The sentence against Ratko Mladić and the complete disintegration of the opposition, two topics that decisively marked the previous week, were supposed to somehow mark the interview with Dubravka Stojanović, historian and professor at the University of Belgrade. And they are, but really only "in a way". No matter how important they were, it turned out that these topics are only part of the mosaic of social apathy and "disintegration of society", as described by the "Vremena" interviewee.
"After the changes in 2000, I had the impression that society was ready to face the crimes of the 90s, but that the state leadership, first under Djindjic, had no strength, and then, under Koštunica, no desire to open that question. Some, like Boris Tadić, would apologize here and there for something, but no one believed that, neither in the neighboring countries, nor in Serbia. Roughly, 'we seem to apologize, and you seem to believe us'. From the beginning, the problem was precisely in the state, because it did not renounce the program that took Serbia straight to the bottom. Now, here at SAN we are marking the 30th anniversary of the Memorandum, and there is no impression that anyone is ashamed of it," says Dubravka Stojanović, answering the question about the reactions to the Mladić verdict. "In such a situation, even those in society who were ready to accept responsibility fifteen or more years ago gave up on that effort and we, as a society, sank into the apathy that covers responsibility." There is no happy solution from that."
"WEATHER": What is the main problem in accepting facts that have been established many times? How come they are, let's say, Germans gradually, but still accepted their responsibility for the events of World War II, while with us such acceptance at this moment it doesn't even appear?
DUBRAVKA STOJANOVIĆ: One of the conditions for that was a complete, as it were, revolutionary change of the political elites. We often call October 5th a revolution, but it was actually just a coup in which the head of state was removed so that everything would remain the same. Those responsible for the war cannot bring the country out of a state of complete stupor. Even that minimal moral discontinuity did not happen here. It was not in the interest of many who were left in their positions after October 5 that Serbia really moved away from its previous role, but only that they survive, by submerging their personal responsibility in the collective one, and keeping Serbia as their hostage. I am not only referring to Mladic, Karadzic and others accused before The Hague, but also to many others without whom the war would not have been possible. On intellectuals, for example. So we didn't even get to very simple questions. For example: do you know that 1600 children were killed in Sarajevo during the siege, many of them by snipers? And then the next question: is it okay or not? So when they answer that, then let them put on a shirt with Ratko Mladić on it.
Is all that even important today?? Or should be now, as Aleksandar Vučić says, let's stop "we suffocate in the tears of the past" i from "we think about where and how our children will live"?
It is completely immoral to say that we should turn to the future. What does that mean? Ignore the past? Pass over those children shot in Sarajevo so that our children can live better in the future? That is not possible. We, of course, can pretend that nothing happened or that it doesn't concern us. But society cannot even survive, let alone rush into the future, by spending all its energy on constantly pushing and propping up the door so that corpses don't fall out "from there". If you, as a society, do not define yourself crystal clearly according to, for example, the secondary and tertiary graves where the remains of the murdered were transported to be hidden, then you yourself are rotting in that pit.
On the same day when the verdict was pronounced, Serbia was also shaken by the conflict within the Movement of Free Citizens. It seemed at times that it was "in the case of Skoro" more attention than Mladic himself. How is it possible for such an event to attract so much attention? How big is his really "range" impact on social political scene and atmosphere?
We do not really know exactly what is happening and who is influencing the creation of a negative image of Saša Janković's movement. What we see is the huge participation of the pro-government media in the defamation of that movement and the production of affairs, which is why we can safely say that the regime is doing everything to disqualify it using long-known methods. Of course, I don't know what's happening inside, but from the outside it's almost a copied campaign like, for example, the one conducted against Zoran Đinđić, it's that kind of delegitimization of a political opponent. And from an illegitimate to an illegal political opponent is only one step, which opens up space for the use of all means in the political struggle. This is our very long continuity, the way in which politics is conducted, at least since the end of the 19th century. Disqualify, delegitimize, criminalize. Then it's easy...
A few months before the Belgrade elections, the impression is that the opposition is not only disunited but also destroyed. At the same time, however, as if that civic spirit had also disappeared, liveliness, which decisively influenced political events during the nineties. Whether, parallel to the collapse of the opposition, collapsed and so-called. civil Serbia?
I think that all this is part of the dissolution of society, which we talked about at the beginning. In addition, one of the problems of our society is the local political culture, which is easily recognized in such situations. That culture is largely monistic, plurality is not exactly its characteristic. In it, one strives to find a leader, to stand behind him, to sing to him... Then he is hated, removed from power, his monuments are torn down and new ones are erected. This has happened to us many times throughout history.
And there were many situations in which the opposition was reduced to a very narrow margin. There are many reasons for this. Society alone does not provide sufficiently plural responses to challenges; in poverty there are not many solid supports for political independence; nationalism as the ruling ideology cancels all ideological differences that could lead to stronger opposition movements; there aren't enough strong individuals, or real courage, no matter how much they gloat about heroic chests...
