On the Yugonostalgia discourse, I have to say that anti-Yugo sentiment is rife on social media but not so much from people who lived during Yugoslavia. The biggest Yugonostalgics happen to be older people who lived through it, and not younger people who idealise it.

I think it’s right to discuss Yugoslavia in an honest way. It wasn’t a utopia, of course. But there has to be space to understand why so many people in ex-YU continue to pine after it, across nationalities. The people most likely to miss it are those whose lives were destroyed.

But something I’ve noticed on social media is that every ethnic group (again mainly younger people) who is anti-Yugoslavia seemingly states they were the most oppressed. Tito hated Serbs, he hated Bosniaks, he hated Albanians, he hated Slovenians...etc. No mention of the Romas.

Which is strange to me because the Romas both then and now continue to be the most marginalised across all the former Yugoslav states, in the Diaspora and outside of it. Without mentioning that, it seems the analysis is just a lot of oppression competition.

Additionally, there has to be space beyond just lived experience but an honest historical analysis along with it. The recognition that Bosnians for the most part are the biggest Yugonostalgics while Albanians are not stems from the vastly different experience of the ethnic groups

To end, the Yugoslavia discourse will always be a lot more complex than we are making it here on Twitter. You cannot make people hate something they still feel connected it to and at the same time you cannot wash the flaws of it through pretty pictures either.