The Risk of the Peaceful Road

After an unbelievable series of stupid moves made by the present authorities (mostly) due to which Serbia has been banished from the civilized world, we have found ourselves in a situation where reason for joy is even news that our pioneers have been allowed to play table tennis in some small Romanian town, probably because this proves that there are still those who do not see us as a load of nuclear waste. The autistic Serbian authorities, which have been measuring their successfulness for years only by the number of enemies, don't even seem to be too happy because of these modest intimations of someone's good will, since something like that can hardly fit into their picture about a planetary conspiracy against the Serbs. Frightened by the world, nationalists have finally created a long desired situation - they can finally enjoy by themselves "the isolated world of their dark room". The news that the reputable American institution, the National Foundation for Democracy, has decided to give its biannual award for contributions to democracy in l993 to Vesna Pesic, the leader of the Reformist party and the Serbian Citizens' Alliance, will probably be received precisely with such "arguments about a conspiracy" and maybe even with scorn. The award's reputation and rating is best attested to by the fact that its recipients in 1991 were Violeta Chamorro, the president of Nicaragua, and Vatzlav Havel, former president of the former Czech and Slovak Federal Republic. Next year, along with Vesna Pesic, the award will also be given to Han Dongfang, the leader of the Chinese Independent Workers' Federation and to Gitoba Imanyara, the publisher of the Kenyan "Nairobi Weekly". For the beginning, the local blow-dealers (primarily those on television) who get ahold of everyone who is not made according to the model of the Socialist Party of Serbia, will certainly find it suspicious that such an important award is coming precisely from America, currently our most hated "enemy". Then there will probably be a search for "compromising details" and they will dig out, for instance, the interview of former American ambassador to Yugoslavia Warren Zimmerman, who said, not so long ago (of course as a proven Serbian enemy), several commending words about Vesna Pesic and her political orientation. Afterwards, Vesna Pesic's Reformist party will be brought in connection with yet another "Serb hater", former federal prime minister Ante Markovic, and thus the "logical" circle of awarding and encouraging Serbian traitors will be closed. Vesna Pesic will probably not take too much to heart a possible new proclamation of her as a "national traitor", this time even because of receiving an extremely important award. To be in favor of peace in Serbia over the past year has been accompanied by many risks - from direct exposure to repression, getting used to all kinds of insults, accusations for "treason", for "being a bad Serb", to despair because of modest results. In a society where patriotism is most often reduced to carrying weapons, parading in camouflage uniforms or struggling to achieve the goals of a country "which is not at war and whose war aims have not been defined", it has long ago become the practice for many intellectuals and peace-makers to be proclaimed deserters and traitors and for this most often to be done by various mediocrities who are now getting ready to continue the war in Belgrade. However, the position of a "traitor" is not so inconvenient today as it was a few months ago. Especially when one knows that even the president of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Dobrica Cosic, is getting closer to this position after his talks with Croatian president Tudjman and their agreement on the Prevlaka peninsula, and, to all intents and purposes, even Serbian patriarch Pavle, not so much because of his words - "even the devil would be ashamed of us" - as because of his intention to talk to George Bush. The high recognition from Washington came precisely at a moment when the Citizens' Alliance of Serbia, which Vesna Pesic is at the helm of, is getting ready for its convention at which it will determine a strategy for the upcoming parliamentary elections. One could even say that in a symbolic way this recognition also shows that the work of the Citizens' Alliance and its prominent members can be seen better and is more appreciated abroad than at home, which is not the best possible recommendation for the forthcoming elections. The reasons for this should be sought primarily in the fact that no political grouping in Serbia has been presented in such a bad light and accused so much of being non-national as have been, since the very beginning, the members of the Reformist forces, the Republican club, the People's Peasants' Party and the Social Democratic League of Vojvodina, which form the Citizens' bloc. Since the very beginning of parliamentary life in Serbia, their political orientation has bothered both the authorities and the opposition (for too long there was practically no opposition in Serbia which did not resemble the authorities). In the meantime both sides kept "snatching" ideas and orientations from the Citizens' Alliance, taking from their programs everything usable, and then they continued criticizing them or keeping a distance from them: most probably out of fear of potential and frozen possibilities