Is Serbia to blame for the collapse of Yugoslavia ?

[Red Future]

Thanks to all for educating me about the issues surrounding Yugoslavia's collapse.I wasn't aware that the CIA were so deeply involved.

[Yugo45]

stuff

Very well put, but one little objection.

Don't get me wrong. I'm anti-nation in every way. But saying that Bosniaks are a new nation and that they don't got history is exactly what Serbian and Croatian nationalists are saying. Bosnian nation has the same history like Serbian and Croatian.

That's all.

[tir1944]

Thanked you for its an interesting post,but please think twice before writing such horrible generalizations in future...

After Tito died Serbs were the first to start questioning these myths. They rehabilitated Chetnik movement as anti-fascist movement who fought against Germans but also against communism in order to save Serbs etc

All Serbs? Right...
It more-less "started" from the Serbian rightwing elites in Academia and other "circles".

...because Croats in WW2 were openly fascists

*facepalm.jpg*
I also think that it would be smart and professional to replace "Croatian" with "Ustaše" in a few places of your post.

So, they called on a Jihad against Serbs when they attacked them and many jihadists came to Bosnia.

Source? For the "they declared Jihad" part?
From what i know,most Bosniaks are not really "hardcore" Muslims...
It's also important to note that a number of Serbs,Croats and others also fought in the ArBiH...

That case didn’t happen on Kosovo, even majority of Albanians are Muslim, because other Albanians are Catholics and jihadists would killed them.

From what i heard,it's because most Albanians even today aren't really religious.Hoxha's legacy i guess...

[tir1944]

But saying that Bosniaks are a new nation and that they don't got history is exactly what Serbian and Croatian nationalists are saying. Bosnian nation has the same history like Serbian and Croatian.

Well,Bosniaks don't,but Muslims do.
I agree with you actually.Serbian and Croatian nationalist rhetorics about Bosniaks/Muslims not being a real nation is false and should be fought against.

[Искра]

Very well put, but one little objection.

Don't get me wrong. I'm anti-nation in every way. But saying that Bosniaks are a new nation and that they don't got history is exactly what Serbian and Croatian nationalists are saying. Bosnian nation has the same history like Serbian and Croatian.

That's all.

I was talking about Bosnian nation. Nation as political body. Nation is connected to state and they didn't exist before Yugoslavia in that way. In our language we have word "narod" and "nacija". I was refering to "nacija". Do you understand what I was talking about? Maybe I could write in Croatian.


tir1944

I wasn't making generalisations.

All Serbs? Right...
It more-less "started" from the Serbian rightwing elites in Academia and other "circles".

No, I was talking about inteligentsia. Dobrica Ćosić and the crew.

*facepalm.jpg*
I also think that it would be smart and professional to replace "Croatian" with "Ustaše" in a few places of your post.

I was referring to Croatian fascists - right-wingers. Of course that I didn't mean on all Croats. My granpather was a Croat and he was a comadant of partisan squad.

Source? For the "they declared Jihad" part?
From what i know,most Bosniaks are not really "hardcore" Muslims...
It's also important to note that a number of Serbs,Croats and others also fought in the ArBiH...

Bosnian political elites, not Bosnians were calling Jihadists. One Imam called a Jihad and lunatics came.

This is a Serb nationalist propaganda video on a Youtube, but it showes videos of mudjahedin's in Bosnia: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWOl6eh1-LE

From what i heard,it's because most Albanians even today aren't really religious.Hoxha's legacy i guess...

They are Muslim (i think 60%) and Chatolics (20%).

[DarkPast]

Kontrazzvedka, I agree with your post on the "nationalist" reasons for Yugoslavia's collapse. However, I must also stress that there were real, economic reasons for the collapse, which were a result of a horribly confused system (unemployment in a socialist country, worker's self-management that didn't work because politics were too involved in it etc.).

I'd suggest you have a look at this article, which also mentions there definitely was US influence at work: http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/62/022.html

The most important bit is here:

