Because it is not true.
You are just regurgitating common catch phrases of the 90-ies separatism.
Instead, better check the names of high level and most influential figures in SFRJ.
Well, speaking from a personal experience as a kid from the 80’s living in a small town in central Croatia. Percentage of Serbs was somewhere around 30%, but they held every single important position in town. My mother never joined the communist party, was seen once or twice going to church, and it was known she never denounced being a Croat, so she couldn’t be employed in our town, but finally managed to find a position 30km away. We also had to be christened in another town in secret, my parents weren’t able to get a loan as some other people could, and we were prohibited to ever express any kind of Croatian sentiment out loud, singing a song even remotely characterized as patriotic would most definitely land you in jail, and god forbid to let anyone know you celebrate Christmas, as religion was seen as equal to being patriotic.
Now I’ve heard from people in bigger towns, especially Zagreb, situation wasn’t nearly as strict, as the sheer number of people prevented everyone knowing everything about anyone, but for us in smaller towns, it was actually rough.
That is not to say life wasn’t good for some people. If you were the type to blend in and go with the flow, never cause any fuss or speak out, especially if you weren’t educated much or if you joined the Jugoslaveni bandwagon, you were probably just fine.
But still, that kind of suppression and open injustice was never viable and healthy in the long run, and I really think it played a major role in Yugoslavia splitting. Looking from a distance, it was perhaps even deliberately devised that way in the first place, to ensure things eventually fall apart.
As for the war, that is a whole different can of worms.
I don’t even care who wronged whom, all sides were wronged one way or the other depending on the specific event in question in the past couple of hundreds of years. In a way I think we should all just forget about it completely, bury the hatches and move on, but in reality, that doesn’t really work. Trying to ignore or be unbothered by the problem is actually similar to one-sidedly dwelling on it constantly, sooner or later it will come to the surface again.
So I would agree it’s destructive when on the one hand you have Serbia as a sole villain, but then on the other, instead of figuring out the actual truth, people go in the opposite direction, and Croats and/or Bošnjaks become the true villains. That stuff only furthers the divide and resentment. And I think it should be pointed out when it happens, especially in places like SOTT, and it is a valuable discussion to try to sort it out.
But the thing is, it is incredibly hard, even impossible, for us in the Balkans to see eye to eye on these issues objectively, there are so many misconceptions and triggers installed in all of us, the truth is not plainly out in the open, but seriously distorted in all kinds of ways, and there’s always at least that one whodunwhat controversy you simply can’t stomach from the other side.
Probably only the people completely from the outside could help to really sort thing out, but they usually don’t know the subject, can’t really understand what the problem is, why the whole issue is so massively triggering, or simply don’t care.
And the easiest thing is to say to another – you’re emotional, you’re manipulated, yet it’s by far and large more complex than that.
