Will the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia continue?

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by VetLegion
Look, if you don't want to believe me that Serb, Croat and other identities were always far stronger than the Yugoslavian identity for the vast majority of people, trust the numbers.

What numbers? The ones from 1991, which don't prove anything?

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by VetLegion
There is an analogy between the Yugoslavian and the European identities. Both are supranational. Also, even after 50 years of EU I doubt that many people will think of themselves as European first and (insert nation) second.

Indeed. Only about 10% do.

[MarkG]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
All the names ending in 'ski' give it away! Why don't you invade and take it back? Or just split it with the Greater Albania crowd. Greece, erm, FOPOG, will be eternally grateful!

probably not, major greek companies have bought too much stuff (telecommunications, banks, etc) in skopje and prefer steadiness

[Gangerolf]

I thought the national identitiy construction started in the 19th century (e.g. national romanticism, romantic nationalism, whatsitcalled).

[VetLegion]

Originally posted by Cyclotron


What numbers? The ones from 1991, which don't prove anything?

What can you provide to back your ridiculous claims? Numbers, sources, facts? I've seen none so far. You've constructed a theory without any basis in reality.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by VetLegion

But I disagree that Yugoslavia was broken from outside. Firstly, it wasn't really all that important. Though better off than practically any other communist country, its economy was a dwarf compared to capitalist European economies
...
The primary reasons why Yugoslavia dissolved were internal. But it is nothing unusual. If you think about it, multhiethnic countries are the exception in the world, not the rule. It is because they are not as stable as nation-states with a dominant majority.

This is a fair point, and I accept that internal forces were putting the republics on a course of ultimate secession anyway, but I would claim that the timing and manner of the break up was a characteristic of outside intervention, and that the conflicts might have been avoided, and a peaceful resolution achieved as a part of a longer road to independence.

An example of this was the 1991 Foreign Operations Appropriations Law 101-513 passed by US Congress on on Nov. 5, 1990. A CIA report on one of the provisions of this bill three weeks later in the Nov. 27, 1990, New York Times predicted it would lead to civil war.

A section of Law 101-513 cut off all aid, trade, credits and loans from the U.S. to Yugoslavia within six months. It ordered elections in each of the six republics, requiring State Department approval of election procedures and results before aid to the separate republics would be resumed. Only forces that the U.S. State Department defined as "democratic forces" would receive funding. This meant funding secessionists at the expense of the federal state.

As was noted earlier in the thread, the US was on one hand saying through James Baker that the territorial integrity of the SFRY was to be respected, yet six months earlier was passing a bill encouraging the very opposite.

I might be wrong, but I think that Croatia could have won its independence without a war, but only through a war could the nationalists create a mono-ethnic state. After all, it's hard to relocate 250,000 people to outside of your borders in peacetime. For the outside forces, the war has been a stick to beat both Serbia and Croatia with, to exert control over the successor states. I feel it is is the height of hypocrisy for the EU & US to demand extraditions to the Hague for Operation Storm when that action was at the very least blessed, if not actually led, by the US themselves.

Of course, peaceful secession would have also required the acceptance of the Serbs within Croatia - but this might have been achieved in a climate where nationalism was not being heated up by outsiders, as by the US in the example above, and where safeguards were offered to that minority to ressure them that this was not a re-run of 1941. Of course, Germany and the Vatican were both involved too, with their less-than-immaculate historical records in this region.

On the other point - multiethnic countries may be the exception rather than the rule, but Britain, Belgium and Switzerland are all Western European examples, as perhaps is Spain. Over the pond, the USA is a multi-ethnic country, as is Canada.

[VetLegion]

I am convinced that violent breakup of Yugoslavia could have been avoided. The key, in my opinion (which is, I admit, highly biased), was Milosevic.

A different Milosevic, who would give a speaches along the lines of "...the future of Croatian Serbs is in Croatia, within which they have to pursue their rights..." throughout 1990 would have been prerequisite for the peaceful resolution of the conflict in Croatia.

What about different Croatian leadership? Well, while Croatia was also expiriencing an outburst of heavy nationalism (after it was long suppressed) it certainly didn't look forward to military confrontation, knowing that the army was under Serbian control. Franjo Tudjman was a retired general of the federal army and as such he feared its strength very much. Croatia had no army at the time (zero tanks, no planes and no artillery). With regards to military conflict, the initiative was in the hands of the Serbs, and Croatia reacted as best as it could. Which was not very good, as Serbs ended up occupying about 33% of Croatia with ~6% of its population for years. They could not have achieved this without backing from Milosevic, and it is doubtful if they would even have attempted it without him.

On the other point - multiethnic countries may be the exception rather than the rule, but Britain, Belgium and Switzerland are all Western European examples, as perhaps is Spain. Over the pond, the USA is a multi-ethnic country, as is Canada.

