A very personal account of life in the former Yugoslavia before and during the break-up of the country. Particularly interesting, as the author is basically my age. For me, it was interesting to compare the account of his childhood life with my childhood - it underlines the poverty and constant struggle of most people's lives in Yugoslavia at that time.
In the author's various incarnations and struggles as a journalist, you can see how ability and merit had little to do with success - your position was far more dependent on toeing the party line and on party connections (Why Nations Fail - a system gamed to reward incompetence; focus above all on maintenance of power).
The story of the life of the author and his intellectual, artistic, thinking friends during the country's break-up and successive wars is quite sad and depressing. Raised as a generation to believe in a Yugoslav identity, and reaching across ethnic lines within their arts community, the rise of the ethnic nationalists, and their rhetoric and actions, must have seemed like the return of some kind of monster from the depths of an evil fairytale. There is a real sense of shock, of incomprehension, of the true ugliness of these kinds of movements. And a shock at how stupid and sheeplike, how easily manipulated the mass of people can be.
Not only this goes, but also their whole economic system falls apart - people suddenly become a lot poorer and a lot less in control of their situation.
So in the end, the thinking, the educated, the intelligent, those with a larger world view, leave the country to the megalomaniacal egotists and the sheep.
A general vision here of where society can go when everything breaks down. I am reminded of the book, Riddley Walker.
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