> "Croatians are quite proud of the history of stopping the ottoman invasion."
How come that (under the heading "Demographics") Wikipedia lists [0] the "Eastern Orthodox" were still majority in 1828? Were they Croats? Or - MAYBE, just MAYBE - Serbs? And is it possible that those Christian Orthodox Serbs were converting to Roman-Catholicism (under Austrian pressure)? Look at the numbers in that article, the number of Orthodox falls by 1.78% and the number of Catholics rises by 1.5%.
Using your logic ("During most of the history Italy didn't even exist"), the same can be said about Croatia.
The two times Croatia for sure has existed in history was (1) from 1941 to 1945 [0] - as a Nazi-supported and -supporting country, committing crimes against Christian-Orthodox Serbs, Jews and Romani people with support of the Roman-Catholic Church and Nazi-Germany/Austria [1] and (2) from 1991 into the present - when that state (with the help of Germany, Austria and RCC) was re-awakened to finish the job of pushing Christian-Orthodoxy and the Serbs away from the Adriatic sea and toward East [2].
Every other claim that Croatia has existed prior to 1941 is just a fantasy. The "List of rulers of Croatia" is such an example [3]. The heading "Under the Habsburgs (1527–1918)" is in the category ROTFL. They are ALL Germans but your people seriously write they were "Croatian rulers"!
Next heading ("Kings of Yugoslavia (1918–1941)") is even more hilarious: There, Croatian editors list three rulers, ALL of which were Christian-Orthodox Serbs! That LITTLE fact is not mentioned in the article. One of them was "Assassinated by the VMRO with Ustaše support in 1934." Ustaše are Croatian terrorist organisation that has later led the first Croatian state from 1941 until 1945. But, hey, he is a "Croatian ruler"!
Duchy of Croatia [1] and then Kingdom of Croatia [2]. Every sane Croatian agrees that NDH was a disgraceful puppet state but what you are saying about modern Croatia is some crazy extremist speak which doesn't belong here.
Thank you for these two links. And for, in a sense, confirming me: maps shown in those entries of "duchy/kingdom of Croatia" depict a territory of most of Dalmatia, parts of western Herzegovina and Bosnia. That is it!
Istria, Slavonia, today's capital Zagreb (Agram on the map) and everything north of it is not part of that duchy/kingdom. According to the entries you have posted. Do you suggest that these regions they are actually not croatian?
Things change as time goes by. People move, territories get occupied, families change religion, people adopt other religions, countries expand and shrink. Ottomans occupied Bosnia for 300 years and now there is a muslim majority. My family used to be Orthodox and now my side is Catholic. Christianism didn't exist 3000 years ago. Are you saying these regions (Croatia/Serbia/BiH) are actually some paganic/slavic/pre-slavic whatever this is? None of the "big religions" existed 10 000 years ago yet humans existed for 200 000 years or whatever. What were they 100 000 years ago? Isn't this argument a bit meaningless?
As much as I share your view (some things partly, some in full), if you - for whatever reason - don't want, I don't need to go back in the history to get my point across.
I will look at the present. If you are honest and if you look at what both leaders (politicians, intellectuals) and ordinary people in today's Croatia, Muslim/Croatian part of Bosnia and Herzegovina and in occupied part of Serbia ("Kosovo") say AND do regarding Serbs, you must realize that they still display stark animosity against anything Serb-related. Almost 30 years/over 20 years after last wars there have ended!
This year (2022), as one example out of many that I could name, in Dubrovnik (Croatia) high school graduates have celebrated high school end and were walking through the center of the city while chanting "Za dom spremni" (Croatian-Nazi greet from WWII, equivalent to German-Nazi "Sieg Heil"), while singing Croatian-Nazi songs about killing Serbs, while wearing Croatian-Nazi flag and while being greeted with Nazi salutes by other young people who have filmed this spectacle of true emotions [0]. These young people will be MD's, lawyers, engineers, policemen, soldiers - future of Croatia - tomorrow and they don't mind putting their hatred towards Serbs into the public on the bright sunny day.
