Burkina Faso Is a Long Way From Here

Over the past five years at least, since nationalist policies started turning former Yugoslavia into a quarreling country with a deadly inflation, at the end of every summer, economists and sociologists kept regularly announcing hot autumns and winters, saying that we are just a step away from a real social explosion. At the time, an average Yugoslav was usually compared to a poor soul falling from the top of a skyscraper, consoling himself less than a second before hitting the ground by saying: "Good, I'm still alive". This autumn, the story is being repeated, only now, experts are claiming, with much more arguments it seems, that we have already hit the ground, that statistically we no longer exist and that the thundering of the social explosion could be heard any moment now. Mr. Dragomir Pantic, director of the Belgrade-based Institute for social sciences, claimed last week, on the basis of the results of a public opinion poll, that Serbia is going to experience an autumn of social discontent, while Stojan Stamenkovic, deputy director of the Federal Planning Institute said the same only in somewhat different words - "we are a month or two away from general poverty". Those who are paid to do this recently calculated quite precisely, on the basis of the World bank's latest report that, by the end of the year, the living standard of a person living in the third Yugoslavia will be identical to that of citizen of Mauritania. With a national income of 500 dollars per capita (two years ago we had 2920, and at the beginning of this year around 1000 dollars) we will officially be living in poverty, thus proving right those who say that we are in Europe only geographically and through our memories, desires and wishes. According to everything else, primarily due to the living standard and the mutual showdowns between Yugoslav tribes, we have been in Africa for a long time, this referring to its less developed part. When a few months ago one of "VREME's" journalists described the situation here by saying "something like this can't even be seen in Burkina Faso", in the very next issue of our magazine we had to publish a correction since a connoisseur of the state of affairs in that country wrote to us: "I lived in Burkina Faso for four years and I tell you that it is better there than it is here." Over 10 thousand Belgrade families are receiving social welfare, many centers for social work could easily work in three shifts and soup kitchens are rallying an increasing number of people. Such kitchens used to exist only in Belgrade and Novi Sad, but one was opened in Vranje recently and very soon Krusevac and Nis will have them too. All these figures and announcements of the hunger that is slowly creeping into Serbian stomachs is rooted in nationalism because, as Slobodan Inic has noticed, in reality, no one and nothing impoverishes a person as much as nationalism. Even in short terms, all of us, said Inic, are dead, disgraced and hungry. If one does not get killed in the nationalist war, one has good chances of dying of hunger in the newly created national and pseudo-national states. "We will be faced with poverty as a peace-time consequence of nationalism", said Inic. The ordinary man best knows how much more he can take and how big his reserves are, but most people claim that, with great effort, they can endure only until the end of the year. After that a social upheaval is probably inevitable. According to a poll conducted by the Institute for social sciences, whose results were published way back in March, as many as 94% of the citizens mentioned poverty, price-hikes and inflation as the greatest problems the country is currently facing. At the time, only three percent of the citizens were satisfied with their economic position. In the past, even during the greatest crises, at least one quarter of the population was satisfied with the economic situation and it could rightly be said that such an incredibly low percentage of those who are content has not been registered by any similar poll in the world. Since March, the economic situation in Serbia has drastically deteriorated so that it is logical that the picture of the dissatisfaction (or better to say despair) is even worse than a few months ago because of the approaching wave of poverty. It is interesting that the polled citizens could choose for themselves and set out the three problems mostly troubling them and that, despite wide-spread prejudices and an unheard-of propaganda by the domestic media, the national question and the war were way behind economic problems. "When the results of this poll are compared to those of some others concerning the drop in the popularity of all the political parties and especially political leaders, it can easily be concluded that the citizens' patience is running out, that the social fuse is dangerously burning down, that the general discontent is growing and that Serbia is on the threshold of a real social explosion with unpredictable consequences", said Pantic. "Most of the usual social buffers are no longer effective. One of them - the traditional family solidarity, no longer functions. The year was bad and the village will not be able to help. Even if the crop was good, there is no gasoline to go to the village and bring whatever necessary. The number of refugees who have to eat is growing. The reserves people keep in their homes are slowly running out, and it is almost impossible to renew them. The number of people living in Belgrade is constantly growing, but it is very indicative that over the past few months the consumption of bread has also dropped which is a completely new phenomenon. The forth important buffer is also slowly becoming less effective - that is, political events which, up to now, have been pushing aside the question of bread and, through the skillful propaganda and manipulation of the ruling outfits, were presented as being most important for survival". Along with this, Pantic also mentions the so far little known fact, established this June, that 43% of the population, faced with economic despair, is ready to accept all the world community's conditions for sanctions to be lifted. Those who still waste words on national dignity and pride, who include the Serbs among "celestial nations" and keep declaring war to Bush and Genscher day after day, will certainly be surprised by this figure and also by the fact that only 39% of those polled are still ready to keep putting up with the sanctions, not accepting all the conditions necessary for them to be lifted (18% of the citizens have no opinion on this). Unlike