yugoslavias implosion

structures. Because Serbia rejects liberal transition and insists on its
own specific development, liberal policies can be introduced only
gradually through thorough education and with eu assistance. The
political violence rooted in Serbian traditions is evidenced by the
stream of political assassinations. The murders of former Serbian
president Stambolić in 2000 531 and of Đinđić three years later were
reckonings with liberal-minded politicians.
The potential of the Democratic Party was significantly reduced
by a thorough purge of Đinđić’s closest associates after his assassination.
By collaborating with Koštunica’s Democratic Party of Serbia,
Boris Tadić, the Democratic Party president and—since July
2004—the president of Serbia, moved toward Koštunica’s vision. In
past years the Democratic Party has shown limited reformist and
pro-European identity because the national project is still on the
agenda. Yet, the Democratic Party is the pillar of political life in Serbia
and without its thorough change Serbia cannot move forward.
As a result of the wars, the ideology based on putative national
uniqueness and myth that preceded, the universal socialist idea is
popular again in Serbia. Serbia originally embraced radical nationalism
under conditions of relative affluence. By the time of the antibureaucratic
revolution of 1989, Serbia had destroyed the legacy of
reforms created during the second Yugoslavia to demonstrate that
Serbia was and remains its most conservative element. Yugoslavia
was Serbia’s first experience of living in European complexity, pluralism,
compromise, and consensus. There is no rational explanation
for what went on in Serbia during the twentieth century—no
explanation except, perhaps, the fact that the Enlightenment and the
appetite for rationalism it encouraged in the rest of Europe bypassed
Serbia. The past two decades of radical nationalism have destroyed
531 Milorad Ulemek – Legija has been sentenced to 40 years for his role in the murder of
former Yugoslav president Ivan Stambolić and 40 years for organizing the assassination
of prime minister Zoran Đinđić . He was a member of the paramilitary police unit JSO .
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