The BBC notes that the legacy of the Cuban socialist miracle is ‘complex’. This is just what Serbian Communist leader Draza Markovic used to say about the problems in Kosovo in the early 1980s: "the situation is still complicated, even complex!" The BBC on Cuba: Fifty years on, the legacy […]
Here is a well-judged piece by Johann Hari trying to work out how Harold Pinter ended up supporting Slobodan Milosevic: Pinter himself says "the most important line I’ve ever written" is when Meg’s husband calls out, as Stanley is taken away, "Stan, don’t let them tell you what to do." […]
So many entries. So little time. Remember the BBC puff for kitschy little red Mass Murderer badges? Or the oh-so-cool Che poster picture as part of a free ad for Fidel Castro? Both worthy entries. But, in a late surge, the BBC reaches a new height. Can a supposedly serious […]
The Serbian website Pescanik (‘Hourglass’) has lots of lively and nicely turned work available in both Serbian and English. Try this piece on a profound local disposition to oppose change and modernity by romanticising primitivism: Whenever you find yourself short on argument, it comes in handy to call your opponent, who is […]
The preamble of the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina as drafted at Dayton quaintly categorises the citizenry of B&H thus: Bosniacs, Croats, and Serbs, as constituent peoples (along with Others), and citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina hereby determine that the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina is as follows: … Huh? Huh?! […]
A reader responds to my posting on Bosnian war deaths: When you will realise that in Bosnia (Yugoslavia) occurred a civil war, and that is caused by the large number of victims and mass slaughter of Serbs by Croats and Mislimans during the Second World War (Serbs have never forgotten that […]
Here is an excellent piece by RFE/RL on the work of Mirsad Tokaca who has been working hard to give definitive numbers for people killed in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the 1990s’ conflicts. He comes out at some 97,000 people killed. A terrible number, of course, but way lower than […]
Remember Slavoj Zizek, the self-indulgent Slovenian Marxist? Here is a fine if depressing piece by Adam Kirsch which drills deep into the black heart of Zizek’s cynicism. And finds … blackness: "To be clear and brutal to the end," he [Zizek] sums up, "there is a lesson to be learned […]
The UN Security Council has supported a plan for the deployment of the EULEX mission in Kosovo. Belgrade is happy, since the planned deployment is ‘status neutral’, ie it does not give in principle (and practice?) any encouragement to the idea that Kosovo is now independent. Which is why various […]
A reader asks: Do you approve of the current US and UK policy to appease nationalist Albanian threats of violence? There may be people out there who do not follow the Kosovo problem with close attention. Just to remind them that the long-running attempt to the EU’s bright young Laura […]