The party state in which we have been constantly living since Nikola Pašić eats up institutions, kidnaps areas of freedom, does not allow you to work or live normally if you are not its... It is not easy to fight against this, because such populist orders destroy all rules, norms, borders . It's funny if you say "well wait, that's not right, it's not nice to take away the freedom of the press", for example. The government makes you feel like a jerk when you say such obvious things. You have the impression that you are trivializing yourself if you enter into a discussion about something so basic. And so you open a space where everything becomes possible. Well, in the fact that everything is possible lies one of the roots of the death of society.
It was adopted., let's say, the new Law on the Basics of the Education System, which drastically reduces the competences of the academic community, and increases the influence of the Government. It hardly caught the attention of the public, while twenty years ago, the University Act of that time caused real upheavals on the public scene.
Society no longer reacts even when its bare interest is at stake! The Law on Higher Education is a good example. If you don't react when "it" comes to you, it means that the society is dead, that it is not fighting even for its most direct personal interest. How then can we talk about some higher ideas and principles?
Now a petition has been launched against those laws that were adopted more than a month ago. It's good, of course, that it's started. But why a month after the adoption of the law? Didn't anyone notice that this law was in the process, we hated to read it, didn't we? Well, when students and professors are silent, what is left for others? Only the postmen can save face.
What could change that situation? Is there any way to start the spirit that is inherent in any democratic society?
There is, of course. But the right questions must be asked. For me, these are questions about the past. Walter Benjamin said beautifully that the past preserves vital resources for the reconstruction of the present and that those who erase the past are in danger of erasing the future as well. And if we look at what we have chosen today from our past as the ingredients from which we will make the present, then it is already clear from that what kind of dead end we are in. If the last monuments were erected in this city to Gavril Princip and Major Tepić, then we can easily see what value system is involved. It's obvious that suicidal behavior is being celebrated!
What can such behavior bring us in the long run? What do we really mean by that?, yourself and others?
First of all, we say that we have not left the matrix of traditional values, which imply that the task of every individual is to give his life for the state, the nation, and that through some kind of self-sacrifice. Therefore, life is not at a price. It is still the cult of death, which is promoted as the supreme ideal, task and goal of each of us. A dead hero is better than an upstanding citizen. It is that terrifying collectivism in which the individual is asked to cancel himself for the sake of the collective, to be absent in order for the collective to live, even if only in a historical myth. He says that we should constantly think about what we are going to do for our country, instead of the goal being to force the country to become better and what it does to its citizens. An additional problem is that many of those celebrated heroes were "voluntary donors of other people's blood", as Stojan Cerović used to say. Thus, it is generally not known that Major Gavrilović, whose speech about the need for self-sacrifice of soldiers in the defense of Belgrade in 1915 is quoted so much and is found in every history textbook as a model of behavior, actually died at a very old age 30 years after that celebrated cry!
Simultaneously with such a situation on the domestic political level, European officials publicly praise the current government for the achieved results. Does it seem to you that Brussels is turning a blind eye to the situation in the field of human rights?, judiciary, education and other critical points in Serbia?
One possibility is the well-known fact - that it is important for Brussels to have someone here who will "deliver", that is, perform what is expected of him and who will maintain the so-called stability. Personally, I'm more afraid of something else - that it's an assessment that we can't do much more than what we live in. If we could not build a more mature democracy, to overcome nationalism, to create a serious alternative, to defend the freedom of the media ourselves... In other words, I am afraid that it is estimated that there is no need for all that here, so that it is considered that this is a measure freedom that belongs to us, because we are not looking for it anymore. Maybe that's cynical, and maybe it's true? Let's really think about how it is possible that after everything that happened in the media, some resistance is only now starting? Instead of everything stopping and everyone being in the defense of freedom front! Ultimately, why would Brussels fight for our freedom, if we do not show that it is important to us?
Forwards, can Brussels allow itself to have in the middle of Europe "a black hole" without human rights, judiciary, democracy, dealing with the past?
It shouldn't, but we see that this "black hole" is expanding and that a number of Central and Eastern European countries are falling into it. This is very interesting, because we are talking about countries that were quite arrogant after the fall of the Berlin Wall, that looked down on us from the Balkans, as, well, we are Mitteleuropa, an old European civil culture and a stable value system. I remember that in the nineties it was very unpleasant at various conferences where the transition was discussed. Now, all of a sudden, it can be seen that those countries are rapidly sinking into the "black hole" state you described. Poland is certainly more important for the EU than us, and only now, after two years of scandalous reforms, are some measures being considered. So they never have to accept us, but the problem is what will happen to those who are already "in", and who look more and more like us!
In a recent interview, you said that the so-called internal dialogue about Kosovo is actually "an alibi to do nothing". How do you think the Kosovo story will end??
