Tragedy in Former Yugoslavia

Bogdan Benitch TRAGEDY IN FORMER YUGOSLAVIA Nationalism Berserk By spring of 1991 Yugoslavia was activists. We had also gathered most former nearing terminal illness. The federal League of members of the Praxis circle, with the notable Communists had ceased to exist since the exception of Mihailo Markovic, a major withdrawal of the Slovenian and Croatian academic figure from Belgrade. His absence branches. Although the federal premier Ante signaled how many friends with whom we had Markovic's economic program managed to collaborated for years would soon be lost to maintain relatively high wages and a stable Serbian or Croatian nationalism. Markovic was currency, the political crisis was visible to all. a well-known democratic socialist dissident, a The presidents of the six republics were leader of the Belgrade Eight; he shocked us by holding endless sterile meetings trying to work becoming vice president and spokesman of out an impossible compromise between the Milosevic's ruling authoritarian Serbian Social- Slovenians and Croatians willing to accept at ist party, which was essentially the old Serbian most a loose confederation and the Serbians League of Communists with ever-more aggres- pushing for a more centralized federation. sive nationalist politics. There was an apocalyptic atmosphere in the My own situation was complicated. As a circles of intellectuals among which I moved dual U.S.-Yugoslav citizen I would now have that spring in Belgrade, Zagreb, and Ljubljana. to opt for citizenship in one of the new states. A worn-out regime was on its last legs, but When not in New York I have lived in Croatia there was little joy and much fear about the on the Dalmatian coast since 1967; most of my prospects for the future. We did not expect any political and academic ties were also there, and velvet revolution or magical fixes from the new so I chose Croat citizenship. But by national mantra, "market and privatization." Yet none origin I am a Serb, with many ties in Belgrade. could even imagine just how terrible the next Increasing national polarization put me in a two years would be. Only in Sarajevo, of all difficult position as a known public opponent places, were dissident activists still relatively of the Milosevic regime and Serbian national- optimistic in early 1991. ists. This made me a target for both Serbian I was involved in the debates in the media and Croatian nationalists, the first because of throughout the country that year after having my politics and the second because of my joined with some democratic socialists in ethnicity. My position became even more organizing the first open noncommunist politi- uncomfortable after the right-wing nationalists cal group in Yugoslavia. The Association for won the first pluralist election in Croatia. I was Democratic Alternatives in Yugoslavia (UJDI) a Serb and, to make things worse, an active was organized in all the major cities including participant in left-wing Croatian politics. Zagreb, Belgrade, Sarajevo, Ljubljana, Sko- Armed paramilitary groups of urban lumpen pje, Rijeka, and Split. Most of us had known types were now increasingly visible on the each other through decades of meetings and streets of Zagreb and Belgrade. And it soon activities. UJDI included many of the student became a genuine issue whether or not to carry generation of 1968, some feminists, and peace licensed arms. My friends recommended it 26 • DISSENT Yugoslavia while traveling or speaking in small industrial parties, which in those two states had evolved towns and rougher neighborhoods, something into genuine social democratic organizations. 2 unimaginable during the long Titoist twilight. Many younger intellectuals preferred to work I remember my initial shock when I first saw with social movements, which in practice Chetnik insignia on bearded young thugs in the meant ecological, women's, and peace groups. center of Belgrade peddling chauvinist tape An important group in Belgrade around Vesna cassettes and blood-curdling pamphlets. They Pesic of the Democratic Reformist party argued looked like caricatures of the Chetniks from the that it was premature to raise leftist political Second World War. The only models the issues in Serbia, since the most urgent goal was young had were from the war movies that to establish peace, minimal democratic norms, glorified the Communist Partisans and treated a law-abiding state, and human rights. 