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Date: Fri, 7 May 1999 15:11:53 -0400 (EDT)
From: Victor Hugo Lane Iv <hugolane@umich.edu>
There is something appealing to Daniel
Goldhagen's appeal for
de-nationalization of the Serbs. Indeed the feeling that inclined me to
give the airstrikes a chance, despite my better judgement, was rooted in
that widely held belief that the only way to bring peace to the Balkans is
to get rid of Milosevic, and create conditions for the kind of debate
about what it means to be Serbian that is not being guided by people
willing to forsake their neighbors in order to feel unified.
Unfortunately for us, the notion that this can be brought
about
through military force is a pipedream. Milosevic, evil as he is, is no
Hitler and Serbia is not Nazi Germany, and any victory, whether or not it
requires ground forces will not be like that in World War II. For that to
have happened there would have to be a sense on the part of Serbs that
they could have won this war, and that they had gambled in a battle for
World domination and lost. Serbs may be nationalists, but even the most
meglamaniacal nationalist would find the notion of first Serbia, then the
world laughable. As a result, a NATO victory will not add any authority
to our voices in the minds of Serbians. NATO would I fear remain the
disrupter of lives, killer of civilians, that acted only for its own gain
not unlike the Ottoman Empire centuries earlier. Thus instead of reshaping
Serbian identity, I fear the project Daniel Goldhagen proposes will only
create a second myth of Kosovo Polia, in which 610 years after the first
battle, Serbs were again suffered a brutal defeat inflicted by greatly
superior forces with the goal of robbing Kosovo from Serbs once again.
Victor Hugo Lane
Department of History
University of Michigan
Direct responses to this message: Pittaway
Date: Fri, 7 May 1999 15:53:59 -0700 (PDT)
From: Alex Popovich <alex@kwantlen.bc.ca>
I have read some fairly outrageous opinions on the current situation in
Yugoslavia, however, the notion put forth by Goldhagen
and apparently
supported by Nick
Miller is really disturbing. The absolute arrogance
behind the idea that the Serb nation should be de-nationalized is
astounding!!
It would be interesting to find out how this process might work. I have
visions of Serbian schoolchildren participating in assignments where they
would repeat "I am not a Serb and all Albanians are my Brothers." Or that
they have no past and all that they had been told is nothing but
propaganda and myth deliberately designed to manipulate them and turn them
into vicious killing machines. I have some real doubts that this would
work.
Citing Goldhagen as an authority on this is problematic given that his
ideas, although provacative, have not really been embraced by most German
historians. To attribute Germany's success in the post-war period as a
result of the de-nazification campaign is in my opinion dubious. My
understanding of it is that it had more to do economic stability,
underwritten with American capital, and with the promotion of a democratic
political culture than with any deliberate and conscious propaganda
campaign. Perhaps, if the western European nations had been more generous
with Yugoslavia in the late 1980's and allowed for debt relief and closer
economic integration, we would not be where we are today. But of course,
this would have required generosity and foresight towards a small Balkan
state and we know from the work of Maria Todorova the sort of attitude the
west has held towards the Balkans. It appears not to have changed.
[Todorova's Imagining the
Balkans was reviewed on HABSBURG in September 1997. --Ed.]
However, being open minded, I would be willing to consider something as
bold as suggested by Goldhagen only after its worth has been proven.
Perhaps the Americans can get the ball rolling by initiating a campaign
against American values such as: racism in the South; the pervasive gun
culture; the notion of manifest destiny beyond America's borders; the
acceptance of the highest crime and murder rate in the industrialized
world; and the idea that individualism is the supreme value no matter what
the cost. If this works in America, then it could become another valuable
export that could be tried in Serbia rather than the latest military
technology.
Alex Popovich
Faculty of History
Kwantlen University College
Direct responses to this message: Pittaway, Hajdarpasic
Date: Sun, 09 May 1999 00:43:13 +0100
From: Mark Pittaway <pittawam@staff.ehche.ac.uk>
Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's
views are obviously overly simplistic but they
are nevertheless very important as they raise the problem of moral
responsiblity for the current conflict. Victor Hugo Lane states that
"Milosevic, evil as he is, is no Hitler and Serbia is not Nazi Germany".
This is undoubtedly true - Yugoslavia is not a totalitarian state in the
classic sense, it has several political parties, and semi-free elections,
nor is it so completely controlled as a classic dictatorship. Yet it is -
Florian Bieber's comments on this list cautioning us against carelessness
in the use of the term genocide notwithstanding - guilty of some of the
worst crimes against humanity seen in Europe since World War Two. The
Milosevic regime has mobilised Serb nationalist sentiment within the
country to preserve and re-constitute the social basis for the power of an
authoritarian and potentially genocidal regime. Maybe the community that
have been mobilised do not share the same degree of guilt as their
leaders, and the commanders of the Yugoslav army for what has happened in
Croatia, Bosnia and now Kosovo - but they do share some responsiblity.
Even when this is taken I know the fear that the ethnic minorities in
Yugoslavia have of their state, the fact that they have no voice, and the
fact that few of their Serb acquaintances understand or even recognise
that such a fear exists.
I believe that Goldhagen's views are extreme and overly simplistic and
agree with Alex Popvich that Goldhagen misreads the situation in
post-war
Germany. But without major change in the attitudes of a large portion of
the Serb population - one which allows them to disgard their national
myths - there is no future for a democratic Serbia. If we cannot guarantee
that then the war we have seen since 1991 - of which the latest conflict
in Kosovo is just a part - will lead to an independent Kosovo, Montenegro
and Vojvodina as Yugoslavia's remaining ethnic minorities realise the only
way to safeguard their livelihoods is to seek independence. Little Serbia
will have to live either with a large number of refugees from the nation
building projects of such new states - who will define themselves in
opposition to a Serbian other, or with a large number of ethnic Serbs
living beyond its borders. Whatever way one looks at it, under such
circumstances peace will be highly unlikely.
Lecturer in Twentieth Century European History
Edge Hill
UNITED KINGDOM
Direct responses to this message: Frajkor
Date: Sun, 09 May 1999 07:42:11 PDT
From: Nick Miller <nikica63@hotmail.com>
Today's (Sunday's) _New York Times_ has an article by
Blaine Harden on the
topic of Serbia's future.
Date: Sun, 9 May 1999 22:14:59 -0400 (EDT)
From: Edin Hajdarpasic <ehajdarp@virtu.sar.usf.edu>
Perhaps "de-nationalization" may not be the most appropriate term, but
some kind of radical departure from extremist nationalism in Serbian
intellectual life is certainly needed. I am not suggesting that this
process should look like Alex Popovich's vision of denial of Serb
identity, for forcibly eradicating the Serb heritage is simply wrong.
I would like to suggest, however, a different approach toward Serbian
history. For much of this century, too many prominent Serb intellectuals
have inculcated too many Serb children into a doctrine that promotes not
only negative images of "alien Muslims," but also advocates their removal.
It is time to admit these uncomfortable and unpleasant facts.
Rather than focusing on the Kosovo myth (which Emmert and Malcom
already
analyzed with great success), I hope that Serb attitudes toward Petar
Petrovic Njegos's work _The Mountain Wreath_ will convey my point. This
work, published in 1847, grew out of local Montenegrin epic traditions,
which emphasized the bravery of the Montenegrin people and their heroic
struggle for freedom against the Ottomans or the Turks. The popular poem
is very condescending not only of the Turks, but of Islam in general:
"Your Muhammed gave you a stupid head! May your souls be accursed forever,
Turks!" (p. 22); "Our whole land has turned to Islam, God's curse on it!"
(p. 70). Perhaps the best example of what should be done to these alien
Muslim intruders is to "tear down the minarets and mosques" until either
"we or the Turks are exterminated" (verse 284). [All references are to
the Vasa Mihailovich's translation, _Gorski Vijenac_ or _The Mountain
Wreath_, Irvine: Charles Schlacks, Jr., 1986.]
Though this epic may be moving and stylistically beautiful, we must never
forget that its ideas promote extermination of anything Islamic in
Montenegrin and Serb lands. For later Serb intellectuals, unfortunately,
it was not simply the style of the poem that influenced them the most. It
was the ideas of _The Mountain Wreath_. Ivo Andric (the Nobel
Prize-winning Yugoslav author) wrote in his 1924 doctoral dissertation at
the University of Graz that "Njegos... can always be accounted for the
truest expression of the people's mode of thinking" [Development of
Spiritual Life in Bosnia, Durham: Duke, 1990; p. 20]. Milovan Djilas,
another prominent figure to come out of Montenegro and Serbia, devoted an
entire monograph -- or should we say an encomium -- to Njegos (_Njegos:
Poet, Prince, Bishop_, NY: Hartcourt, 1966). In the English translation
of _Gorski Vijenac_, editor and translator Vasa Mihailovich calls the poem
"the highest achievement in all of Serbian literature" (p. x).
The list of tributes to Njegos and his epic could go on, but these
examples sufficiently show that many prominent Serbian intellectuals have
tacitly supported extremist nationalism by unequivocally embracing all
notions underlying "the highest achievement in all of Serbian literature."
Andric or Djilas do not differentiate between ideas in the revered epic
classic -- they praise it as a sacred whole that reveals the "true" nature
of the Serb nation.
As long as children of Serbia (and other areas of former Yugoslavia) are
taught that Njegos's racist ideas are "the truest expression of the
people," can we really expect them not to tear down the minarets and
mosques in their midst? Once generations of Serbs are taught that it is
in their proud and old tradition to fight until "we or the Turks [or
Bosnian Muslims or Albanians] are exterminated," can we really expect them
not to fight until bloody, genocidal death?
An alternative solution to this grave problem is to start viewing and
teaching works like _The Mountain Wreath_ as historical texts, not as some
"Truest" expressions of "the Serb people." By approaching texts
and myths
as products of human thought and history, perhaps we will be able to strip
away some layers of mystification from these stories. I hope that by
undertaking such an approach, many Serb intellectuals will finally be able
to acknowledge that Serbian history and literature do indeed possess very
influential -- and very regrettable -- elements of chauvinism, xenophobia,
and hatred toward Islam.
We must not give in to the temptation to erase these elements from future
history books or to discount the importance of nationalist stereotypes.
Instead, we ought to preserve writings of Njegos and Andric as testaments
to a time in history when the idea of killing those of a different
religion or ethnicity was acceptable. Unfortunately, it seems that for
many in today's Serbia, that idea is still palatable.
Edin Hajdarpasic
New College
Date: Sun, 9 May 1999 18:17:42 -0500
From: Robert Spool <rmspool@tiac.net>
> Date: Thu, 06 May 1999 22:27:29 -0600
> From: Nick Miller
<nmiller@boisestate.edu>
>
> I mentioned in a review I wrote for HABSBURG a week ago (on Branislav
> Anzulovic's _Heavenly Serbia_) that as the war in Kosovo continues,
> commentators have begun to consider the future of Serbia, and more
> specifically the need for some type of rehabilitation of Serbia to occur
> -- perhaps similar to the denazification process implemented in Germany
> following the Second World War. Since that review appeared, Daniel Jonah
> Goldhagen himself has written that "as long as Milosevic is in power, as
> long as Serbs continue to harbor the burning hatred of ethnic nationalism
> and are afflicted with delusions about themselves, their neighbors, and
> the rest of the world..., there will be no peace in the Balkans, and the
> danger of renewed 'ethnic cleansing' will continue." [1] Goldhagen goes on
> to suggest that Serbia be placed in "receivership" in the form of a benign
> occupation that would help ordinary Serbs, "the rest of the criminals'
> supporters, composing a large percentage of the Serbian people," to
> "comprehend their errors and [be] rehabilitated." As I wrote last week, I
> find Goldhagen's category of the "willing executioner" to be problematic
> in the German case and even more so in the Serbian one. But proposals for
> changing Serbian attitudes as a prerequisite for peace in the western
> Balkans are now accumulating. [2]
(1) This is not a World War or even a total war. Therefore a total
occupation of Yugoslavia is inconceivable. We didn't even do that in
Iraq.
