Anatomy of Singular Destruction

Seselj’s seven-year-long campaign of violence against the civilian population is described in the following pages; Stojan Cerovic describes the anatomy of Seselj’s destructiveness for readers of VREME

The physical attack on Lawyer Nikola Barovic is nothing particularly new in the repertoire of Vojslav Seselj’s dismal cabaret, just as he himself is no father or inventor of shameless bestiality, nor the first leader of a gang of thugs who came up with the idea of being the head of a nation.

However, first and foremost, I must announce to everyone that they need not worry much about Nikola Barovic. He knew perfectly well who he was dealing with, and he has learned long ago how to survive in conflicts and clashes with force and lawlessness, accepting all risks that are involved. He is not made of fragile material, and he will lick his wounds and get over this. The big question, however, is whether the meager remnants of human dignity, of the civilian, public and political law and order in this country of Serbia will be able to get over the blows delivered to Mr. Barovic?

Seselj is obviously hoping that this time, at the very least, he will assert and make lawful his right to bestiality, that fear and a sense of helplessness will continue to spread, and that he will have a long future ahead of him. He, just like Barovic, knows perfectly well what sort of country he is living in, except that he is viewing the spectacle from an opposite vantage point, and with vastly different ambitions. And his ambitions are such that, were he to get to the seventh level of hell, he would conclude that the fire is not hot enough, that there is not enough sulfur, and he would at once get working on replacing Satan because of his lily livered compassion.

When the next day, surrounded by microphones, Seselj cheerfully explained that Nikola Barovic had slipped on a banana peel, falling several times, it was no longer that same type of bestial humor which we witnessed in his grim joke about cutting throats with rusted spoons. This time he described violence which we all witnessed, and was telling us that he knows full well that no one believes him, that he does not expect to be believed, and that he will make no effort to be believable, because it is of no consequence what anyone knows or thinks. With an impossible explanation of a criminal act, this man warns us not to trust in the courts and in laws because they have no power over him, and he is telling us in the future to not trust what we see, but to trust that which we hear him say. As such, that has been the most cynical insult of intelligence to date, and it makes up what can be briefly described as the platform of the Serbian Radical Party, with humor being only a singular addition to the presidential candidate himself.

Seselj is not very difficult to identify as a social and psychological phenomenon. As far as political significance and meaning are concerned, I do not think it is worth comparing his mission with that of Fascism, Nazism, or similar greater models. There was only one Führer, while the world is filled with various, more or less successful imitators. It is true that he is one of them, but with many specific, local traits, and without the capacity for the industrial manufacture of death on a large scale.

Such quantification is qualitatively significant, and without it, no fanatic, no nationalist, fundamentalist or extremist, however militant, has the right to be classified in the category of Nazis of yesteryear. It is not enough to have equally monstrous intentions and motives, if they are mere wishful thinking. That is why Seselj, from his perspective, is being flattered by everyone that calls him a Nazi, who thus associates frightening powers with his name — powers which he can never even hope to have. This does not mean, however, that he is harmless. We will examine later the extent of the danger he poses, after first examining what Seselj is, and how it is that he appeared in Serbia today.

In the early 80's, when I first met him, he had just arrived from Sarajevo, after an affair which got him fired from the University there. He was well received in opposition circles in Belgrade, but even then, he was beginning to show his insatiability, which would later get into full swing. He was quite ready to be considered one of the greats; everything was too little and too slow for him, while no one was offering to him the position of dean or full professor. Among those who helped him most at that time was Dobrica Cosic, who Seselj would later insult and degrade with rare pleasure, when he got the order from Milosevic to seek in parliament Cosic’s resignation as President of SRY.

In the Belgrade of those days, there was too much order and decency for Seselj’s liking. He was clashing with different people and slowly drifting toward the margins of society, where he would have stayed had circumstances not played in his favor. After having served time at Zenica for two years because of a text in which he intentionally overstepped all accepted boundaries in those days, he returned to Belgrade as a famous victim of Communism. He understood that penalties and prohibitions were the quickest way to success in a disintegrating system which was losing self-confidence, and he began churning out, with unheard of speed, booklets dealing with him and his case. Every one of them was prohibited, but soon no more scandal could be milked from that. Even though he was regularly paying visits to freethinking editorial offices and journalists, one more prohibited book by Seselj was no longer a news item. At the same time, he was often managing to rescue several copies from those appropriated (in what was beginning to look to some as intentional police sloppiness), and than later, on the streets he sold the prohibited fruits of his imagination to people filled with curiosity or just plain pity.

Publishing thus his letters and speeches, court affidavits, rulings, and other people’s texts about his case, he was threatening to become in the shortest time, and from the point of view of quantity of output, the most prolific Serbian writer, setting at the same time the record in the number of banned works. That certainly contributed to the discrediting of a system which banned books, but such high output also compromised the status of dissident activities in those days. That is to say, there existed an often groundless supposition that a dissident has something important to say, and that a banned book must, as a matter of course, contain a valuable secret. However, there were a few people with ideas, respect and dignity who did not get to voice their opinions in the ensuing hysteria.

Seselj, thus, was always a bit too much. He overstepped boundaries, above all of decency, in everything he did, and overlooked every value system. His insatiable appetite for power fed on revenge, and could turn on anyone. It is as if he had experienced unspeakable degradation at some point in his life, and the whole world, as a result, now owes him and is guilty as far as he is concerned. It seems that he suffers from his low social origins, which is a problem that people overcome in a stable society through education, or some other form of achievement. Seselj, however, had chosen to go against society and all accepted value systems.

