration. I've seen plenty of Serbs therefore claim that this mafia essentially bought itself their own fiefdom. In reality, they are more like the local useful idiots who get a relatively small reward for their cooperation. The real story is how foreign industrialist (tried to) get their hands on this very important piece of land. For historical reference: Hitler rushed to Kosovo to get exclusive control over it. Back then for the same reason as now: key natural resources. There's some very interesting stuff in the ground there (and not all of it publicly declared, but it can be deduced with some basic knowledge of geology)
These cultures are not comparable, these are not the burning issues in our society and yet they are pushed to the forefront of attention.
Meanwhile we have the most systemically corrupt governments (these guys don't even do the overt things like industry engagement and speeches after their term, our former PM is in jail for straight out taking bribes in a privatisation scandal, mayor of the capital was collecting bribes for standard city functions for 20 years, the only reason this got to public attention was he died before getting re-elected, and this is endemic in all levels of society)
Pushing on social agendas gives ammo to corrupt politicians to spin the story away from the important stuff and fight a strawman.
I love that country so, very nice people and a beautiful landscape!
It wasn't the nationalist version, any state flag is inherently a nationalist symbol, the problem is that the logo is from the NDH, a Nazi puppet state of Croatia, which created the Jasenovac concentration camp.
It might be a mistake, but as a young adult, everyone around me (I live in Croatia) knows what the 'first white square' symbolizes.
More likely, a deliberate choice made by a powerful individual, for which anyone with any actual knowledge or proof knows all to well that it would be suicide to talk about it publicly. Whether that would be literal or figurative suicide, that is debatable. Either way though, while Croatia is part of the EU these days, the way in which things function are still very much similar to some other countries in the region .. where powerful individuals can make arbitrary decisions with absolute impunity.
There are plenty of powerful individuals in Croatia who harbor strong sympathies towards the country's dark fascist history. Plenty of those managed to get away with their role in war profiteering (or worse), during the last wars. Probably more than anything because they happened to be useful and on the side of powerful corrupt people in the USA and EU. Regretfully so, because Croatia is beautiful country and home to some incredibly whole/goodhearted people (very much like in other former Yugoslavian states).
To clarify, I mean the printer as a company, not the device .. and yes, it indeed is as bad as blaming the intern.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_Socialist_Feder...
So, Montenegro is seen as a sleepy buffer state, created and kept by the great powers to keep Serbia (and Russia by proxy) away from the Adriatic and the Mediterranean Sea. It usually tries not to get involved into controversies. During the Yugoslav wars they wanted to stay out, but got ropped in by the Serbs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macedonia_(ancient_kingdom)#/m...
That region is still called Macedon and the modern inhabitants of that region are themselves called Macedonians. As opposed to the slavic macedonians, they do have strong historical, linguistic and ethnic connections to the term. Do you see the problem here?
The serbians have been the ones trying to kill almost every other ethnicity around them. They are the bad guys of the region, yet they tend to claim victimhood the most (from NATO, to Croatians in WW2, to XXX ethnicity...).
Hence Greece was blocking NMKD to join Nato, because of the name and cultural appropriation, Bulgaria is currently blocking the ascenction to EU for similar reasons, and the Albanians there really want to join Albania if they had the chance.
It is kinda of a made up country... but so is Belgium and some others. Lets see how it goes in the long run, but if one day it disolved, where the west part goes to Albania and the Central and East part goes to Bulgaria, it makes perfect sense.
The fun fact, is that there are two villages in Albania that have a large slavic composition, and the borders were drawn in 1912 before the making of the macedonian state.
They all say they speak 'bullgarski' and consider themselves bulgars, and not Macedonian.
I’m Macedonian and I don’t consider myself Bulgarian. I find it funny that others think that is ok to tell other people what they are. Makes no sense.
One of the main reasons we are a failed state is Dayton peace agreement. It awarded war and genocide. Just imagine post WWII Germany, splitted in two parts, one ruled by ex facists, still denying holocaust, the other part ruled by self serving, corrupt, thieves and bastards (can't say they are better than facists, because all of them got into power and got rich during the war)
The whole region will have half of the population (from year 1991), in just a few decades. Young people/families will never return...
Even welcoming Bosnia into EU wouldn't help, that would be just a free pass to relocate for work, and a shot of a decent life (that is not easy to achieve in a foreign country, working jobs locals would not take)
Firefox with uBlock Origin + uMatrix.
I only have ublock origin and a minimum of config changes.
Thankfully nathan_phoenix' archive.is link worked great.