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Who
is the “ordinary citizen”?
Can
concrete and, in a way, "general" interests of the ordinary citizen be
defined?
And
if yes, by whom – if not himself?
But
what if the amorphous mass of ‘ordinary citizens’ fails to do this –
if it fails to discover what are essential, instead of whimsical issues
for them?
Was not the dissipation of forces,
the “particularization” of
interests, local, regional,
and group egotism at the
root of a Yugoslavia
falling apart briefly
after 1989?
Particular interests set us apart.
What can unite us are essential interests.
Health for instance, the desire for preventive and curative medicine,
for the preservation of a relatively sane body and mind, is a unifying
interest. But the concrete challenges and problems of health are regionally,
sometimes even locally, specific. While we have to deal with the specific
problems, in specific social and historical contexts, in specific locations
[regions, for instance], we still can abstract from them and together with
others we can refer to health as a common concern that requires a concrete
solidarity. |
where in Yugoslavia
were fed up with a
bureaucratic, corrupt
regime.
| Of course, “Socialist autogestion” said to have existed in Yugoslavia
before it broke apart was a farce: the directors of companies had a big
say, the ‘socialist participation’ in the democratic running of companies
was reduced to meetings that were acclamatory; directors became directors
because they had essential connections (backing from those “above” them).
Directors operated under the constraints of market forces. The employee’s
democratic role was that they okayed the distribution of bonuses during
general assemblies at the plant level. But to accept bonuses for yourself
and okay those of the management is tantamount to an active role in a very
limited sense of the word. |
What was the most decisive factor
in the disintegration of the country was regional egotism.
Rejection of financial transfers
from the economically more developed North of the country to the South
(Serbia proper, with the political center, Beograd).
A history of political and cultural
repression, bureaucratic blunders
added to the desire for separation.
Why “pay” for those lazy, stupid buggers in the South? On the other hand,
the Southerners took it for granted. Hadn’t they born the brunt of the
anti-Fascist partisan struggle against Nazi Germany? Hadn’t they struggled
against the Turks in the 18th and early 19th century, while the North hid
under the skirt of Austria-Hungary? Above all, hadn’t it been a political
decision by the Beograd government, supported by them too, to concentrate
and modernize industry in the North, a region already blessed with its
old industrial heritage, dating back to Habsburg times? Of course,
the South felt it deserved something in return: support for its own industrialization,
now that the North was flourishing...
This reading of the collapse
of Yugoslavia acknowledges additional factors, like the interest of the
West [the U.S. 'elites,' NATO, the European Union, etc.] to ‘destroy’ a
country that had led, side by side, with Nehru’s India, Sukarno’s Indonesia,
and Nassers’ Egypt, the bloc of neutral states, the ‘Third Bloc’ striving
for independence from NATO and WARSAW PACT countries. Breaking apart, it
ceases to be a symbol of these aspirations.
The interpretation of the
country’s collapse offered here does not deny, however, the presence of
a further separating factor: nationalist sentiments
were rekindled and became aggressive because no compromise was achieved
to settle economic grievances.
Political big-shots with a regional
power base took advantage of this.
The sorry fact is that there
existed no local or regional democracy, no attempt to make the promise
of ‘autogestion’, of self-determination and self-administration more than
a façade. The upper layers of the caste of professional politicians
competed in their jockeying for power. When the centrifugal forces became
too strong, they decided it was better to be No. 1 in their region of origin
than an also-ran in Beograd, the federation’s political center.
We all know that the cost
of civil war was enormous. We know that economic disruption threw back
all states that formed the Yugoslav federation, not just Serbia. The human,
social, and economic cost of war was not only enormous, if was avoidable.
The Yugoslav example shows the
irrationality ‘ordinary citizens’ are capable of. We must not idealize
ourselves, must not idealize the ‘little man,’ the ‘common folk.’ Regional
egotism, and a refusal to balance out interests, drove the conflict and
were instrumentalized by power-hungry, privilege-loving political leaders
(on both or all three sides of the internal struggle); the readiness to
demand all for one’s self, one’s group, one’s region, the preparedness
to resort to cruel means in the effort to defend one’s uncompromising view
of ‘the regional interest’: all betrayed a refusal of mediation, of ‘Vermittlung.’
The nationalist resentment was reawakened because no solution was found
for the legitimate rights, the right to enjoy the fruit of one’s labor,
and the right to local and regional self-determination. That is to say,
the right to make the important choices of how one lives, or wants to live.Of
course there are reasons why most of the police and army ‘jobs’ went to
Serbs (apart from the fact that Serbian nationalist leaders
pursued such a 'strategy'); in Great Britain, the armed forces also recruit
disproportionate numbers of soldiers and sailors in the economically backward
and crisis-stricken parts of the country (mainly in Scotland, Wales, and
Northern England). Of course, the Yugloslav North (Zagreb, Ljubljana, Rijeka,
etc.) had some reasons to feel ‘milked,’ but the South had also some reasons
to expect transfers. (The problem arises again in Germany, concerning the
‘Laenderfinanzausgleich’ [transfers between 'wealthy' and 'poor' states]
- or in Italy, between what the Northern petite bourgeoisie likes to call
‘Padua’ (Lombardy, Venetia, Piemont etc.), and the Mezzogiorno. But of
course, everyone with some clear insight into the problem knows that ‘Paduanization’
is no answer. Paduanization is an expression
of ‘particular interests’ being put before the essential interests of all
ordinary citizens, both North and South. This holds true for Germany, former
Yugoslavia, Italy...
It holds true for the relationship
of the NORTH and SOUTH , on a worldwide scale: transfers are necessary.
They are rational. And they are an expression of compensatory justice.
Your
contribution to the debate /
Your
ideas and suggestions:
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