Showing posts with label Montenegro. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Montenegro. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Day 75: How much history of your country do you know? - Herceg Novi, Montenegro

(Him: Charlie)
Here in the Balkan Peninsula, two things about the people here really caught my attention. Firstly, they are very nationalistic. And secondly, they know there history like it’s written on their sleeve – not just modern history, but ancient history as far as a thousand years ago!
If you ever read up on the messy history of the Balkan Peninsula, it’s not difficult to find out that most, if not all, the trouble and conflicts were caused by people considering them different than other people in the region – Serbs, Bosnians, Montenegrins, Croats, Slovenes, Macedonians, etc. Their strong nationalism destined the years of bloodshed within the region. Although some fell for different religions over the past centuries, the truth is, all these people were from the same tribe initially, the Slavs. If the same principle is to apply in China, dozens of separate countries would be born just for the Han people, not to mention much more formed by China’s other 55 minority ethnics. Some people may argue the Chinese minority ethnics deserve their own states. While that may be a valid argument, I am pretty certain that Chinese people don’t want a shattered China, at least for the regions concentrated with Han people.
As I have begun to grasp the complex history that shaped each Balkan country, my biggest question remains – how did the strong nationalism for these Slavs people come about? In my opinion, the difference is not worth dying for, but obviously, people here did not agree with me!
Perhaps for the strong nationalism, people in the Balkan countries know their history like telling their family story. Although at time opinionated, their knowledge of history is impressive. We’ve met quite a few people (certainly not tour guides), who could tell exactly when their country was under the rules of Roman, Venetians, Ottoman, Austrian-Hungarian, Yugoslavia, etc. The impressive story telling goes back for a thousand years!!
How much history of your own country can you tell? The best I can do is to recite the significant events in China for the last century, and for Canada, I can remember when it was found and name the last three prime minister, and that’s about it. Well, I’d better not mention this to my Balkan friends to embarrass myself… 


Bay of Kotor, Montenegro