No-One's Memories and a Monument to No-One: The Process of Collective Memory Construction in Serbia after the Wars of the 1990s Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of “DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY” by David Lea Submitted to the Senate of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev תאריך לועזי 30.10.2013. Beer-Sheva No-One's Memories and a Monument to No-One: The Process of Collective Memory Construction in Serbia after the Wars of the 1990s Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of “DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY” by Lea David Submitted to the Senate of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Approved by the advisor __________________________ Approved by the advisor ______ _____ Approved by the Ph.D Committee Chairman _______________________ Approved by the Dean of the Kreitman School of Advanced Graduate Studies _____________________ תאריך לועזי 30.03.2014. Beer-Sheva This work was carried out under the supervision of: Dr. Jackie Feldman Prof. Lev Luis Grinberg In the Department of Sociology and Anthropology Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Research-Student's Affidavit when Submitting the Doctoral Thesis for Judgment I Lea David, whose signature appears below, hereby declare that (Please mark the appropriate statements): X I have written this Thesis by myself, except for the help and guidance offered by my Thesis Advisors. X The scientific materials included in this Thesis are products of my own research, culled from the period during which I was a research student. Date: 30.10.2013. Student's name: Lea David Signature: Thesis Acknowledgment This Ph.D thesis would have been impossible without tremendous help of many friends, colleagues and experts who shared interest in the project from its infancy. I had the great fortune to work with outstanding scholars and mentors. They welcomed my project, provided precious advice and guidance throughout different stages of my research and offered so much needed support and encouragement. Yulia Lerner, Uri Ram, Nir Avieli, Uri Shwed were there for me – I thank them with tremendous respect. I would also like to thank the rest of my Sociology and Anthropology Department at Ben Gurion University, in particular Ph.D students Noa Leuchter, Hila Zaban, Yael Ben David and many others for their encouragement, insightful comments, and hard questions. But above all, I owe sincere gratitude to my dear mentors, Jackie Feldman and Lev Grinberg that provided the finest models of scholarship to which I can only aspire. I cannot thank them enough for the continuous support of my Ph.D study and research, for their patience, motivation, enthusiasm, and immense knowledge. I could not have imagined having a better advisors and mentors for my Ph.D study. Last but not the least, I would like to thank my family for supporting me unselfishly throughout the whole process. Though my Ph.D research was followed by many exciting academic findings, the most important discovery of all is the unlimited support and love I received from my entire family. This is to my dearest husband Nery and my beloved twin daughters Aya and Zoe. Dedicated to the victims of the wars and defenders of the fatherland from 1990-1999, Savski Square, Belgrade, 2012 Spomenik Žrtvama rata i braniocima otadžbine od 1990 do 1999, Savski Trg, Beograd, 2012 Content page: Abstract in English 2 Introduction: “In Honor of the Shameful Past” 14 Part I Ch. 1: Contested Memory - Theoretical Approach 42 Ch. 2: The Serbian Case 79 Pat II Ch. 3: Ethnographic Work – Methodology 100 Ch. 4: The State Control over Political Arena: Multiple Lives of the Imagined Monument 120 Part III Ch. 5: Fragmentation and Decontextualization of the 1990s` War Memories: War Veterans as Victims 145 Ch. 6: Social Narratives of Suffering: Impression Management of Serbia’s Evolving National Calendar 175 Ch. 7: Holocaust Discourse as a Screen Memory: the Wars of the 1990s as an Elephant in the Room 194 Final remarks: From the Compromising Past to the Compromised Memories: The Monument Revisited 225 Reference 255 Abstract in Hebrew 1 Abstract This research deals with the ways in which a contested past may be negotiated and channeled into collective memory. However, where disagreement regarding a difficult past exists, the manner in which collective memory is constructed is no longer solely an internal matter; external factors exert significant influence on local memory. Post-conflict states, or more correctly, their ruling elites, face enormous pressures from both domestic and international audiences to please their often contradictory demands. These political elites often struggle to find ways to deal with the transitional justice mechanisms and with the human rights demands forced upon them by the international community while simultaneously responding to local demands to be acknowledged as the righteous party in the conflict. As suggested in this study, the aim of ruling elites is, to construct a certain sellable image for international