Who Killed Donald Duck?

On Saturday January 9th, the "Walt Disney Publication" company (Burbank, California), informed, by telefax, the Belgrade POLITIKIN ZABAVNIK magazine that, "until further notice", it can, in no way, use Disney characters. Saturday was immediately proclaimed a very bad day and, for the first time, life under sanctions showed its full awfulness - let's leave aside the fact that there is no oil and heating, but there is no Donald Duck! "The telefax informed us that, because of the sanctions and the pressure by the American administration, the "Walt Disney" company, regretfully, has to put out of force the contract giving us the licence to publish the characters produced by it", VREME has been told by Zeferino Grasi, ZABAVNIK's editor in chief. Explaining what this means, Grasi said that there would be no more Mickey, Goofy, Donald and other Disney characters in the magazine and that MIKIJEV ZABAVNIK, a magazine, consisting exclusively of Disney comic strips, would stop coming out. ZABAVNIK has had a contract with "Disney" ever since 1939, and Grasi says that all this time the Californian company has been extremely fair and that now ZABAVNIK will be fair too. This has to do with fair play, but also with the fact that the possible disregard of what says in the terrible telefax could mean the loss of a "Disney" licence forever. "This way, we can at least hope that, when the sanctions are lifted, we will once again be able to use Disney characters", said Grasi, adding that the only thing left for them to do is to try something through UNICEF and to forward a request for Donald and Mickey to be included among "children's products", which are not subject to sanctions. Unfortunately, one should not pin great hopes on this (the people in ZABAVNIK don't either), since the mentioned children's package exempt from sanctions includes only certain humanitarian products. Children's comic strips and cartoons are usually, both in the West and here, classified as "business" which is entirely under sanctions. Natasa Zecar, POLITIKA's deputy director has told VREME that even the oldest newspaper in the country will have to stop giving those two famous mini comic strips with Disney characters (Donald and Mickey), mostly for the same reason for which ZABAVNIK is stopping to use Disney characters. "So that we would be able to use them tomorrow", said Mrs.Zecar. POLITIKA has had a contract with "Disney" since 1932. That the whole story is not just a practical joke was, unfortunately, confirmed by Peter Nelly, the lawyer of the "Walt Disney publication" company. In a statement given to VREME's correspondent in the United States, Mr.Nelly shortly confirmed that "comic strips, cartoons and all publications of this company can no longer be printed, distributed or used in any form on the territory of Serbia and Montenegro". The reason is clear, said Mr.Nelly: the United Nations sanctions. And finally: "The decision of the Walt Disney company comes into force immediately". Therefore, this means - goodbye Donald! "The end of civilization!", said an admirer of Mickey Mouse. "Horrible!", said Jadranka Tomic, a school psychologist. According to her, as regards children's development, this decision is even cruel. "There is no second chance for childhood. This means that the effect of this kind of move is long-term and terrible and for this reason the question being asked is - can anyone take away children's joy. This is even contrary to the UNICEF Charter on children's rights". VREME's other collocutors were also mostly interested in the point of banishing Donald Duck from Yugoslavia. Milena Dragicevic-Sesic, a sociologist of culture, considers that such a measure shows that the world community is helpless when it comes to resolving the problem of Yugoslavia by political means. "Even though the comparison may sound inappropriate, all this sounds to me like the story about the parent who doesn't know how to deal with his child so he starts forbidding the child to go out or to watch television. This is, in fact, a veritable cleansing of the conscience". According to Mrs.Dragicevic-Sesic, a special problem is the fact that such moves produce effects that are quite opposite from the wanted ones. "The blockade leads to tighter national cohesion, to the feeling of being persecuted and it strengthens the conservative spirit which calls for patriotism in culture and cultural work. The way of evaluating artistic work also changes so that new ideological values - for instance the strengthening of the national spirit - become the main criteria". On the example of Donald Duck and other Disney characters, according to Mrs. Dragicevic-Sesic, this literally means that, in future, our kids will not be brought up on universal values (most of Disney's best known works are based on Andersen's or the Grimm brothers' fairy tales), but on our "specific values", which are most often of poor quality. The fact that, with the embargo in culture, the world is creating space in Yugoslavia precisely for those forces which it is fighting against with sanctions, for the moment doesn't seem to bother anyone in that same world. "All this is simply disputable from the ethical point of view", said professor Ratko Bozovic, a sociologist of culture. "If we adults are to blame for having elected people who are not acceptable for the rest of the world, how does one prove the guilt of our children? The idea about repression against children is certainly contradictory and I believe that what we have here is a loss of measure in rights and obligations, and not just here, but in the international community as well". Mr.Bozovic has even sharper words for the banishment of Donald Duck - "a spiritual ghetto" and "war against our future" - and he also has an explanation for these words. He says that an embargo on culture kills freedom ("which cannot exist without culture") and opens up space for ignorance, which always strengthens autocratic rule. "This means they are strengthening precisely that autocratic rule here and that they are creating new trouble for those who are absolutely innocent, and also largely for themselves, since they are pushing us straight towards an abyss and are turning us into a militant opposition to the entire world". No matter what happens it will, certainly, be without Donald Duck. Kids (and fans) can do nothing but turn to old comic books collected a long time ago.