In Australia, from time to time, we have had regional areas engaging in wild talk about breaking away from their existing State and setting up an 'Eldorado' that they would run things 'properly'. Usually, this talk only gains airtime late at night... down at the pub... when your footy team has lost 5 games in a row... and the stock market has fallen 100 points in the week. If things look like getting worse, you may even talk about seceding from Australia... the Commonwealth... the United Nations. It's when you are down on your luck that 'going it alone' looks most attractive.
We are currently staying in Montenegro... a Balkan state of only 640,000 people. The following 'rant' is my personal opinion written in an attempt to clarify my own thoughts. I am not attempting to change anyone's opinion... I know that minds far greater than mine have struggled with these issues for decades. In fact, if you have well developed thoughts on Balkan politics, I suggest you stop reading now.
Why would so few Montenegrens want to chance their luck in the big wide world? They share a border with Albania who has only a little more than 2.5 million people. Macedonia, only a few hundred kilometres away has only 2 million. Bosnia and Herzegovina have 3.8 million people. Many commentators would think that states with so few people are not sustainable... that within a few decades, there will be some union amongst the smaller states.
However, for the time being, they want to remain separate from each other... each state has its own reasons. All of them suffered stifling rule under the Ottoman empire. Like most empires, the Ottomans did not want significant changes within its colonies... if your colony gets smarter and richer than you, all sorts of trouble will follow. To some extent, the Balkan states got used to rejecting change... it was easier than managing it. After the Ottomans came a period of establishing recognised borders, involving... inevitable disputes... inevitable skirmishes. Then came WWII when they were invaded by the losing side (Germany)... most Balkan states didn't pick a side... but history dealt the region more turbulence and another knock to self-confidence. After the war, the big geopolitical carve-up left the Balkans under communist influence... perhaps a good number of states were attracted to the ideology at any rate. Again, the Balkans picked the wrong option (when will their luck change?) After the fall of the Berlin Wall and Yugoslavia broke up, there was a concerted effort to fit the pieces into the right groupings... taking into account history, language, religion and geography. Not everyone was happy... no political solution has that outcome. Montenegro was put in with Serbia and that grouping seemed to work until the 1990 Balkans War. Montenegro didn't like the approach Serbia was taking on certain important matters... they felt they had again been dealt a bad 'deck of cards'.
So image how Montenegro citizens felt sitting in the pub late on a Friday night. Everything their governments and the world powers had organised for decade after decade had proved hopeless! Of course the citizens would have said, "We can organise things better than these foreigners". The accountants amongst them would have said, "You can't have a nation with only 640,000 people!" The blokes down at the pub on a Friday night would have replied, "We can't do any worse than the experts have done for the last 50 years!"
After the 1990s war, Montenegro absorbed large numbers of refugees. What they saw as their unique culture was being put under tremendous strain. As a new State, they felt insecure financially. Europeans and Russians were offering to buy into the new State at prices that removed economic worries. This property boom (of sorts) has continued up until today. Montenegro is one of the most wealthy Balkan states. What will they do for income once the property sales have subsided? There will always be tourism. This place has remarkable beauty. But as we are reminded each day, one certain way to spoil beauty is to crowd the place with tourists!
So, next time you are in the pub late on a Friday night... talking about your local government and how hopeless they are at organising the real issues, spare a thought for the good citizens of Montenegro and the run of bad luck that has lead to a nation of just 640,000 people.
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