(2) Every nation has national mythologies. Even in the United States we
have ones we are not particularly proud of. If you are the Serbs, you
have a certain history to reflect upon. There would have been a certain
friction with the Hungarians, Ottomans, Habsburgs, Nazis, Croats, and now
NATO. This would have lead to the national attitude of Serbia as victim
and an established justification to use certain methods to defend itself.
One can use the example of Turkey where any tolerance of ethnic minorities
is viewed as a threat to the state in the form of possible secession.
Myth or not all national histories or biographies have a certain spin as
much as current journalism does.
(3) Commentators of the present day seem to be reviving the "World
Policeman" argument. I thought that debate had run its course thirty
years ago.
Other discussions have gone on here and I will not repeat them. Suffice it
to say that Milosevic and his allies are not unique (however horrible
their actions).
Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 09:24:36 -0500
From: Peter Wozniak <wozniak.p@mont-acad.pvt.k12.al.us>
The exchanges of the past few days revolving around Daniel Goldhagen's
article have been very interesting indeed. I do not intend to add to the
suggestions on precisely how best to go about recreating the Serbian
nationalist mind. Rather, I would like to point out what to me seems an
interesting parallel that might bring up some rather disturbing questions.
It is entirely possible for a state to surrender a portion of national,
historic territory and yet to survive and flourish in both a nationalist
and patriotic sense. I am thinking here of the westward shift of Poland
after the second war. For Poles, the Kresy (borderlands) of Lithuania and
Ukraine - home to Polish national heroes (Kosciuszko and Pilsudski) and
literary icons (Longin Podpbipienta and Pan Michal Wolodjowski) - were
long an essential component of the lands that constituted Poland. One
could argue that these territories were of even greater importance to the
Poles than Kosovo to the Serbs. As we know, these lands were the source
of tension, conflict and often bloody nationalist antagonisms between
Poles, Lithuanians, Ukrainians and others over the years. At the end of
the second world war the territories were taken away and, in all
likelihood, will never be "returned" to Poland.
And Poland has made its peace with this fact. It has not been easy. There
have been, and continue to exist, associations of displaced peoples who
regard the areas with something approaching an irredentist passion. There
remains the popularity of the cultural richness of the region: cabarets
focusing on the comedies popular in Lwow (Lemberg, Lvov, L'viv sic!)
during the interwar years and publication of books on the distinctiveness
of East Galician humor. And, of course, the appeal of Mickiewicz's Pan
Tadeusz, the POLISH national epic which opens with the words "O Lithuania,
my homeland" is not likely to diminish anytime soon.
And yet, the existence of such an interest in the Kresy does not indicate
that ordinary Poles would be at all interested in territorial revision.
Thus, one would think that it ought to be possible for Serbs to change
their attitude toward Kosovo......
But here is the problem. Poland "lost" this territory as a result of
aggression. It was taken away by brute force. Were the issue left to the
tender processes of participatory democracy, it is highly unlikely that -
in 1946 as in 1920 - Poles in the Kresy would have willingly given up
their homeland. Nor would a substantial majority of Poles in
"ethnographic Poland" have been willing to surrender part of Polish
"patrimony" without a fight. It had to be taken away from them, by
outside forces.
In pondering this perhaps difficult parallel, I find myself increasingly
doubtful of whether anything short of force majeur will be successful in
resolving the difficulties in Kosovo, ESPECIALLY in light of the latest
brutalities. In a land where historical memory is long, neither Albanians
nor Serbs are going to be able to put the last few months behind them
easily.
I am not ready to suggest that NATO, or Europe, or any other power simply
detach Kosovo and mandate its fate. Such a course of action has worrisome
implications. And yet, I see no likelihood of solution for the problem
without some form of forceful action by outsiders. A true conundrum. Is
it perhaps possible that there exist problems to which there are simply no
satisfactory answers?
Peter Wozniak
Direct responses to this message: Gluchowski, Porter, Pittaway, Miller
Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 19:20:17 +0300
From: William S. Peachy <wpeachy@ksu.edu.sa>
Subject: "Willing Executioners"
I, too, have been following the recent discussions on Kosovo and the Serbs
with great interest.
A few correspondents have directly or indirectly touched on the
responsibility of Serbs for the actions of the Serbian government and
state. I personally think it is a critical issue. Islamic political
theory clearly puts the _ultimate_ responsibility for governments and
rulers as well as misfortunes and calamities on the governed. It promises
final accountability for individuals in the Hereafter for their societies
or at least for their reactions to the character and deeds of their
societies, but natural disasters, wars, famines and societal crises are an
_immediate_ consequence of the sins of a society.
So in the sixteenth century during a harsh critique of the reign of Murad
III, Selaniki Mustafa Efendi (d. circa 1600), an Ottoman historian born a
Christian in Salonika, and perhaps a Slav as well, wrote in about 1593,
the lines transcribed (please pardon the lack of diacritics) and
translated below. Of course, it applies to more than just Serbs:
Devlete gore asitane olur;
Her kush icin bir ashyane olur;
Sanmanuz khalq olur zemane gore;
Belki khalqa gore zemane olur.
As the state is so the [royal] court is;
[As] for every bird a nest there too is;
Don't suppose a people as the age is;
No! As the people so the age is.
William S. Peachy <wpeachy@ksu.edu.sa>
King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 18:56:10 +0200
From: Dusan Djordjevich <dusandj@EUnet.yu>
Subject: From Belgrade: Serbia, Goldhagen, etc.
I fear that debate over Goldhagen's
ideas as applied to present-day Serbia
will, at best, shed more heat than light.
Seen from Belgrade, where I have been conducting dissertation research,
the whole discussion seems rather surreal. Rather than indulge in fanciful
scenarios of Serbia's invasion, occupation, and re-education, we would do
well to bring the discussion back down to earth.
I am frequently dismayed at the indifference, denial, and defensiveness
which I encounter among both "ordinary" and "elite" Serbs regarding
the
culpability and behavior of their compatriots over the last decade. But
even under the present extraordinary conditions, I also encounter a sense
of recognition, shame, and critical attitudes toward Serbia's past and
present -- less often than I would like, but much more often than one
would gather from the current wave of pontificating about the moral
incompetence of the Serbian people, as Goldhagen puts it.
Nor is it my experience that the level of prejudice and intolerance here
is of some critical order of magnitude greater than that which one
encounters in neighboring countries, or indeed in other regions wracked by
intercommunal violence.
Which leads me to believe that Occam's Razor should be applied when trying
to understand prejudice and violence among Serbs. The manifestations may
by culturally specific, but the sources are surely quite universal.
I say this as someone professionally and personally interested in the
specific nature of Serb national ideologies. It seems to me, however, that
the West would have done a lot more to contribute to Serbia's
"re-education" and "reintegration into the community of nations" if
just a
fraction of the ink spilled on attempts at delving into the inscrutable
depths of the Serbian soul had been devoted to the mundane modalities of
how to help Serbia's democratization.
It's worth considering, for example, what Vojin Dimitrijevic, director of
the Belgrade Center for Human Rights, had to say after the bombing began:
Serbia's human rights community regards
NATO's decision ...
as the ultimate sign of the bankruptcy of US
and EU policies
towards Kosovo -- and not an unavoidable move
after all other
efforts had been exhausted...
Throughout the past decade, the movement for
human rights
and democracy within Serbia has grown in
strength. True, we
have not toppled the government. But neither
has that been our
aim. We have merely sought via systematic
education in
democracy and human rights, to build a broad
democratic culture
which in time could bring lasting change to
Serbia...
There will be no stability in the region and
there will certainly be
no peace in Yugoslavia unless and until Serbia
embarks on the
road to democracy. However, it appears that the
international
community has never seriously considered this
option.
Those of us fighting to put Serbia on the
road to democracy have
received minimal support from abroad. Instead,
our task has been
made more difficult by the long years of
international isolation. In
practice, sanctions have played into the hands
of the extremists...
Meanwhile, clumsy foreign attempts to
"assist" democracy and
respect for human rights in Serbia with vague
promises of money
merely expose the non-governmental sector to
accusations that
it is a fifth column. [1]
If there is going to be a continuing discussion on HABSBURG of historical
ties to current events, it would be valuable to get past grandiose
denazification schemes and explore more modest approaches in the past to
aiding democratization and managing ethnic conflict, and their potential
application to Serbia and the Balkans today.
Another potentially appropriate topic for discussion, alluded to in
Dimitrijevic's statement, would be the extent to which international
isolation may have been a counter-productive policy. Has declaring Serbia
to be outside the community of nations, rhetorically and in practive, been
a self-fulfilling prophecy, contributing to autism and xenophobia?
I offer one anecdote on this topic, from the realm of professional
history. A highly regarded American historian of European diplomacy was
invited not long ago to a symposium sponsored by the Serbian Academy of
Arts and Sciences on Serbia and the Eastern Question. A Serbian graduate
student told me of his reply: He assumed that the conference would be a
celebration of Serbia's role in European affairs; his views on the topic
were different, and he therefore would not attend because he did not want
to be a "skunk at a garden party."
Would this historian have been something of a skunk at a garden party?
Probably. But did his absence, and his explanation for not attending,
contribute to the opening or to the closing of the Serbian mind?
Finally, I would raise one other issue: the possibility that thinking in
terms of Nazi analogies can distort one's own moral compass.
I write this on Monday afternoon, after the University Library was shut
down early due to an air raid alert. Walking home, I passed the Serbian
state television offices and saw close up for the first time the several
floors of tangled concrete from which technicians' bodies were pulled a
little over two weeks ago. In the days preceding that bombing, the Serbian
media had been subject to criticism, ridicule and comparisons with Nazi
propaganda, from President Clinton on down. In the aftermath, a number of
foreign journalists and intellectuals expressed their consternation,
although there was also the following type of response:
"It's a tough call," said David
Klatell, associate dean of the
Columbia School of Journalism in New York.
"In retrospect, if
someone had a chance to blow up Goebbels and
the Nazi
radio network, no one would have argued."
"It seems that free press in Serbia and
Yugoslavia has long
since disappeared," Klatell said in a
telephone interview.
"Whether that automatically condemns these
people to be
bombed, I don't know." [2]
I respectfully submit that he ought to know.
And for any one inclined to expound in response on the evils of Serbian
state television: I am all too aware of how awful it is. Indeed, since its
offices were destroyed, I can't avoid it, because all stations here must
now carry its news programs.
Notes:
1. Vojin Dimitrijevic, "The Collateral Damage is Democracy," _Balkan Crisis Report_ 13 (March 31, 1999). At www.iwpr.net (the web site of the Institute for War & Peace Reporting).
2. David Crary, "NATO Dismays Free Press Advocates," _Associated Press_, April 23, 1999.
Dusan Djordjevich
Stanford University
Read a review by Dusan Djordjevich of The Serbs: History,
Myth and the Destruction of Yugoslavia [and] Croatia: A Nation Forged in War.
Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 13:32:52 -0400 (EDT)
From: George Frajkor <gfrajkor@ccs.carleton.ca>
> From: Mark Pittaway <pittawam@staff.ehche.ac.uk>
> Even when this is taken I know the fear that the ethnic minorities in
> Yugoslavia have of their state, the fact that they have no voice, and the
> fact that few of their Serb acquaintances understand or even recognise
> that such a fear exists.
My impression is that on the contrary, with the
exception of the
Albanians, there have been few complaints about Serb treatment of ethnic
minorities.
Direct responses to this message: Pittaway
[AND]
Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 14:17:55 -0400 (EDT)
From: George Frajkor <gfrajkor@ccs.carleton.ca>
> From: Nick Miller <nmiller@boisestate.edu>
.... text deleted...
> danger of renewed 'ethnic cleansing' will continue." [1] Goldhagen goes on
> to suggest that Serbia be placed in "receivership" in the form of a benign
> occupation that would help ordinary Serbs, "the rest of the criminals'
> supporters, composing a large percentage of the Serbian people," to
> "comprehend their errors and [be] rehabilitated." As I wrote last week, I
> find Goldhagen's category of the "willing executioner" to be problematic
> in the German case and even more so in the Serbian one. But proposals for
> changing Serbian attitudes as a prerequisite for peace in the western
> Balkans are now accumulating. [2]
> Certainly if any "rehabilitation" project that focuses on ridding Serbs
of
> their "burning hatred" and "delusions" is to succeed, one place
to begin
> will have to be the Kosovo mythology.
Once we have embarked on this slippery slope of social engineering,
there is no end.
The next task will be ending the Hungarian myth of a Greater
Hungary
and its natural claims on Vojvodina and Transylvania. Can we rehabilitate
members of NATO as well as enemies?
How much does anyone want to bet that the next trouble
spots to be
solved by massive NATO bombings will be in those two areas of the former
Hungary?
> These (and certainly others) are all questions that ought to be answered
> before we contemplate a "de-nationalization" program for Serbia.
> Nick Miller
A de-nationalization program for Serbia
would probably be as
sensible as would have been a program by outside interventionist powers to
have changed the US slave states into ethnically-tolerant societies.
Jan George Frajkor
School of Journalism, Carleton University
Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 14:16:12 -0400
From: L.W. Gluchowski <lgluchowski@sprint.ca>
Peter Wozniak makes a valid point when he suggests that
"Poland ‘lost'
this territory [Kresy] as a result of aggression" and that had the "issue"
been "left to the tender processes of participatory democracy, it is
highly unlikely that - in 1946 as in 1920 - Poles in the Kresy would have
willingly given up their homeland. Nor would a substantial majority of
Poles in ‘ethnographic Poland' have been willing to surrender part of
Polish ‘patrimony' without a fight."
But if contemporary "Poland has made its peace with this fact," which I
too believe to be true, it was with the full knowledge that Poland had
also gained valuable western frontiers at the expense of Germany. It was
followed by almost half a century of Polish (and Soviet bloc) communist
propaganda that rationalized postwar Poland's new frontiers. By the time
the opposition to communism movement, including the Roman Catholic Church,
became a significant force in Poland in the early 1980's there was almost
no effort made in any sensible quarter to return to the question of
postwar territorial shifts in Central Europe.
Leo Gluchowski
Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 14:43:12 -0400
From: Brian Porter <baporter@umich.edu>
Peter Wozniak's remarks introduce a fascinating element into
this
discussion. I think the non-issue of Polish irredentism in the
post-communist era is one of the most important non-stories of the decade,
alongside the lack of any serious threat of a violent Hungarian-Romanian
conflict. These are two wonderful examples of how "ancient hatreds" (a
misleading phrase if there ever was one) can be transcended within
democratic societies. Yes, the current boundaries were set by force, and
could not have been established in any other way. But that isn't the main
issue, in my opinion. Regardless of how today's Polish borders were set,
and regardless of all the injustices involved, those who wish to change
them are isolated on the margins of political life. We can easily think
of historical examples of forced mapmaking that inspired irredentism
rather than quashing it. But I find it hard to imagine a scenario in
which a democratic Poland, under conditions remotely resembling those we
see today, could openly aspire to territorial revisions in the east. The
implausibility of this leads us to a question that stands at the center of
today's quandaries: why did Yugoslavia and Poland follow such different
paths in the 1990s? Obviously "history" or "national myths,"
taken alone,
explain little, because the historical parallels between Poland and its
"kresy" on the one hand and Serbia and Kosovo on the other are, as Peter
Wozniak points out, quite striking. The focal point of our analysis must
be the deployment and use of historical imagery in the 1980s and 1990s,
and we must ask why the rhetoric of violent nationalism was resonant in
Belgrade, but not in Warsaw. I don't have an answer to this question, but
I am confident that "history" as such is not to blame (though historians,
or pseudo-historians, might be).
Brian Porter
Department of History
The University of Michigan
Direct responses to this message: Szorc, Miller
Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 12:30:01 -0700 (PDT)
From: Alex Popovich <alex@kwantlen.bc.ca>
The discussion on the current crisis over Kosovo-Metohija and the role and responsibility of Serbian national mythology as a cause of the problem has provided some perceptive comments, but unfortunately, has not been able to move beyond this to a more critical examination of the underlying issues. To a large degree this is a direct result of Noel Malcolm's success in providing the starting point for the discourse on Kosovo. Despite Thomas Emmert's excellent review of Malcolm's deeply partisan and problematic representation of the Serbian position on Kosovo, there is still a strong tendency to accept Malcom's arguments, especially his disturbing suggestion that Serbs should be de-nationalized. In my opinion, suggestions of this sort diminish the value of his work as a serious effort at historical analysis and are clear indications that the work is really nothing more than anti-Serbian propaganda. It should be noted, in this context, that Malcolm has written a number of articles advocating Kosovar independence and the arming of the KLA, who have stated that their ultimate goal is the creation of a greater Albania.
Equally disturbing are the analogies drawn between the ethnic conflict in Kosovo with Hitlerism, genocide and the holocaust. This sort of reductionist approach to history is appropriate for CNN and Mr. Clinton, who need to convince a largely ignorant public that their cause is just. Explaining ethnic cleansing in terms of deep seated cultural conditioning might have some valdity, but it simply can not be used as the sole explanitory model. I am in agreement with Edin Hajdarpasic's observation that the Serbs need to move away from extremist nationalism, but dispute his argument that Serbian intellectuals have nourished generations of Serbian school children on exterminationist ideologies. Not only is this a wild and unsubstantiated exaggeration, but it totally decontextualizes the Serbs. It is history of the worst sort to employ literatture from an entirely different context in order to explain a current reality. It is also a slap in the face of the many Serbs, intellectual and lay, who have devoted their lives to the promotion of ethnic equality.
It is this sort of oversimplification and decontextualization that I object to the most. By engaging in this type of discussion the real questions of ethnic conflict, territorial re-adjustment and the efficacy of using western military might as a solution to the problem are ignored. In my view the outpouring of nationalist extremism is not the exclusive product of any single ethinc group in the former Yugoslavia. Rather, it is a collective, and destructive, response of all the various groups to the crisis of the Yugoslav state in the post-Tito era. Dusan T. Batakovic makes the perceptive observation that the crisis in Kosovo is the "revenge of Tito's zombies."
To those who think that in the aftermath of the current crisis the Serbs should be de-nationalized I would offer the following question. Why is it that after 40 years of "brotherhood and unity" (which in essence was a program to weaken Serbia hegemonistic tendencies) is Serbian nationalism as strong as it is today?
The answer to this is not simple, but in order to answer it there must be a closer and more disspationate examination of Serbian grievances against the Titoist state. A good starting point is Susan Woodward's _The Balkan Tragedy_ and, of course, the infamous Memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences. The latter has been dismissed, wrongly, by many as an expression of Serbian paranoia. The Memorandum offers a good insight into the mood of deep pessimism and disillusion that permeated Serbia in the late 1980's and might be used to explain why many Serbs have reacted the way the have to the break up of Yugoslavia.
Lastly, apropos to the current crisis, I wish to offer the following suggestions. First, Rambouillet had no chance of being accepted by the Serbs, regardless of who was in power. The so called agreement called for Serbia to abdicate national sovereignty and to accept the loss of Kosovo-Metohija in three years. In effect it demanded that Serbia give up Kosovo, which had been an integral part of the Serbian homeland and culture for centuries. Unlike Dayton, which did offer some choices, Rambouillet was an unacceptable ultimatum, guaranteeing war and the subsequent humanitarian disaster. I believe in a purely speculative way that it was deliberately designed to fail and thus provide an opportunity for Madeleine Albright and NATO to launch a war against Milosevic, whose insolence they could no longer tolerate. It obviously has backfired. Rather than weaken Milosevic it has given him a stronger hand at home. Those Serbs who hated Milosevic now hate NATO more.
Secondly, peace in the Balkans can only be achieved through a comprehensive plan for the whole region. A plan that deals with the grievences of all the groups in a fair and reasonable way and most importantly a plan that is willing to invest the necessary resources in the region.
Lastly, I would suggest interested readers look at University of Toronto historian, Michael Bliss's piece in today's National Post. It can be acessed at http://www.nationalpost.com
Alex Popovich
Faculty of History
Kwantlen University College
Direct responses to this message: Albu, Hajdarpasic
Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 23:26:18 +0100
From: Mark Pittaway <pittawam@staff.ehche.ac.uk>
George Frajkor makes two points which I think need correcting.
On his
first point - because of personal connections and friendships I have
direct, first hand experience of the fears that ethnic minorities other
than Albanians have of the Yugoslav state. At present Vojvodina is not as
tense as Kosovo was, but the potential for conflict there exists - I know
something of current conditions in Vojvodina and can say that the
situation is nevertheless very tense.
The second relates to Hungary. Here I think we have an example of
anti-Hungarian scaremongering which bears no relation to the actual state
of opinion or circumstances within the country. Peter Wozniak
relates the
relationship between the Kresy region and Polish public opinion. I was
struck by the paralells between the situation he describes and Hungarian
opinion towards Transylvania, southern Slovakia and Vojvodina. I am sure
that a majority of Hungarians regret the loss of these territories, and
the Treaty of Trianon more generally. That having been said I would remind
George Frajkor that the previous Hungarian government renounced any
territorial claim on Transylvania - a position that has been maintained by
the current government. Outside of the extreme right - a small minority in
Hungary - there is no support or enthusiasm for any state attempts to
create a Greater Hungary. I think to suggest otherwise is to denyall of
the public opinion poll evidence of the past ten years.
Perhaps George Frajkor has not noticed, but Novi Sad, Sombor and Subotica
which are in Vojvodina have been NATO targets during this campaign.
Perhaps Vojvodina may become the next focus for the cirisis in Yugoslavia.
I hope not, if only for the sakes of the people I know and crae about who
live there. Nevertheless I estimate that the chances of NATO bombing
either Vojvodina or Transylvania in support of Hungarian claims are
precisely nil.
Mark Pittaway
Lecturer in Twentieth Century European History
Edge Hill
UNITED KINGDOM
Direct responses to this message: Frajkor
Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 20:56:33 -0400
From: "Christian A. Nielsen"
<can19@columbia.edu>
I have followed with considerable interest the discussion surrounding
Thomas Emmert's review of Noel Malcolm's Kosovo: A Short
History. In
particular, I think it productive that Noel Malcolm has responded at
length to the review.
However, Noel Malcolm has left untouched one of Emmert's most salient
points of criticism. Why, given the obvious linguistic and intellectual
talents Malcolm possesses, did he not conduct research in the archives in
Serbia? It is, I think, a valid question. After all, Malcolm made a
considerable effort to consult archives in Paris, Rome, the Vatican,
Venice, Vienna, Oxford, Bologna, London, and Washington, DC. As many
reviewers have already noted, the source languages range from Danish to
Albanian and Turkish, and Malcolm consulted many Serbian-language
secondary sources.
