Yugoslavia as a whole, not Bosnia. Bosnia was no special in the way
the different ethnic groups coexisted... i mean, the way the people i
know from Yugoslavia tell it, it goes something like this: "we lived
more or less in peace, side by side, we married across those invisible
borders, our children went to the same schools, we did our shopping in
the same stores, we had our different religious holidays but that was
about it. we were neighbours, friends, relatives. then one day, we
were told that we were muslims, serbs and so on.... what happend
quite often was that one group or the other of "brown shirts",
usually from out of town, moved into an area, and started harassing
all people not belonging to one ethnic group. who sent them we
didn't know at that time." or something like that. and i've heard
that story quite a few times, from Yugoslavian refugees. one of them
said it like that: "suddenly we were told that the people next door
was "serbs"... you know, we had never even noticed before...."
that's the way quite a few "former-Yugoslavians" have told me the
story of the "unrest"....
> progress. Seems to me that these groups got along because they were
> told to by the Soviets. In other words, their fear became stronger
if you say "told so by Tito", i may perhaps follow you at least part
of the way. (unless you by Soviets mean "workers counciles" as in the
original meaning of the word "soviet". but then the idea of soviets
never got that strong in the Yugoslavian revolution, as far as i
know...) the Yugoslavian strong guy was in fact quite independent
of Soviet Russia, both in the struggle against nazi germany and in
the "socialist" restructuring of Yugoslavia after the war. and Tito
in fact had quite a lot of popular support for years. and i still feel
that Yugoslavian "socialism" had a rather human face, compared to
most of the others so "socialist", state-capitalist societies of
eastern europe.... even a few good ideas for us of a more anarcho-
socialist leaning somewhere in the Yougoslavan brand of state-
"socialism"......
an other story is that i don't think the history of Yugoslavia as told
by a lot of people on this list is the whole story...... i mean, i
just don't know if the story about 1000 years of endless struggle
between ethnic groups are the whole story???
have a nice day :-)
tb
PS. there is no such thing as human nature!
* ----------------------------------------------- *
\ Trond Buland \
\ e-mail: trond.buland@ifim.sintef.no \
\ phone:+47 73 59 25 65 home:+47 73 52 78 21 \
* ---------------------------------------------- *