Yeah, but Yugoslavia was created by the communists, and everyone who opposed it was shot on the spot . Nobody ever asked the people anything. A multi-ethnic state is a fragile thing. It has to be thoroughly democratic and voluntary or it will crash. The Swiss are famous for their constant referendums and the Belgians for their numerous parliaments.

[VetLegion]

Originally posted by Cyclotron


Terrorist acts are not demonstrative of widespread sentiment or identities. It would be a mistake to conclude that some violent ethnically motivated people - especially such people coming from outside Yugoslavia - indicate a mass polarization of ethnicities of the type that occured after Tito's death.

What about those coming from inside Yugoslavia? And while Tito was alive?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croatian_Spring

The Croatian Spring (Hrvatsko proljeće, also called masovni pokret or MASPOK, for "mass movement") was a political movement from the early 1970s that called for greater rights for Croatia which was then part of Yugoslavia.

The movement was set in motion when a group of influential Croatian poets and linguists published a Declaration on the Name and Position of the Croatian Literary Language in 1967. After 1968, the patriotic goals of that document morphed into a generic Croatian movement for more rights for Croatia, when it began to receive grassroots support and many student organizations actively started to voice their support for the cause.

Among the main demands were civil rights for Croatian citizens and among these the right to take pride in one's nationality was prominently featured. This irritated Tito's communist government which had made every attempt to suppress and erase all such notions since World War II, fearing instability and the eventual breakup of the country due to ethnic tensions. The banning of national symbols was intended to suppress all fascist ideological symbols such as the UstaÅ¡a or Četnik markings, but it also extended to banning most patriotic songs and customs.

[VetLegion]

I don't usually resort to copy-paste tactics, but for Cyclotron I have to:

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field(DOCID+yu0038)

Unrest in Croatia and Its Consequences in the 1970s

Political, economic, and cultural tensions in the late 1960s sharply increased nationalist feeling in Croatia. In 1967 Croatian intellectuals, including Miroslav Krleza, the most respected literary figure in Croatia, signed a statement denying the validity of Serbo-Croatian as a historical language and promoting Croatian as a distinct language. The ensuing polemics escalated into a conflict over discrimination. Croatian historians recalled exploitation of Croatia by the Serb-dominated prewar government, and Croatian economists complained of disproportionate levies on Croatia for the federal budget and development fund. Party leaders in Zagreb won popularity by defending the economic interests of the republic, and nationalist leadership groups, including Matica Hrvatska, Croatia's oldest cultural society, began calling for constitutional changes to give the republic virtual independence. In November 1971, university students went on strike and demonstrators marched through the streets. Tito pressed Croatian party leaders to quiet the nationalists, but the unrest continued. Finally, police and soldiers arrested hundreds of student leaders. The authorities disbanded Matica Hrvatska and purged "nationalists" and liberals from all Croatian organizations and institutions.

The rise of nationalism halted the liberal movement in the national party. Tito called for stricter adherence to democratic centralism and proclaimed that the League of Communists would remain the binding political force of Yugoslavia, and that the league could not decentralize without endangering the country's integrity. He also called for the party to reassume its leading role and reestablish its control over the country's political and economic life. Through 1972 Tito overcame unprecedented local defiance to purge reformist party leaders in Serbia, Slovenia, Macedonia, and Vojvodina. He replaced them in most instances with antireform party veterans who had displayed less political talent than their predecessors but were considered more politically reliable. In 1974 the Party's Tenth Congress elected Tito party president for life and proclaimed that Yugoslavian "self-managed socialism" would remain under firm party control. The leadership muzzled the press, arrested dissidents, pressured universities to fire outspoken professors, and redoubled efforts to promote Tito's cult of personality.

[Dr Strangelove]

I don't see any reason why the small republics of the former Yugoslovia can't survive as independent nations. Look at Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Andorra, Malta, San Marino, and Monaco. They're all doing OK aren't they?

[Spiffor]

Well, except for Luxembourg and maybe Malta, these small countries only owe their rich status for being tax heavens tied to significant countries.

I doubt Serbia is rich enough to be the sugar daddy of countless Republics.

[Cort Haus]

Yeah, they're not real countries, Dr S. Good for giving Scotland a game of football, or hosting a Grand Prix, but that's about all.

[Gangerolf]

Microstates like Monaco and Andorra may be bad examples but his point still stands. A small population does not necessarily mean they are going to remain poor or vecome even poorer.

Kosovo: pop 2 million
Montenegor: pop 0.7 mill

compare with these (which most would agree are all "real countries")

Latvia: 2.2 mill
Estonia: 1.3 mill
Cyprus: 0.8 mill
Iceland: 0.3 mill

[Cort Haus]

Yes, better examples. There was a news feature last night suggesting that the Baltic states are the new 'Tiger' economies. Cyprus has its tourism, and Montenegro could cash on that too.

[Dr Strangelove]

They could make a fortune selling off their guns.