We lost peace, instead we got war.
We lost socialism; we recieved capitalism, and a government run by criminals and thiefs.
We lost brotherhood, unity, and love between the people. We gained nationalism and hate.
We lost guaranteed employment and regular income; instead we have mass unemployment, and irregular pay for those of us with jobs.
We lost our freedom to travel the globe, we gained visa requirements for every country we might want to step foot into.
We lost our independence; instead we gained dependence on the west, and NATO planes over our heads.
We lost our connection with the balkans, we gave into balkanization.
We lost the ability to choose our own path, we've got someone else to do it for us now.
We lost worker's holidays and vacations by the coast; we gained foreigners on our beaches, while we work holidays for a bit of extra cash.
We lost free universal health care, we gained privatised health and medical expenses.
We lost free education, we recieved university degrees for those who can afford them.
We lost respect and moral, we gained dishonour and fraud.
We lost one language: Serbo-Croatian. We gained three-Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian.
We lost commradeship for all, we gained elitism for a few.
In the words of graffiti sprawlled on a Belgrade wall: when we were commrades, we lived like kings.
This article, written by Croatian journalist Ivica Basic, says it best :)
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4 comments:
Balkanization was coined when the Ottoman Empire disintegrated after the end of WWI. There's a fascinating animation at the Wikipedia article showing Balkanization in motion since 1796.
hey owen, yeah i read the original article in serbo-croatian, and "gave birth to the term balkanization" is not a proper translation. the sentence in serbo-croatian is hard to translate to english, as if it is translated literally it says "we gained the balkans in our heads." but something along the lines of "we lost our connection to the balkans, gave in to balkanization" is a much more suitable translation IMO. i might change it to avoid confusion :) thanks for the tip
Great post, brilliant article. I hadn't seen this, thanks for bringing it to my attention.
thanks, I really liked the artice too :) thought it hit the nail on the head with quite a few things!
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