C M 2 4 6 8 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100 2 4 6 8 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100 C M Y K Y K 80 90 100 BETWEEN AUTHORITARIANISM 70 80 90 100 Ratko BOŽOVIĆ AND DEMOCRACY 40 50 60 70 Vojin DIMITRIJEVIĆ 40 50 60 30 Vol. III 30 20 Mirko ĐORĐEVIĆ SERBIA AT THE 20 10 Vladimir GLIGOROV 10 Vladimir GOATI POLITICAL CROSSROADS Božidar JAKŠIĆ Todor KULJIĆ Alpar LOŠONC Srećko MIHAILOVIĆ Latinka PEROVIĆ Vesna PEŠIĆ Vesna RAKIĆ VODINELIĆ CROSSROADS THE POLITICAL AT SERBIA Dragica VUJADINOVIĆ ć Vladimir Goati Dragica Vujadinovi 80 90 100 ISBN 868376727-2 80 90 100 40 50 60 70 Edited by: 40 50 60 70 30 9 788683 767274 > 30 20 Dragica Vujadinović and Vladimir Goati 20 10 10 C M 2 4 6 8 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100 2 4 6 8 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100 C M Y K Y K BETWEEN AUTHORITARIANISM AND DEMOCRACY Vol. III Serbia at the Political Crossroads Edited by: Dragica Vujadinović and Vladimir Goati CEDET, Belgrade • FES, Belgrade BETWEEN AUTHORITARIANISM AND DEMOCRACY Vol. III Serbia at the Political Crossroads Publishers: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Centar za demokratsku tranziciju For the publishers: Ana Manojlović Dragica Vujadinović Edited by: Dragica Vujadinović Vladimir Goati Cover illustration: Alberto Giacometti, “Walking man” (bronze – around 1949) Reviewers: Professor Lino Veljak, PhD Professor Nenad Dimitrijević, PhD Translator: Ivan Obradović English proof-reading: Liam Mac Gabhann Prepress: Art-studio, Belgrade Printing: Libra, Belgrade Print run: 500 copies Belgrade, 2009 ISBN 978-86-83767-27-4 BETWEEN AUTHORITARIANISM AND DEMOCRACY Vol. III Serbia at the Political Crossroads Edited by: Dragica Vujadinović and Vladimir Goati Belgrade 2009 Table of Contents Dragica Vujadinović What is the Rational National and State Interest of Contemporary Serbia? 9 Vojin Dimitrijević The Concept of National Interest and the International Position of Serbia 31 Vladimir Gligorov State and National Interest: The Economic Side 49 Latinka Perović The Serbian Socialist Left and National Interest between “Sacred Goals” of the Serbian People and their Modern State 57 Vesna Pešić Nationalism of an Impossible State: A Framework for Understanding the Unsuccessful Transition to Legitimacy in Serbia 71 Alpar Lošonc Political Representation as an Expression of the Relationship between Majority and Minority 87 Srećko Mihailović Can there be a Transition from Social Chaos 109 Ratko Božović Ground Zero of Politics – Blockade, Stagnation and Regression 157 Vesna Pešić Facing the Past – The Prerequisite for Creating a Modern Serbian State 179 Todor Kuljić Remembering Crimes – Proposal and Reactions 197 Vesna Rakić Vodinelić Should War Crimes Denial be Incriminated in Serbia? 213 5 Božidar Jakšić The Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SANU) on National and State Interests: The Academy over a Slow Fire of (un)bearable Weariness 239 Mirko Đorđević The Serbian Orthodox Church in the Kosovo Drama Cycle 267 Vladimir Goati State Interest through the Prism of the Commitments of Ruling Parties 283 6 Contributors BOŽOVIĆ, Ratko, Professor at the Faculty of Political Sciences in Belgrade, the Faculty of Political Sciences in Podgorica and the Faculty of Visual Arts in Podgorica. DIMITRIJEVIĆ, Vojin, Dr. iur., Dres. h.c. Professor of Public International Law at the Union University Faculty of Law in Belgrade. Director of the Bel- grade Centre for Human Rights, member of the Institut de droit inter- national and of the Venice Commission for Democracy through Law, commissioner and member of the Executive Board of the International Commission of Jurists. Former professor (until 1998) at the Faculty of Law of the University of Belgrade. GLIGOROV, Vladimir, Research Fellow at the Institute for International Economic Studies, Vienna, Austria. GOATI, Vladimir, Senior Fellow at the Institute of Social Sciences in Belgrade. Elected Professor of Political Theories at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. Visiting Professor at the Universities of Bordeaux (France), Podgorica (Montenegro) and Belgrade. ĐORĐEVIĆ, Mirko, Master in Literature, Professor of Literature at the High Ped- agogical Academy for Educators in Belgrade. Translator and member of the PEN centre, writer of books and studies in the field of socio- religious issues. Editor of the journal Republika. JAKŠIĆ, Božidar, Senior Fellow at the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theo- ry of the University of Belgrade, retired. KULJIĆ, Todor, Professor of Sociology of Politics, Department of Sociology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade. LOŠONC, Alpar, Professor at the University of Novi Sad, lecturer at the Depart- ment of Social Sciences in the Faculty of Technical Sciences and the Faculty of Philosophy in Novi Sad, currently lecturing in Contemporary Political Philosophy at the Faculty of Philosophy in Szeged, Hungary and Kluz, Romania. MIHAILOVIĆ, Srećko, Sociologist, Research Fellow at the Social Sciences Insti- tute at the University of Belgrade, Manager of the Research Program at the Center for Free Elections and Democracy (CeSID). 