Everything And Then Nothing

This 50th anniversary doesn't come at a very good moment. Unlike the rest of the world we didn't manage to hold out that long, so as far as the victory over fascism in Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia is concerned, the matter remains problematical. It is still zero year. We have managed to show that lesser forms of genocide, lesser than the industrial, gas chamber ones, have unjustly and prematurely been excluded from the future - at least in some parts of Europe.

In those places where fascism has remained within the confines of history and turned into an academic question, it has been studied in detail, all the symptoms and mechanisms for its early detection and thwarting have been noted down. But, there is no perfect antidote against something that has proved it belongs to the repertoire of human possibilities. At the same time it would be necessary to describe fascism with a medium-level definition, which means that swastikas, black shirts and Nazi death camps for Jews are not obligatory if one wishes to be a fascist, nor is it enough to just beat up a dog.

With regard to the circumstances here, it could be said that the idea of the impossibility of a life together is fascist when it refers to those who have been living together for a very long time, because it leads to the fascist practice of ethnic cleansing. In this way, it could easily be claimed that the Serbs and the Japanese would never be able to live together.

If someone insisted on the metaphor of marriage and asked why a divorce would be a fascist act, it would have to be admitted that this was not always the case, and that nations and states can part ways in peace, like the Czechs and the Slovaks did. The condition is that it is clearly defined what belongs to whom and that there are no children. The Serbs and Croats are like parents who want to divide one child and are burning up everything that reminds them of the former marriage. This requires a fascist approach by both sides, and the absence of outside law and order.

In Croatia and Bosnia, the Serbs first grabbed all they thought belonged to them, and all they didn't want to belong to others. This took place while they were in full strength, and some might say that the Serb's guilt boils down to the fact that they were stronger, and this is no small thing. If you don't want to be guilty when you're stronger then you must restrain yourself, and if you're not strong then you'll watch what you're doing, at least until you get stronger. This is why the biggest problem facing the representatives of the world powers has remained the question of how to strengthen the weaker side and establish a balance which would lead to a reasonable compromise, while at the same time avoiding the multiplying of fascism.

In Western Slavonija Croatia showed what happens when the balance of forces changes and when one fascist concept strengthens at the expense of another. In the measure in which it is capable of resisting and ignoring international norms, Zagreb will not only return by force what has been grabbed, but will do its best to get rid of the Serbs.

The situation in Bosnia is much more complicated, but not much different. Fascism asks you what faith and nation you belong to and nothing else. Everything else is clear. For a diagnosis in Bosnia all that is required is a name and surname. And this is where it is best seen how pointless and impossible are the attempts and hopes at establishing a balance between fascist forces. Because fascism means all or nothing. Or from the historical point of view, it is first everything and then nothing. For Bosnia it would be a triple nothing and the land rebels with its deepest, undivided and indivisible being.

Whoever truly cares about the victory over fascism, must remember that it was achieved here fifty years ago thanks mostly to Bosnia and this being of its, and not because of proletarian ideology and promises of a Communist heaven. Antifascism and communism are not one and the same thing, but in Yugoslavia it turned out that the Communists proved to be most resourceful and were successful precisely because they were accepted in Bosnia. It could be said that through the Partizan movement Bosnia conquered the other ethnically pure armies and renewed Yugoslavia. The subsequent Socialist authorities were embodied for a long time in the Bosnian spirit.

Anticommunism is not the same as fascism, but here we didn't manage to come up with something better, and it turned out that Bosnia was the main victim. This war wasn't just a separation of Serbs and Croats, nor do they have sufficient reasons to hate the Muslims. It is as if all sides had a wild urge to revenge themselves on Bosnia for the defeat of half a century ago, and of destroying in themselves that part of the stubborn Bosnian being which just suffers and waits for all to settle down. Their revenge is a symptom of fascist fever, and the attitude to Bosnia shows best who is fit to mark this 50th anniversary.

Some German analyses have established that Nazism there depended on and drew its strength from the provincial, petit bourgeois attitude to the homeland. It has allegedly been established that this love of one's small world could be exploited and turned into hatred of the big and the unknown. It strikes me that our domestic fascism is of a different sort. I don't dare get deeper into this, but I believe that many of the more extremist nationalists in Bosnia, Serbia and Croatia are in fact driven by a hatred of their homeland. It is as if they are persecuted by memories of old misfortunes and humiliations, and they seem to believe that they themselves will change and become better if the place of their ugly memories is destroyed. In this sense domestic fascism is, perhaps more than its old models, turned against itself and self-destructive.

Of course, some kind of an end must be reached one day. Fascism is like a sudden rage, and man cannot be furious all the time. Here, for example, man has exploded and destroyed practically everything around him. He is not broken or defeated, but this is not something that can be stabilized. An extremist ideology of hatred is good only as a preparation for war, and it is not capable of turning into a regular order. This that we are living, at least in Serbia, is a curious sort of a double, post-communist and post-fascist chaos, in which only children can find their way. Everything has been turned upside down twice and all meanings changed and lost.

Unlike the rest of the world which watches old documentaries, we have seen here live, whose defeat is being celebrated. But fascism is a hardy monster and lies in ambush, waiting for many other careless nations and states. Even the former victorious alliance between the West and Russia has not proved immune. Several years ago they were all surprised by our discovery that it is impossible to live together. Today we seem less at odds with the world, not just the former USSR, but also America. Some of the hot-headed local fighters of the "republican revolution" look like they've been bitten by a rabid Balkan dog. They are horrified by the United Nations and the new world order which they claim is anti-American. They mention Freemasons, foreign bankers, world traders in gold and all that has an international sound to it, and they found well armed militias.

But, I can't make anyone happy with news that America is disintegrating. It is more reminiscent of an easy stretching and flexing of the muscles, but the beautiful liberal dream of a global village is no longer in fashion. This doesn't mean that another war such as ours is in the offing. We wouldn't have been allowed to do all we have, had we been a few centimeters closer to Western Europe on the map, and if they had understood on time what we were trying to tell them. Next time they'll certainly be more careful.