Montenegro for Dummies

There is one little busy bee saying that to understand what Montenegro achieved last Sunday is hard to explain, that it is impossible for a blogger that publishes a blog about Basque issues to offer a clear view of what took place there.

Well, here you have the report by the International Herald Times, and they seem to see it just as simple as I do.

People that are forced to live under the meddling designs of an occupying power, sooner or later break away.

Here you have the note:

Montenegro breaks free

International Herald Tribune

TUESDAY, MAY 23, 2006

There is little to be surprised at in the decision of the small mountain state of Montenegro to break away from Serbia. The xenophobic behavior of the Serbs since the collapse of Communist Yugoslavia has disqualified them from leading any Balkan federation. However small and diverse, Montenegro is better off on its own.

It won't be an easy launch - the vote for independence was hardly overwhelming at just over 55 percent, and Montenegro cedes all seats on international organizations to Serbia, so it will take its place as the world's 192nd sovereign state without a single membership card in its pocket. With about 620,000 people, it ranks between the Comoros and the Solomon Islands in population.

But it does have spunk, declaring itself in its constitution as a "democratic, welfare and ecological state." We wish Montenegro well.

But it is ironic that the breakup of old Yugoslavia is accompanied by talk of finally bringing stability to the region. That was the same reason given for forming the succession of federations from the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes in 1918 to Yugoslavia. The breakup of Yugoslavia, moreover, began less with internal strife than with pressures from Austria, the Vatican and Germany, which had their own dubious interests for fragmenting the Balkans.

Yet here we are literally celebrating Balkanization, a term that has always carried the connotation of insurmountable tribal and geographic feuds, and preparing for its controversial finale, an independent Kosovo. That will make for seven independent countries carved out of Yugoslavia. Further afield, the breakup of the Soviet Union has yielded 15 new countries, and even in places that have no deficit of prosperity or democracy, like Catalonia, the Basque country or Scotland, sovereign yearnings run strong. The more the world is globalized, it seems, the more people treasure their traditions, languages and differences. Go figure.

One aspect of the process that is reassuring is that so many states that do break loose, whether to escape imposed or repressive rule or to assert their identity, promptly seek refuge in regional or global groupings. The European Union is the prime example: Every state that has emerged from under Moscow or Belgrade has promptly come a-knocking at the EU door, and Montenegro will be there soon. These countries do want to belong, only voluntarily, and without losing what makes them different. So seven Balkan members of a borderless EU might actually cease being Balkanized.

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