Post by redbaron on Dec 1, 2007 11:14:01 GMT -5
Belgrade remains wedded to militarism
Author: Latinka Perovic
Uploaded: Friday, 30 November, 2007
Article translated from Dani (Sarajevo) by one of the most authoritative and courageous democratic voices from Serbia, who among other things excoriates the refusal in Serbia today to accept the inevitability of Kosovo's independence
How is one to describe the Serbia of today? I think that the start of this autumn signals the closure of a mistaken policy conducted by Serbia, which has exacted a high price from the country itself, from its region, and also from the Europe that aspires to this region. I see the process which began in the 1980s as a single progression. It began with the revival of an expansionist state ideology aiming to change the existing order, with implications that transcended the Yugoslav borders: aiming, after the disappearance of the historic leader and the transformation of the ruling party, to realise the project of an all-Serb state in a manner that disregarded the time, the area, and the spirit of the times. We know well that this project had been thoroughly prepared, as is evident from many books describing the break-up of Yugoslavia as a textbook example of how to ground a nationalist regime. The Memorandum of the Serbian Academy laid the ideological foundations of the project; this was followed up by systematic propaganda whose main elements are still being assiduously fostered. Then came indoctrination of the masses, and military and para-military preparations for armed conflict. Serbia has in fact frequently waged war in its recent history. Those who have studied the subject will tell you that over the past two centuries Serbia has on average gone to war every six and a half years. Its longest period of peace came after the Second World War, but the wars of the 1990s lasted longer than any of the previous ones. This has been a decade of warfare, during which one state disappeared, in the course of which terrible crimes were committed, and in which Serbian society experienced a vertiginous fall, accompanied by a deep confusion regarding the country’s historical perspective. One cannot say that there was no resistance to this, but the resistance was insufficient.
The fateful assassination of a prime minister
What was the year 2000 [downfall of Milošević] all about? What might it have been, what were its results, what actually happened? These are themes for future historians. What those who live today experience directly, however, is that there have been no essential, deep changes - in ways of thinking, in accounting for the past, or in the drawing up of a historical balance-sheet and deriving serious lessons from it. October 2000 was an event created by actors driven by diverse motivations, intentions and aims. Those who had watched carefully the events unfolding in Yugoslavia (which was the optimal solution for the Serb people) must have realised that no overnight transformation was possible, but that it was important to seek agreement on what transformation was required. With a great effort by the Serbs - whether genuine or calculating - and with our neighbours’ great need for Serbia to stabilize itself and establish contact with the world, an energy was created offering the promise that a line might be drawn and a fundamental regeneration initiated: first and foremost, an abandonment of the idea that the state was some kind of fetish over and above the people, above society, something about which it was necessary to dream, even though it might never have existed in the past nor could exist in the future. It was necessary to do away with mythological consciousness as the basis for practical policy. This endeavour ended with the assassination of the prime minister [Zoran Đinđić], after which we entered into new academic discussions about whether we were faced by historical continuity. All the actors of the period of destruction, murder, rape and ethnic cleansing remain on the scene.
I was recently reading an article about a big English dictionary that incorporated new words from all national languages. Just three entries came from the Serb language, of which the only significant one was precisely ‘ethnic cleansing’. This is a terrible mortgage, showing that one cannot enter the path to a desired new destination without first understanding what has happened. Serbia was practically defeated in all these wars, but this has not been accepted mentally. I will illustrate what I have in mind, when I say that the circle has in a sense been closed, by the following observations. We have bad relations with all our neighbours. We refuse to recognise Bosnia-Herzegovina as an independent state. We refuse to recognise the validity of the referendum in Montenegro, despite the fact that it was held in accordance with strict rules imposed by the EU. The referendum showed that the desire for independence was deep-seated in Montenegrin society, yet we continue to treat it as a passing phenomenon. We still think that Croatia does not deserve to become an EU member. We stubbornly refuse to recognise the Macedonian Orthodox Church. The process of Yugoslavia’s dissolution still continues, and should be concluded with Kosovo becoming independent; but we refuse to recognise that this is inevitable, and strive to separate the Serbs from the Albanians. Rather than pursuing a good-neighbour policy, we seek to exacerbate the situation and in doing so we use the Serb people always and everywhere, in all these communities, as an instrument of policy.