Multiethnic, socialist Yugoslavia was once a regional industrial power and economic success. In the two decades before 1980, annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth averaged 6.1 percent, medical care was free, the literacy was 91 percent, and life expectancy was 72 years. But after a decade of Western economic ministrations and five years of disintegration, war, boycott, and embargo, the economies of the former Yugoslavia are prostrate, their industrial sectors dismantled. Yugoslavia's implosion was partially due to US machinations. Despite Belgrade's non-alignment and its extensive trading relations with the European Community and the US, the Reagan administration targeted the Yugoslav economy in a "Secret Sensitive" 1984 National Security Decision Directive (NSDD 133), "Us Policy towards Yugoslavia." A censored version declassified in 1990 elaborated on NSDD 64 on Eastern Europe, issued in 1982. The latter advocated "expanded efforts to promote a 'quiet revolution' to overthrow Communist governments and parties," while reintegrating the countries of Eastern Europe into a market-oriented economy.
The US had earlier joined Belgrade's other international creditors in imposing a first round of macroeconomics reform in 1980, shortly before the death of Marshall Tito. That initial round of restructuring set the pattern. Throughout the 1980s, the IMF and World Bank periodically prescribed further doses of their bitter economic medicine as the Yugoslav economy slowly lapsed into a coma.
From the beginning, successive IMF sponsored programs hastened the disintegration of the Yugoslav industrial sector industrial production declined to a negative 10 percent growth rate by 1990 and the piecemeal dismantling of its welfare state, with all the predictable social consequences. Debt restructuring agreements, meanwhile, increased foreign debt, and a mandated currency devaluation also hit hard at Yugoslavs' standard of living.

[tir1944]

I know what you were talking about Kontrarazvedka,but you could,IMO,be more careful for the sake of non-YU readers here.
Adding a few words is sometimes essential to this...

[Искра]

Source? For the "they declared Jihad" part?
From what i know,most Bosniaks are not really "hardcore" Muslims...
It's also important to note that a number of Serbs,Croats and others also fought in the ArBiH...

Here's English video on Bosnian radical Muslims.

[tir1944]

You quote implies that most Bosniaks accepted Jihadism and radical Islam,which,IMO,isn't true.
While i know that ain't true,someone not from ex-YU might think otherwise...just my opinion.
Also these guys were Bosnian radical Muslims,but most of them weren't Bosniaks:they came from Saudi Arabia,Afghanistan and god knows where else from...

Croatian extreme right always considered Bosnians as a Croats, so they decided to create another identity – Muslim one. So, they called on a Jihad against Serbs when they attacked them and many jihadists came to Bosnia.

[Red Future]

I always thought that the Muhajeddin the Bosniaks brought in to support their efforts in the war were seen as very extreme in their interpretation of Islam among the Bosniak community and among Bosniak radicals.

[Искра]

Kontrazzvedka, I agree with your post on the "nationalist" reasons for Yugoslavia's collapse.

I could write later more on economical reasons (I'm tired now. My last post was quite big).

In short, I could agree that it’s because of confusing, or better to use term: contradicting system. Unemployment wasn’t so crucial in real life as it was in pro-capitalist rhetoric’s. I would say that the biggest reason was that in Yugoslavia private property existed, even it was limited, and small capitalists and directors of state enterprise wanted to be bigger fish.

Economics was important, but still Yugoslavia could for example switch to market capitalism and still exist. That was CIA’s plan after all (at least according to documents I read).

[DarkPast]

Wait a sec... The Bosniak national identity (by which I do not mean the radical Islamists of the early nineties, but the moderates that tir1944 mentioned) can be traced to the 70ies, and were another of Tito's attempts to curb the power of the Belgrade elite.

@Kontrazzvedka: That's a good point, the USA probably didn't want the country to break up.

[Искра]

You quote implies that most Bosniaks accepted Jihadism and radical Islam,which,IMO,isn't true.
While i know that ain't true,someone not from ex-YU might think otherwise...just my opinion.
Also these guys were Bosnian radical Muslims,but most of them weren't Bosniaks:they came from Saudi Arabia,Afghanistan and god knows where else from...

Politics in national state is not created by people. It's created by elites. Of course that I'm thinking of political elites.

Ne traži dlaku u jajetu.

[Искра]

Wait a sec... The Bosniak national identity (by which I do not mean the radical Islamists of the early nineties, but the moderates that tir1944 mentioned) can be traced to the 70ies, and were another of Tito's attempts to curb the power of the Belgrade elite.

Bosniak got a national identety in 1945 when Yugoslavia was established. That how did Tito called Muslims who lived in Bosnia.

[tir1944]

I always thought that the Muhajeddin the Bosniaks brought in to support their efforts in the war were seen as very extreme in their interpretation of Islam among the Bosniak community and among Bosniak radicals.

You're correct.

Politics in national state is not created by people. It's created by elites. Of course that I'm thinking of political elites.

Indeed,but i still think that a degree of carefulness is necessary.In this case even "redundant" information is better than giving a chance for being misunderstood...as in the abovementioned example.

[Yugo45]

I was talking about Bosnian nation. Nation as political body. Nation is connected to state and they didn't exist before Yugoslavia in that way. In our language we have word "narod" and "nacija". I was refering to "nacija". Do you understand what I was talking about? Maybe I could write in Croatian.

I know exactly what you're talking about, and that's also what I /am/ talking about. So, in short, Bosnian nation (as in, nacija) did exist before Yugoslavia. Just like Serbian and Croatian ones did.