3 The the Chetniks as collaborators, rapists, looters, advocates of these various views cooperated and killers. That was precisely what had made with remarkable nonsectarian amity and con- them attractive to the new converts! It was a tinue to do so to this day. I joined the Croatian Serbian folk version of the skinheads and social democratic organization led by Professor neonazis in the West. Similar cultural blends in Branko Horvat, arguably the leading demo- the Croatian paramilitaries mixed Ustasha cratic socialist economist in Eastern Europe. symbols with heavy-metal music and skinhead and Rambo images, sometimes topped off with Horror Shows Catholic prayer beads and a cross. These were the groups that would do some of the fighting By mid-summer 1991 an ever-more brutal and commit most of atrocities in the wars that armed conflict in Croatia evolved from a local summer. revolt by the Serbian minority into a war of The Swedish Institute of the Workers' aggression by the Yugoslav Army and the Movement* had given me a modest grant to try Serbian government. By the fall all communi- to help democrats and social democrats in cations between Croatia and Serbia had been Yugoslavia though a project optimistically cut, and travel and phone messages between called "Transitions to Democracy in a World eastern and western parts of former Yugoslavia Perspective."' The grant made possible mini- now had to go through Hungary or Bosnia. mal material aid to the democratic left, such as Throughout that summer and fall, as the war in fax machines and a newsletter (in English) to Croatia accelerated, the democratic opposition maintain a network of individuals and institu- from the various republics still managed to tions. We also organized meetings with new organize round-table meetings of the federal unionists in the media, and shipyards, and government and opposition, mostly in Sara- among teachers in Croatia and Serbia. jevo, where we had mass and institutional As the war spread in 1991, UJDI became an support. anachronism. Most of our members turned to My own project was to pull together a fall organizing social democratic parties in their conference near the Hungarian border with respective republics. If Yugoslavia were to participants from the democratic opposition and come apart we wanted to make sure that our some independent intellectuals, as well as new states were, at least, democratic, had democratic socialists from Western Europe, reasonable social programs, and were open to Russia, and Eastern Europe. International cooperation across the new frontiers. Most of participants and solidarity helped the morale a us believed that this could only be done by little. We tried to make sense of what was organizing social democratic parties and happening and to work out some joint propos- unions, because that would be the only way to als. These were modest efforts to keep some compete against populism and nationalism. kind of nonnationalist and democratic leftist Some of my friends in Macedonia and Slovenia community together. stayed in the reformed former Communist Old personal ties and friendships crumbled as many of the intellectuals I knew rallied to * Now the Olof Palme International Center the defense of their own nations. The pressure WINTER • 1993 • 27 Yugoslavia to do so was immense. Revived images in the hate mail. But there were also letters from media of the near-genocidal massacres of the pensioners, school teachers, and ordinary Serbs in Croatia during the Second World War workers and members of the traumatized traumatized people who had seemed immune to Serbian minority who were grateful for the nationalism. My Croatian friends were bom- campaign. Desperate union activists asked for barded with current pictures of Serbs burning specific advice about how to handle the layoffs cities, including Dubrovnik, which is a cultural and massive takeovers of the worker-managed icon, and the massive destruction of churches enterprises by the nationalist government. In and monuments. Television on both sides semiclandestine late-night meetings in the repeatedly showed horrendous pictures of shipyards we urged them to stick to absolutely mutilated bodies in vivid color. This reached a rigid seniority, with no management preroga- point where child psychologists in Belgrade tives whatsoever, lest solidarity be destroyed and Ljubljana protested that children were by nationalist demagogery and management displaying massive war neuroses. By spring favoritism. Although we had a major impact, in 1992 television in Belgrade and Zagreb had the end we lost that battle too, and a purge of become unbearable and the relatively objective Serbs and Croat unionists followed. station run by the federal government from A larger unified party of the democratic left Sarajevo an early casualty of the war in Bosnia. should emerge this year since much of what we predicted about the economy and politics of Croatia unfortunately did happen. The econ- War in Bosnia, Politics in Croatia omy continues in a tailspin, there are endless The second Croatian pluralist elections took financial scandals as the streets fill with the place in August 1992, when the new war in young, the unemployed, miserable pensioners, Bosnia had been raging for months. Although and abandoned veterans. During the campaign Tudjman's ruling Croatian nationalists imposed the government emphasized its support of an an electoral law grossly tilted in their favor, we independent Bosnia against Serbian aggression. decided to participate anyway, as did all By now the scandalous complicity of the Croat opposition parties.

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