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Nationalism ?

Yes
7
23%
No
15
50%
Other
8
27%
 
Total votes : 30
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Soviet cogitations: 3688
Defected to the U.S.S.R.: 07 Jul 2006, 04:49
Ideology: Juche
Old Bolshevik
Post 18 Apr 2012, 23:19
Quote:
Also how is opposing nationalism liberal? Liberals are all about borders.


Liberals are actually all about selling out their countries to the west and abolishing the national distinctions (culture, language, & history) in favour of some globalised mass that has no culture, no home, no past, and no future.

Quote:
Only the international proletariat can defeat the international bourgeoisie.


Of course, nobody denies that, but why should Koreans stop being Korean or Japanese stop being Japanese. Capitalism should be defeated and reactionary traditions should be abolished, but culture and language shouldn't be exterminated.

Quote:
So what makes Kochoson "Korean"?


Just look at archaeology, they found daggers, huts, and tombs that are unique to that civilisation.

Quote:
I was replying to Vasco who was saying he didn't want anymore immigrants coming to Portugal.


I do agree that sentiments like that are reactionary and should be corrected.
Soviet cogitations: 9643
Defected to the U.S.S.R.: 14 Jul 2008, 20:01
Ideology: Trotskyism
Embalmed
Post 18 Apr 2012, 23:37
Quote:
Kochoson, Silla, Balhae


...have disappeared and are now called "choson" or "hanguk". The connection of either to any of the above three is a bit arbitrary. It's bullshit to claim that there were once three different nations, that are now one with two different names ... Koreans are just the people who happen to live on the Korean peninsula.
Soviet cogitations: 833
Defected to the U.S.S.R.: 30 Aug 2008, 18:12
Komsomol
Post 18 Apr 2012, 23:49
Quote:
Liberals are actually all about selling out their countries to the west and abolishing the national distinctions (culture, language, & history) in favour of some globalised mass that has no culture, no home, no past, and no future.


No it isn't. People in the developing world haven't swapped their languages for western ones. Some western cultural habits have been adopted but by no means all. Look at Saudi Arabia. They are right up the ass of US imperialism but they ban women from driving, make them cover up and chop hands off theives. Hardly aspects of US culture, are they?

Also, you are forgetting the progressive nature that globalisation can have. It introduces such concepts as better rights for women (obviously this does not always work, see above), rule of law, bourgeois democracy, etc. If it wasn't for globalisation, China and Vietnam would never have heard of Marxism (unless they had formulated such theories independently. This would be quite possible but would likely have occurred at a much later date).

Quote:
Of course, nobody denies that, but why should Koreans stop being Korean or Japanese stop being Japanese.


And who defines what it is to "be" Korean and Japanese? How am I actively "being British" right now?

Quote:
Capitalism should be defeated and reactionary traditions should be abolished, but culture and language shouldn't be exterminated.


I've no problem with people speaking different languages and people having different cultures (so long as they aren't reactionary). What happens to these under communism only time and experience will tell. That's not really something to worry about. What we should be concerned about is repressing reactionary customs and practices among people today and that includes nationalism.

Quote:
Just look at archaeology, they found daggers, huts, and tombs that are unique to that civilisation.


Doesn't make it "Korean" though.
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Soviet cogitations: 3688
Defected to the U.S.S.R.: 07 Jul 2006, 04:49
Ideology: Juche
Old Bolshevik
Post 19 Apr 2012, 00:00
Quote:
How am I actively "being British" right now?


Anybody who partakes in any nation's culture and language is a part of it. You are being British by participating in British culture and society.

Quote:
It's bullshit to claim that there were once three different nations...


The Three Kingdoms were never really nations in and of themselves, but were "proto-nations", that is the predicessors to the one Korean nation.

Quote:
I've no problem with people speaking different languages and people having different cultures (so long as they aren't reactionary).


That's what I've been saying all along. You seem to still confuse nations with states. A nation does not need a state to exist, for example, the Tibetan nation still exists in China.
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Defected to the U.S.S.R.: 20 Jul 2011, 15:17
Party Member
Post 19 Apr 2012, 00:05
Misuzu wrote:
That's what I've been saying all along. You seem to still confuse nations with states. A nation does not need a state to exist, for example, the Tibetan nation still exists in China.