This raises the key question of what lies at the centre of a policy that insists on creating crises? What is it about the constitution of a state that repeatedly creates a crisis within its own body, and which prohibits any social or other evolution? I think that the constitution and the circumstances surrounding it - the manner in which it was promulgated, the complete disregard of expert opinion - is one key factor. We have a new crisis in Sandžak, latent tension in Vojvodina. One result of this is that the critical opinion which Peščanik reflects comes to be seen as extremist - that it overreacts in treating seriously allegedly marginal phenomena such as neo-Nazism, anti-Semitism and clerico-nationalist fundamentalism. This is a state of mind reflecting the deep confusion present in Serbian society. I think that the current regime has been trying to decipher itself, to find a way to legally constitute what the previous regime did by clearing the ground, to appropriate the conquests of that regime by recourse to so-called international legal logic, that this has in a sense been made clear.
I think that contemporary Serbia is faced with the following question: is it ready to join the dominant spirit of the time, not in the sense of joining the EU, but in the sense of its domestic policy, its essence, its main aims in the sense of building a modern and legal state? Or is what is happening nothing but a first step in creating a consensus that we should abandon any such orientation? I believe that this remains an open question in Serbia today, for which society should feel responsible, given that it has approved this retrograde policy in elections. The population has the possibility of choice. The actual positions, the results and the outcome of this policy are quite clear. Its parliamentary representatives continue to argue in favour of redrawing the existing borders, of keeping Kosovo and parts of Bosnia, of seizing parts of Croatia, of conducting a repressive policy towards minorities. This shows that Serbia is continuing along the old path. In the eyes of the bearers of this policy, the people who protest against it in Peščanik - those who believe they are responsible as Serbs and citizens - are internal enemies.
Ignoring reality
We are talking about a fundamental policy that Serbia’s political representatives continue to uphold - a policy of war, ethnic borders, a Great Serbia, saving what remains. On the one hand, it is a complete denial of reality, with highly negative effects for Serbia in particular. It is powerful propaganda. Serbia knew, following the [NATO] intervention, that Kosovo was lost, because this issue has a long history. The attempt to integrate the Albanians into Yugoslavia was of fundamental importance. If one bears in mind that Yugoslavia started to be destroyed in Kosovo, if the project of integration had failed, if a terrible terror was unleashed there, if there was the abolition of Kosovo’s autonomy, the destruction of its institutions, the creation of a parallel society - then we are talking about a gulf that cannot be overcome by propaganda. It is impossible to discern what is happening there by following the Serbian media. Changes have taken place there, the international community is engaged there. Its interest in it are far more important than those of the Serbian government, which manipulates the issue and possibly believes that its final card is to destabilize Kosovo, make its position highly problematic. As for linking Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovina, this appears to be a panic reaction to the nearing of the final solution and the growing realisation that it means independence. The truth is that the Serbian regime has followed a policy towards RS which is to create, by way of economic and special relations, a de facto state based on denial of the reality that Bosnia-Herzegovina is an independent state. The truth is that no referendum [in RS] can lead to the disappearance of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Contemporary Serbia is a very neglected country, very distant from any notion of a legal state, one in which law plays a marginal role. It is a country which has seen not only war crimes, but also the murder of its own soldiers and journalists. A prime minister who understood the new times, who announced the possibility of Serbia leaving behind the chaos in which it found itself, has also been murdered. It is a very difficult situation, given the conflict with our neighbours and the continuing territorial pretensions. But the present constellation in the international context means that there will not be another war. Serbia is not strong enough to wage one. It is possible though to imagine a deepening chaos in the country, aimed at removal of the critical part of political society, its silencing. The aim is to create a great social imbalance, a social collapse. Many in Serbia ask themselves whether there might be another war. They ask because they have got used to the war atmosphere and the unpredictability of political moves. Most of the political parties agree that Europe is no longer relevant. They think that speaking about Europe will lead them to lose their parliamentary seats. This policy has revived with the reopening of the Bosnian issue, and Europe has become aware that although Serbia is exhausted, although it has paid a high price [for Milošević’s expansionism], it has retained its territorial aspirations. But I do not see that the Serbians are keen to participate in yet another war, despite the fact that few show any readiness to restrain their political leaders. All in all, I do not expect a dramatic military conflict, despite all the predictions; but I do envisage an internal chaos that could destabilize the whole region. The clerical nationalists have dropped their democratic mask. Their aim is to create a large state regardless of how people will live in it. Kosovo is being used as a substitute for everything else: you cannot speak of anything, even breathe, hold elections or anything, until the issue has been solved. As for Russia, I think that the Serbian leaders have little insight into Russia’s internal political life. There is a readiness in Serbia - historically conditioned - to believe that Russia will enter into conflict with the whole world in order to save Kosovo for Serbia, in order to maintain Serbia’s friendship. Russia may wish to keep Serbia as an area through which it can further its interests and positions. But I do not think it will sacrifice its vital positions for Serbia’s sake.