We can't know that, among other things we have a completely unpredictable government that does whatever comes to mind. But in everything that the government says, I can't find any position. Because if we compare everything that the government says, the only thing we see is that it goes in all directions. This is typical of populism, which presents itself as a movement of the entire people, and therefore believes that it should say things that are completely opposite to each other in order to tie all options to itself. That's the matchmaking, once the ball is under Europe, once under Russia; once for good relations with neighbors, then for conflicts with everyone around us, etc. It's that incredible style of government in which you give everyone a little bit of ideology, and everyone hopes that you are just theirs and that the fact that you occasionally say something to the contrary is actually a mistake or you have to because of someone else. So the pro-Russian elements think that flirting with Europe must be because of some money, and the pro-European-oriented think that it is with Russia because of winking at domestic conservatives, so that they don't accidentally get scared that Europe could really come. The same goes for Kosovo - it may be, but it doesn't have to be. And the dialogue continues, and no one hears it. I guess, because it is internal.
Whether, in your opinion, Serbia is really as strategically important as the government wants to present? Are the interests of Russia and the West really in conflict due to supremacy over Serbia??
It's not unimportant at this point. This is perhaps better seen from Russia's behavior towards Montenegro and Macedonia than from Serbia itself. Serbia is now Russia's last hope... Ekmečić was right when he said that the Balkans for Russia is a place where it can prove itself as a great power in front of other European countries. With that, he explained why Russia entered the First World War, what we celebrate today as a kind of self-sacrifice for Serbia. I believe that the West has already completely forgotten about us, pacified us and put us in a drawer. But Russia's desperate search for a partner has significantly changed relations. Again, of course, not because of us or Vučić, but because the balance of power in the world is changing again.
At one time, Tito successfully used that position "global seesaws". Is the current government trying to do just that?
They seem to really see themselves as such capacities. The problem is that this is not the Cold War, and especially that none of them is Tito. Neither they know how to do anything, nor does anyone trust them, nor is the world now divided bipolarly. Now there are many more players, there are also China and Turkey and countries of the Middle East that have their own interests in the Balkans. All of them are increasingly present, both financially and in other ways. By not accepting the so-called Western Balkans into its composition, the European Union itself left that door open, through which various powers are now seeking and finding support.
Our idea that you can take a little something from everyone, while remaining ostensibly neutral, is ridiculous. The Cold War was far simpler, the players were quite clear, the rules firmly set. This is now a task with more unknowns. This is not, as it is presented, a game with two chairs. This is more like musical chairs, the one where everyone runs around and when the music stops you have to find your chair. Whoever remains standing is eliminated.
With all that in mind, shall we remain standing??
I think we will. First of all, because we don't understand anything about the world around us. This knowledge is very thin, this is a victory for "bad students". Almost nothing is known about the globalized world in which now, instead of two blocs, giants that have never before played a significant role on the world political scene are colliding. I have the impression that at the top of our government, they think that globalization means Coca-Cola and McDonald's, that they are throwing things around. It is not understood that globalization is primarily a process that has led to the creation of a multifocal world, with more major players than ever before in history. And here we want to be ostensibly neutral and to play by ourselves with, for example, China, India, Turkey, Brazil... well, really - the frog raised its leg so that it too can be shoved!
You recently, along with journalists and activists on the street, distributed leaflets of the Media Freedom Group. Why? Do you think that this way of fighting can solve anything??
I think that only by fighting can something be solved. I don't see any other way. I am most defeated that since the beginning of the drastic changes in the media, canceling shows, firing people, denying finances and unfair competitions, there have been no significant reactions. Neither the media, nor civil society, nor society in general. And it's like the one with the University. If first the media itself, and then the whole society, do not defend freedom, it means that we don't really need it much. That's how you say to the unbridled authorities: "please". Probably, every government in the world, except for those very aware that freedom of the media primarily benefits them, would abolish the freedom of the press. But they don't dare, they know that they can pay dearly for it, to anger the press and citizens. Nobody got mad here. Well, that pissed me off.
Whether, in your opinion, the situation in the media can be resolved before or without radical political changes?
I'm afraid it's the other way around. The chicken and the egg. I think that political changes are not possible without changes in the media. And the government knows that well, more precisely - it remembers the 90s. Because it is not true that we are going back to the nineties! Well, that would be genius if we went back to the nineties! Back then we had Studio B and B92. Powerful "Struggle", "Our Struggle" and "Time"! There was also a lot of courage and opportunity, and even money. If we "returned to the nineties", there would be a chance to talk about political changes, that's why the government suppresses all that. But only the media cannot understand what is happening, and the citizens can pretend that it has nothing to do with them. There is not even a minimum of consciousness. Even if everyone who disagrees with the authorities starts buying "Danas" and "Vreme", for example! Were there 600.000 people who voted for Saša Janković? So imagine if half of them start just buying newspapers! That would be a minimum of awareness, but I don't see that either.