But with nation-states as the standard form of political organization, the non-titular nations are usually somewhat repressed within the states in which they reside. The state presumes to act as the embodied will of the titular nation (so Croatia works for Croatian interests, despite a substantial Serbian national minority).
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Soviet cogitations: 3688
Defected to the U.S.S.R.: 07 Jul 2006, 04:49
Ideology: Juche
Old Bolshevik
Post 19 Apr 2012, 00:17
Quote:
But with nation-states as the standard form of political organization, the non-titular nations are usually somewhat repressed within the states in which they reside.


This opression exists under Capitalism, were Croatia a Socialist state, the Serbs would be treated fairly.
Loz
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Defected to the U.S.S.R.: 06 Dec 2009, 23:17
Philosophized
Post 19 Apr 2012, 00:19
Quote:
In a sense, yes. If the working class no longer identifies with its various nations then the bourgeoisie will lose an extremely effective weapon in controlling them.

Except that the working classes are not national nihilists and will not lose this sort of identification with their nation. As Lenin said "the national feeling is one of the strongest feelings in a man".
Disarming the bourgeois nationalism (which, as noted in the previous sources i gave, is just a facade for shameless betrayal of national interests) with socialist patriotism is a much more feasible strategy IMO.

Quote:
A Fatherland, that is, the given political, cultural and social environment is the most powerful factor in the class struggle of the proletariat ... The proletariat can not be indifferent to the political, social and cultural conditions of their struggle, so it can not be indifferent to the fate of their country.

Lenin





Quote:
The state presumes to act as the embodied will of the titular nation (so Croatia works for Croatian interests, despite a substantial Serbian national minority).

No, it works against the interests of almost all of its citizens (even the "national" bourgeoisie!), regardless of their nationality/ethnicity.
Oppression that the minorities suffer from because of local chauvinism is just the icing on top of the cake.
"Nationalism" in this specific context is always extremely reactionary because it is chauvinist in nature and only serves to further cement the country's status as a semi-colony.
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Defected to the U.S.S.R.: 20 Jul 2011, 15:17
Party Member
Post 19 Apr 2012, 01:27
ooooh I missed this:

Vasco wrote:
i respect every culture but i think my country has enough people and don't need anymore

Why don't you sterilize the citizens of your country so that they cannot reproduce then?

Quote:
We need to unite the people to smash capitalism and them construct a society where those people can turn back to their countrys and rebuild them to creat a better society.

That's a really thoughtful idea, but what countries do you think will exist after capitalism is "smashed"? Do you think that every nation should have its own country? Does that make you a Zionist? How do you define nation?
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Soviet cogitations: 3763
Defected to the U.S.S.R.: 11 Nov 2009, 07:13
Ideology: Other Leftist
Politburo
Post 19 Apr 2012, 02:35
Loz wrote:
Nice consistency there.
It's OK for Africans to work to preserve "their" culture and so on but not for Europeans.

That's not nationalism. That's culture. Nationalism is an ideology that seeks to establish, control, or embolden a state. Nationalism in an anti-colonial situation is progressive, as a means to build socialism in said country. Nationalism in Europe is a method to reentrench imperialism, since Europe has already secured a nation-state free of foreign exploitation.

Nationalism in Angola is quite different from Nationalism in Germany.
Vasco wrote:
Ex: So if an communist party in Portugal/Greece won the elections and advocate Nationalism would you support ?


No. For lots of reasons.
1) a communist party winning elections in Europe would only breed social-imperialism or counterrevolution
2) Portugal has already handled the national question, and thus has no further use of nationalism; nationalism, in Europe's case, would be reactionary.

Quote:
I agree with you because all nation have the right to self-determination .

Europeans already have self-determination.

Stalin wrote:
A nation has the right freely to determine its own destiny. It has the right to arrange its life as it sees fit, without, of course, trampling on the rights of other nations. That is beyond dispute.