Dragomir Pantic, certain analysts of the economic and political situation here, despite obvious evidence that the population will find it difficult to take it much longer, do not believe that a social explosion will necessarily take place that soon. As an example they mention the atmosphere in lines for gasoline in which people patiently wait for several hours and are mostly angry with those are in front of them in the senseless lines, with the ones who want to skip the line, and even more with the lucky ones who don't have to wait in lines for hours at all. Very rarely does someone in those lines show anger with or accuse those who are mostly responsible for the imposition of sanctions. Like in former socialist countries, here too, the line is slowly becoming a model of a society in which everyone feels similarly bad, does not see a possibility of opposing the situation and turns frustration into helplessness or starts hating others. "There is logic in such contemplation because we are already living in lines and a society of "abnormal normalities", but the boiling point here is certainly much lower than that in the former East European countries", said Pantic. "One should not forget that we lived in much better conditions, that our people are not used to shortages and lines and that they will certainly not put up for an infinitely long period of time with the present humiliation and withdraw into resignation. The policy of blaming someone else for the sanctions is short-winded and its effects will soon disappear. Social explosions could sometimes take place even for banal reasons". Bosko Kovacevic, the director of the Open University in Subotica, also predicts that this situation will not last long, but he is inclined to believe that the social bomb, set long ago, will not explode before the spring. Kovacevic recalls that over the past ten years there developed very strong mechanisms of a parallel economy which is beyond the reach of the official state and of any kind of control. Even a short glance at the structure of the present authorities, he said, points to the attempts by those who have made a considerable amount of money in this way, to make everything legitimate. At the moment many others are also seeking a way out of poverty in a semi-legal way, but these roads are usually overcrowded so that the only thing left for them is direct robbery which the state is most often not able to punish. "Those who have made big money overnight will slowly also strive the obtain political power and life under sanctions in fact suits them", said Bosko Kovacevic. "Thus we will have a new political elite that will grow out of an economy which is not legal. However, just like the nationalist illusions that are deliberately being imposed upon people in order for their attention to be averted from the approaching poverty, this story too will not be able to last forever. The time when social peace could be bought is inevitably passing". All of "VREME's" interviewees agree that it is very difficult to predict what uncontrolled outbursts of anger, caused by economic despair and poverty, would look like and where that avalanche of discontent could stop. The present authorities would obviously not be able to survive if they fulfilled all the international community's requests. In order for the people to be saved from the poverty they are being pushed into by nationalists, said Inic, it will be necessary for them to change their present views and to reject those calling for war and nationalist leaders. Social and financial poverty, he added, can sometimes also be an opportunity for people to get rid not just of their own nationalist passions but primarily of those who had led them under those symbols from war to poverty. Such a road is, quite certainly, the most difficult one not just technically but also psychologically because it requires that many stand up primarily against their own years long delusions. With an African living standard which has already become our reality, it is quite possible that a way out of poverty will soon be sought in a Latin American stampede through supermarkets, similar to those in Argentina a few years ago when citizens left devastation behind them, stealing everything they came across. Busting into apartments, showdowns between gangs of robbers and extortion have already become part of our reality, and it is also obvious that smuggling and corruption under the state's wing have never been more widespread than today. According to the public opinion poll conducted in Serbia in March, over 65% of the citizens of Serbia believe that the country would never have gotten into this situation if, in the beginning, the army took things into its hands, arrested and convicted traitors and established order. This kind of attitude of an enormous part of the electorate in Serbia, as was noticed by Srbobran Brankovic of the Belgrade-based Institute for political studies, is not the best guarantee that changes could head in the direction of a peaceful and democratic transformation. Similar polls show that, for instance, according to the electorate's predisposition for being manipulated and for accepting anti-democratic orientations, south-eastern Serbia is probably unique in the world. One thing is certain regarding the forthcoming unpredictable autumn - that no one will even dream of calling on workers to take to the streets like before.

Endangered Elections

Speaking to "Vreme", Dragomir Pantic also set out the results of a poll showing a constant drop in the ruling party's popularity and also that the opposition and institutions of authority do not enjoy a great deal of the citizens' confidence. These results, according to him, are almost a certain sign that the citizens of Serbia must be offered different solutions and political options. Until recently Slobodan Milosevic was at least twice as popular as the party he belonged to and which he practically "towed". Now this difference almost doesn't exist and in July, for instance, only 14% of Belgraders positively assessed his work. At the same time, the Socialist Party of Serbia has an average monthly drop in its rating of half a percent. In such a situation, considers Pantic, it practically makes no difference for ruling party whether the majority or the proportional electoral system is used since its advantage is undoubtedly melting away. "If the sanctions continue, I am not quite certain that it will be possible to hold elections that would be regular. Without electricity, heating and the possibility of driving to the polling places, there can hardly be word of some kind of regularity", said Pantic.