When politics messes with beauty

[luzribeiro.livejournal.com]

The Miss Universe pageant that's gonna start in São Paulo on September 12 became a reason for strained relations between Serbia and Kosovo. Just when things between these two started to look somewhat quiet, a picture of Miss Serbia and Miss Kosovo caused an uproar.

It all began when during the rehearsals for the contest and between the time spent in the hairdresser's saloon, the gym sessions and the charity events, the two beauties found some time to make friends and even have a picture together. Then Miss Kosovo placed the pic on her Facebook wall. OH THE HORRORS!!!

The backlash came almost instantaneously. Both girls were accused of national treason. The Kosovars reminded the 25 year old Aferdita Dreshaj about the bloodshed in Kosovo caused by the Serbs. But she refuses to get defensive and is stubbornly keeping the photo on her FB.

In turn, the Serbs accused the 21 year old Anja Saranovic that by posing for a pic next to Miss Kosovo, she's officially recognizing the independence of the former Serbian province. This forced Anja to make a statement where she emphasized that she still considers Kosovo "an inseparable part of her fatherland", and she even called Kosovo "the Serbian Jerusalem".

Whether she believes what she said, we may never learn. But we've seen yet another example of politics messing up with people's lives and politicizing non-political events, and pulling out the worst side of people. It reminds me of the story about the Montagues and the Capulets, where the grudges between the two warring families caused the death of the two kids who fell in love, Romeo and Juliet. Will peace ever be achieved in the minds and hearts of people, if even they have to wait a bit more after achieving it on paper? One can only hope. Time heals wounds, but how much time will be needed?

Comments

[404.livejournal.com]

Least we grew up from all that. Too bad the Europs are still trying to kill each other over religion and ethnicity.

[luzribeiro.livejournal.com]

One million Vietnamese are waving to you from their mass graves.

[404.livejournal.com]

Hmm, war is hell, but I am fairly certain that the US did not killed a million Vietnamese, but whatever makes you feel better. I don't think anyone can surpass the European lust for blood, hell y'all tried for the mass murder prize at least three or four times last century!

[luzribeiro.livejournal.com]

No it doesn't make me feel better. It makes me feel bad, regardless of who did it.

The Chinese have surpassed the European lust for blood by the millions, but that doesn't feature in most school books because 1) it was internal wars and 2) China is far away and doesn't matter.

[notmrgarrison.livejournal.com]

and 3) the bad guys weren't white, christian, or western.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Eh, actually Japan surpassed Germany in sheer death toll in WWII itself and the whole of the European war was but a chapter in Japan's three-stage war. But that was Asians killing Asians and so Europeans didn't give a fuck about it, they were too busy being scared of Reds and Browns.

[xforge.livejournal.com]

If our neighbors were practically anyone but Canada and Mexico we'd be precisely the same.

[404.livejournal.com]

Why do you think that?

[luzribeiro.livejournal.com]

Because people are not as different as you want to believe they are. Your latest military adventures have shown some similar sides and inclinations in you, and xforge has a point in that you've been blessed by your geographical location, so don't turn that into some divinely inspired special trait of yours that you actually might not have.

[xforge.livejournal.com]

Look at what we are now. "We must defend this nation from Communists/Islamofascists/whatever we can think of next at all cost!!"

[404.livejournal.com]

The closest thing we had to that was when Cuba turned Communist in '59. There was some saber rattling, but other than the missile crisis era, there never and real push for an invasion.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Erm, we invaded Canada twice, we swallowed half of Mexico, we invaded that periodically and had veterans from both sides of the Civil War fighting in their civil war when they couldn't quite stop fighting ours, we almost went to a major war with Mexico before entering WWI, and we've pretty much never gotten along very well with either.

[xforge.livejournal.com]

I was thinking about that stuff when I was typing my response but I decided meh, it's just Canada and Mexico. Guffaw.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

And yet none of those are related to ethnic cleansing.

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

And yet you don't seem to have overcome this "us vs them" mentality. Americans and Europeans might not be that different after all. ;)

[404.livejournal.com]

I fully support Europeans getting past their historical differences. It is just a shame that many within the continent refuse to move past the last century.

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the support, and I'm sure you'd love to visit Sweden or any one of its neighbors some day. You could also visit any of the 26 EU member states and see how things are on the field, so to speak. There are several spots where grudges remain and the Balkans is one of them. Looking at those spots and imposing that picture onto the rest of Europe is a big mistake, though. If I go to a ghetto in the suburbs of Detroit, and I conclude that "America is poor and miserable", I'd be equally mistaken.

Bottom line: don't generalize like that! Use your brain wisely.

(Btw the invitation for Sweden was serious).

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I don't see anyone there trying to recreate either totalitarianism and certainly nobody wants the Habsburgs, Romanovs, and Hohenzollerns back. What does this refer to?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Why yes, the last time we had a major war was 150 years ago....and the social legacy of it legally collapsed only 40+. The United States will be over the Civil War when Memphis, Tennessee has memorials to Frederick Douglass, John Brown, George Thomas, and Uncle Billy.

[404.livejournal.com]

The war has been over in most people's minds for years, only die hards and those who refuse to give it up, I'm looking in your direction...

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I have given it up, I know it was a sordid little bloodbath over a phantom that was fought by one side that was incompetent and the other side with really one guy taking up the slack for all the other idiots. Unfortunately there are a good number of people, including Republicans (!) who still want Jeff Davis' twisted little state to exist.

[dv8nation.livejournal.com]

Please. The "die hards" are all talk and no actually takes that "The South Shall Rise Again!" bullshit seriously. Not even people in the South. At this point it has even less juice then talking shit about some other state's sports team.

Texas is a funny case due to it being an independent nation for nine years. The locals love to crow about it, but Perry's bullshit only flys with the dumbasses who haven't thought about what leaving the country would actually mean for them politically and economically. Perry's playing it up because he's the dumbest governor in the country. It'll bite him in the ass soon enough.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

Did we grow up from that in the sense that we killed all the Indians whereas Europeans left some people around so they could repopulate for a future ethnic cleansing?

[404.livejournal.com]

Ours just run casinos now.

[luzribeiro.livejournal.com]

Those few who've survived.