7 PEROVIĆ, Latinka, Senior Fellow at the Institute for Contemporary History in Belgrade, historian. PEŠIĆ, Vesna, PhD in Sociology, Research Fellow, former Ambassador of the FRY to Mexico, Member of the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia since 2007. RAKIĆ VODINELIĆ, Vesna, Professor of Civil Procedure and Dean of the Union University Faculty of Law in Belgrade. VUJADINOVIĆ, Dragica, Professor of Political and Legal Theories, Sociology and Gender Studies at the Faculty of Law, University of Belgrade, and the Director of CEDET. 8 Dragica Vujadinović What is the Rational National and State Interest of Contemporary Serbia? The crossroads between the process of modernization and anti-modern tendencies, at which Serbia currently stands, is analyzed in the introductory paper of this book. The analysis focuses on establishing the difference be- tween rational and irrational concepts of national and state interests. Special attention is given to the destructive consequences of the Milošević regime, then to current, growing, extreme-right processes and anti-modern tenden- cies, as well as to the fatal perpetuation of the militant concept of “Greater Serbia”. The viewpoint here is that the rational state interest of contemporary Serbia must be directly related to the normative task involved in establishing a constitutional democracy, creating a civil/republican order in its full and au- thentic meaning. In that sense, rational national interest can be fulfilled only by moving forward, on the basis of a constitutional democracy – while dismissing self-isolation and xenophobia - towards openness to cooperation, interaction, communicability, tolerance and enrichment through economic, cultural and social mutual influences, authentic acknowledgement of the positive achieve- ments of others, with the recognition of the highest civilizational standards as one’s own. Keywords: modernization, anti-modern tendencies, ethno-nationalism, transition, democracy, rationality, national interest, state interest. Diagnosis of the current state of affairs Serbia is at a crossroads between the process of modernization1 and strong anti-modern tendencies. The issue lies in the deep conflict between the official 1 There is abundant literature dealing with the concept of modern society, modernization and anti-modernism in its original, as well as in its modified contemporary interpreta- tions, including one in a postmodernist key. The modern era, a product of West-European civilization, is about two hundred years old (four hundred years in a broader sense), dating approximately from the French Revolution, the American War of Independence and the Industrial Revolution. From 9 Dragica Vujadinović strategy of modernization and its bearers, on one side, and strongly pronounced anti-modernizing tendencies2 and their social and political representatives, on the point of view of content, it dates from the moment the three basic components of the modern era (capitalism, industrialization and democracy) united, thus establishing and shaping its specific contradictory structure, where both universal political equality and economic inequality are at work at the same time. In the broadest terms, modern society is determined by a universalizing project, acting by logics of industrialization, capitalism and democracy that co-exist and are mutually connected yet relatively inde- pendent. (See: Agnes Heller, 1984. Teorija istorije, Beograd: Rad, pp. 378-380). Modern society is characterized by the process of rationalization of all spheres of life (followed by resistance to rationalization), the separation of domestic and profes- sional jobs, i.e. private and public sphere, the universal division of labor, the separa- tion of state and society, the separation of church and state, the domination of a sci- entific perception of the world, the division and mutual control of government bodies within representative democracy, the separation of reason and mind, instrumental and substantial rationality, discerning of the three powers of judgment (Weber, Smith, Kant). According to Bauman, one of the key characteristics of modernity is the revolu- tion in the mentality of people – relying on one’s own reason and mind, on exploring new possibilities, openness to new and unorthodox solutions, faith in progress and the power of reason. As early as the 19th century, many analysts saw the essence of modern dynamism in the emancipation of human actions from unchangeable cus- toms, traditions and responsibilities towards the collectivity, the community. Although the classical perception of the modern era has been challenged with good reason, within the framework of the so called postmodern era (for example, faith in progress and unambiguous historical process, domination of reason and rationalization over emotions and spontaneity, domination of the Western way of living over pluralism of values and lifestyles), the basic determination of modernity as the highest level of de- velopment, in the sense of the achieved level of universality and evolution into the first global civilization in history, is not being questioned.