Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic suggested that Serbs and Croats should avoid tensions by refraining from talking about their past differences for six months – but what else could they possibly discuss?
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic seems to be a big jokester. At least, this is the way in which a good part of the Croatian public perceived his proposal to Croatian President Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic to put a six-month moratorium on topics from the Serbian-Croatian past.
“Let’s not talk about the past for six months” – it sounds like the desperate mantra of an ageing couple whose relationship has seen better days, trying to save what can be saved from passions gone by.
Indeed, Croatia and Serbia can be seen as an elderly couple.
First of all, for a few centuries, this couple shyly eyed each other up, then in 1918 said ‘yes’ in front of a registrar, after which they spent the next 73 years in a turbulent marriage with a lot of domestic violence and a civil war during World War II.
Then they definitively ended everything in 1991 with an armed divorce, although the former spouses cannot yet agree on whether it was a ‘civil war’ or ‘Greater-Serbian aggression’.
In this sense, the sentence “Let’s not talk about the past for six months” can also be seen from a certain angle as a positive advice, in a psychotherapeutic sense, as temporary relief from heavy and bitter topics, in order to articulate some shared ideas that are acceptable for both sides.
For more read the full of article at The Balkaninsight
