The Balkan Top Ten Lists

 
My good friend Dule Misevic passed this on, which he got in email from our friend Dusan Maljkovic in Belgrade.

Top Ten reasons for being a Serb

  1. You are not a Croat.
  2. Basketball team.
  3. You can choose between several war criminals in Presidential elections.
  4. You can enjoy the positive media coverage of your country when abroad.
  5. You can fight 600 year-old battles against the Turks and their domestic collaborators, be convinced that it's happening right now, and not be entirely wrong.
  6. You can always go to Greece and Cyprus and fear nothing.
  7. Grilled meat and slivovitz.
  8. You get to drink slivovitz and eat grilled meat even when under economic sanctions.
  9. You are the only European country which will be bombed by NATO.
  10. Every now and then you get to fly to the Hague at someone else's expense.

Top ten reasons for being a Croat

  1. You're not a Serb.
  2. Soccer team.
  3. You get to pretend that your language is different from Serbian, although it's really not.
  4. Dubrovnik.
  5. You get to dream about independent Croatia.
  6. Every now and then you get to sing "Danke, Danke, Deutschland," and continue to dream about independent Croatia.
  7. You have a thousand-year culture of which no one has heard.
  8. You have a democratically elected President who is not ashamed of being a Croat.
  9. The glorious World War Two past.
  10. You have a thousand-year culture...

Top Ten reasons for being Bosnian

  1. You can get asylum anywhere except in Serbia.
  2. You can pretend that your state exists.
  3. Kebab.
  4. You can pretend that Sarajevo is a really cosmopolitan European city when you know that it is not.
  5. Great kebab.
  6. You can be visited by Francois Mitterand, Bernard Henry-Levy, Susan Sontag, and Bill Clinton and it still doesn't make a difference.
  7. Free round-trip to any Moslem country.
  8. You get to be bombed by a psychiatrist.
  9. You can fly your flag in the UN but nowhere else.
  10. Foreigners give you money and don't ask any questions.

Top Ten reasons for being Slovenian

  1. You can speak the beautiful Slovene language and know that no one cares except you.
  2. You can feel superior to all former Yugoslavs.
  3. You can drink after work.
  4. You can pretend to live on the "sunny side of the Alps," although you know it's not that sunny.
  5. You can pretend that you are as good as any German while secretly enjoying the fact that you are a Slav.
  6. Good relations with Italy and Austria.
  7. You can afford to be Yugo-nostalgic.
  8. You can marry a Slovene and have Slovene children who speak Slovene.
  9. You don't have to be ashamed when abroad.
  10. No one bothers you because no one really cares.

Top Ten reasons for being Macedonian

  1. You can call yourself Macedonian and not get killed by a Bulgarian, Greek, Serb or Albanian.
  2. Fresh tomatoes, watermelon and tobacco.
  3. You can pretend you are a descendant of Alexander the Great and piss off the Greeks.
  4. You get to be sad and suffer while listening to folk music.
  5. Good relations with your neighbors, especially Greeks and Albanians.
  6. American soldiers on your territory.
  7. You get to call your country The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
  8. Fresh tomatoes, watermelon, and tobacco.
  9. You can successfully pretend your language is not Bulgarian.
  10. Everyone is interested in the stability of your country except your neighbors.

Top Ten reasons for being Montenegrin

  1. You can be proud of your heroic past and not being conquered by the Turks for 500 years.
  2. You can sing epic songs about your heroic past and not being conquered by the Turks for 500 years.
  3. You can think of Russia as your Mother, although Russia does not know you are her son.
  4. You can combine orthodoxy with Stalinism with love of Russia and still think that you are better and more progressive than the Serbs.
  5. Goat cheese, grilled lamb, and grappa.
  6. You get to kill at least one person in a vendetta and defend your honor.
  7. If you are a woman you can kill your husband and everyone knows why you did it.
  8. You can smuggle cigarettes to Italy and live like a king.
  9. You don't have to work even when you have to.
  10. You don't have to work...

Top Ten reasons for being Albanian

  1. You can always swim to Italy.
  2. You can choose between a president who stole your whole income, one who killed all your relatives, or go fight the Serbs in Kosovo.
  3. You can be proud of being from "the land of the eagle."
  4. You can always swim to Italy.
  5. You can take weapons from any army garrison and defend your honor.
  6. You can get killed in a vendetta and be remembered as the hero of the family.
  7. You get to be called the poorest country in Europe.
  8. You can live in the ecologically cleanest country in Europe.
  9. You can always swim to Italy
  10. You are proud of being "from the land of the eagle."

Top Ten reasons for being a Yugoslav

  1. You can be proud that you are neither a Serb, nor a Croat, nor a Slovene, hor a Bosnian, nor a Macedonian, nor Montenegrin, nor an Albanian, although you are one or more of the above.
  2. You don't have to feel bad about being "Yugo-nostalgic."
  3. You can have a husband/wife from any part of Yugoslavia and still feel like the country never fell apart, especially if you are abroad.
  4. You get to listen to Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, Slovenian, Macedonian, Montenegrin, and even Albanian music and feel that it's quite OK.
  5. You don't have to be ashamed of your Titoist past.
  6. You can sing Partisan songs from World War Two or rock-and-roll from the 1980's.
  7. You get to be cosmopolitan and spit on all the nationalists.
  8. You get to be researched by foreign sociologists interested in your identity.
  9. You are invited to speak about Yugoslavia at conferences abroad.
  10. You are a good candidate for a Soros stipend.
 
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Chuck Taggart   (e-mail chuck)