Sarajevo, 4th of May 2010
Today is the 4th of May. Exactly 30 years from Josip Broz Tito’s death passed, but people still speak about him very nostalgically, so he’ll probably never fade away from our hearts. We had a bloody war and 20 years of hopelessness, when various political caricatures have switched within our small countries. Whenever one of them died or resigned, the next moment they were forgotten. Only Tito and his name have always been remembered. Only Tito is mentioned, quoted, praised and criticized. Sometimes in positive, sometimes in negative ways, but he’s often object for various discussions. Below, you can watch the video from Al Jazeera TV, which illustrates a short description of this story.
British newspaper “Independent” published a very interesting article about Tito. This article is, in my opinion, a quite real one, especially the part where the author describes the nostalgia that can be found in all former Yugoslav republics. Tito's opponents are nowadays mostly criminals and fascists. They took the state power and authority and today they hypocritically speak about human rights and democracy, while nobody asked the people if they want democracy as a system, which is not democratic way of dealing with issues. People should have a right to choose a system, but today that is not the case anymore. Democracy is usually connected to capitalism, as a way of thinking and an unavoidable factor of a «free market». Until today, capitalism had so many mistakes, but nobody said that it's an unsustainable system and only socialism is known as a failed theory. In my opinion, capitalism can be also connected with modern colonization.
People like Stalin, Enver Hoxha or Kim Jong, who misused socialism as a theory, are the guiltiest for socialism’s failure. They misused their position, and governed until their death, even though the lives of their people were miserable. But, I have to say that there were also politicians like Josip Broz Tito, who fought for workers’ rights and rights of ordinary people.
Tito´s system was probably better than today quasi-democracy, especially for Yugoslav nations. Let’s illustrate this with the following example: all the demonstrators through all ex-Yugoslavia countries, always have his picture during the protest. Only in Bosnia and Herzegovina, there are 516.000 unemployed people and a bit less in other Yugoslav countries. In Tito’s time, we had free education at all levels, free health insurance (including dentist’s services), huge sports achievements (like Olympic games in Sarajevo), much less criminal, safety on streets, a much better passport that was valued in the whole world, honest brotherhood between our nations, etc. Our parents traveled to all six republics and felt like home, while today’s youth doesn’t leave their towns and doesn’t know each other at all. More than 80% of young people in Bosnia never met Slovenians, Macedonians or Albanians.
At the end, I’d like to share one anecdote with you, which happened in Amsterdam, during my tourist trip there. We celebrated the 29th of November, Day of the (Yugoslavia) Republic. There were many people from all Yugoslav parts around our table. One Dutch guy came and asked us whether we would choose capitalistic Holland or the socialistic, Tito’s Yugoslavia. Although we have experienced all the magic of capitalism, through our lives within the EU, all of us answered the same: Of course, in Tito’s Yugoslavia.
Therefore, in remembrance of the man that provided his nations more than we have today, or maybe ever will have; take a look at some details from Tito’s funeral, the biggest funeral ever in the world that was attended by 209 delegations and 130 presidents from the whole world.
The difference is obvious, and by far the winner is socialism. Unfortunately we live in capitalism, in which there was a time when people become unhappy. European values are mapped from the prescription of Yugoslavia, so that socialism will be put back into Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina
“Ja”, thank you for the comment. Probably I will post some other similar stories, so I am inviting you to subscribe to my blog. And, I have similar opinion like you
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Interesting. But I have to question the idea that only “capitalism is connected with modern colonization”. Don’t you think communist Russia and China were also guilty of neo-colonialism during the Cold War? It seems colonization follows political power rather than a country’s choice of economic system.
Elsje, you are totally right, colonization is mostly connected with a power. But, also, it should be questioned are China and Russia today communistic countries. I think no
, especially China, even if they have similar system there.
Also, this claim that capitalism is connected with modern colonization is the sentence of Slavoj Žižek, one of the biggest today philosopher, from Slovenia. I’d like to find it, but I am not sure is there in English. Anyways, this is a link where it’s possible to see that video http://www.subversivefilmfestival.com/subff2010/video.php?menu_id=13&slika_id=113 .
Yep, I agree that China and Russia are both capitalist today - I meant during the Cold War though.
Sorry, that was supposed to be less of a grin and more of a
When I say socialism or Communism, I always try to make a difference between misuse of these two things and these theories from their sources. During the Cold war there were come Soviet states which didn’t want to be in that union, and some of them they did. For example, Kazakhstan hasn’t ever wanted independence, they were totally dependent by Russia. But, if you think about eastern European countries, such as Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia or Eastern Germany, I think it was more pressure to behave by Soviet rules, than a real economical colonization. Today at the Balkans we had to sell all our companies to EU owners, even if we didn’t want to do it. During the Cold war, USSR didn’t have so much money to buy all the economics in Eastern Europe, but of course, political pressure was very huge, except in Yugoslavia, cause we said NO to them and they did nothing.
But the Soviet Union invaded Hungary, for example. That is surely more than just political pressure. Also, I refered to communism in my last comment not in order to equate it with socialism, but to show that capitalism is not the only system that encourages/allows colonialism.
I think all of us can agree that USSR is a typical misuse of socialism and its principles.
Mirza, you say: “Today at the Balkans we had to sell all our companies to EU owners, even if we didn’t want to do it.” Actually, many companies were privatized by local business people, some by Russians and business owners from other countries in the region, others by EU, US or some other companies around the world. There is no unique pattern that ownership of a certain origin is better than others. Just many diverse cases. Each is a case by itself.
All the big companies are: 1. sold to foreign capitalists, 2. destroyed by local bosses and later on sold to them.
Of course, there are some positive examples of smaller companies, but all giants, as Energoinvest, INA, Telecoms, NIS, etc. are included in one of two points from the sentence above.
Because of “free market”, today we have Mercator, OMV, Petrol and some other companies that destroy our domestic firms, thank to lobbies and all the other ways of legal things that they do. Of course, everything is legal, but it wouldn’t be my choice of rebuilding the state.
“Socialism is the longest road from capitalism to capitalism”
I agree in that cultural conceptions of socialism can vary and often disguise a lack of black and white democracy.
Instead of subsidising present systems (e.g agricultural protectionism) under the name of socialism, we should rather seek to uproat the causes of much injustice, without hiding under ideological banner.
We have seen how the ‘Socialist’ Labour party in the UK can have more right-wing policies than the Conservatives for example. Perhaps each culture has to have a different route as to what the best form of democracy can be for each. In this light, I have a post entitled ‘Development isnt a uniform concept’.
Thanks a lot for this one! A very enjoyable read.
Mark