My friends come from many ethnic backgrounds. I am proud to call “friend” people who are gay and straight, black and white Christians -- Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Catholic, Mormons, and Jews,Muslims, Hindus, and whatever, including a dear friend who is a Jehovah’s Witness.
Can I name them? Bill, Emma, Edna, Alma, Alice, Phyllis, Marjorie, Sally, Sue, Jack, Gertrude, Peter, Jo Anne, and Doris. So what? I know African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, Chinese-Americans, Italian-Americans, and Indians, both Native-Americans and East Indians. Forget the first part of the hyphenated names. They are all Americans.
I am a fifth-generation Texan, grew up in the Baptist Church, and married first to a first-generation Danish-American Lutheran from Chicago, and second to a first-generation Polish-American Catholic from Pittsburgh. I should know not to judge anyone by the color of their skin or the place their ancestors came from.
Yet I am prejudiced against Serbs. I do not like them, Sam-I-am, I do not like Serbs man by man.
In Croatia in 2007 I witnessed roofless buildings with shell holes in their walls, destruction from the war waged by the Serbs and Croatians in 1990, as the former Yugoslavia broke up over differences between Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians. Ruined buildings but no evidence of the many lost lives.
My prejudice was confirmed last week when Ratka Mladic, hidden by his fellow Serbs since the war, was finally caught. He was the general who lead Serbian troops in killing thousands of Muslims in Bosnia. In Srebrenica his men raped the women and massacred 8,000 (yes, that’s eight thousand) men and boys, some as young as 13, all the males they could find in that village. His men killed eagerly and mercilessly. In Serbia many consider Mladic a hero.
Then I listened to the French Open tennis matches. A young Serbian player challenged Rafael Nadal for the championship. I found myself saying, “I hope that Spaniard whips that Serb!”
How could I feel that way? I know nothing about that young Serb. He may be one of the best tennis players in the World and also a nice guy. He might feel about Mladic the same way I do. How do I dare condemn him, simply because he comes from Serbia?
I am ashamed of myself.
About Me
- Ilene Pattie
- 85-year-old woman with opinions on everything. An interesting life: not always easy but always exciting. Now on dialysis, but still taking interest in politics, religion, and all that is going on in the World. Lived in Texas, Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Mexico,visited all the 48, but do not remember North Dakota, have not been to Hawaii or Alaska, but have been to Europe many times, also China and Thailand. My blogs are comments on life today as it relates to what I've read and observed in the past.
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14 comments:
No women were raped during the Srebrenica massacre. All women, small children and old men were sent away by buses. Only men were killed. A terrible crime, sure, but get your facts straight first. How come that you don't know about Jasenovac camp where more than half a million Serbs, Jews and Gypsies were killed in most brutal ways possible (babies heads smashed against the ground for example). That's what Croatians did in WWII. How come that you don't know what happened before Serbian Srebrenica massacre? Hint: Serbs at least sparred women and children. Naser Oric's forces didn't. How come that you don't know that Serbian blood spilled on those lands just in the last 100 years outweighs everyone else's in the last 1000 years? It's a wonder they're not extinct. Ratko Mladic is a commie bastard that wasn't even born in Serbia. It's not like Serbs chose to be in a war, they did try to take down Milosevic a number of times. Don't blame the nation for the actions of individuals. My mother is Serbian, my father is Jewish, i was born in Novi Sad, Serbia. We don't hate anyone, but we hate injustice. And the Serbian reputation these days is injustice. I don't live there anymore, but I know them. They are mostly kind and loving people and they don't deserve to be hated.
