The Decline of Unity: A Reflection on the Past and Present

Yesterday marked 45 years since, at 3:05 PM in Ljubljana, not only did the symbolic end of brotherhood and unity begin, but so did the collapse of the most successful project in the history of our nations.

"You accuse us of being against private property. We are not against property earned through labor, but against capitalist private property, where an individual accumulates wealth by exploiting the masses."

The saddest part is that today we are ashamed of what once made us great, while proudly celebrating what now diminishes us.

Tito died without a successor because, at the time of his death, there were 21.5 million potential successors with a bright future, a positive demographic outlook, and a flourishing economy in a country with the highest quality of life in the world.

Quality of life isn’t defined by disposable jeans and bureaucratically regulated bananas. Today, we collectively believe in neoliberal consumerist individualism, which leads to the downfall of not just the individual, but the entire community. A person is not fulfilled by what they possess over others, but by what they share with others.

Let’s honestly ask ourselves: What connects us today?

45 years ago, we lost a man who united us into a community that was much greater than the sum of its parts. If, at that time, anyone had told the 21.5 million Yugoslavians about the challenges we face today, they would have been dismissed as a conspiracy theorist.

A society that is ashamed of its past has no future. We condemn Tito and the entire former regime of creating a country and a future for us.

In reality, we are not ashamed of our past; we are ashamed of our present and how we have mishandled our future.