The Last Parallel

So communism has fallen in Albania as well. Mr. Milosevic remains as the last dinosaur in Europe. Most of the international press will summarize the outcome of the Albanian elections in that way, and the Serbian opposition is tempted to accept such a superficial diagnosis. Even Albania is now ahead of Serbia. This, of course, can be used for propaganda, but the Serbian opposition has already pointed out the changes in Eastern Europe, the inevitability of its victory is inevitable, and it did not help, and Mr. Sali Berisha came to power before Mr. Draskovic or Mr. Micunovic. Is the Serbian government better than other governments, is the Serbian opposition worse, or is it that the voters in Serbia are the only ones who did not get it at all?

Firstly, as a consolation, we should remind ourselves that both in Bulgaria and Albania the voters have had a chance to put things right because they did not understand right away for whom they are supposed to vote. I am tempted to conclude that Mr. Ramiz Alia would have repeated the elections until Mr. Berisha won, or that he would rig them at his own expense, just to step down from power, because he could not stand it any more. Everywhere except in Romania, the communists have actually capitulated, following the example of Gorbachev, who refused to rely exclusively on army and police.

The changes, of course, are mainly symbolic. Much will remain the same for a long time, but in this case the symbolism of the break with communism is exceptionally important. The Serbian regime is not significantly different from other post-communist regimes, but the symbolic break did not take place in Serbia, complicating the whole situation. Renaming did not help, and in its dissociation from "bolshevism", the ruling Socialist Party of Serbia was forced to become a militant right-wing party. The impression of change was not created, only because the people in power did not change, for that is the essence of the said symbolism.

Comrade Ramiz Alia will be replaced by Mr. Sali Berisha and the world will acknowledge that a democratic change has taken place in Albania, although until a year ago, Mr. Berisha was undoubtedly loyal to the regime, enjoying all privileges. Moreover, he was, allegedly, Enver Hoxha's personal physician. Nothing will look like a rapid and major change there, because there are no new people, and the Albanian opposition is by all means more intertwined with the regime than its Serbian counterpart. But Mr. Berisha's victory still represents a turning point, only because it is a clear sign that Albania is willing to open up, to ask for international aid, to begin learning the rules of the international game and to stop listening to those warning that it is selling out for a handful of dollars.

Albania was invincible for decades, because it took part in nothing. It was the champion of sovereignty and independence, and nobody was able to harm such a country. Enver Hoxha's secret was not in his notorious stalinism, but in this tremendous isolation, which enabled him to go on convincing the Albanians that they were living in the best country in the world, that they were the proudest and only unspoiled nation, which must therefore remain in a deep freeze. It was not because of communism and stalinism, for the communist Yugoslavia was a comparatively open country, more open than present-day Serbia anyway.

Adult males cannot leave the country by simply presenting their passports. Let us say that this is temporary, until peace is established, although it would be more correct to speak of the ever stronger establishing of a military regime in Serbia, and we are all slowly beginning to get used to it. But Serbia has been closing, one by one, all its roads to the West, and largely to the East. One cannot go anywhere without crossing enemy territory. Wherever one goes from Serbia and whenever one stops over, something has to be explained. Serbia is like a merchant who cannot be trusted, of whom one can only expect a swindle. And as was the case with Albania until recently, Serbia, which finds itself in the afore described situation, is expressing a strong desire to cut off all relations with the world and resort to fostering of its national pride.

In that sense, and not because of the fact that it has not yet staged the elections which the opposition will win, Serbia is facing the danger of swapping places with Albania and becoming the eternal exception to all European rules. This means that the opposition should base its strategy on opening up, as Sali Berisha did. This further means that it should not get involved in defensive polemics about who is receiving funds from abroad. Mr. Josip Broz, in his time, knew how to spend loads of Western money, caring not the slightest for accusations coming from the Eastern bloc, and he was perfectly right in doing so. If no one is going to give way in this regime, at least the opposition should avoid the trap of national pride, and promise that it will seek and accept any kind of aid.

Serbia is self-confidently following the Albanian path, while Albania is moving in the opposite direction. There is still quite a distance, but not one that cannot be covered. Who does not believe it, had better remember that he has already been promised roots for food in the name of the very same pride. This means that we could soon be going on holidays, not to Crete and Dubrovnik, but to Shkoder and Durres, until they become to expensive. And anyone worrying that Kosovo was the "cradle of Serbianhood" will have to understand that a closed, poor and hostile Albania was the factor that kept Kosovo in Serbia more effectively than the Serbian police. If the current trend is continued, Kosovo will eventually move to the other side, even if the police forces remain there.

It cannot be said that nobody in Serbia has a grasp of the whole problem. The trouble is that it was, from the very beginning, treated as a case of bad public image, and much effort and money was spent on improving it.

Since everything was in vain, and the Serbian image remained the same as before, paranoid conceptions about alleged world-wide anti-Serbian plots flourished. Albania has been in that state for half a century, and that, as things stand now, cannot happen to anyone again. But Serbia is still searching for a way out.

I doubt that those saying that Milosevic must turn again to Kosovo, from where he once started, are right. He probably will not have either the time, nor will Serbia have the patience and will to hand over to him once more the unchanged problem. In the meantime, circumstances have become less favorable, and the opening up of Albania will just attract the world's interest in this region. In the foreseeable future, nobody will dare to support border changing, which does not mean that Serbia will not have to fight for Kosovo, but with other means, following the example of Albania. To begin with, a change of government following elections would most effectively improve Serbia's image. Then, an adequate conclusion should be drawn from the words of one of the strikers in Belgrade: "While Serbia was exploited, I was making a thousand German marks, and now just a hundred". Everything else would come naturally.