They have probably never met a Serb in their short lives, because in today's Croatia - due to huge social pressure - you must hide your identity if you're a Serb. Which is why many Serbs cave in, change their religion (from Christian Orthodoxy to Roman-Catholicism) and then become Croats. And many/most of them then hate Serbs at least just as much, because it is not enough to just change your religion/identity/name - you must prove yourself in the new identity. (I am aware that social pressure varies between regions in Croatia: Dalmatia probably being the worst, Istria probably being the least bad - on average)
At the same time, Serbia and Serb-part/entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina ("Republika Srpska") are still in good part multi-religious and -ethnic and they help others by letting them get jabbed for free during pandemics (with many Croats, Bosnian Muslims and Kosovo Albanians being vaccinated in Serbia), by giving Sarajevo natural gas to stay warm during the past winter or by sending helicopters to put out fires that have recently raged in Muslim/Croatian part of Bosnia and Herzegovina. (to name a few)
To summarize: Serbs want to a life in peace, to prosper and to procreate, and neither our leaders nor ordinary people (almost exclusively) show animosity towards all of you while everything that we hear and see in Croatia, Muslim/Croatian-part of Bosnia and Herzegovina and "Kosovo" is show of hatred and threat to us. It teaches us that most of you live in the past, waiting to repeat crimes against us that you have commuted in the past 100 and some years.
(I could write for days, read my other comments in this thread, read Wikipedia articles I have linked for more context.)
Last census in former Yugoslavia, shows that 581.663 Serbs have lived in the Federal Republic Croatia [0]. Thus, Serbs have not ”invaded" Croatia. How could they have, if they had lived on the land forever that, thru perverse inner-Yugoslav border drawing by Tito’s communist, became a part of a federal unit called Croatia inside post-WWII Yugoslavia.
(ASIDE: It is ironic that since independence in 1991 Croats are very anti-communist but always refer to borders drawn by… communists! And you do, too: “retain former borders”)
Yes, while Croats have worked towards secession from Yugoslavia in 1990/1991, Serbs on parts of territory of that federal unit took guns. I am not denying it. But why? Are they some wild or crazy people, willing to kill and be killed? Or were they afraid that Croats were preparing to continue doing what they couldn’t finish in 1945, for example in the Concentration camp Jasenovac [1]? Look at the photographs of killed people in that WIkipedia entry. See that knife that Croats have used to kill the Serbs faster (you've called it “Srbosjek”/”Serbcutter” and have made it for faster throat-slitting).
Were Serbs afraid for no reason? Were they just imagining a Croatian boogeyman? After all, Franjo Tuđman, the Croatian President at that time, was a communist and partisan. It turns out, there is an audio from a meeting of the Croatian leadership prior to Operation Storm [2]. In that audio Tuđman can be heard saying “da nanesemo takve udarce da Srbi praktično nestanu” or in English “to inflict such blows that the Serbs practically disappear” [3]. I could name (if you want) many other examples in the 1990-1995 timeframe that show the Serbs were afraid for a reason.
You personally are an example for what I write about the whole time, as well. You have admitted your family were actually Christian-Orthodox Serbs (“My family used to be Orthodox and now my side is Catholic.”) and now you are a Roman-Catholic Croat that defends everything Croatian. Even here and now we can observe Croatian ethno-genesis before our own eyes, which lasts for hundreds of years: How Serbs turn into Croats and why that causes problems, both to those that take the new Croatian identity but also for those who remain Serbs. Those who remain Serbs are witnesses which, by their sheer existence (sometimes words) remind those that have turned their backs to their forebears to become something else that is, by design, anti-Serbian.
It is thus not surprising that all key people in the first Croatian state (1941-1945; see my other comment) were all Serbs a few generations earlier (Ante Pavelić, Ljubo Miloš, Andrija Artuković, Mile Budak and countless and nameless others). Yet to become something else they have had to kill those that have remained Serbs using the most brutal methods - by organizing throat-slitting competitions or by crushing their victims' heads with a wooden sledgehammer, to name a few. They had to burn the identity-bridge behind them, they had to kill the Serb in themselves.