Malcolm quite correctly notes that many, if not most, researchers tend to
approach the study of the history of Kosovo from Serbian and/or Yugoslav
history. While I certainly agree that alternate approaches to the study
of Kosovo should be pursued, I still think that such appproaches require
consultation of Serbian archival sources.
Most reviews of Malcolm's book, whether positive or negative, have noted
the curious omission of Serbian archival research. Did Malcolm encounter
opposition when he attempted to use Serbian archives? I have not read all
of Malcolm's earlier responses to reviews of his book, so I admit that I
may have missed his earlier answer to this question. Nonetheless, for the
benefit of this discussion, I would like to ask Malcolm to provide us with
an answer to this pressing question.
Christian A. Nielsen
Columbia University
Direct responses to this message: Malcom
Read a review by Christian Nielsen of Limits of
Persuasion: Germany and the Yugoslav Crisis, 1991-1992
Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 20:37:16 -0400
From: Adalbert Albu <aarchinc@idt.net>
> Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 12:30:01 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Alex Popovich <alex@kwantlen.bc.ca>
> To those who think that in the aftermath of the current crisis the Serbs
> should be de-nationalized I would offer the following question. Why is it
> that after 40 years of "brotherhood and unity" (which in essence was a
> program to weaken Serbia hegemonistic tendencies) is Serbian nationalism
> as strong as it is today?
Because cultures preponderantly lyrical defy civilization. Transhumant
Balkan cultures defy western civilization, are not part of it. Goethe
admired this trace of the Serbs being himself in rebellion with
civilization. The Orthodox creed mystified Christ. The Byzantine
existence is frozen in time. After a thousand years without change, the
Balkans exist outside the realm of western civilization. The epic struggle
of the western world has no resplendence in it.
Adalbert Albu
Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 22:54:29 -0400 (EDT)
From: Mark Paul Szorc <mps24@columbia.edu>
Brian Porter asks why the Poles accepted the loss of the Kresy
while the
Serbs are unwilling to accept the loss of Kosovo. While there is no
definitive answer to the question there are several possible ones. First
of all the Kresy by 1989 had not been part of Poland for over forty years,
allowing most Poles to come to terms with their loss. Secondly, any
questioning of the eastern border would have automatically meant a
questioning of the western one. This in turn leads to the issue of how the
Germans came to terms with the loss of territory after WWII. Unlike the
case of Kosovo and the kresy where the Serbs and Poles are or were a
minority, in the former German territories the Germans constituted the
overwhelming majority of the population until 1945. For the following
several decades they remained revisionist, but then in the sixties this
revisionism declined until in 1970 the Brandt coalition accepted the
Oder-Neisse border. Like in the case of Poland and the loss of the kresy
this has to do with the Germans coming to terms with a fait accompli. The
cases of Poland and Germany also lead to the somewhat depressing
conclusion that when forced border changes are accompanied by thorough
ethnic cleansing they become permanent since the two combined mean that
for the younger generations the lost territories are clearly foreign
lands. In the Hungarian case much of the ethnic Hungarian population
remained allowing the Hungarians to maintain their feeling that their
former territories remain at least somewhat Hungarian. To some extent Cluj
remains Kolozsvar. Lwow and Breslau on the other hand are today clearly
Lviv and Wroclaw except in the minds of a dwindling elderly minority.
Mark Szorc
Columbia University
Direct responses to this message: Frajkor
Date: Tue, 11 May 1999 01:21:38 -0400 (EDT)
From: Edin Hajdarpasic <ehajdarp@virtu.sar.usf.edu>
In case my initial post was somehow unclear, I want to dispel some
misreadings, particularly the criticism of Alex Popovich:
> I am in agreement with Edin Hajdarpasic's observation
> that the Serbs need to move away from extremist nationalism, but dispute
> his argument that Serbian intellectuals have nourished generations of
> Serbian school children on exterminationist ideologies. Not only is this a
> wild and unsubstantiated exaggeration, but it totally decontextualizes the
> Serbs. It is history of the worst sort to employ literatture from an
> entirely different context in order to explain a current reality. It is
Having cited my sources, I hardly see how my post was "wild and
unsubstantiated." (Interestingly, I did notice that Popovich does not
substantiate his own claims with any reference.) As for the supposed
"decontextualization" of my examples from Njegos, Andric, and Djilas,
perhaps the following examples will clarify my argument.
On April 16, 1993, the _New York Times_ carried a letter to the editor
titled "Hate Feeding on Hate." It was written by Aleksa Djilas, son of
Milovan Djilas, and it praised Ivo Andric for his trenchant insight into
the "subconscious hatred of the Bosnian man." The apparent lesson was
that we can only let the murderous people in Bosnia kill each other and
then separate them into pure nation-states. This lesson was all the more
impressive because it came from an "authority" -- "Yugoslavia's greatest
20th century writer," who learned the "mentality" of the Serb people from
their "truest expression" -- namely Njegos.[1]
Anyone familiar with Foucault's ideas on production and transmission of
knowledge will understand how constant repetition of ideas by
"authorities" can be extraordinarily powerful.[2] In the case of Serbian
nationalism as reflected in the writings of many (though certainly not
all) Serbian intellectuals, it appears that constant references to the
racist ideas contained in parts of Njegos's and Andric's work have indeed
left a very profound mark on life in Serbia. There is no doubt that
today's nationalists in Serbia do not live in a vacuum -- they have read
and praised the past works of Njegos and Andric in an attempt to
legitimize their own genocidal policies.[3] Since the recent nationalists
themselves have resurrected and restructured these myths and stories, it
is certainly not inappropriate to suggest a profound and radical
re-evaluation of works like the _The Mountain Wreath_ and other myths at
the heart of Serbian nationalism.
Popovich's careless assertion that I have somehow employed "literature
from an entirely different context in order to explain a current reality"
reflects his misunderstanding of my argument. I have not brought up
Njegos and Andric and 1389 in the recent years in order to explain the
current reality -- nationalists of all kinds have done precisely that,
however.[4] What I would like to suggest is a kind of rewriting of the
dominant discourse to demonstrate how literary traditions can -- and have
-- promoted exterminationist policies. All of us need to condemn and halt
such perpetuation of virulent ideas before we can even talk of real peace
and cooperation.
Notes:
[1]. Note that Milovan Djilas wrote an enthusiastically positive biography
of Njegos (_Njegos: Poet, Prince, Bishop_, New York, Harcourt, 1966). Ivo
Andric's quote regarding Njegos and the trecherous Muslims is in _The
Development of Spiritual Life in Bosnia_ (Durham, Duke, 1990), p. 20.
[2]. Michel Foucault, _The Archeology of Knowledge_, tr. A.S. Smith, New
York: Pantheon, 1972.
[3]. Sabrina Petra Ramet, _Balkan Babel: Politics, Culture, Religion in
Yugoslavia_ (Boulder: Westview, 1992), pp. 28-29.
[4]. Ibid., and Misha Glenny _The Fall of Yugoslavia_ (London: Penguin,
1992), p. 22; and Norman Cigar, _Genocide in Bosnia_ (College Station:
Texas A&M, 1995).
Edin Hajdarpasic
New College
Direct responses to this message: Shanafelt
Date: Tue, 11 May 1999 08:54:43 PDT
From: Nick Miller <nikica63@hotmail.com>
Peter Wozniak and Brian Porter have
introduced an intriguing angle on the
Kosovo issue. They ask an important question: why did Serbs come to focus
ever more on Kosovo while Poles came to terms with the loss of the Kresy?
I think that the answer has to do with the nature of communist governance
in each country. Both Serbia and Poland, of course, developed oppositions
to communism in the postwar era. But the nature of those opposition
movements depended entirely on the perceived nature of the oppression of
the communist regime in question. In Yugoslavia, Serbian opposition to
the Tito regime focused on the most obvious way in which that regime
affected Serbs it separated Serbian populations, creating administrative
divisions that kept the Serbs in Croatia, Bosnia, Vojvodina, Kosovo, and
Macedonia apart. Thus, in the 1980s, after Tito died, the Serbian
opponents of Tito, viewing themselves as tellers of the "truth" (and
thereby playing, at least initially, a role similar to that of Vaclav
Havel, who suggested that Czechs "live in truth"), concentrated on
dismantling the biggest "lie" of the Tito regime, which was for Serbs
territorial and national: Titoism promised the end of national conflict,
but satisfied the national/territorial demands of everyone in Yugoslavia
except the Serbs. Kosovo became the most potent symbol of that lie.
Serbian anti-communism was built upon that foundation, and what began as a
movement quite similar to those in Poland and Czechoslovakia (a search for
truth) evolved into an ethnic nationalist revival because Kosovo was the
best example of the most important lie told by the Tito regime. For those
reasons, I think that the school of thought that holds that Serbs are
enslaved to a series of ancient myths needs to be revised: at best, those
myths worked together with a deeply felt sense of grievance against the
Tito regime. Most of the originators of the Serbian national movement of
the 1980s responded less to historical imagery of the 14th century variety
than they did to perceived oppression by communists.
Nick Miller
Direct responses to this message: Djordjevich, Wozniak
Date: Tue, 11 May 1999 11:17:17 -0500
From: Sam Goodfellow <goodfels@JAYNET.WCMO.EDU>
The discussion of Malcom's book
and the issue of denationalization has
been very stimulating, in part because it addresses the specific
possibility of what US and NATO goals can and should be.
Goldhagen's
thesis that all the Germans shared an exterminationist
attitude towards Jews is perhaps emotionally satisfying, but nonsense.
Reading Victor Klemperer's diaries will demonstrate the complexity of
racial attitudes on a day to day basis. Similarly, the extension of
Goldhagen's thesis to Serbia is dubious. No doubt many Serbs do not wish
the elimination of Kosovar Albanians or the maltreatment of other ethnic
minorities.
Yet there is some basis for concern about the shape of Serbian
nationalism and the Serbs' reaction to it. The idea of a transcendent,
even holy, nationalism that demands the instutionalization of a specific
idea of Serbness to the exclusion of external groups and that is enforced
through a variety of means upon the Serbs, is fascism. To be sure,
Milosevic has no apparent desire to take over most of Europe and perhaps
he does not really intend genocide, favoring instead a final solution that
would send Albanians to Madagascar. Nevertheless, the widespread (but not
unanimous) support for the goals of Milosevic, the government's ability to
shape public opinion through explicit control of the media and through
implicit terror, has created an environment which bears considerable
similarity with Nazi Germany.
This brings me to the point that I want to make, which is that
there seems to be a great deal of lack of clarity about the way to go
about "denationalizing" the Serbs. In the German, and probably also the
Japanese, cases the populations knew, well before the war was over, that
their governments and their ideologies had destroyed them. Thus, it
didn't matter whether denazification was repressive as in the Soviet zone
or more liberal as in the Western zones, Germans generally turned away
from Nazism.
There is another model from German history that we should not
forget, and that is Versailles. If the attempt to punish and change
attitudes is done clumsily, then it may simply fan the flames. Moreover,
the mixed success of the post-1989 purges and de-Stalinization activities
across eastern Europe might be relevant as models for what might happen in
Serbia.
Although I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment expressed in a
number of entries that Serbia needs to be denationalized, I remain unsure
of the precise means that would achieve that end.
