Sunday, August 25, 2013

War and Peace



Some days ago I was listening my favourite group from Belgrade “Bijelo Dugme” and they were singing their song with a refrain: “gdje, pokazi mi!” – could be translated as: where? Show me!!!!


Yes, this is one of the main questions. Where and show me where?

If this would be so simple, we would have no problems at all…

The group is from former Yugoslavia. An empire of Josip (Broz) Tito built so hard and fell apart so fast. 

Bijelo Dugme still exists, however those boys are no more as sexy as on this photo:-)) (ahh... me neither)...



When I spoke to a friend of mine, Snezana from Rijeka– she said – Tudjman and Milosevic took the best part of our life, they took our childhood…

I feel to put this two brain damaged war criminals into here - just for you to remember, to never give the power to the hands of maniacs...

Some Serbs and Croats put their faith into them... Now they can cry - hopefully not forever...

However what is lost, it is lost forever... 



Once I have traveled to Split. I must admit it was long time ago. They showed us a place, where they started to open up the palace of the Roman Emperor “Diocletian”. They said to us, that he was a great emperor. Very much great!

Hmmm. You know they were digging out from what that beautiful palace?

From deep shit!


As after the collapse of the Roman Empire the locals were using the upper part of buildings as construction material to build their houses and the pass ways under as endless latrines…

So in about 1500 years those buildings managed to collect a lot of shit… That is the history. You want to find some beauty?

you need to dig in a lot of shhhhhhhhhhhh….


So what about Diocletian and Tito?

Two great man born 400 km and 1620 years between each other.

Diocletian was named as the Devil, Tito, the same by some of his opponents. 


Both built a strong empire… Diocletian built for himself a palace at Split, 







Tito at Brijoni. You must let me to show you both!!!!





Both believed in collective power. 



Diocletian saw his political scheme to fell apart, when he retired. And by historians it is believed, that he committed suicide in his palace at Split, when he saw what happened. 


We call his power sharing scheme as "tetrarchy"... Diocletian was also the inventor of the first recorded failed economic experiment... 







Tito rests in his flower house in Beograd and never be aware, that his creation fell apart in short 10 years after his life work to create it. He invented the 6 states collective power.... 

Both came from poor families… Talented, ambitious and they were rough… 

Both were great military man. 

Diocletian however committed one of histories biggest economic blunder… Not only he ordered about it, but he made a mistake to put it into writing – on stone.. Same as Hammurabi – you remember him? So Diocletian will be remembered as the first absolutely failed economic intervention known in the history.



They will be known also as complete idealists – they believed in collective leadership!




What about Tito?

He managed to create on the Balkans one of the strongest states in Europe.


By economic, military and by political strength. Now we can say it was far too dangerous and idealistic…


We shall talk later about this specific economic model he created, as it was at the time the most successful among all the socialist models ever “put into operation". 

Promise to me, that, you will remember about this.

On Tito's funeral there were four kings, 31 presidents, six princes, 22 prime ministers and 47 ministers of foreign affairs. They came from both sides of the Cold War, from 128 different countries out of 154 United Nations members at the time. There was no other funeral of any statesman before or after, where so many “important” guys participated.



Reporting on his death The New York Times commented:


“Tito sought to improve life. Unlike others who rose to power on the communist wave after WWII, Tito did not long demand that his people suffer for a distant vision of a better life. After an initial Soviet-influenced bleak period, Tito moved toward radical improvement of life in the country. Yugoslavia gradually became a bright spot amid the general greyness of Eastern Europe.”



Strange right? As later Tito’s Yugoslavia became the No.1 target to be destroyed by any means, first by economic, than political, later ethnical, than by military force. You may imagine by whom? 

WHOWWW!!!! Can you guess or we can ask Ronnie?






What we can learn from all this?

1/. Do not interfere in the economy, unless you know what you are doing. But if you do right, never be shy...

2/. You can do your best, but if you are not big enough, than other guys will destroy you.

3/. There is no collective power. At least there is no known experiment to prove this.

But we can learn one more lesson...


During the holy war against communism, some guys were dare to admit, that there was a successful economic model of the socialism.


Were there more successful models?


Or is there any other model at all we can consider against our free market economy? 

Do not worry, we shall not ask these guys about their opinion for a while...



But we shall definitely find some answers later.

Until then, I leave you with a citation of a relatively fresh study: 

“All that Tito had worked for, all that he had strived to create was lost. Nevertheless, his legacy as a benevolent dictator will not be forgotten. Tito demonstrated to the world the importance of respecting different cultures and the inherent power of neutrality. He developed a new archetype for a leader, one who above all values the input of the masses, as opposed to the input of the elite. On the idolatry of leaders, Tito once said, “If a man separates himself from the people, if he tends to be set on a pedestal, then he will only inspire fear or hatred...the people are those who are the motive power, they are the ones who inspire their leaders and the leader is but the organizer and the formulator of the people’s thoughts.” Although Yugoslavia no longer exists, Tito, leader of the republic for nearly half of its existence, will serve as a role model for centuries to come.”


I let you think about this…




I want to share with you some fragments of my life....


 I lived sometimes in the former USSR, and also had the opportunity to spend a significant period behind the “iron curtain” and see several countries..

and later


 I had a great chance in early 80's to have a machine gun pointed into my face by a French policemen, as a gesture of a friendly western democracy. It happened right on the foot of the underground pass way, where Diana died. (you just imagine me in a taxi on the left upper end and two police guys, one with a machine gun and another with a riffle)...


Just to make sure this is not a mistake, the same happened to me a bit later
in front of the newly built Pompidou Centre. You might remember, that time there was a Mc Donald's restaurant on the corner....

Some of my french friends said, that the security in France was not very good at that time... hmmm....

But at least I had the opportunity to learn what means to be global.

I have seen Vienna selling cheap home appliances, Munich, after sales shoes and Italy cheap gold…


I have lived for sometimes in Tito's Yugoslavia (or correctly spelled, in Jugoslavija) and I was among those who was standing on the street on his last trip to the House of Flowers....

  I must say, that I liked it the most in Jugoslavija. I am not sure if I was wrong or not, but we shall need to find out...

In fact all this matters only in the theory, as Yugoslavia is now only the past or a part of history. 

Most of the so called "western" economists want to believe, that the yugoslav self ruling economic model was a complete failure. But in fact the problem is, that it does not match their methodology of research and also far from their general ideology (I mean here not political, but scientific one) .

Better for them, as they do not need to concentrate on something, they have never understood or in other words, never tried to understand. 

But bad for general population, as


 "Ignoring the facts shall definitely not lead to a right conclusion.."







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