> 581.663 Serbs have lived in the Federal Republic Croatia ... Thus, Serbs have not ”invaded" Croatia.
As I remember the early 90s, the Federal Yugoslavian Army -- which, with all the other republics seceding had in practice become synonymous with Serbia -- rolled in with tanks and artillery.
So I think "invaded" was meant literally, not as a synonym for immigration by ethnic Serbs.
Dude, chill. I've been lurking HN for 15 years, and you made me create an account just to respond to this. Comments like these are the reason why everyone thinks we are a bunch of crazy ultra-nationalists. OP said nothing about Croatian state, or rulers, or church or anything. Do you just cruse the internet and start spewing random Ustase fact every time the word Croatia pops up? Even if there was anything objectionable in what was said there are way less unhinged ways to respond. We are all victims of selective and glorified history taught in our schools (plus a steady diet of hatred-filled media) and through normal dialog we can all learn more about each other's perspectives.
Where is "ultra-nationalism" in my two comments here? Or which "random facts'"? I quote English Wikipedia and these entries were edited by Croats. That one link with the list of "croatian" rulers is identical to the same entry in croatian Wikipedia.
OP was "pedantic" and has claimed something that was plain wrong. And using his logic, I was pedantic as well - to set the record straight and provide background info. The alternative is to let Croats claim whatever you want while betting on ignorance and lack of knowledge of others.
When Wikipedia entries, written in part or completely by Croats, are quoted that is "nasty". <sigh>
> your ethnic cleaning Serbian dogma
I and most other Serbs condemn all atrocities and crimes committed by Serbs or in Serbian name. Explain one thing to me: How come that in Serb-dominated countries/entities (Serbia and Serb-entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina) there are still Muslims/Boschniaks, Croats, Albanians, Hungarians... while in today's Croatia, Muslim/Croatian part of Bosnia and Herzegovina and occupied part of Serbia ("Kosovo") there are almost no Serbs? In Sarajevo alone, prior to the war (1991 census), over 150.000 Serbs have lived. According to the last (2013) census there were less than 9.000. But, yeah, "ethnic cleaning". <sigh>
> We are in an ideological trap, blaming Russia for everything.
The ideological trap is not only related to Russia but to everything. The West uses - as you also point out - ideology for everything: Pandemic, migrations, climate, culture, economics... Those who don't want to play along are blamed. The West thinks it has a leverage over the World Outside of the West but that isn't the case anymore. Both the elites and the people in the World Outside of the West realize it and they are turning away, leaving the West in it's own echo chamber.
As I wrote here three months ago: The West is ~1 billion people, the World Outside of the West is ~6 billion. The West needs the World Outside of the West for its own enrichment through robbery and enslavement, World Outside of the West doesn't need the West because it doesn't want to be robbed and enslaved by the West anymore.
Just as the Republican Party has been taken over by neocons, the Democrat Party has been taken over by neolibs. They both have the same ideas and are never on the oposite sides. That is why you see endless and meanilingless wars, media conglomerates, censorship, billionaire-class, 3-letter-agencies off the leash, workers in diapers.
2018 Macedonian referendum is one example of the contrarian. It was invalid as the turnout was mere 36.89% (most were probably Albanians). And (I think) in non other country that is a NATO member now, there was a referendum.
For a broader perspective: NATO was created to “keep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.” (from the horse's mouth)
EDIT: For even broader perspective: Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland;
who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island;
who rules the World-Island commands the world. — Mackinder, Democratic Ideals and Reality, p. 150
Unless there was foul play involved, if among 36.89% majority voted to join NATO and the rest didn't care enough to vote - isn't that an argument in favor of joining?
That's where more context is needed - was the low turn over a protest vote (or protest lack of vote)? Was it indifference? Was it sabotage by the government (making voting hard)? I think these questions will determine the answer.
It hurts to read the prevailing opinion in the western sphere these days, Fukuyama and comments here included. HN was mostly logical and rational in the past, but lately (Cov-19 and Russia) it is outright one sided.
