The author analyses the symbolism of the concepts such as stick, rod, club and birch in the metaphorical political terminology. The author shows that these symbols are present both in the language of the Western political philosophy and the non-Western cultures, while their connotations vary: they are reminiscent of a phallus, of a warrior's spear and arrow, a cudgel which a master uses on his disobedient slaves and family members, a shepherd's staff for managing his herd and the accoutrements used both in black and white magic. (SOI : PM: S. 169)
The author points up the proverbial complexity of Yugoslavia and the inadequacy of its political structure, officially made up of six republics, five peoples, four languages, three religions, two alphabets, and one party. That is why the subjective orientations of its many peoples went counter to its existence, leading to its disintegration following the first multiparty elections. Serbs and Montenegrins were its partisans and due to a lack of democratic political culture they launched the war for the preservation of Yugoslavia. The properties of the political culture of the peoples living on its territory had acted as trip-wires for that war, defined its form, course and intensity. Due to their national identification with Yugoslavia and insufficient democratic political culture, Serbs and Montenegrins started the war for the territories of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The aggressors belong to the Eastern civilisational sphere, speak the Serbian language, write in the Cyrillic alphabet. are culturally tribally oriented, want to live in Yugoslavia and Greater Serbia which would be socialist, and are adherents of repressive types of political culture. The victims belong to the Western civilisational sphere, they are Catholics and Moslems, speak Croatian, write in the Latin alphabet, are culturally communally oriented, and favour the participatory political culture. During the Serbian and Monetenegrian aggression, two civil wars erupted in Bosnia and Herzegovina: (1) between the Muslims and the Croats and (2) between the Muslims. The participants of this war all swear their allegiance to the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but differ in their visions of its political structure. The Moslems wish a unitarian state of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Croats want it to be a federal state, while the Serbs are against any separate state of Bosnia and Herzegovina. (SOI: PM: S. 242)
Most Croatian Serb organisations were established between 1883 and 1903. In that period Serbs created the Serbian Bank, 56 various financial institutions, the Association of Serb Agricultural Societies, and the economic organisation Privrednik (Economist). The Serbian Bank was the strongest financial institution in the Monarchy, which backed the economic and cultural development of Serbs inside and outside of it. On the other hand, Serbs had not created significant cultural institutions, but did establish numerous literary and singing societies and reading halls, which were instrumental in promoting national identity. Culture was a framework for political activity. It should be noted that all those organisations were identified as Serb, had their statues written in Cyrillic alphabet and in Serbian language, which testifies that they organised quite freely and without obstruction. (SOI : CSP: S. 509)
In numerous European countries, majority nations and national minorities that live in them, aware of the complexity of relations between majorities and minorities in the ethnic sense, and the ensuing dangers, have engaged in mutual accommodation and compromise, thus fashioning certain models of coexistence. Constitutional provisions of European states prove that there is no single model of the recognition of the rights of national minorities. Still, European states may be divided into three groups. The first group includes those states which advocate the constitutional principle of the integral nation and refuse to recognize any other ethnic origin of their citizens. The second group comprises those states which do not divide its ethnic communities into majority and minority ones, which practically means that they do not recognize the category of the national minority; they protect the ethnic identity of their members by dividing their equal citizens by the languages they use. The third group includes those countries which recognize the notion of the majority nation and national minorities. This group has elaborated the provisions regarding the rights of national minorities, particularly the protection of their national, cultural, religious and linguistic identity, with major differences in the scope of individual rights. (SOI : PM: S. 84)