Sam Goodfellow
Westminster College
Direct responses to this message: Wozniak
Date: Tue, 11 May 1999 16:09:57 -0500
From: Gary W. Shanafelt, Ph.D. <gshan@mcmurry.mcm.edu>
No one else has mentioned this, so I guess I will, in reply to Edin
Hajdarpasic's comments about _The Mountain Wreath_.
Hajdarpasic indicts
Ivo Andric for writing in his 1924 doctoral dissertation that "Njegos...
can always be accounted for the truest expression of the people's mode of
thinking." Does this mean that Andric buys into all the anti-Muslim
statements in the epic? Or that it made him a fanatical hater of all
things non-Serb? Perhaps I missed something, but my reading of Andric's
_The Bridge on the Drina_ seems very sympathetic to the Muslim inhabitants
of Bosnia. When I grew up in California, we all read Shakespeare's
_Merchant of Venice_ in school; I believe I can say that Shakespeare was a
great writer without also believing that all Jews want their pound of
flesh (and it might be noted that, for all the influence of Shakespeare in
California, it was Japanese-Americans, not Jews, that were imprisoned
during World War II). Are there some other, more clearly anti-Muslim
works by Andric than _Bridge on the Drina_? I think there may be
something to Serbs being "willing executioners" in Goldhagen's sense of
the term, but I don't see it in Hajdarpasic's nexus between Njegos and
Andric, at least not without further explanation.
--Gary Shanafelt--
Direct responses to this message: Hajdarpasic
The following message
proposes to take the discussion in a new direction,
so I have assigned a different subject line for this prospective
thread.
Can partition be the best option? How can previous experiences
with
territorial partition in the region illuminate this question? Is
it
important whether the territory in question has a previous history as a
political entity in its own right?--Ed.
Date: Wed, 12 May 1999 01:11:00 +0200
From: Dusan Djordjevich <dusandj@EUnet.yu>
Nick Miller raises an excellent point in his 11 May post about
the
connection between nationalism and anti-communism in contemporary Serbia.
Perhaps it would not be inappropriate or too present-minded to report that
in today's paper here in Belgrade there is an article carrying statements
on Kosovo by the novelist Dobrica Cosic, perhaps the most important figure
in the development of Serbian nationalism in the 1980s. [1]
In addition to condemnations of the bombing and of the KLA, he states that
"from the end of the last century, Albanians have sought to live in a
united state... I consider that aim to be legitimate. The problem lies in
what means are used to create that state."
"Serbia has history on its side, Albanians demography, considering the
size of the population. A compromise can be reached through a division of
the territory, on the condition that it's not a question of purely ethnic
territories.
"It's better to separate and learn to cooperate as neighbors."
As he notes, he raised this idea in the 1980s, and it has been floating
around and gaining some steam in informal discussions and academic circles
since then. In the wake of the current crisis, one can find it proposed by
western analysts as well. [2]
Perhaps HABSBURG historians could weigh in on this issue?
Of course, many see the idea as unfeasible or undesirable (or propose that
the entire province be granted independence). Certainly it reflects
despair at the possibilities of Serb-Albanian coexistence within a single
state. The same issue of the paper carries a letter from a Serbian
intellectual with a very different approach (a sign of the diversity of
opinion here on Kosovo and of the gradual emboldening of the Serbian press
in the last couple of weeks). Dusan Janjic, director of an NGO called
Forum on Ethnic Relations, writes in memory of his murdered Forum
colleague, the moderate Albanian leader Fehmi Agani. "Perhaps the killers
wanted ... to send the signal: 'We can't live together.'"
"Serbs and Albanians must find the strength and courage to make peace and
organize coexistence. Then, even the peace efforts of Professor Agani
would not have been in vain.
"In my name I express a feeling of shame before all the victims of ethnic
hatred and the madness of war, and especially before the misdeeds which
are being carried out these days in the name of my, Serbian people. It is
for the conscience and responsibility of others to assess their
responsibility for what they have done and are doing to Serbs."
Notes:
1. "Srbija ima istoriju, Albanci demografiju," _Danas_, 11 May 1999.
Perhaps it appears on their web site, www.danas.co.yu. It's a report by
the Beta news agency on an interview he gave to the Swiss paper "Tan" (?).
2. For example, Anatol Lieven in _The Independent_, 27 April 1999.
Dusan Djordjevich
Department of History
Stanford University
Date: Wed, 12 May 1999 02:38:46 -0400 (EDT)
From: Edin Hajdarpasic <ehajdarp@virtu.sar.usf.edu>
I hope to answer the question below, though I apologize for this many
posts regarding something that is veering away from the original review.
I will try to be brief after this long response, since other questions,
like the one regarding partition, deserve considerable attention:
> Date: Tue, 11 May 1999 16:09:57 -0500
> From: Gary W. Shanafelt, Ph.D. <gshan@mcmurry.mcm.edu>
>
> No one else has mentioned this, so I guess I will, in reply to Edin
> Hajdarpasic's comments about _The Mountain Wreath_. Hajdarpasic indicts
> Ivo Andric for writing in his 1924 doctoral dissertation that "Njegos...
> can always be accounted for the truest expression of the people's mode of
> thinking." Does this mean that Andric buys into all the anti-Muslim
> statements in the epic? Or that it made him a fanatical hater of all
> things non-Serb?
I suggest examining how Andric portrays Slavic Muslims in his doctoral
thesis (see earlier reference) and some of his letters for a general
picture of the quintessential Bosnian man ("Damned Yard and Other Stories"
[and letters], London, 1992). In his dissertaion, Andric warns the reader
that his reproach of the Turks and their collaborators is "not to be taken
as criticism of Islamic culture as such but only of the consequences of
its transfer into a country that was Christian and Slavic" (p. 76). When
the transfer of Islamic culture does happen, however, it is catastrophic,
even in literature, where once again "the influences of Islam proved to be
utterly restrictive and barren" (pp. 67-69). The apparent inability of
productive or meaningful coexistence of Muslims in a "Christian and
Slavic" environment is reminiscent of Njegos's own line: "Bairam [Muslim
holiday] cannot make peace with Christmas."[1] It appears that for both
authors, Islam and Christianity/Slavic ethnicity cannot be reconciled
easily, if at all. They certainly provide no reasonable solution other
than reviling the origin of the Slavic Muslims and urging them to convert
back. Andric quotes a very curious line from the Mountain Wreath in his
dissertation, "the cowardly and the covetous turned into Turks" (p. 20).
In the epic, it is followed by the curse: "may their Serb milk be tainted
with the plague."
Andric must have been aware of this line (considering that he quoted and
admired Njegos) and its implication that those "cowardly" and corrupt
Slavs who gave in to an alien religion will hopefully be wiped out with
plague of some sort, or converted back to their "real" and "natural"
Christian and Slavic identity.[2]
When extremist nationalists like Arkan and others operated in Bosnia
several years ago, as they operate today in Kosovo, they called Bosnian
Muslims "Turks," called for "a Christian Orthodox Serbia with no
Muslims,"
and actually murdered and expelled these people, I find it difficult to
say that they invented these ideas on the spot and out of thin air.[3] As
I said before, Njegos's and Andric's works are considered authoritative
classics in the region and the world, and their influence must not be
underestimated. Given the striking similarity between certain (though by
no means all) ideas of Njegos and Andric and the ideas and acts of
extremists nationalists, I believe that there is at least some kind of
connection between certain parts of the literary tradition of anti-Islamic
thought and the recent horrors on the ground. To say the least, those who
murdered Muslims and tore down minarets and mosques can -- however
misleadingly -- point to certain parts of "the highest achievement in all
of Serbian literature" for justification and perhaps future inspiration.
For other discussions of Andric, Njegos, and the underlying nationalism in
his work, consult Ivo Banac's interview in Rabia Ali & Lawrence
Lifschultz, eds., _Why Bosnia_ (I don't remember the page numbers, but
Andric came up toward or at the end of the interview), and his _National
Question_ for a fascinating and very instructive discussion (p. 60,
362-3). Also see Michael Sells, _The Bridge Betrayed_ (1996, pp. 24-115,
and his 1998 preface for his thoughts on Kosovo), and Norman Cigar's
outstanding work, _Genocide in Bosnia_. For discussion regarding Kosovo
and literary traditions, I recommend essays in Alek Vukadinovic, ed.
_Kosovo 1389-1989_ (Belgrade: Serbian Literary Quarterly, 1989),
especially those of Marko Mladenovic, Milan Komnenic, and Pavle Zoric.
I must reiterate one last and very crucial point: I am trying to show how
certain (again, not all) parts of literary traditions can be appropriated
and restructured to mobilize and promote certain kinds of thinking and
behavior. I am not saying that the entire epic, Njegos's Mountain Wreath,
is the worst and most racist poem ever, or that all of Andric's stories
and works are dripping with vile thoughts of murder -- no and no again. To
say that either Mountain Wreath or Bridge on the Drina (or his
dissertation) are worthless pieces of nationalist propaganda is wrong,
because that would ignore the complexity and variety of styles,
characters, situations, and ideas in these works. On the other hand, to
say that both Njegos and Andric are the greatest writers who reveal the
"truest expressions" of the "real" situation without admitting that
some
of their ideas were conducive to chauvinism and extremist nationalism is
equally negligent.
Notes:
[1]. Banac, _The National Question_, p. 60.
[2]. Andric, _Development of Spiritual Life in Bosnia_, pp. 16-20.
[3]. For labels of "Turk" being applied to all Muslims, as well as the
nationalist declarations for a pure Greater Serbia, see Norman Cigar's
_Genocide in Bosnia_.
Edin Hajdarpasic
New College
Direct responses to this message: Shanafelt
Date: Wed, 12 May 1999 06:20:21 -0500
From: David Fisher <dhfsbf19@ntsource.com>
James P. Niessen wrote:
>
> The following message proposes to take the discussion in a new direction,
> so I have assigned a different subject line for this prospective thread.
> Can partition be the best option? How can previous experiences with
> territorial partition in the region illuminate this question? Is it
> important whether the territory in question has a previous history as a
> political entity in its own right?--Ed.
>
Pluralism is one of the challenges of the 21st Century. How nations and
groups of nations deal with the fact of ethnic, racial, religious, and
ideological pluralism will depend on a number of factors. Some believe in
"salvation" through universal consummerism and the banalization of global
culture into one "mcworld". Some multiculturalists and postmodernists
believe that it may be possible to create the political, cultural, and
economic conditions needed to sustain a society tolerant toward fluid
identity boundaries. (However, see Michael Walzer, *On Toleration* for a
suggestion relevant to this list; namely that repressive multinational
empires such as the Ottomans may provide optimal conditions for toleration
of religious and ethnic diversity within designated boundaries!) Others
see a future of increasing cultural fragmentation in which charismatic
leaders defend threatened ethnic or religious identities by attempting to
seal off the borders of enclaves or "homelands" against the impact of an
emerging global, electronic culture.
Partition, whether in Kosovo, Canada, or Ireland seems to be at best an
expedient that purchases short-term peace at a long-term cost to all
concerned. It permits the temporary preservation of threatened identities,
but at the cost of *ressentiment* and - given that no one ever believes
that their portion of the partitioned pie reflects historical or mythical
entitlements - a desire for revenge ("We got X, but They stole our sacred,
essential Y").
