The Regime Lives It Up

Can a state survive if its laws are applied for some and not for others, whose citizens are discriminated against ethnically, religiously, politically and in other ways, in which the powerful and disciplined police refuses to obey court orders, in which the difference between police and criminals is lost, where a killing on the streets just draws shrugs even if the police chief is killed, where membership in an informal group means power or permission to buy into monopolies for the most lucrative deals, whose authorities shamelessly commit election fraud and break their own laws, a state in which the authorities are practically impossible to oust even after they lose three wars and impoverish the country?

It can.

The fall of Communism left chaos in its wake. The fact that the opposition is calling this regime Communist is a political phrase: this regime is a shell which has changed its declarative ideology. The people in power believe in national interests as much as they believed in Marxism, that is not at all. Their mental stand and values are just cheap cynicism. That’s how they pushed the Yugoslav national army in war in Slovenia, shoved the Serbs in Bosnia and Croatia into wars that were lost before they started and then called them cowards. Something’s not right here but only seemingly. Actually, everything is logical: it’s wrong to think that the fall of Communism neutralized its consequences. The goal of Communism was the complete destruction of a given society and it achieved that. The society we live in has been called pre-political because politics have been boiled down to a balance of forces, as Slobodan Milosevic put it, and with no rules. The legislative, judiciary and executive authorities have been mashed together, parliament is supposed to break the rules and its own regulations, judges aren’t always supposed to go by the law, the police don’t have to arrest every criminal and the public prosecutor does not have to file some charges.

Everything is possible in this state: the powers that be steal, parliament breaks the law, judges steal votes, the media lie, patriots get rich at everyone’s expense, priests preach war, the cops are friends with the robbers and criminals are becoming the elite.

All that is nothing new, it has happened and will continue happening across the world. Take Roman emperor Tiberius for example, the Borgias, non-aligned states, Hitler, Stalin, Ceausescu.

The essence of political democracy are the rules of the game and respect for established procedure and even the communists had that. Humankind is prone to stealing, that’s why one of the rules says that if you steal you go to jail.

The persistence, imagination and consistency of this regime in its efforts to avoid every rule in order to keep the pre-political chaos in place with no meaning to institutions, systems of value and rules of behavior is extremely interesting. This state is an anthropological laboratory where you can see human nature in its primal form, in its war of everyone against everyone else. What kind of people like not having any rules or system of accountability, to who parliamentary democracy is a democratic screen while the real deals are made somewhere else? Balkan excuses are worth nothing. We’ve seen highly civilized and cultured European states fall into crime and totalitarianism to draw lessons from their fall later on.

We shouldn’t rely on that example or the lessons in it: this regime will survive because of the circumstances that created it which haven’t changed. Scientific explanations are not really relevant here because we’re dealing with a phenomenon which can probably only be compared to the fall of the Roman empire. Let’s stick to the obvious.

This is a nationalist, populist regime which means it is based on national sentiment, the blaming of others and a warped system of values which stresses the ethnic as well as the most dubious political category of all: plebiscitism. There are no political parties in this regime, only emotional moods both in the authorities and the opposition. Basically, in terms of political programs and strategy, there is hardly any difference: the authorities and opposition have been arguing who the better Serb is for seven years and whose Greater Serbia will be bigger and everyone else obstructed them. They’re also all moaning about the lack of Serb unity which would have solved everything.

Given that situation, it’s normal for the "best Serbs" (the loudest) to become model citizens. The best example is the RS today: President Biljana Plavsic says the Serbs are being robbed by the people who were known for the persecution and robbery of non-Serbs. Is that any wonder? Anyone who is capable of robbing his neighbor because he’s of another faith is capable of doing anything. Croatia is going through something similar: when it had no Serbs left the authorities turned to the Croatians.

This regime will survive. Any storm turns to calm, the rules of the game impose themselves, human institutions tend to balance out and interests will find a way to compromise. Despite its contradictory name, the Mexican Revolutionary Institutional Party ruled for over 50 years in a multi-party system and criminalized society similar to the chaos here.

The drama will repeat itself here: thieves will become industrialists, criminals will become social models, the new warrior aristocracy will become knights; semi-literate warmongers will go on for years about the heavenly nation that wins wars but loses in peace. We’ll wallow in self pity and stories of the whole world hating us and that will keep this regime in power for decades since people prefer anything to working or fighting. The opposition is an accomplice to the authorities in that.

Political pragmatism here only means that ambition to take power on the same promises but with new people.

Given that situation, Milosevic has nothing to worry about: he won’t have to run to keep up with the competition. The international community doesn’t mean much because Milosevic will have the support of the opposition in refusing the most important demands.

This regime will survive and remain intact in terms of personnel for now since the existing results of all political elements will legitimize the thieving, some rules will appear as soon as interests are reasonably established and lawlessness will slowly become harmful. The police naturally tend to lawfulness because corruption is dangerous to the service and causes too much chaos. It’s going to be long and painful but the spontaneous political necessity of being in harmony with the surroundings will win. We shouldn’t worry too much, other states were created in similar ways and they still exist today.

The trick is to survive until then.