User talk:Ockham/Wikipedia & Political Agendas

One of the quality problems with Wikipedia is that an editor or a group of editors can learn to work the system and then push his/her own point of view thus then becoming a stated Wiki fact. These Wikipedian facts then become a promotional tool for political agendas. This then brings up all sorts of moral and ethical issues.

Wikipedia itself states that all articles and other encyclopaedic content must be written from a neutral point of view. This neutral point of view approach, which is fine, seems to be disappearing from Wiki’s agendas. Content bullies are simply more and more moulding the articles. Controversial historical articles are becoming targets and are showing outright bias. If we use the Encyclopedia Britannica and BBC History as a yardstick for qualified encyclopedic work, certain articles in Wikipedia seem dated.

A series of articles are appearing on Wikipedia that are reflecting the propaganda of the former Communist Party of Yugoslavia. One would assume that this would be a problem, as matter of fact Admin at Wikipedia doesn’t have a problem with this at all. It is a disturbing phenomenon.

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the former Yugoslavia, certain historical factual information has come out into the open portraying the Communist Party of Yugoslavia and its leader Josph Broz Tito in a totally different light. It seems to be much more Stalinist [1] in nature than the image that was portrayed to the people of Yugoslavia and to the West during the Cold War. Josph Broz Tito Commander of all Partisans and Communists during WWII oversaw some of the worst war crimes know to mankind. The notorious Bleiburg [2] and Foibe massacres [3] were two of these. There are books, articles (writtem by professionals) as well as TV documentaries (some were aired on BBC 4) in which people testified to the truth of these historical events.

The editors who wrote these articles, expressly the Dictator Josip Broz Tito are written in a child like manner. Actually the articles are very similar to a Yugoslav primary school textbook from the 1970s. Additionally from the late 1960’s to the 1970’s, economic decisions that were made by Josip Broz and the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, put the country in a disastrous political situation. Ironically the article on Tito does not even mention the fact that he was a Dictator or his Cult of Personality [4]. None of this information is presented in a professional encyclopedic fashion and when qualified references are presented to prove otherwise, Wikipedia Admin meets it with silence. Why is this the case?

Since the early 90’s information concerning historical events surrounding Croatia are turning out to be similar to the history of the Soviet Union (massacres, ethnic cleansing, power struggles, political propaganda for cover ups of the truth). I am shocked that Wikipedia is not presenting this information in a scholarly way. These issues in Australia and in Croatia are now being more openly discussed. The University of Zagreb’s Ivo Goldstein, and other professional historians from Croatia, are already tackling these issues. Funny enough, the Croatian government is now paying compensation to former victims of the Communist regime.

Cult of Personality

The below referenced information is from ‘Discontents: Postmodern and Postcommunist’ by Paul Hollander[5].

“Virtually every communist system extinct or surviving at one point or another, had a supreme leader who was both extraordinarily powerful and surrounded by a bizarre cult, indeed worship. In the past (or in a more traditional contemporary societies) such as cults were reserved for deities and associated with conventional religious behavior and institutions. These cults although apparently an intrinsic part of communist dictatorships (at any rate at a stage in their evolution) are largely forgotten today.” “ Stalin, Maio, Castro, Ho Chi Minh, Kim Sung, Enver Hoxha, Ceascesu, Dimitrov, Ulbricht, Gottwald, Tito and others all were the object of such cults. The prototypical cult was that of Stalin which was duplicated elsewhere with minor variations”

Paul Hollander is an American scholar, journalist, and conservative political writer. (Ph.D in Sociology. Princeton University, 1963, B.A. London School of Economics, 1959 Professor Emeritus of Sociology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst Center Associate, Davis).

Josip Broz Tito & the Yugoslav Economy

Self -management as system was only slightly more efficient than the Soviet model. It was bureaucratised and cumbersome and could not compete with Western economies. People could obtain so much free or for less than the market price (e.g. apartments) that they could be obtain without work. All this made the settling of accounts in the 1980s and in the post-socialist age more difficult

In Tito’s system no interest or ideas could be expressed in a truly democratic way. This did most harm where feelings of ethnic identity were concerned because their suppression led to growth of extreme nationalism. Furthermore, the economic failure of Tito’s system, most clearly expressed in the protracted crisis of the 1980s, left people who even if they were not poor, were disillusioned and open to manipulation by demagogues. Finally Tito’s practical solutions ensured that he would retain unlimited power during his life time, but foreshadowed the problems would come after his death.

Professor Ivo Goldstein’s[6] work above proves that Josip Broz, put simply, was a bad economist and the Communists Party members were bad economists too. According to these and other references, this was one of the reasons that contributed to the break-up of Yugoslavia. As this was such an historical event, this information should be in the Wikipedia article in order to make it more encyclopaedic.

Communist propaganda within the Former Yugoslavia

The Yugoslav Communist state propaganda machine shared much with the Soviet Union. The Soviet format was imposed and then slightly modified. The Yugoslav Communist state used youth indoctrination, which were all too similar to the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China. Communist political, historical and philosophical courses were all part of general education. They can be found in any Yugoslav primary school textbook from the 1970s. Media and arts were used as a powerful means of propaganda and were all placed under heavy censorship. Josip Broz Tito was the main subject. Images, monuments, towns, street names, endless awards were given and a never ending production of books, films and poetry were created. Financially a huge amount of resources were used to keep the Communist propaganda and political activities running on a daily basis. Glorification and hero worship of the leader Josip Broz were a constant diet for the former peoples of Yugoslavia.

