I am from Croatia, a republic of former Yugoslavia. I was engaged in a struggle for a democracy against communist regime in 1980s. The communist party argued that what we had as "socialism", and in particular "self-management" is the best form of democracy. In reality, we understand that it is not true.David Held's book "Models of Democracy" was translated into Slovenian, one of south-Slavic languages, in a year of the fall of Berlin wall, Jun 1989. Few years later, it was published in Croatian also, with a special preface of D. Held personally.
The book was an excellent reference for all of us, who struggled for democracy, to understand what we are standing for. It is still important today, for we are still at the beginning of struggle for democratic institutions, procedures and culture. We had to struggle against a hard violence of human rights in the time of a nationalistic regime headed by Franjo Tudjman, 1990-1999. Today, we have problems with "politocracy", a strong power of politicians, who argued: "after elections, we have right to rule. Participation? What to hell is it?"
In addition, I can estimate that it is important for a people in countries with more democratic traditions, too. Historically, modern democracy is still a new system and we need to learn and to think about it's future development and defence.
Mir i dobro (Peace and good) from Croatia!
Zoran Ostric
