The Left, the Right ...

Judging by how often the Left and the Right are being mentioned, one would say that Serbia is ahead of a great, historic dilemma: whether to become America or Sweden? Whether to concentrate more on free initiative or on social welfare?

This country, being in the state it is in, is really open to all possibilities. Just as one may choose any destination when traveling from the first station, the one who decides to build something here will not have to worry what to pull down. Besides, any destination would be good from this point of view - any organizing of this country would bring it closer to civilization. Of course, the crossroads for Sweden and America are still too far, but this makes it even more fun for some people to discuss major and final goals.

The message to us from both of the above mentioned countries would probably be to comb our hair, parting it on whichever side we decide. Our alleged dispute is the parting and who to blame for our being mussed up, and there can be no combing until this is resolved. The overall negligence of this country allegedly has deep ideological roots and reasons. Big words and projects of the Left and the Right serve to cover up the old, dirty habits of maintaining disorder and anarchy, where those who should take care of law and order are always exempted and have special benefits.

In a modern organized society there is usually a conflict of the moderate Left and the moderate Right, which generally speaking is a dynamic and static principle and accomplishes some kind of balance between the desires to change things and maintain the existing situation. The conflicts are sometimes sharp, but refer to clearly defined issues and not to global ideological visions of how to reorganize the world. This is why to us it seems that the organized world deals with minor things and that there are no major differences between the ruling and opposition parties, while we here are fighting a war of words and nothing actually happens. Despite everything, the story about the Left and the Right does make some sense here. Obviously, there are reasons why the new ideology in Serbia began as the war in Bosnia was coming close to an end. Before this, ahead of the war, Milosevic had an almost undivided support from the Left and the Right alike. Some offered him support because he was saving communism and Yugoslavia, the others did because he was breaking both to pieces. All the homogenization could have been based only on total misunderstanding of what he actually was doing.

Not even he, not even subsequently, would have been capable of answering these questions. But there is no doubt that the Right and the Left in Serbia cooperated and shared responsibility for the disintegration of Yugoslavia and the war. The sense and meaning of these words were practically lost, and many people who then considered themselves Leftists and still do acted as extreme Rightists. The present-day polarization is partly due to the war. The belated Left gathered in JUL would like to blame the Right for the war, while the Rightists, like Seselj, blame it on the Leftists.

Had the joint venture ended differently, both would be speaking only about their merits. Had Milosevic succeeded in what he had intended to do, his wife certainly would not have formed another party or advocated equality, tolerance and peace. JUL is, therefore, an ideological wrap of the war defeat. The meaning of that party's existence is to avoid admitting the defeat.

On the other hand, Seselj and all the others who still believe in the permanent value of Radovan Karadzic's deeds, also find ways to avoid admitting the defeat, speaking about communist betrayal. They try to prove that there is still will and strength to regain all that was lost, that the only thing which needs to be done is to drive away the communists, or at least leave this task as heritage to a future generation. They exploit the remains of national anger and humiliation and neglect the fact that Bosnian Serbs did not undergo a total breakdown thanks to Western diplomatic intervention.

The problem that the defeat turned out to be partial is extremely difficult to overcome in Serbia. Had it been complete, Milosevic, JUL, Karadzic, Serbian Radical Party, the Left and the Right would have disappeared with it, but I am not saying that we should have paid any price for it. I do believe, however, that we got out of the war with an unhealthy ideological confrontation whose intensity is dictated by JUL, thanks to the media monopoly, of course. It would best suit the troublesome, profiteering Left to push all the opposition Right and let it waste time on ideological differences. JUL would then patent pacifism and tolerance. Besides, they would not have to try to hard to deny the claims that they would rather gather money than members. They would only say: if what we are doing is stealing, can you imagine how the Rightist pigs would be stealing? The most peculiar thing is that the whole story might have a happy ending for both the Left and the Right, as opposed to the rest of us. During the war wandering and tumbling, the Leftists somehow lost their cosmopolitanism along the way, so they can find no kindred soul anywhere despite their excursions to China and North Korea. As for the West and Europe, JUL is suddenly in the company of Rightists.

Since no one in Europe has enough understanding these days to waste on either fascists or communists, these local ones simply had no one to turn to, so they unanimously ignored such Europe and turned to one another. Ones realized that Europe was anti-Serbian because it did not like such a lovely war, while the others realized it was not interested in the export of our revolution, so they are waiting and trying to find other markets. So it has turned out that the Left and the Right have the same negative answer when it comes to the key question of Serbia's future. Not that they don't understand how important it is to have harmonious relations with neighbors, but they together claim that Europe must change.

In the meantime, while we are waiting for the change to take place, we are getting strategists and thinkers who advise caution and patience. They have noticed some European problems and symptoms of weaknesses, so they are developing a philosophy of waiting to see what will happen to the Western civilization. They are capable of imagining and anticipating various ways of its decline. They are not quite sure about the date, although some of them are. Of course, they dread the idea that the rotten board might break the moment the healthy and cheerful Serbia trod on it.

This waiting for the decline of the West is the Left and the Right in Serbia. If you are not sure what someone thinks and how he would vote, just check whether he is watching and waiting. If he is waiting, ask no more.