My point is that no one “naturally” hates another social constructed group of people from time immemorial - it’s a modernist fiction meant to show how “savage” people in the “exotic” Balkans are/were. In other words, framing it that way is a by-product of the sort of low-level orientalism aimed at Eastern Europe more generally and at the Balkans more specifically. This was of course leaned into and whipped up by the hardliner nationalists on both sides (and seems to be dangerously percolating today, especially in Croatia and along the southern border in Serbia with Kosovo). It also meant that a real solution was never really pursued and as such continues to simmer today. Let’s not forget that the location that took the heaviest level of violence was Sarajevo (and Bosnia more generally) which has a higher level of identification as Yugoslav during the 60s and 70s, and a much higher level of intermarriage between religious/ethnic groups. That wasn’t a mistake or happenstance. That was the entire goal - to absolutely erase the longer history of interconnections between the various religious groups in the region during the Ottoman period.
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