Author: Latinka Perovic
Uploaded: Friday, 30 November, 2007
Article translated from Dani (Sarajevo) by one of the most authoritative and courageous democratic voices from Serbia, who among other things excoriates the refusal in Serbia today to accept the inevitability of Kosovo's independence
How is one to describe the Serbia of today? I think that the start of this autumn signals the closure of a mistaken policy conducted by Serbia, which has exacted a high price from the country itself, from its region, and also from the Europe that aspires to this region. I see the process which began in the 1980s as a single progression. It began with the revival of an expansionist state ideology aiming to change the existing order, with implications that transcended the Yugoslav borders: aiming, after the disappearance of the historic leader and the transformation of the ruling party, to realise the project of an all-Serb state in a manner that disregarded the time, the area, and the spirit of the times. We know well that this project had been thoroughly prepared, as is evident from many books describing the break-up of Yugoslavia as a textbook example of how to ground a nationalist regime. The Memorandum of the Serbian Academy laid the ideological foundations of the project; this was followed up by systematic propaganda whose main elements are still being assiduously fostered. Then came indoctrination of the masses, and military and para-military preparations for armed conflict. Serbia has in fact frequently waged war in its recent history. Those who have studied the subject will tell you that over the past two centuries Serbia has on average gone to war every six and a half years. Its longest period of peace came after the Second World War, but the wars of the 1990s lasted longer than any of the previous ones. This has been a decade of warfare, during which one state disappeared, in the course of which terrible crimes were committed, and in which Serbian society experienced a vertiginous fall, accompanied by a deep confusion regarding the country’s historical perspective. One cannot say that there was no resistance to this, but the resistance was insufficient.
The fateful assassination of a prime minister
What was the year 2000 [downfall of Milošević] all about? What might it have been, what were its results, what actually happened? These are themes for future historians. What those who live today experience directly, however, is that there have been no essential, deep changes - in ways of thinking, in accounting for the past, or in the drawing up of a historical balance-sheet and deriving serious lessons from it. October 2000 was an event created by actors driven by diverse motivations, intentions and aims. Those who had watched carefully the events unfolding in Yugoslavia (which was the optimal solution for the Serb people) must have realised that no overnight transformation was possible, but that it was important to seek agreement on what transformation was required. With a great effort by the Serbs - whether genuine or calculating - and with our neighbours’ great need for Serbia to stabilize itself and establish contact with the world, an energy was created offering the promise that a line might be drawn and a fundamental regeneration initiated: first and foremost, an abandonment of the idea that the state was some kind of fetish over and above the people, above society, something about which it was necessary to dream, even though it might never have existed in the past nor could exist in the future. It was necessary to do away with mythological consciousness as the basis for practical policy. This endeavour ended with the assassination of the prime minister [Zoran Đinđić], after which we entered into new academic discussions about whether we were faced by historical continuity. All the actors of the period of destruction, murder, rape and ethnic cleansing remain on the scene.
I was recently reading an article about a big English dictionary that incorporated new words from all national languages. Just three entries came from the Serb language, of which the only significant one was precisely ‘ethnic cleansing’. This is a terrible mortgage, showing that one cannot enter the path to a desired new destination without first understanding what has happened. Serbia was practically defeated in all these wars, but this has not been accepted mentally. I will illustrate what I have in mind, when I say that the circle has in a sense been closed, by the following observations. We have bad relations with all our neighbours. We refuse to recognise Bosnia-Herzegovina as an independent state. We refuse to recognise the validity of the referendum in Montenegro, despite the fact that it was held in accordance with strict rules imposed by the EU. The referendum showed that the desire for independence was deep-seated in Montenegrin society, yet we continue to treat it as a passing phenomenon. We still think that Croatia does not deserve to become an EU member. We stubbornly refuse to recognise the Macedonian Orthodox Church. The process of Yugoslavia’s dissolution still continues, and should be concluded with Kosovo becoming independent; but we refuse to recognise that this is inevitable, and strive to separate the Serbs from the Albanians. Rather than pursuing a good-neighbour policy, we seek to exacerbate the situation and in doing so we use the Serb people always and everywhere, in all these communities, as an instrument of policy.
