Between East and West

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For a long period now, Serbia has been trying to show a new face to Europe. The streets in bigger cities are cooking with activity and cheerfulness, while the Parliament speedily adopts EU-compatible laws. In the background, however, violence is increasing in the streets, at schools and within families. The laws are better, but they are not being implemented well enough. There is no more official state minority propaganda, on the contrary: Serbia is not perfect, but has adopted a minority law which could serve as an example to the entire region; a law which recognizes not only collective minority rights, but also embryonic forms of minority autonomies, even though voices of xenophobia are increasingly vehement in public life, and chauvinist organization are ever so active.
Belgrade has changed noticeably, becoming more pleasant, awaiting foreigners with open arms, like in the 1970s. And then, out of the blue, there are serial public beatings of foreign citizens, only because they were speaking English or French. A French citizen was so severely beaten that he died from the injuries and the matter took on the proportions of a diplomatic scandal.  
An acceptable draft on the autonomy of Vojvodina has been made, but a part of the Belgrade political elite, fearing the secession of the northern province, cut down the draft law to a large extent. The argument that a community in which Serbs make up two thirds of the population wants to establish territorial autonomy with the ultimate goal to secede from Serbia seems somewhat ridiculous. Still, deputies and politicians are considering this hypothesis with the utmost seriousness.
Like an assigned homework, politicians are repeating that the arrest of two war criminals, Ratko Mladić and Goran Hadžić, is the basic precondition for joining the EU. They have been searching for them for years, but were not able to find them in the places in which they looked.

Both in Belgrade and Novi Sad, large business and shopping centers, as well as residential blocks, emerge over night. Therefore, larger cities resemble big construction sites. Construction is flourishing, but so is corruption. The so-called urban mafia is accumulating huge gain by means of bribery, causing damage to the state budget, forcing the state to ask for foreign loans. Political leaders are attempting to calm the public opinion with promises, frequently announcing merciless combat against corruption. Now and then, a small fish gets caught, followed by an appearance of the Interior Minister, beaming with satisfaction in front of television cameras, saying that there are no untouchables and that decisive battle is bringing results. However, public speech against corruption is on the decline and the population recognizes that there is no life without corruption. Citizens themselves cannot help but use it in their everyday life, since doctors and clerks expect smaller or bigger gifts.
A significant part of the population gives or receives bribe, which ultimately strengthens the consciousness of collective guilt, which is why there is no collective social action against corruption. A statement by one of the ministers in which he claimed that oligarchies were financed by political parties was met with an ironic smile.  Elsewhere in Europe, such a public estimate would cause a political earthquake. In Serbia, however, it has only additionally entertained the citizens, merely causing them to nod their heads, noticing that the Minister has not said anything new, and that it was widely known until now. There is a little more excitement only when it turns out that some bold member of the urban mafia had sold the same apartment five or six times. The damaged buyers despair in front of television cameras, but no one can console them. Their money is lost, which for many people means a lifetime of poverty. 
In spite of this, the population is increasingly rushing to larger cities and buying apartments. This occurrence resembles a small migration, causing, of course, entire villages to remain desolate, primarily in eastern and southern parts of the country. And while Serbia leads a bitter diplomatic battle for Kosovo, some parts of its territories begin to resemble desolate land. Young women make up the majority of those who leave, causing many young men from the country to remain unmarried. A few years ago, the news spread that older bachelors from rural areas in Southern Serbia were increasingly marrying Albanian women and that they often travel all the way to Albania for that purpose. Soon it showed that such marriages were stable. The public broadcasting service (Radio Television of Serbia) even broadcast a touching report about a happy couple. The bride doesn’t speak Serbian, the groom doesn’t speak Albanian, but they still understand each other well. They work, cultivate land and thrive. This story shows that average citizens think differently about the Albanian population than the majority of leading Serbian intellectuals and politicians, many of whom cynically use pejorative names when referring to the Kosovar Albanians and do not have anything nice to say about them. In one of his latest books, the country’s leading writer, Dobrica Ćosić, called the Albanian nation the dreg of Europe. Only a few civic organizations protested, and no politicians from the ruling coalition have distanced themselves from this thought by the ’nation’s father’. However, prominent intellectuals raised their voices in the press, condemning the protests by civic organizations, leading one to conclude that the incriminating opinion was met with great understanding. Serbia is, therefore, asking for Kosovo to be returned to her, but has no idea what to do with nearly 2 million Kosovar Albanians. 
No one is preparing for war; even the increasingly present neo-Nazi organizations are not going after the neighbors, but rather attack the ’internal enemy’ with the intention to cleanse the society of foreign, cosmopolitan ideas. Serbian state officials are not opposing the whole world, like in the past. On the contrary, they aim to establish and maintain good relations with everybody. Joining the European Union is declared a priority, but at the same time Serbia maintains good relations with nonaligned countries (there are noticeable signs of nostalgia for the Titoist period), China and, particularly, Russia.
The country welcomed a one-day visit by Russian President Medvedev in mid-October with euphoria. Large newspaper headlines announced that Medvedev was arriving with a $1 billion favorable loan for Serbia. It was hardly mentioned that loans by the International Monetary Fund were much more favorable than the Russian one. The Russian President received a festive and joyful welcome. He gave a speech to the Serbian Parliament, where even deputies of the Hague indictee Vojislav Šešelj-led Serbian Radical Party appeared in their formal clothes in his honor, instead of their usual Parliament outfits – white t-shirts with Šešelj’s picture, in which they sit and demonstrate against the New World Order. 