Here's English video on Bosnian radical Muslims.

Just like the video says, they are Mujahedins from muslim countries.. Not Bosnian muslims. There's only a handful of radical muslims in Bosnia today (vehabije), and they're a minority. You rarely see any actually (yes, you do know when you see them. They have long beards and look like they just broke out of a circus).

One more thing..

Croatian extreme right always considered Bosnians as a Croats, so they decided to create another identity – Muslim one. So, they called on a Jihad against Serbs when they attacked them and many jihadists came to Bosnia.

Can you clear this up for me? I'm not sure did I understand correctly, but are you saying that Bosnian muslims created a new identity after Yugoslavia started to collapse (a Muslim one), or did I read it wrong?

Bosniak got a national identety in 1945 when Yugoslavia was established. That how did Tito called Muslims who lived in Bosnia.

Actually, DarkPast was right. It was in the 70's. Bosniaks weren't recognized as a seperate nation (they were recognized as Serbs and Croats) until the 70's reforms. Then (even though the vast majority demanded the term "Bosniak" as a new name), they got a nation, but it was called "muslims" (small case "m"). Then, few years later, it was changed to "Muslims" (with capital "M").

Of course, I'm not talking about the "national identity", just when they were recognized in Yugoslavia.

[Thirsty Crow]

[FONT=Calibri]Aggressive Croat nationalism, bourgeois German intriguing with them and NATO imperialist bombers wrecked Yugoslavia. [/FONT]

...and Slobodan Milošević, with all of his clique, was an anti-imperialist, and of course Srebrenica massacre was abnormally exaggerated by the imperialist propaganda machine.

Yeah, I remember your particular attitude towards the latter (Srebrenica).

[tir1944]

...and Slobodan Milošević, with all of his clique, was an anti-imperialist, and of course Srebrenica massacre was abnormally exaggerated by the imperialist propaganda machine.

Well,Slobo indeed was,at one point, (the '99 NATO war against FRY),objectively an anti-imperialist.So was Hussein or Gadafi...

[Искра]

Ok, so what I was saying is that of course that people who inhabitant Bosnia existed before 40’s. Because of Ottoman’s many people there were Muslims. So, when in the 19th century “national spring” came and when Croatian and Serbian nations were established that didn’t happen in Bosnia. In Bosnia there were different names for Slavic-Muslim population and both Serbian and Croatian nationalists tried to say that these people are actually Serbs or Croats. For example founder of Croatian Rights Party (not fascist in that period!) Ante Starčević, also know as Father of Homeland (cro. Otac Domovine) in Croatia, said that Bosnian Muslims are actually Croatian aristocracy which inhabitant Bosnia in mileages which switched into Islam to keep their pure Croatian blood (because Muslims would never rape Muslim women). I don’t know Serbian side of a story, because I didn’t read their right wing books and authors. Austro-Hungarian Empire took Bosnia from Ottoman Empire. After that there was a WW1 and then first Yugoslavia (in all its 3 names). During that period, Slavic-Muslims from Bosnia were called Muslims. Their parties were Muslim etc. and they took Yugoslav ideology (except one party which name I forgot which was pro-fascist). During the WW2 Bosnia was part of Independent State of Croatia, they were considered Croat-Muslims and a lot of people participated in Waffen SS divisions Handzar and Kama. Muslims were called “flowers of Croat people”. So, we finally come to 1945 when Socialist Yugoslavia was founded and Bosnia was one of its republics. It’s true that in 1974 when constitution was written Bosnia got its borders and Bosnian Muslims were called Bosniaks. When partisans established Bosnia as one of Yugoslav republics they created a space for Bosniak nation to be created. Because nation is defined by its state, or the state it want to create (in the case of Kurdish people for example).

I don’t claim that Bosniak in 90’s were all crazy Muslim jihadists. No. I claim that their political elites turned into that direction so that they could get extra troops to defend their national state. Bosniaks themselves were not so radical; even some people participated in such brigades and even in Croatian Defence Force (fascist paramilitary force - here you can find their symbols if you don't beleive me).

I hope that we are finished with Bosniaks and that you can understand what I’m talking about.

[DarkPast]

Bosniak got a national identety in 1945 when Yugoslavia was established. That how did Tito called Muslims who lived in Bosnia.

Yes, I know, but the national status of the Bosniaks was still subject to much debate up to the 70ies. There's a good article about this to be found here, when/if you have the time and inclination:

http://www.iis.unsa.ba/izdavacka_dje...prilozi_38.pdf

The article in question is Husnija Kamberović, Stav političke elite o nacionalnom identitetu Muslimana u Bosni i Hercegovini sredinom 1960-ih godina (The author also wrote several other articles on the subject of Bosniak national identity)