Marxism and the National Question

Europe already has this. Post-colonial countries do not necessarily.
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Defected to the U.S.S.R.: 20 Jul 2011, 15:17
Party Member
Post 19 Apr 2012, 03:27
Prole, I mostly agree, but does this mean that you support Croatian separatism during the breakup of the SFRY, for instance? With your logic, don't they also deserve the right to self-determination?
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Soviet cogitations: 3503
Defected to the U.S.S.R.: 07 Oct 2004, 22:04
Ideology: Marxism-Leninism
Resident Soviet
Post 19 Apr 2012, 04:36
soviet78 wrote:
As someone from a country which has experienced an unprecedented level of cultural destruction over the last 25 years, I'll have to disagree. Over that period, the former Soviet Union has rejected many elements of its own cultural past, while idolizing Western culture and creating a primitive and shabby imitation of it through movies, music, and art.


gRedBritain wrote:
Not necessarily a bad thing. If old and reactionary cultural practices are replaced by more progressive ones then I don't see the problem. Not that I'm saying all cultural change in the former USSR has been progressive, mind you.


The fact that you could say this shows how little you know of the degeneration of Soviet-style culture in the post-socialist world. We went from having some of the most intelligent, beautifully filmed and well-acted cinematography to pornography and mafia-funded garbage churned out as a way to launder money. In the last 25 years, none of the liberal ambitions for a new era in literature have panned out. In art, socialist realism has been ridiculed intensely and now we've got the same forms of abstract art where a man has monkeys role around on a canvas that people in the West have long enjoyed. We've got American Pie, 'Garry Potter', and 'Uitni Huston' in the depths of remote villages, but also an education reform plan which makes the study of classical Russian literature a paid, optional subject.

Reading about the USSR with its 'old and reactionary cultural practices', I have no idea what you're trying to say. The USSR was a modern industrial society presenting a socialist modernity alternative to that of the capitalist West. The preservation of cultural traditions of the various peoples living in the country, even if they are an invention of the bourgeois, were not used in the interests of a bourgeois class, nor to harm or discriminate against any citizen. Also, when I look around at the types of fake, commercialized, spiritually and mentally empty cultural production I see in the modern world, I wonder what you mean by 'progressive'.

gRedBritain wrote:
All ascribed their status by the bourgeoisie. When did the people of Russia choose their national anthem? How did they decided what their national dress would be? How did they decide what their national dish should be? When did the people of Russia unanimously decide what the Russian flag would be? People assume these things are "national customs" because the state propagates them as such. They are propaganda for the national myth.


All of that changed after October 1917, where the Soviet leadership and the cultural and academic elite was left to determine what of bourgeois modernity was salvageable and valuable for the new socialist state. As to 'when the people decided', that's a question of historical dates (i.e. when the anthem, the flag, etc. were signed into the constitution).

gRedBritain wrote:
Russian, like all languages, has always been influenced by other languages and is constantly evolving. English has loads of words from French, German, Latin, etc. Even Inuit ('anorak')! Doesn't make it any less "rich".


It does when the influences are the result of a domestic cultural collapse and an attempt by a neoliberal regime and their criminal elite caste of 'businessmen' to integrate with the West. Sure I suppose more English words would be incorporated faster if the Soviet government wasn't so strict in enforcing language standards in education, government documents, etc. Still, I see no reason for it to have done so.

gRedBritain wrote:
Hence you see hatred towards others even with people who do not consider themselves nationalists but merely "patriots" (two sides of the same coin).


How so? I am a patriot, yet I feel no intrinsic hatred for any nation or national group.

soviet78 wrote:
Otherwise it can be an acceptable, even beautiful thing.


gRedBritain wrote:
Yes, providing you support retaining the bourgeoisie as the ruling class.


What was the connection of cultural nationalism to the retention of the bourgeoisie as the ruling class during the Soviet period?

gRedBritain wrote:
Yes you can, it just takes a bit of time.


No I cannot, seeing how liberal attitudes toward nations today serve the interests of the bourgeoisie even more than nationalism does, this so-called 'globalism' really serving a form of cultural and commercial imperialism.

khlib wrote:
Also, there is no reason that you as a Russian proletarian should feel like you share more in common with a Russian oligarch (just because you both call yourselves "Russian" and identify with some of the same national myths and invented traditions) than with any other proletarian in the world. This is a completely modern ideological trick.


