[Fast Eddie]

(08-20-2015 04:49 PM)The Father Wrote:  

(08-19-2015 01:21 PM)Fast Eddie Wrote:  

Note that it used to be a part of Czechoslovakia until the Czechs and Slovaks decided that they're too different and incompatible and that it's best for both parties to go their separate ways.

LOL no. Czechs are Slovaks are about as similar as Austrians and Germans; they are not "too different and incompatible". Their languages are basically dialects of the same language. The reason they are separate countries, as is the reason Germany and Austria are not joined, or East and West Germany were once separated, has nothing to do with being "different and incompatible" and everything to do with politics. In 1994, a tin-horn wanna-be slovak despot named Vladimir Meciar wanted a country to plunder. He lobbied for a referendum on a split. He exploited nationalist strains of the Slovaks. The Czechs, for their part, were all too happy to be rid of the poorer Slovakia, which had been a drain on the country since the decline of the Soviet Union (Slovakia had once been a leading manufacturer of soviet firearms and other weaponry; their economy spiraled when the CCCP fell in 1991). When they split, Meciar plundered Slovakia until late 1998, when western pressure got him kicked out (no Western diplomat would visit Slovakia in the Meciar years; they were outcasts in the same way North Korea is today. In this case, unlike No. Korea, the pressure worked).

I don't mean to be critical of your post - your basic premise is correct. I just happen to have seen what happened in Central Europe at that time.

Of course. I was being ironic. This is the relevant part of my post:

Quote:

Note that it used to be a part of Czechoslovakia until the Czechs and Slovaks decided that they're too different and incompatible and that it's best for both parties to go their separate ways. How brief was the Slovakian experiment in having their own country! Now instead of dealing with the troublesome Czechs, they will get to experience true diversity and welcome Africans and Middle Easterners.

I was highlighting how insane it is for Slovakia to accept Africans and Muslims when they couldn't/preferred not to live alongside the Czechs. The point was to emphasize that if small differences between people as closely related as Czechs and Slovaks can lead to tension, imagine how bad it will be when they have to deal with Africans and Arabs.