Sycophants Galore

Another Book Fair is upon us.

The fact that children are still born is not sufficient proof that we haven't gone to the dogs and won't; the fact that some people read and write is a much surer sign. For years we have been hearing that the Book Fair was getting worse and becoming poorer yearly, but this year's is probably the worst thusfar, if only because of sanctions. As far as I am concerned, anything bigger than an ordinary bookshop is good enough for me and there are always too many good books that one never gets around to reading.

Some believe that, in spite of everything, literary and publishing production are once again offering proof of vitality. In this respect, I believe that the surest sign of vitality lies in the fact that Ms. Mirjana Markovic's collection of newspaper texts is among those awarded as the publishing event of the year. There are still people who have not lost all hope and believe that there is sense and reason in losing face and maintaining the vitality of their sycophantic spirits. There are still honors which it is worthwhile to bestow and which can make someone happy. There are still those to whom one can fawn a little.

However, I'm not sure that this particular example should lead to the smug conclusion that things are alright and that we are the same as we were before. Namely, there is something of a sycophantic paradox, according to which it grows with the growth of poverty. The less to be received in return, the more toadies who are willing to submit to new acts of humiliation. During times of great shortages, small advantages and privileges seem enormous. Thus, it turns out that if things take a turn for the worse, Ms. Markovic will become a better writer, and in the end, probably the only one whose books will be printed. Many writers have secret, childish fantasies about this, but our problem lies in the fact that this lady has the opportunity of making some of her dreams come true.

This time, the jury wished to award talent and Ms. Markovic's good judgement in spouse selection, and give its support to her action of rallying all of the leftist forces. Actually, it was probably the other way round: the professor, writer and First Lady believed that she and her party would profit from a public show of recognition and this happily reached the ears of the jury.

As far as her party, the Yugoslav United Left (JUL) is concerned, I don't understand why it was met with such aversion by the opposition. I believe that they should have regarded it as a harmless club for senior citizens who have a right to their nostalgia. In politics, this can be looked on as a benign tumor. JUL was set up by certain individuals and the League of CommunistsMovement for Yugoslavia (SKPJ), the former party of army generals whose members thrashed the former Yugoslavia to death in their wish to save it. They provoked the war, but don't remember doing so and have now discovered that they like peace, but believe that the body can be resurrected, young and beautiful as before, and that they will manage to do so as soon as they have rejuvenated and brushed themselves up a bit. What they failed to achieve by force they now wish to achieve with love, warm heartedness and communism. They never thought of trying reason.

Ms. Markovic is investing much effort and energy into this project and I believe that she is prepared to receive many more awards with this end in mind. Nonetheless, regardless of the extent and nature of her influence on her husband, I don't believe that politics will be the end result, since she is not involved in politics in the sense of a realistic approach to public interests and problems. With her gentle, lyrical style and descriptions of nature, Ms. Markovic can influence cadre policies; her goals are only seemingly somewhere in the future. I have a feeling that she is constantly looking back to some cogent scene from her childhood and is trying very hard to reconstruct it and perhaps improve up`on it. Politics function as a very intimate experience, something I would not wish to delve into in public, even if I were better informed.

Serbia has become a country in which many things are happening, only in order that ``one scene be repeated,'' as Borghes would say. Veterans of the erstwhile rally movement are writing a petition in Kosovo, collecting signatures, complaining of ethnic Albanian separatism and demanding that their question be resolved. They claim that they have been forgotten and more or less directly accuse Milosevic of selling them out. Like the JUL veterans, they too claim to be ready to rise and repeat their revolution.

Former Yugoslav President and writer Dobrica Cosic is officially suspected of aiding and abetting this new movement of the Kosovo Serbs, of having earlier manipulated them for his purposes and of using them against Milosevic now. This story is perhaps a bit exaggerated, but it does resemble the truth and fits in with the style and motives of the ``Serbian Tolstoy,'' who likes to care about his people from the background while at the same time nurturing his revenge. Cosic first tried to push Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic a little, but he now seems to have remembered Kosovo.

It is no secret that Kosovo has remained an open question; for years the world has feared an ethnic Albanian revolt against the police regime, but it has turned out that the Serbs were the first to lose patience. They complain rightly that the famous promise to settle one hundred thousand new Serbs in the region has not been fulfilled. It would be wrong to claim that no attempts had been made, but it turned out somehow that no one in Serbia thought that the call might refer to them personally. Milosevic resolved the question of Kosovo in the same way that he raised it, or, as it was formulated for him at the time by all Serbian nationalists, headed by Cosic. He sent in the army and the police, there was shooting, he dissolved regional institutions and put together a united Serbia. The police were left to do their work while Milosevic turned his attention to other bigger issues and ethnic Albanians organized themselves in order to survive by avoiding all contact with the state.

Kosovo Serbs now claim that ethnic Albanians fared better, that they have ``access to enormous capital'' and are seeking the break up of the parallel ethnic Albanian state and the ``resolution of the issue of ethnic Albanian immigration into Kosovo from Albania.'' I think this means that they would like to see the mass expulsion of ethnic Albanians, so that ethnic injustice might be corrected a bit and that the Serbs would probably have the opportunity of taking over ethnic Albanian capital.

This is how what used to be called the ``truth about Serbia'' begins and ends as the same thing. First there are stories of dignity, justice and injustice, victims, endangerment, spirituality, the heavens and the saints and it all ends with ordinary downtoearth looting. For the time being, Milosevic probably does not have any intention of dealing with Kosovo again, but when someone decides to see what there is to be done there, it will turn out that there is not much choice. It would be easier to remake the former Yugoslavia than to integrate Kosovo Albanians peacefully into Serbia. It would be equally unrealistic to expect that Serbia would be capable of writing off Kosovo, while a peaceful division is hard to imagine without a ``humane exchange of population.''

It is therefore clear why no one in Serbia is dealing with the question of Kosovo and has nothing to say on the subject. The problem has become intractable, and to all intents and purposes will remain such until some worse times. An uprising by the Kosovo Serbs does not stand much chance of developing as it did six years ago or of jeopardizing Milosevic's position, unless he himself doesn't decide to step up popular pressure against himself and thus force himself into making some strong moves. But I don't think that he is currently in this frame of mind.

Most of Milosevic's critics do not understand the real nature of the change that has occurred. Put in an oldfashioned way, he has left the kingdom of freedom and entered the kingdom of necessity. He had given himself enormous, immeasurable freedom, dissipating it beyond all reasonable measure and has exhausted all of the big projects, so that now he and whoever succeeds him will have to collect the empty shells and turn to ordinary housework. I know that it is very difficult to grab a broom, cloth and duster after exploits and adventures, but this is the natural order of things. Women will certainly approve.