David Fisher
Chair, Department of Philosophy
North Central College
Direct responses to this message: Vogel, Frajkor
Date: Wed, 12 May 1999 14:45:33 -0400 (EDT)
From: George Frajkor <gfrajkor@ccs.carleton.ca>
> Date: Mon, 10 May 1999 23:26:18 +0100
> From: Mark Pittaway <pittawam@staff.ehche.ac.uk>
> George Frajkor makes two points which I think need correcting. On his
> first point - because of personal connections and friendships I have
> direct, first hand experience of the fears that ethnic minorities other
> than Albanians have of the Yugoslav state. At present Vojvodina is not as
> tense as Kosovo was, but the potential for conflict there exists - I know
> something of current conditions in Vojvodina and can say that the
> situation is nevertheless very tense.
Not having close connections nor immediate references
from there, I
retract.
> The second relates to Hungary. Here I think we have an example of
> anti-Hungarian scaremongering which bears no relation to the actual state
> of opinion or circumstances within the country.
.....text deleted ...
> I am sure that a majority of Hungarians regret the loss of these
> territories, and the Treaty of Trianon more generally. That having
> been said I would remind George Frajkor that the previous Hungarian
> government renounced any territorial claim on Transylvania - a
> position that has been maintained by the current government. Outside
> of the extreme right - a small minority in Hungary - there is no
> support or enthusiasm for any state attempts to create a Greater
> Hungary. I think to suggest otherwise is to deny all of the public
> opinion poll evidence of the past ten years.
It is quite true that Hungarian governments have
formally denied any
territorial irredentist claims. I do not wish to be a scaremonger...but
the following sorts of declarations (from the current governments of
Serbia and of Hungary, not just from fringe minority parties) do disturb
me. It seems to me that at a time when we have serious problems in
Kosovo, such statements do not contribute to their solution but add only
more complications.
(The citations are from Radio Free Europe)
------
HUNGARIAN PARTIES COMMENT ON VOJVODINA.
The vice-president of the Hungarian Smallholders' Party, the
junior partner in the Hungarian governing coalition, said it is
conceivable that the Yugoslav province of Vojvodina should become an
independent state, "Nepszadbag" reported on 11 May.
The leading coalition party, FIDESZ, says the ethnic Hungarian minority
of Vojvodina should be granted autonomy within the Yugoslav state.
The president of the Hungarian Justice and Life Party, Istvan Csurka,
said he also supports autonomy for the 350,000 ethnic Hungarians of
Vojvodina but added that it would be meaningless unless it were backed by
"guarantees."
Meanwhile, Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic told the Croatian
media that ethnic Hungarians enjoy various linguistic rights in Vojvodina,
despite the fact that "Hungary has become a NATO member and placed its
bases at the disposal of American aircraft to attack us."
VG RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol 3, No. 91, Part II, 11 May 1999
Jan George Frajkor
School of Journalism, Carleton University
Date: Wed, 12 May 1999 12:48:23 -0400 (EDT)
From: George Frajkor <gfrajkor@ccs.carleton.ca>
James P. Niessen wrote:
> From: Mark Paul Szorc <mps24@columbia.edu>
> Brian Porter asks why the Poles accepted the loss of the Kresy
while the
> Serbs are unwilling to accept the loss of Kosovo. While there is no
> definitive answer to the question there are several possible ones. First
> of all the Kresy by 1989 had not been part of Poland for over forty years,
> allowing most Poles to come to terms with their loss. Secondly, any
> questioning of the eastern border would have automatically meant a
> questioning of the western one.
In my opinion, this the best explanation. Poles did not want the
Germans reclaiming the land lost to Poland. In addition -- if you go far
enough back in Polish history --- the present borders of Poland are
remarkably similar to those of the original medieval Poland. Its expansion
to the EAST and losses in the WEST were later developments. The Eastern
expansions actually brought in more ethnic problems than advantages, since
Ruthenes, Ukrainians, Belarussians and Lithuanians were incorporated.
Today's borders (after the expulsion of the Germans) leave Poland a
relatively homogenous nation-state. Therefore, neither changes to the East
nor West would be advantageous, nor would raising the specter of German
claims.
> cases of Poland and Germany also lead to the somewhat depressing
> conclusion that when forced border changes are accompanied by thorough
> ethnic cleansing they become permanent since the two combined mean that
> for the younger generations the lost territories are clearly foreign
> lands.
This is finally becoming the case also of the Czech-Sudeten situation.
The removal of the German population was brutal, but it worked. And the
Germans of today really don't care a lot. If they got some compensation
money that would be nice, but I doubt that they wish to exercise strong
international pressure to get it.
Hungary and its minorities in its neighboring countries remain a
problem, the next one for NATO to wrestle with.
Jan George Frajkor
School of Journalism, Carleton University
Date: Wed, 12 May 1999 08:52:07 -0500
From: Peter Wozniak <wozniak.p@mont-acad.pvt.k12.al.us>
Nick Miller and Sam
Goodfellow have made two very important contributions
to our discussion on the typography of Serbian nationalism. Miller
addresses the issue of anti-Titoism and anti-Communism, Serbian style, in
an effective counter to the seemingly all-present attempts to daemonize
the Serbs. While in no way excusing the policy of ethnic cleansing or the
reality of the brutal treatment meted out to Albanians, Miller's focus on
the depth of Serbian dissatisfaction with the treatment of their national
identity in Tito's Yugoslavia seems to me much more plausible as an
explanation of current Serb behavior than any discussion of the battle of
Kosovo Polje, the influence of The Mountain Wreath, or of Andric's novels,
all theories of the "archeology of knowledge" notwithstanding. Further,
it is deeply relevant to any discussion of denationalizing the Serbs
(whatever that actually is supposed to mean).
I do not mean to imply that the entire
theoretical literature
pertaining to the nature of historical knowledge, or the role of oral and
literary tradition in that knowledge, is not germane to an understanding
of Serbian, or any other nation's, nationalism. Far from it! But it is
possible to get lost, so to speak, in theoretical discussions and to lose
sight of more mundane and perhaps old-fashioned political influences.
Goodfellow's contribution is indeed on a
more theoretical plane,
concentrating, as it does, on the institutional similarities between
Milosevic's Serbia and Hitler's Germany. He is correct in pointing out
that Milosevic is more of a fascist than anything else, and thus drawing
comparisons on the basis of similar ideologies could be quite fruitful.
Once again, however, these comparisons will be drawn from a more recent
historical memory than the 14th or even the 19th century.
In short, an effective understanding of what
it is that makes
Milosevic and the Serbs who support him "tick"; what drives Serbian
nationalism/patriotism/ politics in this dark moment of time, MUST
transcend the potential narrowness of cross-disciplinary theoretical
approaches to the nature of knowledge, however interesting and
intrinsically important they might be. Not until we have a fair and full
understanding of the motivations behind Serbs behavior (or Albanian), will
we be able to develop an effective policy that will hold some hope for
really solving this messy Balkan problem.
peter wozniak
Date: Wed, 12 May 1999 22:21:41 -0500
From: Gary Shanafelt <gshan@mcmurry.mcm.edu>
I'd like to thank Edin Hajdarpasic for the further
references about Andric
and Serb nationalism, for the only work I'm familiar with is his _Bridge
on the Drina_; references to a dissertation written in the 1920s didn't
seem sufficient to characterize a literary career that culminated in the
1960s. My impression is that Andric was much more of a nationalist in his
youth than in his more mature years, and it is the novel, not the
dissertation, that I suspect has had the greatest influence on the reading
public. But I'll need to check the other references to learn more about
how consistent Andrics was throughout his life in holding the ideas he
expressed in the dissertation.
That Serbs could/can feel a Goldhagen-style "willing executioner" attitude
toward Albanians is not too hard to imagine considering the history of my
own country, particularly the American South, where until recently Ku Klux
Klan members could victimize African Americans with impunity. Why did it
take the Civil Rights movement to end the worst abuses, if not because
most Southern Whites had no disagreement in principle with the actions of
the Klan? One would like to think that most Serbs don't know what their
forces are doing in Kosovo/Kosova, thanks to government control of the
Serb media, except for the comments like that of a Serb woman interviewed
on the radio recently: she observed matter-of-factly that she was not
being hoodwinked by the government for she could tune in to the BBC
whenever she wished.
--Gary Shanafelt--
Date: Thu, 13 May 1999 08:24:01 -0400
From: Tobias Vogel <Tobias@intrescom.org>
I agree with David Fisher's statement that territorial partition
breeds
irredentism and feelings of victimhood that in the long run will lead to
regional de-stabilization rather than the effects partitionists seem to
hope for. But the case against partition is broader, as partition is
morally reprehensible, practically dubious and theoretically suspect.
The moral dimension concerns the fact that territorial partition implies
the engineered unmixing of populations. Population transfers are
inherently a violation of fundamental human rights even under ideal
conditions. The expulsion of whole populations is an extremely violent
solution to ethnic conflict; it also raises troubling questions regarding
compensation for loss of property, a problem that, if unsolved, may well
entrench irredentism for decades to come (as it did in the case of
Cyprus).
But the more fundamental point is that partition rarely works. Partition
often creates widespread irredentism, as noted by Fisher; taxes the
resources of the putative "ethnic homelands" (e.g. Albania and Serbia in
the case of Kosovo) that receive the exchanged populations and
territories; radicalizes the domestic politics of receiving countries; and
increases rather than contains regional instability.
In the case of Kosovo, partition would be an invitation for the Bosnian
Serbs to break away, destroying a peace accord in which the West has
heavily invested. Partition would endanger Macedonia, a state that even
today is threatened with collapse. It would finally reward Slobodan
Milosevic for his genocidal policies, which I would find hard to take.
On a historical note, I see no major case in which partition has indeed
led to more stability. (One exception might be the expulsion of millions
of ethnic Germans from post-World War II Czechoslovakia and Poland, but
I'm not sure that that would qualify as "partition" in the sense used by
most adherents today.)
Tobias K. Vogel
Research Associate, International Center for
Migration, Ethnicity and Citizenship
New School for Social Research, New York
Direct responses to this message: Popovich
Read a review by Tobias Vogel of Conflict in
Kosovo: Failure of Prevention? An Analytical Documentation, 1989-1998.
Date: Thu, 13 May 1999 10:21:27 +0200
From: Dusan Djordjevich <dusandj@EUnet.yu>
For a brief look at this subject from the ground in Pristina,
where Albanians and Serbs "endlessly chew over the possible
future of Kosovo," see Steven Erlanger's "Reporter's Notebook"
in The New York Times, May 13, 1999.
Date: Thu, 13 May 1999 18:19:49 -0400 (EDT)
From: George Frajkor <gfrajkor@ccs.carleton.ca>
> James P. Niessen wrote:
> > The following message proposes to take the discussion in a new direction,
> > so I have assigned a different subject line for this prospective thread.
> > Can partition be the best option?
The history of the disintegration of the great empires
(British -
french - dutch - Soviet - Austro-Hungarian ); the West Indies Federation;
Central African Federation; India-Pakistan-Bangladesh; would seem to show
that partition sometimes IS the best option.
> > territorial partition in the region illuminate this question? Is it
> > important whether the territory in question has a previous history as a
> > political entity in its own right?--Ed.
This is not an easy question to
answer. India had a long history
of imposed unity under its own rules, under the Mogul emperors, under the
British (and French) -- yet disintegrated violently and even
sub-disingrated afterwards.
On the other hand Slovakia had no history as a political unit
except
for the somewhat dubious Great Moravian Empire, yet was partitioned quite
peacefully from Czech-Slovakia in 1993.
All the units of the former West Indies Federation had long individual
histories within their colonial union under the British, similiar to
India, and separated quite peacefully, in contrast to India with its
similar history.
I am not sure that there is a universal rule here except that what is
important is not history, but the traditions and feelings and mythology of
the people.
In most cases, myth determines the fate of countries more than history.