display while simultaneously shaping a certain national identity to accord with local demands. Consequently, many tensions between global and local demands exist, and these tensions influence the process of reinforcing particular collective memories. In this dissertation I suggest that the process of the construction of collective memory in Serbia after the wars of the 1990s has proved to be an exemplary case of how a post-conflict nation-state may mediate its contested past in order to bridge the gap between domestic demands and those of the international community. Within this process Serbia has utilized its transition towards Europeanization to appropriate, internalize, subvert, evade or transform categories of memory. Serbia’s situation, being cast in the role of the major villain in the wars of the 1990s, initially limited the options available to it. Subsequently the power imbalance between Serbia and the EU resulted in the Serbian political elite’s agenda of promoting a collective memory independent of international pressure. Within this particular set of circumstances the enormous gap between the local demands to be recognized as the righteous party in the conflict and the international demands to confront Serbia’s problematic past, serves as a magnifying glass and helps us analyze the ways political elites try to bridge this gap. 2 Following the decade long attempts to erect a Monument in respect of those killed/fallen/defenders/victims1 of the wars in the 1990s, I demonstrated that demands for dealing with the past, together with other political, social and economic requests and conditions, placed enormous pressure on the ruling elite and played a central role in the process of memory construction. Though the open competitions to erect a monument dedicated to the fallen of the wars of the 1990s were an opportunity to negotiate different mnemonic agendas, the ruling political elite, as the dominant actor, chose to selectively promote Serbian victimhood as a strategy intended to bridge the conflicting domestic and international demands. The extent of the difference between these conflicting demands must be understood in the light of the democratization process that started after the overthrow of Milošević regime in 2000, at that point, the international community conditioned Serbia`s financial well-being and its candidacy for the EU on the implementation of transitional justice mechanisms. Thus, Serbia’s relation to its past was ultimately determined not only through its triple contested pasts: post-war, post-Yugoslav and post-communist, but also through its uneven power-relation with the EU. The process of Europeanization, together with the human rights regime, inevitably brought about alterations in the selection of “usable” memory contents. However, the process of the construction of collective memory in Serbia cannot be explained solely through processes such as the consolidation of human rights discourse and the cosmopolitization of collective memory within the context of Europeanization. Neither can it be explained solely through the given national context. Political calculation, economic depression, social instability and the somewhat imposed process of Europeanization were at the root of the political elite’s strategic decision to invest their resources in maintaining control over political spaces (symbolic spheres in which political actors represent and further their interests (Grinberg 2010)), as the best solution for dealing with demands made both on the international as well as the national level. As has been demonstrated here through meticulous analysis of the Monument affair (2002-2012), the ruling political elite strategically decided to prevent any open and frank 1 The part of contestation and disputed over monument lies in impossibility to reach any kind of consensus to whom the monument should be erected. 3 discussion of the painful and contested national past by maintaining absolute control at all times over these political spaces. All of Serbia’s ruling political elites (right up to now day) have perceived the opening of the Pandora`s box of Serbia`s contested past a dangerous matter. Some were afraid because of their own personal involvement during the wars of the 1990s. Some saw in it a possible source of political and economical instability, while others feared their own political position. These reasons, together with the conflicting demands at the international and local levels explain why the debate regarding Serbia’s role and its responsibility in the wars of the 1990s has never been initiated or supported by the state. Although the Serbian political elites were forced to implement some forms of international transitional justice models regarding Serbia’s role in the wars of the 1990s, the state never encouraged, initiated or promoted any kind of public discussion of the core issues of the contested wars. The analysis of the Monument affair revealed that in order to deal with the conflicting demands, the ruling political elite created and adopted mechanisms of “silencing”.