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Southeast European
Politics Online
Understanding Balkan Nationalism: The wrong people, in the
wrong place, at the wrong time
SRDJA
PAVLOVIC
University of Alberta
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It
could be convincingly argued that during the past decade most nations that
lived in the former Yugoslavia - Bosnian Muslims and Serbs, Croats and
Albanians, and others (to a lesser degree) - as well as the members of the
minority groups such as Roma, Goranci, Jews, Ukrainians and others, have
shared one common feature: EXODUS.
Volumes
of scholarly and journalistic works have been produced in recent years in
order to try to explain the reasons behind such a massive demographic
change in the Balkans. Regardless of their points of analytical and
methodological departure, those authors have reached similar conclusions.
The reason (we are told) behind such drastic and forced movements of
population were the revival of expansionist nationalism and renewed calls
for national homogenization. In other words, it was ghosts from the past
that were once again haunting the peoples of the Balkans. Those who died
in the conflicts, as well as the refugees and displaced persons, and those
rounded up by camp wire were seen to be the product of an ancient conflict
- continuous war for territories, identities, and ideologies.
Not
disputing the factography of history or the methodological apparatus
employed in such analysis, I would go even further in characterizing the
reasons for the recent demographic movements in the former Yugoslavia. I
would argue that some 3 million or so of refugees that are scattered
throughout their former country and throughout the world were the wrong
people being in the wrong place at the wrong time. They were the products
of Balkan nationalistic disequilibria. This is not to suggest that they
had been the victims of the unforeseen historical circumstances or that
they were unable or had been prevented from confronting the causes for
their suffering in later decades. On the contrary, this is meant to
indicate the continuity of nationalist sentiments among the population on
the one hand. On the other hand, such continuity speaks clearly about the
nature of the communist government, its mechanism of manipulation, and of
its adoption/modification of nationalist ideology. The fact is that the
climate of ethnic and religious intolerance that allowed for the latest
conflict to occur has been in existence for decades. Given the past models
of governance in both Yugoslav states - the one established in 1918, and
in particular, the one established in 1945 - and the principle of unity
in diversity, upon which they were both created, it seems that
the destruction of the second Yugoslavia was difficult to avoid.
The
former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) inherited earlier
unresolved issues of an incomplete process of national definition and
determination of its constitutive elements, and the feelings of mutual
intolerance that existed along these lines. It seems plausible to suggest
that the elite in the republics of the former Yugoslavia, the structure
and the model of governing, and the religious institutions in their
respective communities, played a crucial role in conditioning the
dissolution of the country. The appearance of unity and tolerance in the
former SFRY was primarily of a representational character and had the
strong overtones of the communist ideological umbrella. The communist
authorities claimed that South Slavs and other nations living in the
region managed to unite upon solid foundation only because of the
political guidance and had done so under the ideological premises of
brotherhood and unity. The rhetoric of such claims consisted of a curious
mix of negative references to the past and rather enthusiastic and
positive prognosis for the future. National aspirations as a mode of
cognition and perception of reality were characterized as negative and
backwards, and as an attitude that would jeopardize further progress of
society. On the other hand, during the early 1960s, the communist rhetoric
of a necessary change in the society was intended to convey the message of
hope and have a soothing effect upon the population. Above all, it meant
to grant more credibility to the efforts of the communist authorities in
their alleged pursuit of a more just and humane society.
What was aspired to was the creation of the Yugoslav
supranationality. It was advocated that such an achievement would make
the nationalist claims of local oligarchies obsolete. It could be argued,
however, that the federal communist authorities did not adopt the idea of
creating supranationality solely because they intended to minimize the threat
of the local and regional nationalism. Preserving the power of the central
authority was another strong motive. Moreover, I would argue that
advocating the idea and the notion of the Yugoslav
supranationality was an attempt of the federal communist authorities
to modify the old type of nationalism and use it to their own advantage.
This new nationalism was the
curious mix of traditional nationalistic notions of home and belonging, on
the one hand, and the ideology of the separate
road to socialism, on the other.
Such positioning of the opposites served as justification of the
rhetoric of a constant change in the society.
In
the process of creating a Yugoslav
supranationality during the 1960s and early 1970s, the communist
authorities attempted to structure the society that would function
according to the principle of unity in diversity. Six republics of the former Yugoslavia had been
perceived as somewhat distinct, but still as constitutive elements of a
larger unified and essentially uniform structure. The Coat of Arms of the
former SFRY, with six separate flames joining together in one fire, is
just one of many representations of such a construction. On the political
terrain this construction manifested itself in equal representation of
nations and ethnic groups within the governing bodies on the local and
federal level. However, it
should be said that such unity in
diversity, and the early Balkan version of the contemporary principle
of multiculturalism,
served the purpose of sidelining, at least temporarily and
superficially, the issue of nationalism in the former Yugoslavia.
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