Democracy with a Vengeance

A few years ago I was traveling by bicycle through Yugoslavia.

There was some  commotion going on. Riots, shootings, confusion and my friends in Italy had warned me not to travel through at that time, but I wanted to get to Greece and that was the best way to do it. 

Since I had lost my maps as usual-- early one morning I found myself in the town where the most intense troubles had been--and were still happening.

My bike had broken down and I needed a repair shop and found one in the center of the town where the riots had been held the day before.

I arrived before the shop opened (it never did open that day) and some neighborhood kids demonstrated for me the events of the previous evening with sound effects and action. Must have been pretty exciting for kids.

When someone who knew about bicycles had arrived he invited me to his garage to fix my bike and I went along. He soon had a small group of friends collected and someone who spoke English arrived.

Of course they thought I was an American spy and so they told me that they were VERY interested in democracy.

 "We want to have a democracy like you have in America!" Their spokesman said.


"It seems to work for us." I said.

"Yes. We of the (whatever it was) race and religion are the majority of the residents in this town and so after this revolution (or whatever it was) we are going to have a democratic government and the first thing we are going to do is have an election. We will vote about who lives in this town and since we are the majority we will decide that the minority must leave town. And if they don't we will kill them."

Democracy with a vengeance.

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