Most of Josip Broz’s images, monuments, town names and street names are now being removed. This started after the fall of the Berlin Wall and after the break up of Yugoslavia.

Draža Mihailović

Britannica

"Having fought in the Balkan Wars (1912–13) and World War I, Mihailović, a colonel at the time of Germany’s invasion of Yugoslavia (April 1941), refused to acquiesce in the capitulation of the Yugoslav army. He organized the royalist Chetniks, who operated mainly in Serbia. He was appointed general in 1941 and minister of war that same year by King Peter’s Yugoslav government-in-exile.

"Both the Chetniks under Mihailović and the communist-dominated Partisans, who were led by Josip Broz Tito, resisted the occupying German forces, but political differences led to distrust and eventual armed conflict between them. Reports of Chetnik resistance in the early stages of occupation buoyed the Allies and made of Mihailović a heroic figure. Fearful, however, of brutal reprisals against Serbians, Mihailović came to favour a restrained policy of resistance until the Allies could provide more assistance; the Partisans supported a more aggressive policy against the Germans. Favouring the latter policy and confronted with reports of Chetnik collaboration (particularly in Italian-held areas) directed against the Partisans, the Allies switched their support from Mihailović to Tito in 1944.

"After the war Mihailović went into hiding. He was captured by the Partisans on March 13, 1946, and charged by the Yugoslav government with treason and collaboration with the Germans. Mihailović was sentenced to death and was executed in Belgrade in 1946. Although a U.S. commission of inquiry cleared Mihailović and those under his immediate command of the charge of collaboration, the issue is still disputed by some historians. Following the breakup of communist Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, his former refuge in the Ravna Gora region came to be a focus of royalist sentiment."

Chambers' Biographical

Article Tito: "He contrived to discredit utterly the rival partisan leader, Draza Mihailović, in Anglo-American eyes and win support and arms and material solely for himself".

Wikipedia

The Wikipedia article begins Dragoljub "Draža" Mihailović (Cyrillic script: Драгољуб "Дража" Михаиловић; also known as "Чича Дража" or "Čiča Draža", meaning "uncle Draža"; April 27, 1893 - July 17, 1946) was a Yugoslav Serbian general, now primarily remembered as a World War II collaborator.

User:Direktor reverts one editor with the comment "Reverting another defender of the Serbian nation... My Ustaše-like plans are so far functioning perfectly" [7]

Partisan editors

• Producer (Bosnian)
• Director (Croatian - "Terms like dictator are not allowed on Wikipedia" [8]).

References

• BBC UK/History by Tim Judah [9]
• Tim Judah is a journalist for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). Judah’s first jobs were at the BBC African Service and BBC World Service. He writes most of the Balkan coverage for “The Economist” but also works for the “New York Review of Books”, “The Observer”, the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) and others. He is the author of two books on the region: “The Serbs: History, Myth and the Destruction of Yugoslavia” and “Kosovo: War and Revenge”.
• David B. MacDonald: Identity politics in the age of genocide: the Holocaust and historical [10]
• C Michael McAdams : Yalta and The Bleiburg Tragedy[11]
• Ivo Goldstein-Croatia: A History [12]
• Ivo Goldstein is a Professor at the University of Zagreb & former Director of the Institute for Croatian History of the University of Zagreb
• Encyclopaedia Britannica: Josip Broz Tito
• He knew that the Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, and others could not be integrated within some new supranation, nor would they willingly accept the hegemony of any of their number; yet his supranational Yugoslavism frequently smacked of unitarism. He promoted self-management but never gave up on the party’s monopoly of power. He permitted broad freedoms in science, art, and culture that were unheard of in the Soviet bloc, but he kept excoriating the West. He preached peaceful coexistence but built an army that, in 1991, delivered the coup de grâce to the dying Yugoslav state. At his death, the state treasury was empty and political opportunists unchecked. He died too late for constructive change, too early to prevent chaos. (Encyclopaedia Britannica)
• Commission_on_Concealed_Mass_Graves_in_Slovenia from Wikipedia
• Vjekoslav Perica-Balkan Idols: Religion and Nationalism in Yugoslav States By [13]
• Vjekoslav Perica is a Croatian writer and academic.He is the author of the book Balkan Idols: Religion and Nationalism in Yugoslav States New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. He holds a Ph.D. in history from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, USA

• R. J. Rummel: Death by Government

"Frank Waddams, a British representative who had lived outside of Belgrade, said he knew first hand of ten “concentration camps” and had talked with inmates from nearly all of them. “ The tale is always the same, he said “ Starvation, overcrowding, brutality and death condition, which make Dachau and Buchenwald mild by comparison. Many Slovenes who were released from Dachau at the end of the war came home only to find themselves in a Slovene camp within a few days. It is from these people that the news has come that the camps are worse than Dachau.” Out of a Slovene population of 1,200,000, Waddams believes that 20,000 to 30,000 were imprisoned."

• This referenced information shows the inner workings of Josip Broz Tito and his government post WW2. The Wikipedic article does not mention such things. If it had done so, it would show a more balanced and modern view of history. Also it would be a more current scholarly view that was formed after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, and the fall of communism in Eastern Europe.

• Rudolph Joseph Rummel is a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Hawaii.