Are you aware that the USA and its "allies" have orchestrated a Coup d'etat in Ukraine? Are you aware of the "F*ck EU" phone call in which Nuland moves people in Ukrainian politics like peons on the chessboard? Are you aware of real Nazis being part of government and security aparatus in Ukraine? Are you aware of Odessa, where dozens of pro-Russian people were burned alive by those same Nazis? Are you aware that Zelensky threatened to make atomic weapons at the Munich Security Conference mid February 2022? Are you aware of the complicity of Biden and his family in this (Hunter and his board seat at Burisma), not to speak of VP Biden blackmailing Ukrainians to fire their attorney general for probing Burisma or they'd get no money from (I think) MMF?
This is just a small selection of past events, not to mention new ones.
All this is not an isolated, Russia/Ukraine (both predominantly Orthodox Christian), issue. The collective West is causing death and destruction in the Muslim world for at least 30 years, as well. Furthermore, Snowden and Wikileaks documents have revealed a part of corruption in the US political and intelligence system. And there was no war waged by the West that wasn't supported by the Western media. Speaking of Fukuyama: He is a neocon, part of the cabal whose ideology has caused millions of dead and displaced people, their property destroyed. Their ideology has immensely weakened the US with meaningless and costly wars. And you still listen to him instead to shun him.
You look ridiculous to the World Outside of the West (~6 billion people) with your "we stand with Ukraine", with how you cancel and sanction everything Russian, how you moralize. Business model of the West for centuries is robbery and enslavement, who rises against it gets bombs on his head (hint: that are those in the World Outside the West). USA is literally built on the genocide of the Natives and the susequent landgrab! That West led by that USA is now condemning Russia for not wanting Nazis with nuclear weapons at her doorstep - imagine that!
Do you really don't get all this or do you act out of pure self interest (Russia is a too rich country to have all those riches/resources only for itself)?
> Are you aware that the USA and its "allies" have orchestrated a Coup d'etat in Ukraine?
You mean that thing in 2014 where a few Ukrainians protested a thing the president did that they didn't like, and in response the president of Ukraine promptly fled the country never to return?
Meanwhile the current president has the entire Russian Army bearing down on him and hasn't left.
Some "coup".
The truth is, all "Evil West" whataboutism aside, Russia is weak and corrupt and cannot bend Ukraine to its will. Too bad.
Whenever one mentions misdeeds of the West, the other side answers with "whataboutism" and basically stops the discussion. How convenient to hide behind counter-accusation. It is easier to do that than to lose time and energy defending the undefendable. For example, how would one defend my sentence "USA is literally built on the genocide of the Natives and the susequent landgrab!"? You cannot, it is a fact. A fact that changes the perspective of the world in which an amoral entity preaches morality.
Yanukovych was no doubt corrupt, but Ukraine after 2014 is so squeaky clean? And, the "entire Russian Army" is after the Comedian Zelensky? Are you serious?
You obviously don't know a squat about Russia. Otherwise, you wouldn't write "Russia is weak and corrupt and cannot bend Ukraine to its will". Too bad.
"Intervention" is maybe older than you think [0] - definitely older than America's post-war empire. I do not know what is and is not a "western propaganda kitchen," but "intervention" is likely not from one.
Granted: American has used it for basically every war since 1945, most connotation now stems from this.
I caution you - without in any way trying to argue about ideology or civilizations or historical justice! - that American political discourse is not autocratic or controlled, not even secretly. The New York Times and the CIA are both independent actors, and each is itself not a perfect information autocracy.
No oligarch has the power to exile you, and no government the power to imprison you - even informal censorship is impossible. There's no central node able censor all others in order speak without contradiction. There are not literal state propagandists, or at least not many and none effective.
Any analysis of American propaganda, or indeed of America holistically, is flawed if it refuses to accept this reality. Any analysis which seeks to expose lies must start by not lying to itself.
Chomsky writes that free speech as such does not stop Americans from lying effectively and with minimized dissonance to both ourselves and the world. I don't dispute him (couldn't competently in any case).
But there's never been an American Pravda. Blue jeans broke the USSR all on their own: the CIA doesn't know how actually to make something cool. America doesn't possess a fantastical ability to will rock 'n' roll, or color revolutions, into existence.
