Tuesday, November 08, 2005
A Classic Formula
At the time of the negotiations between the six republics of Yugoslavia over their post-communist destiny, the many ethnic and religious groupings within Yugoslav society had been living side by side with and marrying each other for half a century. But their common language and culture had developed over a period of six hundred years of Slavic Balkan identity, united in opposition to external rule by both Muslim and Christian empires. By the late 1980s, they were a remarkably tolerant society.
Yet, grievances from the Second World War and the Communist era were still fresh enough to be rekindled by political manipulators determined to foment popular violence for political power. The trick was how to incite populations that had come to value harmonious relations with their neighbors and fellow countrymen, despite differences in religious practice or ethnic history.
Not surprisingly, leaders in Belgrade turned to the state-controlled radio and television to mount a campaign of fear and loathing based on imaginary and wildly-exaggerated grievances and stories of persecution. Leaders in Zagreb unwisely followed suit with an overly zealous nationalistic campaign, which in turn fed these fears, followed by Belgrade’s use of paramilitary, vigilante militias to initiate actual violence, the response to which could then be used as justification for military intervention. A classic formula.
But the disintegration of the Balkans in the 1990s, as it is so aptly described in The Fall of Yugoslavia by BBC correspondent Misha Glenny, is most noteworthy for its documentation and interviews on the scene as the tragedy unfolded. The picture Glenny portrays is one of a country confused by the change from communism to democracy, bewildered by mounting economic insecurity, and fearful of the horrors of hostilities about to be unleashed, yet still nearly incapable of imagining civil war in their largely integrated multicultural federation. Even among the Serbs, there was a very large and active opposition movement that demanded a peaceful resolution to the questions of boundaries and independence for each republic.
What is remarkable is how easy it was to plunge these socio-economically interdependent peoples into conflict and violence and, eventually, war, by introducing first stories of persecution, then thuggery, then weaponry—strategically--into enclaves of ignorance and insecurity. After that, it was merely a matter of escalation of nationalistic hyperbole, continued fabrication of atrocity, followed by commission of the real thing. Once trust is broken, the prophecies of vengeance are self-fulfilling; the voices of reasonable people can no longer be heard.
For those of us who don’t own the press or radio and television, the challenge of safeguarding our communities from subversion or attack is both formidable and invigorating. It is in this constructing of networks through face-to-face interaction, in pursuit of comprehending the forces against us, that we can discover our strengths and deepest values, and, with luck, develop enduring loci of memory and understanding to guide, comfort, and console those yet to come.
In the war of ideas surrounding the philosophy of racism, both tribal and ancient national legacies—in and of themselves not necessarily malign--often merge with loyalties identified with modern states, their institutions and borders, enabling a perversion of the authentic relational aspects of “kinship” to the point of absurdity. It is in situations like the present—where the breakdown of states is so pronounced—that this nonsense becomes lethal.
Yet, grievances from the Second World War and the Communist era were still fresh enough to be rekindled by political manipulators determined to foment popular violence for political power. The trick was how to incite populations that had come to value harmonious relations with their neighbors and fellow countrymen, despite differences in religious practice or ethnic history.
Not surprisingly, leaders in Belgrade turned to the state-controlled radio and television to mount a campaign of fear and loathing based on imaginary and wildly-exaggerated grievances and stories of persecution. Leaders in Zagreb unwisely followed suit with an overly zealous nationalistic campaign, which in turn fed these fears, followed by Belgrade’s use of paramilitary, vigilante militias to initiate actual violence, the response to which could then be used as justification for military intervention. A classic formula.
But the disintegration of the Balkans in the 1990s, as it is so aptly described in The Fall of Yugoslavia by BBC correspondent Misha Glenny, is most noteworthy for its documentation and interviews on the scene as the tragedy unfolded. The picture Glenny portrays is one of a country confused by the change from communism to democracy, bewildered by mounting economic insecurity, and fearful of the horrors of hostilities about to be unleashed, yet still nearly incapable of imagining civil war in their largely integrated multicultural federation. Even among the Serbs, there was a very large and active opposition movement that demanded a peaceful resolution to the questions of boundaries and independence for each republic.
What is remarkable is how easy it was to plunge these socio-economically interdependent peoples into conflict and violence and, eventually, war, by introducing first stories of persecution, then thuggery, then weaponry—strategically--into enclaves of ignorance and insecurity. After that, it was merely a matter of escalation of nationalistic hyperbole, continued fabrication of atrocity, followed by commission of the real thing. Once trust is broken, the prophecies of vengeance are self-fulfilling; the voices of reasonable people can no longer be heard.
For those of us who don’t own the press or radio and television, the challenge of safeguarding our communities from subversion or attack is both formidable and invigorating. It is in this constructing of networks through face-to-face interaction, in pursuit of comprehending the forces against us, that we can discover our strengths and deepest values, and, with luck, develop enduring loci of memory and understanding to guide, comfort, and console those yet to come.
In the war of ideas surrounding the philosophy of racism, both tribal and ancient national legacies—in and of themselves not necessarily malign--often merge with loyalties identified with modern states, their institutions and borders, enabling a perversion of the authentic relational aspects of “kinship” to the point of absurdity. It is in situations like the present—where the breakdown of states is so pronounced—that this nonsense becomes lethal.
