Balkan banana republics

The great project of Yugoslavia has turned into a corrupt clown show fueled by hate.

I’m convinced that every single (Yugo-) Slav has that one annoying-as-shit uncle. The one that lives in Germany/Switzerland/Austria/Sweden, drives a black (leased) Mercedes, has a loan on “his” flat in the suburbs of Düsseldorf that will take 160 years to pay off, barely speaks the local language despite living there for thirty years, sings ultra-nationalistic, semi-fascist songs at every opportunity, has a severe alcohol and obesity problem, hates his wife and kids, and yet tries to convince you that he’s living the life.

“Brate, come to Germany,” he says in that condescending tone, having ventured south yet again to spend two weeks in his homeland, where he’ll drink himself into a coma and molest the local youth. “I find job for you. Is promised land. Paradise!”

And you do follow him. As does everyone else who can — hundreds of thousands every single year. Soon, the ‘former Yugoslav nations’ will be deserted. Why?

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Once upon a time, there was a socialist country called Yugoslavia. This country wasn’t the best country, nor was it the most prosperous or mightiest or happiest one. Yugoslavia was just a country, better than most, yet in many aspects inferior to some others.

I was born mere days after they collapsed this country into a multitude of artificial banana republics controlled by corporations, independent and democratic only in name.

The people of Yugoslavia, the Jugoslaveni, did not enjoy the most freedom — there were certainly nations that allowed a more diverse range of self-expression, though they were rare in those times — nor could they afford the nicest things. They had, so my older relatives tell me, one sort of car, one sort of television, and they had to share many things with their neighbors and friends. This was not by design, but by necessity, for this country was born in war, and grew up in a cold war that never ended, and there were so many interests that strove to tear it apart.

And yet despite all difficulties, despite all differences of opinion, the project of Jugoslavija, ‘the land of the South Slavs,’ was a great one. In Yugoslavia, there were no homeless, no unemployed, no large disenfranchised populations. Living conditions improved to a hitherto unwitnessed degree in this part of the world, where the West flows into the Balkans. But most importantly, there was purpose, there was unity, there was a vision; a vision of what the future should be and how the people would reach it. A path to universal prosperity, a great project that would take decades and centuries, yet in the end would be fulfilled, by the blood and labor of the people, together, united.

This country, this nation, this federation of peoples, made many mistakes. Some unforgivable ones, and some out of necessity and human error. These mistakes can partly be attributed to the environment this country grew up in: an air of enmity and hostility between two great rivals, under constant outside pressures. Yugoslavia, and its very much fallible leader, Tito, made the greatest mistake of attempting a middle ground. Yet there was no middle ground, and the constant pressure and neo-liberal propaganda of the dollar, in the end, consumed this great project like it did all parts of the earth.

Bratstvo i jedinstvo — brotherhood and unity — was exchanged for the sort of pleasures one can buy and consume. A feeling of purpose and common interest was exchanged for the gold chains and Rolexes of individualism and the depression, alienation, and loneliness of great Capital. The heroin of filling unfulfilling artificial needs became the primacy of existence, material wealth and greed the one and only thing of consequence, dividing and conquering a peoples who are the same in all but name.

Between these two extremes stands a war so unnecessary, so avoidable, and so devastating in death and lasting destruction, material, physical, and on a higher spiritual basis, that one despairs at the mere mention. I’ve been to those bastions of destruction, Srebrenica, Vukovar, and so many others, where death was dealt like it was candy. The cancer of nationalism, spurred and constantly fanned by the West’s mighty, semi-invisible hand whenever it comes in handy — especially when it’s about destroying communists or anarchists, those pesky nuisances and threats to the rule of money.

We are left with small, defenseless, subordinate, money-addicted banana republics, corrupt to their very core (something every Slav, no matter his or her ‘color’ and religion will confirm willingly), the profit and growth agenda long sept into every crevice and nook, the public service and state undermined by the private. There is nothing you can do in Bosnia-Hercegovina without knowing the right people, trust me; you can do whatever the fuck you want — bulldozing the beautiful Croatian coast for another hideous mansion without proper permits and licenses, for example — if you got enough green in your pocket and know who decides what in your local sad excuse for government.

The corruption scandals and environmental degradations are so numerous and constant that they’re mostly not even worth mentioning anymore. Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, North Macedonia — all depressing fucking marionettes people are leaving every year in the hundreds of thousands for supposedly greener Western pastures. And for a reason. Every couple of years I’d visit my birth town in Bosnia-Hercegovina and every single time I’d be astounded at the general fucked-up-ness of everything. Forget the infrastructure, that’s all fucked up for a reason, forget even politics, that’s fucked up by design, but it’s the people. There’s everything wrong with the people.

Greed, envy, hate, and a general consternation have taken hold of them. So many good people have turned into those Westernized BMW and Mercedes zombies, focused solely on being better than their neighbors. Showing off and bragging at every opportunity; Germany that promised land where they slave away on construction sites for peanuts, why have you not come to Germany, brate? Ultra-nationalism and ultra-religion at every damn corner, with their invented flags and histories, God’s motherfucking chosen people, the heavenly nation. Alexander the Great was my uncle’s grandfather, didn’t you know? Franjo fucking Tuđman was literally Jesus reincarnated, and the Serbs are the oldest peoples on earth, their genealogy tracing back to some ultra-white golden dude in Atlantis — they say while chugging rakija.

Who needs unity and community when you can hate your neighbor for waving the wrong flag and going to the wrong church? Who needs purpose and a feeling of belonging when you can buy the newest goddamn iPhone as soon as you finish your twelve-hour shift at the local industrial plant in some German shithole village where everybody hates your accent? Praise the West, they are so much better than us primitive, sub-human Slavs. Balkans is a slur.

Ah yes, but we are now Westernized and happy. Didn’t you know, Slovenia and Croatia have always been closer to the West than the Balkans, always Catholic? Our GDPs, bre, look at our fancy GDPs! (But don’t look at drug abuse, homelessness, depression rates, suicides, alcoholism, unemployment, alienation, loneliness, environmental destruction, general consternation, crime, corruption, apathy, the fact that we’re marionettes of the goddamn EU, itself an American marionette, who in turn has, and will always be, a marionette to the great C, or any relevant measure whatsoever. Watch some TV, some Turkish soap opera and the World Cup, and shut the fuck up.)

A people so easily led to slaughter each other for quite literally nothing but empty promises of wealth, so easily manipulated and propagandized by greed, so easily persuaded to abandon freedom and purpose, perhaps does not deserve better. (Cheers, by the way, to our Polish brothers and sisters who are even more fucked up than us.)

Your newly found nationalism and ‘Western values’ and your doctrine of never-ending liberal incremental change that hasn’t changed shit in a hundred years will never allow you to admit it, as you vote and bend over for the next dirtbag politician, but, Yugoslavia was, for all its faults, a beacon of hope where now there’s only dystopia. You wanted Cyberpunk, you got motherfucking Cyberpunk, here you go. Go hate minorities, build the holy fortress of Europe, be the fascist you so very much want to be, lick your boss’s asshole in the Metaverse, drink your cockroach breakfast smoothie, and drive that electric car made by children in some countries you’ve never heard of.

Sincerely, a Slav.

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I’m author, writer, and activist Antonio Melonio, the creator of Beneath the Pavement. If you enjoyed this piece, please consider becoming a paid subscriber here on Substack or over on Patreon. It’s the best way to support Beneath the Pavement and help me put out more and higher-quality content.

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