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Originally Posted by Ostrogorski
There's no point in naming...who started this or that war
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On the contrary, there is very much point in these things.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ostrogorski
We belong to 2 different religions, civilizations and cultures, and they make us having 2 totally opposite national goals, and therefore bitter rivals in the struggle for the control of what is commonly known as "western Balkans".
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Two different varieties of the European Christendom, or Romanitas. My opinions is that it is the national ideas that foment these conflicts, not some unbridgeable cultural or religious differences. Differences in religion and culture
do exist and they are by no account unimportant, but are not the primary sources of the conflicts. They often serve as
a posteriori justifications.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ostrogorski
bitter rivals in the struggle for the control of what is commonly known as "western Balkans".
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ostrogorski
That's the essence. Other than that lots and lots of Serbs and Croats can blame each other for our mutual conflicts, but that won't bring them any closer to the truth. And the truth is one - we'll always fight until one of 2 nations triumphs and other disappears, and antagonism stops.
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Exterminationism? Genocide? Assimilation? Or otherwise an eternal conflict... This is thinking along the lines of Nikola Stojanović, a Serb journalist and lawyer, as expounded in his (in)famous article
Do istrage vaše ili naše ("Until the extermination - whether it be ours or yours"), published in 1902 in the Serbian journal
Srbobran, which was printed in Zagreb (by the Serb minority living there). The article wasn't in fact originally by
Srbobran, but it was transcribed from the
Srbski književni glasnik ("Serbian literary journal") in Belgrade.
Stojanović explained the conflict between Serbs and Croats in some pseudo-theological terms, as a sort of Manichean struggle, whereby Serbs represent progress and Croats regression. He said that there could be only eternal conflict between these two opposed elements, until one of them succumbs. He said it would be certainly Croats.
And more important: who is
we? (the "we" I bolded in the quote from your post) I personally have no wish to hoist a Croatian flag in Čačak (for example) or Niš, nor most Croats do. But you obviously think in that way, that it is fate, that Serbs and Croats are predestined to eternal conflict. One could say that it is not your attitude that it
should be that way, but merely a statement of facts. But, my impression is that you advocate that.