Well, it all depends on how the media spins it. Most Russians have absolutely no respect for oligarchs, given the openly violent and corrupt methods by which the latter stole the nation's wealth. Plus, most of them keep all their assets abroad, send their children abroad for school, and have second houses abroad in case things get too hot in Russia. Just as Russia has been imitating the West culturally over the last 20 years, Russian capitalism is also a crude imitation, and a violent revolutionary explosion is far more likely there than in Western countries, where most of the population has actually accepted the idea that the rich are hard-working job creators who look out for the ordinary peoples' interests. It is becoming more and more difficult for the media to spin things like gas wars with Belarus without people realizing that the presented 'Russian interest' is actually the interest of companies like Gazprom, not the 'Russian people'.

soviet78 wrote:
Perhaps my attitudes are rooted in the fact that Soviet Marxism was mixed with Russian conservativism, messianism and ancient Russian collectivist ideals, whereas Western Marxism is mixed with liberal ideas.


mabool wrote:
The fusion of both in GDR ideology is extremely fascinating.


Perhaps you can tell me more about this. As I recall East Germany was really proud of Goethe, and did its best to make the best of 18th and 19th century German bourgeois culture available to the masses. There was also a revival of Prussian traditions and culture as well, no?
"The thing about capitalism is that it sounds awful on paper and is horrendous in practice. Communism sounds wonderful on paper and when it was put into practice it was done pretty well for what they had to work with." -MiG
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Defected to the U.S.S.R.: 16 Apr 2012, 23:42
Ideology: Marxism-Leninism
Pioneer
Post 19 Apr 2012, 14:15
Quote:
Why don't you sterilize the citizens of your country so that they cannot reproduce then?

If you understand that Portugal situation is really bed because the bad politics that liberals made we have people live in poverty .
So even the people that born here have diffucult to find a job even with qualifications so do you think that we should imigrants that haver a very low chance of getting a job ?
Imigrants are only used by capitalist to pay cheap wages to the workers .


Quote:
That's a really thoughtful idea, but what countries do you think will exist after capitalism is "smashed"? Do you think that every nation should have its own country?

The same countrys that exist today but i think we will have more brotherhood than today when is everyone for itself .

I think every Nation should have it's own country to avoid Racism and Xenophobia since when we look at Kurds we see that their are an opressed nation that is disrepected by Turks and other nations .
Quote:
Does that make you a Zionist? How do you define nation?


Quote:
Joseph Stalin in Marxism and the National Question: "a nation is not a racial or tribal, but a historically constituted community of people;" "a nation is not a casual or ephemeral conglomeration, but a stable community of people;" "a common language is one of the characteristic features of a nation;" "a nation is formed only as a result of lengthy and systematic intercourse, as a result of people living together generation after generation;" "a common territory is one of the characteristic features of a nation;" "a common economic life, economic cohesion, is one of the characteristic features of a nation;" "a common psychological make-up, which manifests itself in a common culture, is one of the characteristic features of a nation;" "A nation is a historically constituted, stable community of people, formed on the basis of a common language, territory, economic life, and psychological make-up manifested in a common culture." According to Stalin, this would exclude Jews as they have no common territory
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Defected to the U.S.S.R.: 06 Dec 2009, 23:17
Philosophized
Post 19 Apr 2012, 14:25
Quote:
That's not nationalism. That's culture. Nationalism is an ideology that seeks to establish, control, or embolden a state. Nationalism in an anti-colonial situation is progressive, as a means to build socialism in said country. Nationalism in Europe is a method to reentrench imperialism, since Europe has already secured a nation-state free of foreign exploitation.

First, Vasco explained in the original post what he meant by "nationalism".
Second, you are aware of the fact that, for example, Morocco, itself an ex-colony continues to opress and enslave the peoples of Western Sahara or that Nigeria waged a war against peoples of Biafra? There are many such examples too.
Also, how would the independence of, say, Catalonia or Basque country "reetrench imperialism"?

Quote:
Nationalism in Angola is quite different from Nationalism in Germany.

In what way?
Also what's wrong with "nationalism" that Vasco speaks of?

Quote:
a communist party winning elections in Europe would only breed social-imperialism or counterrevolution

What?

