Welcome to European Tribune. It's gone a bit quiet around here these days, but it's still going.
Display:
It´s hard to understand the dividing tone you use for the readers when we are (mostly) all Europeans.  Calling ´empire´ on everyone but Serbia, right in the middle, is not reasonable, yet you separate yourselves in ´us vs. them´.

I´m not going into details that I don´t know, but politics are not separate from a complicit society in the sense that some in power abuse what the public reflects.  A society bent on division and separation is going to be exploited for personal gain.  Privatization from outside cannot occur without people on the inside selling out....  

Our own people sell us out in many ways, but if we have our values straight, we condemn them, not excuse them and glorify them.  Criminals cannot escape judgment because others are not punished.  Who wants 43 to claim immunity because bin Laden, or Karadzic were not turned in?

Every court room in the world is at times a kangaroo court, but that´s the best system we have to convict those that are dangerous to society.  I don´t want war criminals, past or present, from any side, to be acquitted, --because society/we all lose-- so if you are in possession of evidence to convict those that got away, I hope you will act, not just compare them to find somebody ´worse´.

Our knowledge has surpassed our wisdom. -Charu Saxena.

by metavision on Sun Jul 27th, 2008 at 12:09:01 PM EST
If I understand you correctly, you're saying that:
  1. You fail to grasp why vbo and I express strong feelings of divide between Serbia and Western society.
  2. The political system of a given constituency is a result of society's sentiment - and that therefore Serb (or Yugoslav) society as a whole is responsible for the events of the past 20 years.
  3. The fact that worse criminals exist doesn't make the lesser criminals innocent.
  4. The judicial system we've got in the West is not perfect, but it's the best we've got, so accept it and contribute to making it better instead of complaining.

On 1: The chasm is the result of 20 years incessant demonization of Serbs, their society, their leadership and their national interests by the Western media and its political-military elite. It's a result of the wars waged by the West against Serbia which created about 50 billion Euros of material damage on infrastructure and industry (of no military importance like, for example, bridges in Novi Sad - Vojvodina), catastrophic environmental pollution (like for example, the bombing out of fertilizer plants in Pancevo), not to mention the French, American and German Air Force's unexploded cluster bombs which still maim the innocent in and around Nis and other cities in central and southern Serbia. Some might say I'm harking, but I'm not. I'm simply pointing out the suffering of war that was experienced by Serbian society at large and that will continue to feed feelings of divide for a very long time to come.

On 2: Yes, society somewhat deserves the leadership it has, but this isn't always true. I don't believe the Russians "deserved" Stalin. Although the political elite of the ex-YU republics did sell out, I don't think that they are the only ones to blame. May I point out in most societies with an independent and well functioning judiciary, it's not only a crime to accept a bribe - it's also a crime to offer a bribe.  

On 3: I am not glorifying the Serb ex-leadership. It's just that my condemnation of that leadership is significantly less pronounced than it is in The Hague and some European capitals. Part of the reason is because we're bombarded with condemnation from 90% of MSM. We hear it all the time. Another reason is that I'm much more aware of "the other side of the story" than are most Europeans or Americans who have no links to Serbia and the Balkans.

On 4: The judicial system we've got in some European countries and The Hague in particular is not only imperfect, it's constructed on corrupt foundations. In Italy for example, it's an outright mockery. The judiciary needs to be independent financially and politically - and we all know the ICTY fails on both counts.

by vladimir on Sun Jul 27th, 2008 at 04:24:27 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Actually I got the impression from our resident Italians that the Italian judicial system is the only reasonably functioning part of Italian democracy. Which is why all the rest of the system is so hell-bent on making life difficult for it.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Sun Jul 27th, 2008 at 05:14:29 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Display:

Occasional Series