He is visibly unnerved by courteousness and cultivated manners, as if he sees pure falsehood beneath it, which ultimately could be the case, except that it also happens to be the cornerstone of every civilization. In every communication, he seeks to immediately do away with every sense of form or decorum, to take away from every adversary the advantage of dignity, and to drag them into his kind of mud where the game has no rules, and foul play scores points. Thus he is unbeatable, because everyone else contains themselves and pays attention to their public image. Those who do not accept his terms will be insulted, while those who strike back will admit that they are no different than he is, and will feel ashamed as a result.

Such a manner is obviously efficient and attractive for the kind of people Seselj is addressing, even though I think that his behavior is not nearly as studied as most people think. He is simply a man without barriers or shame, who relishes every opportunity to desecrate everything endowed with good reputation and honor. He is irresistibly attracted by blasphemy, even when it is politically detrimental to him. For instance, he made fun of Patriarch Pavle, which could hardly be beneficial to someone counting on Serbian nationalism. This nationalist never speaks about traditions, history or values which Serbian conservatism would like to revive and on which it would like to build anew. He is not interested in anything that does not begin with him, and is neither interested in rebuilding the old system, nor in establishing a new one. He sees his opportunity in total disintegration and chaos. He is a hyena which waits for a weakened organism to stop resisting.

Under normal conditions, such a man could relatively inconspicuously find a place in hierarchically well- organized institutions such as the army or the police. In society, he could get as far as the favorite subject of scandal columns, but in politics, which is not accepting of brutal incidents, he would have to remain a minor figure. However, Slobodan Milosevic’s politics and the conditions of unrest, which have been continuing for years now, have only been playing in Seselj’s favor.

Seselj offered to participate in, lead and bare all responsibility for every scandal, disorder and violent act, and the demand for such exploits has been considerable, and has never stopped. Seselj boasted that his volunteers ambushed and killed Croatian policemen in the Village of Borovo, when the war in Croatia began. He was lying, but that suited the real perpetrators just as much as it suited him. They did not wish to brag, while he was happy with any kind of publicity. Even later, during the war, he and his associates were far more active on TV than on the battlefield, while a stable symbiosis was beginning to take root between Seselj and Milosevic.

Someone recognized in Seselj a valuable, unbridled destructive potential. Until then an insignificant leader of a gang called the Serbian Cetnik Movement, he was smuggled into the Serbian Parliament and chose a new name for a party which would be organized, financed and publicized by the regime. Feigning the opposition, his job was to act as warmonger, to swear at and to threaten the whole world, as well as to break up the opposition in Serbia, which, to the misfortune of Serbia and Serbians, he did with great energy and natural ability.

He knew how to exploit an opportunity that came his way, and even to survive a period of conflicts with Milosevic. It became apparent that people like Seselj are not easy to find or to invent, and that an opportunity is not all it takes. In this way, for instance, the best intention of making a politician out of Zeljko Raznatovic came to naught, because he could not pronounce anything more complicated than: "Kosovo is Serbia’s holly land". Seselj proved irreplaceable, and Milosevic accepted him anew.

The only certain protection from Seselj would be a stable legal system. But that would do away with Milosevic, also. Even if the Radicals were to be denied active support from the police and the state media, their hopes of getting power would begin to dwindle. That which Seselj stands for could never win a majority, while he is incapable of entering into a coalition with anyone. His only chance is to continue to act Milosevic’s parasite, helping him survive and looking out for his moments of weakness and crisis. I do not believe that Milosevic would be so heedless as to allow Seselj to become President of Serbia this year. Their symbiosis is very tense and full of mistrust, but they know each other very well, and their balance of power is very clear and will remain unchanged. Milosevic would otherwise gladly consider the possibility of getting rid of Seselj, were he able to find somewhere an equally monstrous scarecrow. Such a possibility is obviously not worrying Seselj too much.

However, it is an absolutely disheartening fact that such a man, who has a long string of violent acts behind him, is being seriously considered as a presidential candidate at all. Where, in what country, is there another such political figure? How is it possible that a man who beat up taxi drivers and educators, drew a gun at students, tore up microphones in parliament, can count on twenty percent of the votes? Who could those people be? I think that he is not addressing any particular segment of the population, or any particular interest group. Not even extreme nationalism is his strongest ticket, because it is present in nearly all parties, and the competition there is strongest. However, he attracts some poor souls precisely with his brutality and disdain, some poor, discouraged, cast out, lost souls stuck between the country and the city, embittered for all possible reasons. Most likely, those are the same people who in various ways bore the brunt of, and were the victims of, Milosevic’s ten years of power. If that is the case, Seselj’s popularity is the clearest indicator of the despair generated by that power.

Now, after the incident with Barovic, Seselj is showing intentions of beginning with renewed energy a hunt for traitors, Ustashe and anti-Serbs. Perhaps this is just his campaign slogan, or it could be a part of a strategy agreed upon with Milosevic for rooting out all traces of the civilian protest which shook up and degraded the regime last winter. At that time, it became apparent that Serbian cities still have too many decent people who are also willing to stand and protest. I think that Seselj will identify the most Ustashe in precisely that group. That is why I believe that Barovic’s case, just like the case of the child which the beardless army commander will not let into a kindergarten, are things of utmost political significance.

If it is going to boycott the elections, the opposition has opportunities to launch an efficient counter-campaign based on precisely these types of incidents. For instance, I would like to see thousands of citizens, headed by the leaders of the democratic opposition, march every day from their homes to that same kindergarten. And then let Seselj’s coalition partners say that this is mere misuse and manipulation of children.