Quote:
Portugal has already handled the national question, and thus has no further use of nationalism; nationalism, in Europe's case, would be reactionary.

Portugal is close to being a semi-colony of EU imperialism.

Quote:
Europeans already have self-determination.

"Europe" isn't a a nation and you're wrong because : Catalonia, the Basque country, Northern Ireland and so on.


Quote:
Europe already has this. Post-colonial countries do not necessarily.
Marxism and the National Question

I'm aware of ML outlook on the national question, which is why i don't support, for example, "independent" Kosovo.
Also, take a look at Africa and you'll see dozens of "post-colonial" countries trampling on the rights of other nations. I have already given some exaples.
Soviet cogitations: 1854
Defected to the U.S.S.R.: 24 Jun 2011, 08:37
Party Member
Post 19 Apr 2012, 15:18
Ideally, we should overcome nationalism, but that seems to me to be an extremely short sighted expectation to real life situations.
Soviet America is Free America!

Under communism, there is no freedom; you are not free to live in poverty, be homeless, to be without an education, to starve, or to be without a job
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Defected to the U.S.S.R.: 20 Jul 2011, 15:17
Party Member
Post 19 Apr 2012, 16:09
Vasco wrote:
If you understand that Portugal situation is really bed because the bad politics that liberals made we have people live in poverty .
So even the people that born here have diffucult to find a job even with qualifications so do you think that we should imigrants that haver a very low chance of getting a job ?
Imigrants are only used by capitalist to pay cheap wages to the workers .


First of all, that is a total right-wing myth. This website explains why:
http://www.seiu.org/a/immigration/they-take-our-jobs-debunking-immigration-myths.php
Quote:
Immigrants create new jobs by forming new businesses, buying homes, spending their incomes on American goods and services, paying taxes and raising the productivity of U.S. businesses.¹ In fact, between 1990 and 2004, roughly 9 out of 10 native-born workers with at least a high school diploma experienced wage gains because of increased immigration.²

In fact, not allowing immigration actually LOWERS the wages of the native-born workforce:
Quote:
The problem with today's economy is not immigrants; the problem is our broken immigration laws that allow big business to exploit workers who lack legal status, driving down wages for all workers. If every immigrant were required to get into the system, pay their dues, and become U.S. citizens, we could block big business' upper hand, eliminate the two-tiered workforce, and build a united labor movement that raises wages and living standards for all workers.



Quote:
I think every Nation should have it's own country to avoid Racism and Xenophobia

So, how will every nation having its own country prevent racism and xenophobia? How are you sure it won't create it? What about land that is inhabited by two or more nations? We'd probably have to ethnically cleanse it, right?

Seriously though, do you have any idea how much blood has been shed over this principle of nationalism? To take the Balkans as an example, before the advent of nationalism, people simply identified on a local level (with some vague idea of being "Slavic"). When these ideas of ethnic nationalism arrived from Germany, different groups began to construct 'nations' in the Balkans in order to legitimize autonomy from the ruling empires. The ideology of "brotherhood and unity" attempted to reconcile these differences, but in the 90's, nationalists (with rhetoric not much different than yourself) stirred them up again, telling people that every nation deserves its own country, and that the Serbs, Croats, Bosniaks, Montenegrins, Kosovar Albanians were all separate nations. (BTW, there is the same amount of evidence to support those claims as there is to support the claim that Portugal is a nation, because all nations were invented in the 19th century). Their definition of nationhood was not much different than yours and Koba's (common language, common historical experience), so academics went to work, proving that Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin are separate languages on the basis of minor linguistic differences (this is quite easy to do, as there is NO set definition of language - it's mostly a political construct, a dialect with an army). Finally, these ideas resulted in war, which is their logical outcome.
Loz
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Defected to the U.S.S.R.: 06 Dec 2009, 23:17
Philosophized
Post 19 Apr 2012, 16:29
Quote:
First of all, that is a total right-wing myth. This website explains why:

That's in America. The agricultural US with its almost endless employment opportunities is completely different from Southern Europe with its horrible unemployment rates and even lesser (for now) possibilities for the creation of new jobs.

