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It is currently 16:43 (UTC) on Thursday, 8 October 2015 in Wikiland, although where I live it is 02:13 (UTC + 9.5).
— Corporal Dennis, 1st Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment
A bit about the former Yugoslavia Over time, I have realised that the root cause of Yugoslavia’s demise wasn’t centuries-old ethnic hatreds, but the fact that no government in the area that became Yugoslavia ever achieved legitimacy, because they all served one group and were intolerant of others, and as result, created serious sectarian grievances. When the opportunity arose and power shifted, at the local or national level, there were always those that were willing to exploit it for their own profit, to take revenge or eliminate the potential opposition—usually targeting the powerless and defenceless. That didn't make them "big men" or "heroes", just scumbags like the rest of the war criminals that foisted their psychotic prejudice and irrational hatred on the ordinary people of Yugoslavia throughout its existence. Unfortunately for those that do have a particular point of view about the merits of one group's perspective over another, and whose comments are often unsupported by reliable, published sources, my approach to editing regularly disappoints. I offer no salve for these editors, only cold, hard accumulated evidence gleaned from archives held the world over, and distilled into scholarly texts by academics I would kill to have a cup of coffee with (if only a few more of the true giants of Balkan historical study were still alive, where, oh where, is Tomasevich's third volume on the Partisans...?). History is not an exact science, but the weight of seventy years of meticulous historical research now bears down upon the one-eyed nonsense, conspiracy theories, and attempts to rehabilitate those from the former Yugoslavia that the reliable sources show are unworthy of rehabilitation. And the sources say that is most of them, whether you personally like it or not. Australian military history For more on why I edit where I do, see my 2015 interview in the Wikipedia Signpost. |