[BRIEF NOTE] Montenegro and Serbia
Mar. 10th, 2006 04:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldOver at A Fistful of Euros, Brussels Gonzo makes a counter-argument to Muir's argument against Montenegro.
I tend to agree with the former writer, especially after reading Mark Mardell's rather dispiriting BBC article "Europe diary: Balkan trauma". It seems that a complex of Serbia as a victim, unfairly punished by the outside world, is still popular; it seems that the independence of Kosova and soon Montenegro will be taken by the Serbian population as unfair punishment; it seems that this shock might drive Serbians further into self-imposed isolation.
Tough for them. Weimar Germany was always latently threatening to the entire world. Post-Milosevic Serbia is more pathetic than not. States exist because people want them to exist; forcing people to remain is, besides being bad form, counter-productive. Democracy and empire can't co-exist, I fear.
I tend to agree with the former writer, especially after reading Mark Mardell's rather dispiriting BBC article "Europe diary: Balkan trauma". It seems that a complex of Serbia as a victim, unfairly punished by the outside world, is still popular; it seems that the independence of Kosova and soon Montenegro will be taken by the Serbian population as unfair punishment; it seems that this shock might drive Serbians further into self-imposed isolation.
Tough for them. Weimar Germany was always latently threatening to the entire world. Post-Milosevic Serbia is more pathetic than not. States exist because people want them to exist; forcing people to remain is, besides being bad form, counter-productive. Democracy and empire can't co-exist, I fear.