This raises the key question of what lies at the centre of a policy that insists on creating crises? What is it about the constitution of a state that repeatedly creates a crisis within its own body, and which prohibits any social or other evolution? I think that the constitution and the circumstances surrounding it - the manner in which it was promulgated, the complete disregard of expert opinion - is one key factor. We have a new crisis in Sandžak, latent tension in Vojvodina. One result of this is that the critical opinion which Peščanik reflects comes to be seen as extremist - that it overreacts in treating seriously allegedly marginal phenomena such as neo-Nazism, anti-Semitism and clerico-nationalist fundamentalism. This is a state of mind reflecting the deep confusion present in Serbian society. I think that the current regime has been trying to decipher itself, to find a way to legally constitute what the previous regime did by clearing the ground, to appropriate the conquests of that regime by recourse to so-called international legal logic, that this has in a sense been made clear.
I think that contemporary Serbia is faced with the following question: is it ready to join the dominant spirit of the time, not in the sense of joining the EU, but in the sense of its domestic policy, its essence, its main aims in the sense of building a modern and legal state? Or is what is happening nothing but a first step in creating a consensus that we should abandon any such orientation? I believe that this remains an open question in Serbia today, for which society should feel responsible, given that it has approved this retrograde policy in elections. The population has the possibility of choice. The actual positions, the results and the outcome of this policy are quite clear. Its parliamentary representatives continue to argue in favour of redrawing the existing borders, of keeping Kosovo and parts of Bosnia, of seizing parts of Croatia, of conducting a repressive policy towards minorities. This shows that Serbia is continuing along the old path. In the eyes of the bearers of this policy, the people who protest against it in Peščanik - those who believe they are responsible as Serbs and citizens - are internal enemies.
Ignoring reality
We are talking about a fundamental policy that Serbia’s political representatives continue to uphold - a policy of war, ethnic borders, a Great Serbia, saving what remains. On the one hand, it is a complete denial of reality, with highly negative effects for Serbia in particular. It is powerful propaganda. Serbia knew, following the [NATO] intervention, that Kosovo was lost, because this issue has a long history. The attempt to integrate the Albanians into Yugoslavia was of fundamental importance. If one bears in mind that Yugoslavia started to be destroyed in Kosovo, if the project of integration had failed, if a terrible terror was unleashed there, if there was the abolition of Kosovo’s autonomy, the destruction of its institutions, the creation of a parallel society - then we are talking about a gulf that cannot be overcome by propaganda. It is impossible to discern what is happening there by following the Serbian media. Changes have taken place there, the international community is engaged there. Its interest in it are far more important than those of the Serbian government, which manipulates the issue and possibly believes that its final card is to destabilize Kosovo, make its position highly problematic. As for linking Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovina, this appears to be a panic reaction to the nearing of the final solution and the growing realisation that it means independence. The truth is that the Serbian regime has followed a policy towards RS which is to create, by way of economic and special relations, a de facto state based on denial of the reality that Bosnia-Herzegovina is an independent state. The truth is that no referendum [in RS] can lead to the disappearance of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Contemporary Serbia is a very neglected country, very distant from any notion of a legal state, one in which law plays a marginal role. It is a country which has seen not only war crimes, but also the murder of its own soldiers and journalists. A prime minister who understood the new times, who announced the possibility of Serbia leaving behind the chaos in which it found itself, has also been murdered. It is a very difficult situation, given the conflict with our neighbours and the continuing territorial pretensions. But the present constellation in the international context means that there will not be another war. Serbia is not strong enough to wage one. It is possible though to imagine a deepening chaos in the country, aimed at removal of the critical part of political society, its silencing. The aim is to create a great social imbalance, a social collapse. Many in Serbia ask themselves whether there might be another war. They ask because they have got used to the war atmosphere and the unpredictability of political moves. Most of the political parties agree that Europe is no longer relevant. They think that speaking about Europe will lead them to lose their parliamentary seats. This policy has revived with the reopening of the Bosnian issue, and Europe has become aware that although Serbia is exhausted, although it has paid a high price [for Milošević’s expansionism], it has retained its territorial aspirations. But I do not see that the Serbians are keen to participate in yet another war, despite the fact that few show any readiness to restrain their political leaders. All in all, I do not expect a dramatic military conflict, despite all the predictions; but I do envisage an internal chaos that could destabilize the whole region. The clerical nationalists have dropped their democratic mask. Their aim is to create a large state regardless of how people will live in it. Kosovo is being used as a substitute for everything else: you cannot speak of anything, even breathe, hold elections or anything, until the issue has been solved. As for Russia, I think that the Serbian leaders have little insight into Russia’s internal political life. There is a readiness in Serbia - historically conditioned - to believe that Russia will enter into conflict with the whole world in order to save Kosovo for Serbia, in order to maintain Serbia’s friendship. Russia may wish to keep Serbia as an area through which it can further its interests and positions. But I do not think it will sacrifice its vital positions for Serbia’s sake.