I would even venture to say that the true function of history is to
support myths.
david fisher writes:
> Partition, whether in Kosovo, Canada, or Ireland seems to be at best an
> expedient that purchases short-term peace at a long-term cost to all
> concerned. It permits the temporary preservation of threatened identities,
> but at the cost of *ressentiment* and - given that no one ever believes
> that their portion of the partitioned pie reflects historical or mythical
> entitlements - a desire for revenge ("We got X, but They stole our sacred,
> essential Y").
I am in the rather odd position of having been born in
Quebec,
having participated in the French culture, having been of Slovak immigrant
parentage, and having lived and worked in all of Canada and Slovakia.
Certainly in the case of the Slovaks and Czechs, there is no
significant animosity, ressentiment or irredentism. I believe the same
would be true if Quebec separated from Canada.
There are, I think, too many variables in people's mentalities;
backgrounds, memes, ethnic origins (especially dominance-submitance ethnic
relations) to support a general conclusion that partition would lead to
long-term losses.
Certainly, in the case of the partition of the British Empire
(notably in 1776) there have been long-term gains for all concerned and
only short-term losses.
Jan George Frajkor, Carleton University
Direct responses to this message: Vogel
Date: Thu, 13 May 1999 11:01:38 -0700 (PDT)
From: Alex Popovich <alex@kwantlen.bc.ca>
Tobias Vogel makes a convincing argument against partition as a
solution
to the Kosovo crisis. My only criticism is the selective nature of his
argument. He makes no mention of the expulsion of 200,000 Serbs from
Croatia. I do not think that it would be unreasonable to argue that
western acquiescence and complicity in this expulsion qualifies as a
reward for ethnic cleansing; a policy we all seem to agree is intolerable.
The parallels between Krajina and Kosovo are quite interesting. In both
cases the republican governmments introduced constitutional amendments
that were interpreted as denying the rights of ethnic minorities. In both
cases this provoked resistance and in both cases the resistance was
expelled. The precedent set in Croatia has not been lost on the Serbian
leadership in either Bosnia or Serbia. The only group that seems to be
blissfuly unaware of this parallel are western policymakers or those
influencing public opinion.
Unfortunately, many Serbs interpret this omission and selectivity as a
deliberate and calculated attempt by the west to single out and punish
only the Serbs. It fuels their resentment, intransigence and ultimately
forces them into supporting the reprehensible policies of Milosevic.
I wonder if anyone has any theories that might explain this double
standard or what western policy is with respect to the breakup of
Yugoslavia? I personally can not see anything more than a lot of
contradictions, mistakes and moralizing after the fact.
Alex Popovich
Faculty of History
Kwantlen University College
Direct responses to this message: Ingrao
Date: Fri, 14 May 1999 14:16:00 -0400
From: Tobias Vogel <Tobias@intrescom.org>
Regarding George Frajkor's recent post, I think it might be
helpful to
distinguish between different forms of state dissolution. He mainly
discusses the breakup of multi-national empires into their constituent
parts. It seems to me, however, that the common usage of the term
"partition" implies several elements, of which I will mention just a few.
Please take these as fairly preliminary and perhaps rather vague
suggestions of how to draw conceptual lines.
1. "Partition" has strong overtones of imposing the territorial separation
of interspersed populations ("engineered unmixing") by great powers as a
means of conflict management, or by the stronger parties to the conflict
against the will of the weaker parties. The peaceful and voluntary
dissolution of Czechoslovakia would in that sense not qualify as
"partition," especially as it did not involve any organized or large-scale
population transfers. Partition, in other words, seems to imply some form
of interference or imposition from outside.
2. The status of the territories from which and into which partition is
effected also seems to play a role. The dissolution of federal states into
constituent republics (Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union) is
according to this usage not a partition; by contrast, the breakup of
political entities into territories that did not have any previous
political or administrative status (for example, territories defined by
military front lines or ethnic composition) would indeed constitute
partition.
3. Perhaps the presence of a putative ethnic homeland outside the disputed
territory also plays some role not only in the political and military
dynamics of civil or "ethnic" conflict, but also in the determination
whether a particular settlement constitutes partition. This assumes some
relevance specifically in connection with the first point I made. I would
especially appreciate comments on that last point since I am merely
offering it as a tentative suggestion.
Tobias Vogel
Research Associate, International Center for
Migration, Ethnicity and Citizenship
New School for Social Research, New York
Direct reponses to this message: Fisher
Date: Fri, 14 May 1999 23:19:10 -0500 (EST)
From: Charles Ingrao <ingrao@omni.cc.purdue.edu>
Alex Popovich compares the actions and fate of the Krajina
Serbs and
Kosovo Albanians, suggesting that "western policymakers" have applied a
double standard, since they are "blissfuly unaware of this parallel." In
response to his invitation to explain this "double standard" let me say
that, like most historical analogies, the comparison is invalid. Professor
Popovich neglects to mention:
1. that both the Croatian government and
Krajina Serbs signed a
UN-brokered truce by which Zagreb promised to amend its constitution to
guarantee the civil rights of its Serb minority, in response to which the
K-Serbs agreed to disarm and accept their peaceful reintegration into
Croatia. Alas, whereas Zagreb made the necessary amendments, the K-Serbs
broke their part of the bargain by rejecting UN attempts to disarm them.
We now know that they signed the truce only so that the JNA could free its
forces in Croatia to attack Bosnia just a few days later. (If there is a
parallel, it is in the duplicity of the K-Serb and FRY leadership in
breaking agreements that they never intended to keep.)
2. that K-Serb forces made common cause with
JNA forces and
paramilitaries that committed murders, expulsions, and devastating
artillery assaults against countless undefended villages on a scale
incomparably greater than anything ever perpetrated by the KLA. (If there
is a parallel, it is in the butchery committed by K-Serb and FRY forces
against innocent civilians.)
3. that despite these atrocities, the
Tudjman regime -- at US
insistence -- broadcast assurances to the K-Serbs on the eve of Operation
Storm that they should stay in their homes, while TV and radio
transmissions from Belgrade and Republika Srpska told them to flee. Alas,
200,000 K-Serbs fled, knowing as they did that individual Croatian
soldiers would seek revenge). UN monitors estimated that 2000 K-Serbs, or
10% of the 20,000 K-Serbs who stayed behind, were murdered by Croatian
forces. In Kosovo the VJ, Special Police were far more efficient (since
they were following orders from above), raping, murdering, and destroying
the homes of well over half of Kosovo's 1.6 million Albanians (so far).
4. that the US and its allies have used
threats and blackmail
(through the deprivation of foreign credits/investment) to secure Zagreb's
repatriation of 58,000 K-Serbs (so far), while no manner of punishment has
prevented Belgrade from continuing and expanding the genocide for which it
has become deservedly infamous.
Direct responses to this message: Popovich
Date: Sat, 15 May 1999 08:24:55 -0500
From: David Fisher <dhfsbf19@ntsource.com>
These are helpful distinctions. [In Tobias Vogel's most recent
post--ed.]
It would be interesting to compare the various discourses used to
legitimate dissolution of empires, states, and partitions.
I suspect that some will turn out to be phrased in universalistic or
cosmopolitan tones, as in the claim that "Every people has a democratic
right to determine its own future" (assuming, of course, that "people" is
an unproblematic, clearly signifying term and that "democratic" is equally
clear!). The Declaration of Independence represents itself as this sort of
text ("We hold these truths to be self-evident. . . .")
Other discourses will mix history and ethnicity, as in "We Xs have always
occupied the region of Y, whose boundaries were well established by (acts
of historical figure Q or battle N)." The "Xs" in this sentence are often
defined by a nationalistic discourse of ethnicity, while the Y is defined
by a mixture of myth, legend, and poetic or artistic images carried in
memory.
As Henry Steele Commager once suggested, the founders of the US searched
for a "usable past"; they also created a "usable future" in their
projections of the experiment into the future. What I find disturbing
about much contemporary discourse legitimating partition is that it seems
to search the past to legitimate territorial claims without a
corresponding ability to project an open future.
Rather, the future is seen in static terms; as a holding onto and
preserving of what had been previously denied in a world where economic,
technological and institutional forces press toward assimilation into a
lowest common denominator "culture". When my separatists friend in Quebec
talk about the future of an independent Quebec, this is the sort of hope I
hear. When my Protestant friends in Northern Ireland talk about the future
of a separate Ulster, I hear the same thing, in different accents.
Sometimes, as in Serbia, Bosnia, Iraq (the Kurds) or Iran (the Bahai's),
the means to this end is a deliberate policy of "ethnic cleansing". If
"having a place of one's own" means having a place without "Others";
one
that is stable and unchanging; resistant to change, always speaking the
same unaltered language, preserving customs and social hierarchies intact,
this hope seems to me neither realistic nor generous.
Date: Sat, 15 May 1999 18:45:18 +0200
From: Dusan Djordjevich <dusandj@EUnet.yu>
An article in the May 1999 issue of "Le Monde Diplomatique" (in English on
the Web at : http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/en/1999/05/03samary.html
)
contains a thoughtful discussion, and a number of useful references, on
the issues of national "minorities" and "majorities" and
"self-determination" versus "inviolability of borders" in the context
of
former Yugoslavia's break-up and the current crisis over Kosovo.
The analysis concludes with the following recommendation:
"Popular aspirations have been the same for the underdogs in all Balkan
communities that, split over various territories, refuse to be treated as
'minorities'. Tibor Varady, a Hungarian lawyer from Vojvodina, has pointed
out that the minorities issue is both the source of fragility throughout
the Balkans and the key to peace in the whole region. A just, and
therefore lasting, solution to the region's tangled national and social
questions can be found only if the issue is approached at the level of the
Balkans as a whole. It must be based on mutual recognition of equal social
and cultural rights and the establishment of new confederal links between
states that diminish the importance of the frontiers which divide their
peoples. The time has surely come to convene a Balkan conference that can
at least identify the conditions for a European aid-based security policy
that will encourage the Balkan states to stabilise their relations with
each other and with the European Union. The right of the displaced
populations to return to their homes can only be secured through a
programme of aid for the whole Balkan region."
I suppose this risks suggesting yet another discussion thread (Congress of
Berlin and/or Marshall Plan revisited?), but I thought the article might
be of interest in the context of the nationalism/ partition discussion.
Date: Tue, 18 May 1999 17:12:49 -0400
From: Noel Malcolm <nmalcolm@fas.harvard.edu>
Two comments on my book have been forwarded to me from the HABSBURG list,
contributed by Christian Nielsen and Alex
Popovic: the former asked for a
reply, and the latter, although not requesting a reply, said something so
odd about me that I think it needs to be answered.
Nielsen asked for an explanation of the fact that I did not work in
Serbian archives while preparing my book. The explanation is simple: for
reasons beyond my control, it was not possible for me to visit Serbia
during the period 1993-7. It was made clear to me that I would not be
granted a visa; and I was told, by diplomatic sources as well as Serbian
friends, that my physical safety might be at risk if I did go to Belgrade.
The lack of direct knowledge of Serbian archival sources is certainly a
deficiency in my work; but I think the deficiency is nevertheless a minor
one, given the chronological range of the book. Let me explain what I mean
by that.
Some of the reviewers of my book seem to imagine that Serbia possesses
a national historical archive comparable to the state archives of, say,
Austria, Venice or France. This is sadly not the case. Such archives are
the products of long, continuous histories of central administration;
Serbia had no such administrative centre for roughly half a millennium,
and therefore had no opportunity to accumulate such documentation for a
large part of its history.