Quote:
So, how will every nation having its own country prevent racism and xenophobia? How are you sure it won't create it? What about land that is inhabited by two or more nations? We'd probably have to ethnically cleanse it, right?

We have to look at specific cases.
Obviously Wales and England have no problem staying inside one (British) nation.
However the already-mentioned Basque country should get independence, it its inhabitants want to. Yes, and without any ethnic cleaning.

Quote:
To take the Balkans as an example, before the advent of nationalism, people simply identified on a local level (with some vague idea of being "Slavic").

Source?

Quote:
The ideology of "brotherhood and unity" attempted to reconcile these differences, but in the 90's, nationalists (with rhetoric not much different than yourself) stirred them up again, telling people that every nation deserves its own country, and that the Serbs, Croats, Bosniaks, Montenegrins, Kosovar Albanians were all separate nations.

Tito's regime recognized that there indeed were several nations withing the SFRY, which is why ex-YU states follow the borders of Yugoslavia's federal republics.

Quote:
Finally, these ideas resulted in war, which is their logical outcome.

That war did not come because of "ideas", it came because the rulling classes of certain republics wanted to break away from the "lowest common denominator" the federal Yugoslavia was, in order for all constraints against "independence" (that is, the "local" bourgeoisie having a free hand in literally stealing the public property while ,at the same time, selling out "their" countries to imperialism) to be removed.
Of course, all that could have happened even without war.
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Defected to the U.S.S.R.: 16 Apr 2012, 23:42
Ideology: Marxism-Leninism
Pioneer
Post 19 Apr 2012, 17:00
@khlib
You are talking about a BIG Country lika USA and not one like Portugal/Greece/Italy wich joub creation are much lower than US so if you look at Unemployment rates of Portugal/Greece/Spain or Italy they have more than 12 % so how can you expect having jobs for imigrants and citizens in the country ?
If you have a magic solution please give to Passos Coelho to solve the Unemplyment Rates .
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/02/world/europe/02youth.html?pagewanted=all


Quote:
So, how will every nation having its own country prevent racism and xenophobia? How are you sure it won't create it? What about land that is inhabited by two or more nations? We'd probably have to ethnically cleanse it, right?


You take Balkans as an example but you should know that their " hatred " had been born centurys so under tito the things were ok but after his death " Local bourgeoisie " start thinking get of the Federation and rise the hatred that has been keep quite in Tito Time .

Quote:
This topic is a complex one and for the most part is based on the abuse of power.
Such abuse translated into promoting national interests, namely more land, ethnic and cultural supremacy, etc. In this instance Serbia hated Croatia because Croatia and other Yugoslav states (namely Slovenia, Macedonia, Bosnia) foiled its plans of creating 'Greater Serbia'. The Serbian abuse of power prompted the other states to secede.

From the time of Serbian independence in 1878 Serbia held the upper hand over the other western Balkan states and for the greater part of the following century.
Serbia made sure that the power was used for the benefit of the Serbian people and to the detriment of others. In the 19th century Serbs, unlike other western Balkan nations, had their own independent kingdom and powerful allies such as the Russian Empire that made sure Serbia was and stayed powerful.

Serbia's long term goal was to make every Balkan ethnic group in its sphere of influence (south Slavic nations of Slovenes, Croats, Bosnians and Macedonians) become Serbian. The notion of greater Serbia stems from a 19th century Serbian politician Ilija Garasanin who wrote a memorandum in 1844 that covered taking over and incorporating surrounding countries and people into a Greater Serbian state. This memorandum was to serve as a backbone of Serbian expansionism for future generations.

It was a general Serbian consensus that all the people in these lands were Serbian: Slovenes being the alpine Serbs, the Croats being Catholic Serbs, the Bosniaks Muslim Serbs and the Macedonians - southern Serbs.

In the Kingdom of Yugoslavia of the early 20th century, the Macedonians were not allowed to have a nation but were referred to as the southern Serbs. The Macedonians were not happy in the least and subsequently assassinated the Serbian King Alexander I by a Macedonian revolutionary (Velicko Kerin also known as Vlado Chernozemski).

