I accuse you of a heinous crime. And I know you well, for I grew up in your thick shadow. Born in Yugoslavia just after the World War II, I could feel that shadow all around me. On occasion, it was as thick as marble. Mind you, I am not talking about the people who died by your hand. Or about your petty tastes and provincial excesses. Or about your womanizing, for which you were famous even in my youth. I am not talking about the fake socialism you invented with the help of your many minions, either. In retrospect, it was only to be expected against all the other crap on offer around the world at the time. I am talking about something much, much worse.

I am talking about hope that we all felt in our flesh and bones. We felt it on our skin, too. The glorious future of all humanity was right in front of us. And it beckoned brightly for all to see. It was worth not only living for, but also dying for. Against all odds, the fabulous future was real to us. It was our dream, which you helped foment, but that dream quickly became as solid as a rock. To us, it seemed impregnable. Even more, everlasting. We could not even imagine it petering out and disappearing like a mirage.

Imagine, I went to America in my prime in the hope that I would be among those designing and perhaps even building human settlements in space. Waiting for us out there, there were the moon, Mars, the asteroid belt, and the solar system entire. And that was only the beginning, for space loomed infinite just beyond our little star and its planets. Everything was for the taking. It was only a matter of will and courage. As well as time, which seemed to be shrinking all the while.

Look at me now, though. Look at my generation entire. Stranded. Decimated. Desperate. And I am not talking only about the fate of Yugoslavia of yesteryear, which has been in tatters for decades. Which is still falling apart into ever-smaller bits and pieces, as well. I am talking about the future, glorious or otherwise. Nothing has remained of it, not even its shadow, no matter how faint. Futureless, we are on a death row now. One by one, we are waving goodbye to all this. Many of us are leaving this world with some joy, for it is not a world we can recognize as ours any longer.

Yes, I accuse you of a heinous crime. And spreading hope is nothing if not a crime. For it was vain hope. Even worse, it was fake hope. People like you should have known better, for it is a crime to invoke it without an understanding of the world in which we actually live. It is a crime to endow an entire generation with hopeless hope. You should have done your utmost to temper it and scale it down just after World War II, the worst war ever. For you should have known that hope so excessive cannot but end up weighing on us all like a nightmare. You should have known that hope you callously offered would come down to haunt us sooner or later. And this is the crime that comes on top of all the other crimes of which you are guilty.