Balkan Idols: Religion and Nationalism in Yugoslav States

orn between 1950 and 1980 stayed at home in the multiethnic, democratized,
“fraternized and unified” country, the former Yugoslavia might have
accomplished a successful democratic transition relatively faster and maybe
much earlier than did the former Soviet satellite states of Eastern Europe.
Chances existed in the 1950s, in the 1960s and 1970s, and even in the
1980s. In the words of Goran Radman, currently the director of the Microsoft
Corporation in Croatia,
speaking of information technology, in the early 1990s we in Yugoslavia
had better infrastructure than, say, Italy and Austria (not to mention the
former Soviet satellites in Eastern Europe). At that time in Croatia almost
all large companies had information centers, trained computer experts, as
well as necessary technology and equipment. That was our springboard
for a successful transition. Today we lag behind countries such as Romania
and Bulgaria. 108
In a similar vein, one of the newly elected post-Tudjman Croatian leaders,
Josip Kregar, described postcommunist regimes as “governments of bad students.”
109 International organizations dealing with rebuilding the Balkans
also realized this and, according to a 2001 initiative will encourage and
finance the return of the lost human capital home. 110 In the meantime,
many members of the lost Yugoslav generation dispersed around the world
have so far distinguished themselves in science, scholarship, sports, arts,
entertainment, and business, remaining a living proof of a country’s talent
and promise.
210 balkan idols