Furthermore, none of the lands that were to be incorporated into Greater Serbia had any historical links with Serbia apart from brief periods of occupation in the late middle ages by the Serbian Kingdom of parts of Macedonia, Greece and Albania, and the Vlach and Serbian orthodox refugees that were fleeing the Turkish oppression during the 17 century.
These Vlach refugees settled in parts of Hungary, Croatia and Bosnia.

The Vlachs were an indigenous Balkan population of romanized Illyrians and Thracians that converted to Orthodox Christianity and from 18th to 20th centuries in particular, came to see themselves as Serbs due to their cultural similarities and relative isolation from their true kinsmen - the Romanians. At the time of these migrations ethnic Vlachs were closer related to the Romanians than the Serbs both ethnically and linguistically.
Serbs were Slavs and Vlachs were not.

The lands (outside of Serbia), although currently populated by Serb minorities were NOT initially populated by Vlachs or Serbs. As an example, Croatia was initially settled by the Croats in the 7th/8th century and the Vlach populations started arriving 1000 years later - from the 17th century onwards. These lands still had Croatian settlers though now had Vlachs as well, invited by the Habsburgs to populate the decimated lands of the Ottoman invasions.

After World War 1, Croatia joined the kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. The kingdom was ruled by a Serbian dynasty eager to exert control over all the nations in the country with the final aim of making a kingdom of all Serbs - The Greater Serbia.
This of course was welcome by neither the Slovenes nor the Croats, nor the Bosniaks, Macedonians and Albanians for that matter.

The Serbian dictatorship in the kingdom was ever present in the country. The military, police and the government were all Serbian. The school curriculum was taught in Serbian - Serbian history, Serbian language. Slowly other nations were to be wiped out culturally and if not, forcibly if need be as was evident in the 1990s Serbian aggression in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and finally Kosovo. These wars were led by Slobodan Milosevic, the president of Serbia who died in the Hague whilst being tried for war crimes in former Yugoslavia.

To conclude, Serbia and Serbian politics was its own worst enemy bringing hatred to its neighbours. Prior to the 19th century, there were no historical records of any western Balkan nations hating the Serbs or vice versa. Serbs brought hatred through their thirst for power and their own selfish interests to the detriment of others.
Last edited by Vasco on 19 Apr 2012, 17:16, edited 1 time in total.
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Loz
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Defected to the U.S.S.R.: 06 Dec 2009, 23:17
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Post 19 Apr 2012, 17:08
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Defected to the U.S.S.R.: 24 Jun 2011, 08:37
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Post 19 Apr 2012, 18:02
well, to a large extent it depends on national policy. If the state and it's citizens decide that employing as many as possible, then this will happen. If they decide to employ as few as possible to ensure profit, then that will happen.
Soviet America is Free America!

Under communism, there is no freedom; you are not free to live in poverty, be homeless, to be without an education, to starve, or to be without a job
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Defected to the U.S.S.R.: 20 Jul 2011, 15:17
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Post 19 Apr 2012, 18:53
Loz wrote:
That's in America. The agricultural US with its almost endless employment opportunities is completely different from Southern Europe with its horrible unemployment rates and even lesser (for now) possibilities for the creation of new jobs.


Here is an article about the case in Portugal, scientifically proving the exact same thing:
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=29036

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Source?

When Ethnicity Did Not Matter in the Balkans by John Fine, The National Question in Yugoslavia by Ivo Banac, South Slav nationalisms by Charles Jelavich

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Tito's regime recognized that there indeed were several nations withing the SFRY, which is why ex-YU states follow the borders of Yugoslavia's federal republics.

I never said that they weren't considered separate nations in the SFRY, but Tito hoped that an inclusive Yugoslav identity would become more important and override these differences.

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That war did not come because of "ideas", it came because the rulling classes of certain republics wanted to break away from the "lowest common denominator" the federal Yugoslavia was, in order for all constraints against "independence" (that is, the "local" bourgeoisie having a free hand in literally stealing the public property while ,at the same time, selling out "their" countries to imperialism) to be removed.
Of course, all that could have happened even without war.

Gellner: Modern nationalism is “a political principle, which holds that the political and the national unit should be congruent.” With nationalists coming to power, war was inevitable in the Balkans because the national and political (republican border) lines were not congruent. This is why this understanding of nationalism is VERY DANGEROUS.
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