The Ugly, Dirty And Wicked...

Actor Irfan Mensur is far from being the first victim of fascism here, and there is no hope that he will be the last. One who terrorized Moslems in Pljevlja last summer and held the town under siege, ended up in jail. In the meantime, Serbian Radical Party (SRS) member Ceko Dacevic has been elected a deputy in the federal parliament, where he will be able to represent looters and gunmen, just in case someone tries to limit their rights. This example probably encouraged the two bums. The police have identified them, and arrested one. But, after the next elections we can expect to see them in parliament. Arkan and his "group of citizens" are there already, probably drafting a law banning girls under five from carrying arms.

Is there any point in reminding the Serbian President that he said that all who are threatened in Serbia because they are not Serbs, should contact him? Let those who are not, do so - in Belgrade alone. During the last decades and centuries a lot of different people have come to this city, bearing a multitude of surnames. But the time has come to purify the blood a little. These patriotic thugs are not the only ones working on the problem, there are also many unpleasant neighbors, colleagues at work, ordinary people.

Fascism wormed its way into society over the years. At the beginning it was shy, roundabout, similar to a slight falsifying of facts, like lying about oneself and others. Then rudeness and vulgarity entered the scene, at first anonymously in the dark, until fascism gained in strength. In the current phase, public demonstrations are made. A well known person and a place with many witnesses are chosen. Fascism has gained self-confidence, and feels that this state will not desert it, and wishes to show all how big it is and all it can do.

Until recent times, perhaps even until the last elections, there were romantic nationalists who liked to think that fascism was foreign to the Serbs. In order to comfort them it must be said that some forms of fascism are the natural state of a nation. Whenever the people are left to their will, they start to exterminate all those around them who are different, to expel, loot and steal their property. Of course, there is always some local color in the matter, so that Serbs cannot be expected to resemble Germans or Italians from earlier times, all the more so as fascism here is of the disintegrating type, without a rounded off intellectual explanation.

It is a matter of the state and the authorities not to leave everything to the will of the people, since hoodlums always take advantage of such a situation. Bearing this in mind, all guilt falls on the regime, just as if Slobodan Milosevic had beaten up Irfan Mensur. Even Seselj takes second place, even though his hoods and those inspired by him are most frequently the perpetrators of these patriotic acts.If his luck holds a little longer, he will live to find himself playing the main role, but for the time being he has to rely on the goodwill of the police.

It is somewhat unusual here, insomuch as internal fascistization is entering the race after the wave of the greatest national homogeneity has passed, and after the attempt at territorial expansionism seems to be nearing an end. But, this sequence looks illogical only if viewed from Belgrade, which has so far been spared. Outside Belgrade no one has thought of counting cases such Mensur's, for a very long time.

It is now Belgrade's turn to shed the privileges of a metropolis, and realize that it is a part of Serbia, and that that which cannot pass in Pozarevac (birth-town of President Milosevic-editor's note) anymore, cannot do so here either, and that a flexibility and tolerance typical of Belgrade, have become a historical anachronism. What business does a Moslem have acting in a Belgrade theater, or a Croat teaching in a school, or a Macedonian driving a taxi, or an ethnic Albanian selling peanuts? Or a Hungarian, or Slovenian or Serb who does not think the way he is supposed to?

Basically, with the exception of some small islands, Belgrade has already been conquered. The younger, handsomer and more intelligent have gone somewhere; planes were changed for buses heading for Budapest; bank officials no longer wear ties but parkas and sell various goods at Belgrade markets; ladies sell the family silver; the parks are full of refugees' sorrow; children are growing up quickly, as in the villages, and there are fights and shoot-outs in pubs. Such a city is no longer a barrier to the fascist garbage which has lost its complexes and does not feel the pressure of urban order.

The two great patriots who attacked Mensur, knew that no one would get up and protect him. When people mind their own business in the face of such a scene, fascism has gone far. In Germany, it was the phase when people stopped asking themselves "what's happened to my neighbor?" and after that, there was no return. Here, this form of indifference out of a fear, has been practised since the firing at ethnic Albanian demonstrators in Kosovo, and then during the war in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Once Vukovar has been digested, once we become used to the destruction of Sarajevo, we are half way on the road to peacefully continuing with our supper while someone from the neighboring table is dragged of into the darkness. They lied to us about Vukovar and about Sarajevo, but that is an obligatory part of the fascist program. They lie, and we do not have the courage to check up on them.

What is to be done now, and how far can all this go? Some important elements of developed fascism are missing here, and to all purposes, they will never be. There is no rounded off ideology, there is no real faith in the building of the New Order. Instead, there are only old Balkan hatreds, envy, irritation and dissolution. There is no significant fascist elite, except for a few morbid eccentrics who wish to launch the fashion of Serbian racism, and present murder as an act of historical aesthetic. Real fascism had its idealists without whom it could not have been shaped to the end. But, ordinary bullies and looters with a patriotic excuse are the majority here. There is no organization, no discipline, no great militarist enthusiasm. There is only a developed and encouraged lawlessness because of the terrible fear of an economic, social, political and moral chaos.

This is the state's fear of death, and it seeks a cure in fascism. If this cure did not break the ribs of peaceful citizens, we would not have to deal with the state's problems, but only our own. We could have understanding for a great many things, but if the police whom we pay, are in collusion with those who are beating and robbing us, then all we can do, is to defend ourselves. I know some peaceful and civilized people who have acquired the necessary equipment, and I know that many of them are not prepared to be their own policemen.

That a joint protest of self-defence still has effect, was proved by the fact that Irfan Mensur's attackers were quickly identified, as soon as the theaters and artists associations reacted. But, it was obvious on whose side the authorities were when the new and tested director of the National Theater passed up the chance to join the protest. The technique of resistance is familiar and it still exists. It is necessary to be quicker, more organized, more intelligent and more courageous than fascism, which in our case, luckily, is not too difficult.