which, in some more normal times, this kind of political orientation could unfreeze. This take-over acquired a concrete personnel form when recently in Panic's cabinet, at least in the truly expert part of it, room was found for Tibor Varadi and Momcilo Grubac, members of the Citizens' Alliance. One day, which, for the moment, seems pretty far away, Vesna Pesic, Nebojsa Popov and others rallied around the Citizens' Alliance will receive recognition at home as well for often playing the role of ice breakers on the Serbian political scene and for never using strong or week solutions of nationalism to dilute their basic stand that the sovereignty of citizens has priority, and that only then come all other sovereignties, national or state. It will probably also be acknowledged that they were among the first to start paving the way towards round tables and were almost isolated in such requests two years ago, before the first parliamentary elections, and that they advised, in time, that the Kosovo knot be untied and not cut. Thanks to people rallied around various citizens' initiatives, peace and anti-war movements, like a big waiting room which had reserves towards both the authorities and part of the opposition, many protest gatherings in Belgrade acquired a more cultivated form. The thing that will certainly be remembered as the greatest merit of these groups and movements rallied in the "waiting room" of the Citizens' Alliance, will most certainly be their conduct at the time then the civil war broke out on the territory of former Yugoslavia. They kept lighting candles and planting olive branches when tanks were seen off from Belgrade with songs and flowers and when the entire opposition kept hesitating for months to say "no" to the crazy war or was planning to form its own paramilitary formations. At that time of a dangerous political vacuum they started building some kind of pontoon bridge over the rising river and the Serbian road toward an abyss, which was timidly crossed, several months later, by most opposition parties and prominent intellectuals (with the exception of the leader of the Serbian Renewal Movement, Vuk Draskovic, who was among the first to set foot on that anti-war bridge and help its construction). The credit for the weight carried at the time by members of the citizens' bloc will most certainly go to someone else at the next elections. They will be left with their reputation and undoubtable influence which in politics does not always have to be in the form of power and seats in parliament. Speaking in long terms, this political orientation will most probably not be able to play a more important role in Serbia for a long time. Not only because it often aims too high and thus misses the target or because its influence, as some maliciously say, has not reached further than the very center of Belgrade. As representatives of an urban Serbia in an environment with thin civic layers and in a political milieu where rurality, violence and also increasing moral bluntness are experienced are something desirable, the entire citizens' bloc sometimes seems a bit utopian, especially their stand that the existing regime must be pushed out only by tedious and everyday negation and primarily through intellectual and moral superiority. Such an orientation was fully expressed at the latest big gathering of reformists a few months ago. It was agreed then to work on forming a shadow government and to respond to every law of the socialists with "our own" law, and to let people see who is better. For the moment there can be nothing of a shadow government, but the orientation for the ruling party to be fought mainly by wisdom also meant that this party has become politically mature. This practically meant that instead of the hitherto obsession with Milosevic, which the entire opposition has been suffering from for years, they started dealing with politics in the real social sense of the word - by trying to control processes and slowly change the society's milieu. With the existing biased media and their brutality one could say, primarily that of the television, it is really difficult to imagine an other kind of effective way to fight the present regime. However, when it comes to "they adopt a law, we adopt a law", the terrain is much clearer. Milosevic's regime can then do nothing but apply shier power which, as was seen in the case of the "Politika" newspaper publishing house or the University, can do only harm to the one counting on it. Of course, there are always threats, paranoia, paramilitary units, the (ab)use of the Serbs in the Krajina regions and everything that makes up the criminal substratum for defending the regime. Everything this part of the opposition is doing seems to be in the manner of prime minister Milan Panic, who is currently trying to change the institutional framework and the political infrastructure with which Milosevic is still maintaining the generators of his arrogance and power. Panic started with round tables and rules for democratic elections, he announced changes in numerous important laws and later, if he gets the opportunity, he will probably deal with the social and state ownership relations on which many still base their existence and power. Just like the reformists, for the moment, in these attempts Panic seems to be getting more understanding abroad than here at home from those whose heads are at stake.