A similar point arises in the case of the Serbian Orthodox Church,
which had a very disrupted administrative history. One reviewer of my book
dismissed my entire account of the events of 1689-90 on the grounds that I
had not consulted relevant documents in the archives of the Serbian
Orthodox Church. In fact, no such documents exist, and the Church does not
possess any such historical archive. It is a strange experience to produce
a thoroughly documented account of a key historical episode, and then to
have one's arguments dismissed as worthless because of one's failure to
consult imaginary documents in an imaginary archive. (There are medieval
manuscripts in various monastic libraries, but most of these are
liturgical MSS; the vast majority of the non-liturgical MSS have been
issued in published collections, which I have consulted. There is a modern
-- mainly post-1920 -- administrative archive, the Archive of the Holy
Episcopal Synod, but this of extremely limited relevance to the history of
Kosovo. And there is a small collection of documents accumulated by the
Metropolitanate of Karlovci in the 18th century: the only document
relevant to the "Great Migration" of 1690 in that collection is a copy of
an Austrian document, of which I have read the original version in the
Austrian state archives.)
My account of the history of Kosovo up to the 19th century rests on the
same range of archival sources as the works of many serious Serbian
historians, such as Jovan Radonic. Even during the 19th century, when a
Serbian state did develop and begin to accumulate its own archival
materials, Kosovo was not a part of that state; the main category of
relevant archival materials, therefore, consists of consular and other
diplomatic papers. Thousands of pages of these have been published, and I
have consulted them in print.
The only period for which Serbian archives contain internal
administrative documents that relate to Kosovo (and that are accessible,
in principle, to scholars) is 1912-41 (or, to be precise, 1912-15 and
1918-41). This is the one period in which my lack of access to such
sources may give rise to a deficiency in my account. However, in
chronological terms this is only one small slice of the history covered in
my book. It should also be pointed out that the Belgrade archival sources
for that period have been studied in depth, and are referred to quite
intensively, by several modern Kosovo Albanian scholars (notably Liman
Rushiti and Hakif Bajrami), whose works I have read very carefully.
Let me just end with a more general point. Some Serb critics of my book
have cited my failure to visit Serbian archives as conclusive proof of my
"anti-Serb bias". This line of criticism exhibits, I think, a rather naive
attitude towards the nature of archives and archival research. The idea
seems to be that Serbian archives contain pro-Serb documents, Austrian
archives contain pro-Austrian (and therefore by implication anti-Serb)
documents, and so on: therefore, someone who works in Austrian archives is
writing pro-Austrian history, etc. This is, frankly, rather silly. Of
course Serbian archives may contain more documents by writers expressing
pro-Serbian opinions. But the purpose of research is not to pick up the
opinions of the document-writers, as if political opinions acted like the
dust from those documents that sticks to one's fingers; rather, it is to
analyse the evidence which those documents contain. (The British colonial
archives contain many expressions of pro-British sentiments, but they are
also the main source used by anyone writing a very critical history of
British colonialism.) I might add that the critics who produce such
"proof" of my anti-Serbian bias have never alluded to a single document in
a Serbian archive that would disprove a single historical claim in my
book. Nor, curiously, have they accused me of being anti-Albanian because
of my failure to consult documents in Albanian archives, or anti-Ottoman
because I have not studied in the archives of Istanbul and Ankara. I am,
to be honest, a little weary of these endlessly circumstantial "proofs" of
my "bias" (the most absurd of which was the argument, solemnly presented
in the pages of _Foreign Affairs_, that the personal Acknowledgements at
the start of my book revealed that I had Albanian and Croatian friends).
The only serious way to criticize a history book, surely, is to address
the historical claims contained in it.
Finally, I should just like to respond to a statement about me by Alex
Popovic, referring to my "disturbing suggestion that the Serbs should be
de-nationalized". So far as I understand the meaning of this strange
phrase, I can only say that I have never made any such suggestion. I have
indeed suggested that the Serbs should adopt a more critical attitude
towards their national myths; I would say the same for almost any people,
including the Albanians, the British and the Americans. That has nothing
to do with destroying their national identity. If the phrase
"de-nationalizing" means something like "de-nationalism-izing", then I
would say that to eliminate nationalism altogether is probably impossible,
and possibly unnecessary. I would settle for a humane and tolerant
nationalism; I am sorry to think that anywone should find such a
suggestion "disturbing".
Date: Tue, 18 May 1999 12:40:51 -0700 (PDT)
From: Alex Popovich <alex@kwantlen.bc.ca>
In his letter of 14 May, Professor Ingrao criticizes my attempt
to draw
comparisons between the Serbs in Krajina and the present predicament of
Albanians in Kosovo. His objection is based on the argument that the
Serbian politicians are to blame for the ethnic cleansing of Krajina
because they did not honour ceasefire agreements; they instructed the
local population to flee; and lastly that in comparison to current and
past Serb atrocities the number of Serbian victims in Krajina is
insignificant. Thus, my analogy is invalid.
Before responding to these criticisms I would like to clarify why I
introduced the analogy. I believe that the comparison clearly illustrates
the inconstancies and contradictions of western policy in responding to
the collapse of the former Yugoslavia. In fact, I would go so far as to
argue that these inconstancies are the root cause of the chaos. From the
beginning of the crisis western policy, as defined by Germany in 1991, has
attempted to reconcile the irreconcilable; concurrently supporting
national self determination and multi-ethnicity. In both cases the issue
of Serb rights was ignored. Ultimately, it is the incoherence of this
western policy that has provoked deep resentment amongst Serbs and allowed
extreme nationalist politicians to remain in power. The current NATO
campaign, that is wreaking havoc on both Serbs and Albanians, attests, in
my view, to the bankruptcy of western intervention.
In _ Balkan Tragedy_, Susan L. Woodward argues:
The precedent set by the German maneuver was
that the principle of
self-determination could legitimately break up multinational states, that
EC application of this principle was arbitrary, and that the surest way
for politicians bent on independence to succeed was to instigate a
defensive war and win international sympathy and then recognition. (p.
189)
She adds:
By accepting the principle of national
self-determination for the
independence of states -- without regard for Yugoslav conditions of
multinationality and the shared rights to national sovereignty of the
Titoist system, or a willingness to enforce their unilateral inevitable.
(p. 198)
The experience of the Krajina Serbs is a glaring example of western
failure to deal with crisis in Yugoslavia in a coherent and impartial
manner. In response to Professor Ingrao's main criticism of my position I
offer the following:
1. Duplicity and disdain for treaties and agreements characterizes all
sides in the conflict. In June of 1992 the Croats broke a cease fire
agreement in order to challenge the Vance Plan and to test the
resoluteness of the UN. Attacking innocent civilians has, unfortunately,
a time honoured tradition in Yugoslavia. Singling out the Serbs for
specific condemnation, simply because they have committed more atrocities,
lacks moral constancy. In no way am I attempting to minimize or
rationalize Serbian atrocities but it seems to me that the problem is that
of atrocities in general.
2. It is absolutely true that Serbian politicians betrayed the Krajina
Serbs by not defending them against Croat forces. It was a cynically
calculated decision to set a precedent for Kosovo. It removed the glaring
inconstancy of the Serbian claims for both Krajina and Kosovo and provided
the precedent for the ethnic cleansing of Albanians that is currently
underway. However, this should not serve as a justification for Operation
Storm, which has been accurately described by Human Rights Watch as the
single largest population displacement during the conflict in the former
Yugoslavia. In the case of Operation Storm, the exodus was accompanied by
the killings of Serb civilians and widespread arson and dynamiting of Serb
housing. Human Rights Watch Report ; Croatia: Second Class Citizens
Unfortunately, the western media has paid little attention to these
people. The moral outrage and righteous indignation that is aimed at the
Serbs is curiously absent in this case. Rather there seems to be an
attitude of unspoken satisfaction that the bastards finally got what they
deserved. I have no problem with this attitude, it is a normal and honest
reaction to the horror in Yugoslavia, what does annoy me, however, is the
selectivity of the attitude and the nonsense about Serbian genocidal
impulses that accompany it.
3. I am puzzled by Professor Ingrao's rather favourable interpretation of
the Tudjman regime. It is true that the Croatian Constitution was amended,
under pressure from Germany, but this was insignificant and to imply that
changes in the constitution were sufficient to alleviate Serbian fears is
not convincing. The Croatian constitution is a wonderful document, it
embodies the essence of western liberal values and philosophy. I found
Article 34 Home, Search,; quite impressive. It states Homes are
inviolable. Article 39 Intolerance; states: Any call for incitement to
war, or resort to violence, national, racial, or religious hatred, or any
form of intolerance is prohibited and punishable.
Yet the reality is that the government of Tudjman continues to promote
discrimination against the few remaining Serbs in Croatia. Perhaps, the
Croatian attitude was understandable in 1995 during the war, but the fact
is that it continues today. The best example of this is in Eastern
Slavonia, which reverted back to Croatian control on January 1998. As the
Human Rights Watch reports:
Despite positive developments in terms of
the repeal of some
discriminatory legislation, and a generally stable situation, Serbs remain
second class citizens in Croatia. They are frequently unable to exercise
the most basic rights: to live in their own homes, to receive pensions and
social security benefits after a lifetime of work, to be recognized as
citizens in the country of their birth, and in many cases, to return to
and live freely in Croatia. As a result of discriminatory laws, and above
all discriminatory practices, the Croatian Serbs do not enjoy their civil
rights as Croatian citizens. Human Rights Report 1999, Croatia, Summary.
It appears that Croatia is not familiar with its own constitution!!!
Direct responses to this message: Ingrao
Date: Wed, 19 May 1999 13:23:37 -0500 (EST)
From: Charles Ingrao <ingrao@omni.cc.purdue.edu>
Mr. Popovich asked for reasons why the West has treated the
Krajina Serbs'
fate differently than Kosovo's Albanians, which I have done. Perhaps other
list subscribers would like to accommodate his change of discourse from a
mere comparison of the Krajina and Kosovo cases to a much broader
disputation of the West's policies toward Serbia.
At this point I will limit myself to pointing out that Mr. Popovich seems
to have distorted my own remarks about Croatia, professing to be "puzzled"
by my "rather favourable interpretation of the Tudjman regime." I'd be
puzzled too, since I did NOT write anything of the sort about a regime for
which I hold a great deal of contempt. Any honest reading of my rather
bland recitation of the events of 1992- 1995 would not lead a serious
observer to conclude that I sustain a "rather favourable interpretation of
the Tudjman regime." This, in fact, is what I wrote:
....the Tudjman regime -- at US insistence -- broadcast assurances
to the K-Serbs on the eve of Operation Storm that they should stay
in their homes, while TV and radio transmissions from Belgrade and
Republika Srpska told them to flee. Alas, 200,000 K-Serbs fled,
knowing as they did that individual Croatian soldiers would seek
revenge). UN monitors estimated that 2000 K-Serbs, or 10% of the
20,000 K-Serbs who stayed behind, were murdered by Croatian forces.
....that the US and its allies have used threats and blackmail
(through the deprivation of foreign credits/investment) to secure
Zagreb's repatriation of 58,000 K-Serbs (so far).
Like Professor Malcolm, I do hope that Mr. Popovich can be a
little more
careful in reading and, therefore, characterizing our remarks.
Direct responses to this message: Popovich
Date: Thu, 20 May 1999 14:24:44 -0700 (PDT)
From: Alex Popovich <alex@kwantlen.bc.ca>
My characterization of Professor Ingrao's comments as a
"favourable
interpretation of the Tudjman regime" was a poor choice of words. I
sincerely regret having offended him.