Russia is not only a foreign policy issue, but primarily an internal one, being the most reliable compass for Serbia, which for a long time now has been searching for its place and identity. Of course, the question emerges: how will Serbia join the European Union with such a compass? But, for now, this contradiction is only theoretical, since the European Union is still far away, and Russia is close. The Serbian oil and gas industry are in the hands of Russian capital and Serbian hearts are burning with traditional Russophilia. The period leading up to Medvedev’s visit was marked by unprecedented talk of the common orthodox religion and Slavic roots and soul. The Russian President had a reason to be pleased since he could see for himself in Belgrade that these were not only friendly diplomatic gestures, but fundamental feelings of the Serbian masses, which was especially emphasized by Medvedev’s promise that Russia will continue to support Serbia in the righteous defense of its territorial integrity – the preservation of Kosovo. On the other hand, Serbian politicians once again stated that they will never renounce Kosovo. However, they are no longer veiling this pledge in aggressive rhetoric, instead choosing conciliatory language in addressing neighboring countries which have recognized Kosovo’s independence (Macedonia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Montenegro).
Aggressive rhetoric belongs to the past! Serbia is no longer a powder keg, or an excluded pariah – it begins to resemble other Eastern-Central-European countries. Not because it has made a decisive step forward, but simply because others are stagnating and are increasingly submitting to the populist right-wing. Serbia is making uncertain steps forwards, and the surrounding transitional countries are uncertainly stagnating. In that sense, Serbia has reached the level of other countries in the region to some extent, but in a phase in which populism is roaming Central-Eastern Europe. 
Namely, the processes of system changes have been carried out in the region, capitalistic structures have been built, and the decade of transitional euphoria has come to en end. Fleeing socialism, in the late 1980s, and then in the 1990s, the masses dreamed of Europe, and when it became available, they suddenly were not able to dream about anything and were overcome with dissatisfaction. They were disappointed with both Europe and capitalism. They wanted democratic socialism, but got wild capitalism instead. Transitional intellectuals, writers and artists have swallowed a bitter pill – they are the ones who once conferred about military neutral Central Europe, who put socialism with a human face on their flag, but it was NATO and market dictatorship which came through that door. Market dictatorship came about because in poor countries the hand of the market is more ruthless and easily becomes antidemocratic. The differences between the hand of the market and the hand of the state are minimal and it is not always clear which one is slapping you in the face. In wild capitalism, the voice of the transitional intellectual has grown weak and silence has become the price of the new freedom. The rebellious spirit of Central-Eastern-European literature and art of the 1970s and 1980s is ancient history. The rebels are tamed and there is silence both in the masses and the elites. State socialism has pushed wounds of the national past under the rug, and the parliamentary democracy dragged them out to the daylight: all these countries are now reliving all the misery of small national states between the Wars, frustrated nations, searching for a scapegoat, looking at each other furtively – which all very much suits populist and extremist political and cultural movements.
In Serbia, due to its unresolved past, all this occurs to a larger extent. The society is slipping to the right, together with the political parties. The right wing is crowded and the left wing is desolate, with only some small parties running into it – quite hopelessly. The voice of populist nationalism is increasingly vehement and the state is too weak to stop its penetration. In late-October, the state did not allow a gay parade in downtown Belgrade. It was not banned, only ’dislocated’ – as the state officials argued – because, allegedly, the authorities could not guarantee the safety of the participants in downtown Belgrade. The police informed the public about possible actions by extreme right forces, which could have even put the lives of the parade’s participants in jeopardy. The assumption that the information gathered by the police was true raises another issue: what steps are taken by the police which, suggesting change of the parade’s location, de facto capitulated before the extreme right. Unfortunately, this question was left unanswered. Not only did the state suffer a humiliation, but it permanently put itself in a passive position, admitting that it was not able to protect its own Constitution and its own laws.
Consequently, Serbia is today in a standstill. The dominant forces do not want to return to the past, but have no courage to make decisive steps towards the future, either. They are not returning to the past because that is indeed impossible, but they are not able to break up with it. The best example illustrating this phenomenon is one of the coalition parties, the Socialist Party of Serbia. The truth is that this party does not want to continue the Milosević traditions, but is unable to energetically break up with them. So, it is left with nothing else than to stand still. The government easily manages to marginalize criticism by intellectuals who advocate European values, by saying that they have national interests to take into account. However, it has no resolute replies to criticism from the nationalistic-populist circles. Democratic Party, the center of the ruling coalition, attempts to buffer it by building a right discourse into its policies. By doing so, it strengthens its position in power and keeps its voters, but loses its critical enthusiasm and transitional energy.
The door of the future is open, but there is no strength to step over the threshold: preparations have been done, Serbia disposes of modernization capital; unlike other former socialist countries in the region, it already turned to the West in the 1960s, so it does not have to start from scratch, but it still seems that every year it starts from zero. All that is necessary is to leap over the threshold, but that fateful step is always lacking. This indecisiveness, or rather numbness, is growing increasingly dangerous. According to some relevant prognoses, the economic crisis in Serbia will deepen in 2010. Pensions and salaries will remain frozen; it is once again to be counted with the highest inflation in the region, and the unemployment rate will rise. Those circumstances very much suit the right populism, which will even more narrow the maneuvering space for the government, forcing it to compromise even more.