Dear Friends, my name is Katarina and I am a 14 year old girl living in Canada. I am also Serbian. I get bullied in school every day with hate comments about my ethnicity and religion. Why? Because of judgmental people like most of you. Yes I understand you have been in Croatia and might have seen few things but have you been to Serbia? Where every corner you turn there is something bombed, misplaced, ruined , wrecked? It's funny because that's how it is all over Serbia even though we tried to fix most things. We do not hate Croatians. We let them market their things in our country, we let them live in our country and those who LIVE in our country are accepted and respected croations kicked all Serbians out of their country not so long ago... mostly in the cities Lika and Knin. Thing about Croatians is, they like to brag about things we did to them... even though there were few. We try to conceal what they did to us as much as possible. Them and the Albanians. Here are a few facts I think you would like to know... Right now, at this moment while YOU are sitting at your computer ranting on about your hate for Serbian's Albanians are teaching their 5 year old sons how to rape Serbian girls. And you know what they do? They go to school at age 5 and RAPE those 5 year old little girls. Why? Because their parents know they can't be arrested for that, their just "kids". We have Albanians/ Croatians grabbing random children off our streets and telling them to kill their own parents or they will kill the kid. Every single day. I go to Serbia every summer and I study my country very often. Visit Serbia and then see what your opinion will be after your visit. You'd be shocked.
I actually didn't give two hoots about Serbs until I started meeting them. I have multiple Serb colleagues now and have interacted closely with probably upwards of 30 Serbs. While statistically this is not a large enough sampling to generate scholarly opinions, my private opinion of Serbs has crystallized around the idea that they are:
- full of hate for pretty much anyone who isn't a Serb
- the most negative people I have ever met
- eternal "victims," caught up in this fictional narrative that the world wants the very worst for Serbia
- voracious consumers of conspiracy theories
- shocking liars
- vicious, small-minded, and violent
- mindless supporters of every nasty thing the Russian government has ever done
I truly hate all the Serbs I have had to interact with and wish above all other countries that Serbia would cease to exist...or at least go through some radical social transformation that will actually turn them into decent global citizens. I do not wish death or ill upon them, I simply wish that the terrible "Serbian identity" would disappear.
Wow. I've worked out of the chicago area since 2011, and have interacted with bosnians, serbs and Croats plus other backwards europeans. I agree, they suck terribly. You know they're lying because their lips move.
Wow. I've worked out of the chicago area since 2011, and have interacted with bosnians, serbs and Croats plus other backwards europeans. I agree, they suck terribly. You know they're lying because their lips move.
It's good to hate Serbs. Gavrilo Princip started WWI, and as a result caused WWII, The Cold War, and every war after that. And the disgusting Serbs have a statue of the terrorist. Serbia should be bombed, it would make for a better planet. #serbgenocide
#serbgenocide
Too many shifty Albanians posting here. That, and the American criminals that made an unprovoked attack on Serbia.
All the way with Serbia and Russia. Thankful for the current Russian ascendancy in the Balkans. Keep the NATO US vermin out.
Ilene, crazy sick old hag
Westerners are a funny lot. The Muslims keep killing them in their own country, September 11, and yet they still hate on Christian Serbs that did them no harm.
Idiots. Whatever Islam is doing to you, you deserve it.
You are so old, and yet stupid: hating Serbs for their existence. Yes, I agree there are many Serbs who are stupid, rude etc. But yet, there are also many of us who aren’t. We are people anyway. You’re saying something about Croatia and Srebrenica, but forgetting to understand that the Croats made the biggest crime — ethnic cleansing since the WW2, wiping out the entire population, that once made up about 15% to just 5%. Also you probably forget about horrible Muslim crimes in Bosnia, how they attacked hopeless army in retreat. Killing of civilians and rapes were made by all sides. And all sides knew that secession leads to war.
The numerous occasions when the Bosnian Serbs took UN peacekeepers hostage, using them as human shields and threatening to kill them is all you need to know about Serbs.
And the Serbian prisoners themselves were tied up and made human shields, by USA-supported Muslim and Croatian forces. I could say that I hate all Americans! But I only hate American hegemonist, interventionist and globalist policies around the world! Only retarded people can get brainwashed by Western consent-hatred-manufacturing media. Those people who did truly get brainwashed into hating an entire nation for its mere existence are the same kind of people who Hitler got brainwashed into hating Jews in the 1930s. Idiots.
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