The Call Of The City

Belgrade has a new government made up of practically the same Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) cadres, but with a relatively new man at the head - Nebojsa Covic, who, it is said, is capable and shows promise. Covic had earlier proved himself as the director of some tin can factory, and I should not be surprised if someone from his party did not think this priceless experience for managing this city. From the SPS point of view, we can all be regarded as tin cans: to be filled with anything, consumed and thrown away.

Covic himself looks like one of those semi-finished products which the SPS has been delivering for years in an effort at proving that it is no longer the party it was yesterday and the day before. As for me, I believe them. Half of the SPS membership have turned Radicals, without any psychological-ideological turmoil and crises, while those who have remained admire Seselj more than they do Milosevic. This is why the SPS is definitely no longer a communist party, except to the extent to which the Serbian Radical Party (SRS) and all national extremists resemble communists.

Covic is expected to rule over Belgrade. This is a serious matter and a challenge. Namely, Milosevic has two priorities: the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia with Dobrica Cosic, and he still has to see what he will do about him, and Belgrade, which keeps rejecting him as a foreign body.

A big city is always somewhat ex territorial and independent. It is often easier to manage a state than a metropolis which hides many complicated and dangerous forces, a network of long established links, relations and influences which, as a rule, is resistant and flexible. On the surface, this network easily submits and yields to each new authority, while it slowly envelops, chews, swallows, and finally digests it. It is difficult to destroy a big city, and practically impossible to capture it. City girls easily subdue and tame robust war victors.

The new subversive authority is always very self-confident, speaks too loudly and unfailingly introduces some new form of discrimination. All this is an affront to a big city in which all, in principle, are a minority, simply because they are citizens first and foremost. Tolerance comes as a matter of fact, as the only possible way of life, because one cannot move around the city according to the law of the strongest. This would result in continual collisions with others, excesses and clashes of which all bullies get tired in the end.

Belgrade quickly realized that Milosevic's regime, regardless of ideology and other trappings of the old authority he retained, really represented a subversive authority which is starting to endanger city order. Resistance was visible at the '90 and '92 elections, but the opposition lost in the final count, because only three and half central municipalities make up Belgrade. We are not speaking here of an ideological resistance and anti-communism, inasmuch as of the city's defence from a regime which relies increasingly on villages and the provinces. The opposition was just more urbane.

Antagonism between the capital and the provinces is an everlasting one, but less intense where there are rival cities, and with the help of television has practically been ironed out. But, not in Serbia. The greatest rift has taken place here between those who watch TV Studio B and listen to radio station B 92, and those who are the hostages of Milorad Vucelic (director of TV Serbia -editor's note). At one moment it looked as if the regime had gotten over the loss of Belgrade, knowing that it could always outvote it, but now a real war has started between Serbia and Belgrade. The conquerors have reached the very city center and installed their people, but neither Milosevic nor Seselj walk about town without at least twenty-odd bodyguards, and they certainly don't think of staging a rallies.

Belgrade was never a Serbian city. In Serbia, a good part of the city elite has more faith in village life, always nursing a nostalgia for the village as the only authentic mode of life. There is a belief that all towns are the same, and that only the village offers something special. I think that this is because village mentality is narrow, self-satisfied and is not aware that nature, clean air, prunes and pigs are the same the world over. Each village regards itself the center of the universe, while in the city it is necessary to accept the feeling of general relativity, including one's own.

It is only recently that Belgrade started spreading unnaturally, so that it can no longer encompass itself. Until a few decades ago, many Belgraders used to live in their neighborhood as in a small town. But, there were always traces here of an unusual past, of some former owners. There were always many different people. Some left over, or those who had wandered in from somewhere, and it is this cosmopolitan streak that makes a big city what it is. Jews are an invaluable element in this, with their lively communication, always bringing something new from far away. And, Belgrade did have them.

As the capital city of a rather centralized and multifarious country, Belgrade grew and gained enormously in spirit and importance. Communism wasn't a great obstacle. Belgrade's best years were the fifties and sixties, when people in the provinces were awed by it more than we are now by world capitals. At that time, those who could not and did not wish to belong to something local, came and stayed. People who felt uncomfortable in small, homogeneous places. Others fled from old hatreds and revenge, believing that it was worthwhile to invest talent and ambition in this city. And then Yugoslavia fell apart, and Belgrade was too big and too colorful for an authority and state burdened with a narrow village mentality.

The greatest part of the Serbian opposition is in Belgrade, from where it is obviously difficult to understand the Serbian province. They, however, are not prepared to run the risk of being ridiculed by Belgrade in order that Serbia might take to them. The SPS's success is founded on Seselj's rude rural approach and obvious contempt for Belgrade which he perceives as decadent and outdated. That is how the village has always looked upon the city, and, there is the envy of those who live in close contact with nature. The call of the city's depravity has always been irresistible to village wholesomeness.

This reinvigorated, nationalist-peasant regime knows that there is no point in conquering Belgrade, because it is good only such as it is. It can, and is becoming worse, rougher, uglier. But, if they take it over completely, they will lose it for themselves and for others. The battle for Belgrade, if it lasts, is lost by the conquerors, who in the end lose willpower and only wish to belong to the city. A big city has great reserves of energy for assimilation, and only a violent change of population can endanger it. Something akin to this is happening to Belgrade. But its survival is threatened even more by the departure of true Belgraders than it is with the arrival of refugees. Old Belgraders are a small and very mystical category, and the city was really built by newcomers who adapted. But one must have something to adapt to. A germ of city life must remain.

Of all the political conflicts in Serbia, the battle for Belgrade is the most interesting and the most important, because it is a battle for civilization, a model of living. A battle for something bigger than territory and ideology, monarchy and republic. Belgrade is practically the only embryo of civil life in Serbia, and can be defended only by civil means and methods. The greatest weakness of the Socialist-Radical conquerors must not be overlooked or underestimated - their wish to become Belgraders. As the communists before them, so the SPS is carefully choosing who will be placed in authority in Belgrade. It is necessary that the persons chosen looks neat and polite, at least at first glance, like Mayor Slobodanka Gruden. It is expected that Nebojsa Covic will show some tact and subtlety, and that will be a lot.