INVIAMO NUOVAMENTE LA RECENTE INTERVISTA dell'IAC A MIHAJLO
MARKOVIC SULLA SITUAZIONE IN JUGOSLAVIA DOPO IL COLPO
DI MANO DELLE DESTRE NAZIONALISTE E LIBERISTE, CORREDATA
DI UN COMMENTO CRITICO DI JARED ISRAEL.
Ricordiamo che una precedente, interessante intervista a Mihajlo Markovic, effettuata da J. Elsaesser della rivista tedesca KONKRET prima dell'estate, e' disponibile in versione italiana a cura del Coordinamento Romano per la
Jugoslavia: http://www.egroups.com/message/crj-mailinglist/455
---
Interview with Mihajlo Markovic, former vice president of the Socialist
Party of Serbia
'A counter-revolution, and not all that velvety'
Tanja Djurovic, Belgrad
(October 11, 2000-for junge Welt - www.jungewelt.de )
Mihajlo Markovic, member of the Serbian Academy of Science and until
1995
the vice president of the Socialist Party of Serbia, was one of the
ideological leaders of that party. Before 1989 he had a reputation as a
'reformer' and opponent of Tito within the Yugoslav left. Because of his
position in the movement in Yugoslavia, we thought this interview with
him
would be of interest to anyone following the current developments-IAC
- Professor Markovic, following the all-level elections on September 24
in
Yugoslavia, a certain "coup d'etat" took place on the streets of
Belgrade
on October 5, organized by the Democratic opposition of Serbia (DOS).
Some
are already calling this "a velvet revolution." How would you describe
what
happened?
October 5 started out as one of the "rebellions" we've already had an
opportunity to see. On March 9, 1991 to begin with and from then on
there
were several attempts on the street to scare the regime, to make it back
off, to perhaps enter state institutions and take them over by force -
as
was the case elsewhere in the countries of Eastern Europe.
Of course this October 5 protest was not simply a "peaceful" expression
of
civil disobedience and was not even planned to be peaceful, no matter
what
its organizers say. There was a lot of violence in it. A couple of
people
were killed and around 100 injured, material damage was considerable.
...All this shows clearly that this was a counter-revolution, and not at
all that
"velvety," as some are calling it now.
By my definition, a revolution is a social coup, a social
transformation,
which leads to some higher, more progressive form of society. When this
is
not the case, then we're speaking of counter-revolution.
Slobodan Milosevic should have admitted the defeat on presidential
elections immediately. Then the damage would be smaller. But, he made
another in a sequence of mistakes, and decided not to accept
presidential
election-results from September 24. Finally, when a big wave of protests
was initiated, when on October 5 the DOS rallied the people to the
Yugoslav
capital for mass demonstrations, the number of people gathered wasn't
even
important anymore, because Milosevic in the meanwhile already decided to
capitulate. The army didn't react. The police gave more-less symbolic
resistance, and power was simply given up.
- What were the factors to bring this situation about, and put an end
to
the Serbian 10-year-long resistance under Slobodan Milosevic? Why didn't
it
happen before?
Here, in Serbia, the "transition" scenario didn't work out for a long
time,
for several reasons.
One of those reasons is that in Serbia already certain necessary reforms
had been carried out. In year 1989 we had reforms of both the political
and
economic system. Therefore, what was later changed in East European
countries, in Yugoslavia had been reformed and changed already, but of
course the government was firmly in the hands of socialist forces.
Besides, the Serbian nation is very resilient when it comes to attempt
to
impose on it solutions from the outside. It resisted firmly and for a
long
time the attempts coming from reactionary circles from the West - to
impose
"transition" here, as it is called, transit to liberal [unregulated]
capitalism, with "shock-therapy" and all the other catastrophical
consequences for people and for society. So some kind of consciousness
about all this existed, and therefore the resistance.
Nevertheless, the combination of certain factors in last 10 years
brought
about the gradual change in this attitude. First and very crucial, an
enormous pressure from the USA and the West, which directly interfered
in
our internal matters, gave directives to opposition leaders and spent
from
70 to 100 million of dollars on these last Yugoslav elections alone.
On the other hand, an inner weakening in the government itself occurred,
and certain demoralization of Socialist party of Serbia (SPS) cadres
[leading organizers]. And what's worst of all, the people, who found
itself
in a very difficult material situation, almost direct misery, couldn't
take
it anymore.
And then this motto "Change" at any cost, even if it was said that those
changes can be for the worse (as they will be), prevailed. This is how
the
electoral defeat of the leftists occurred. Not total defeat naturally,
in
the Federal Parliament the coalition of left forces still has the
majority -
but on local level it was total indeed, and defeat on the presidential
level, of course.
- You mentioned "inner weaknesses" and "demoralization" in SPS... Apart
from the foreign factor, which is more than obvious, how much did the
Yugoslav leftist government itself contribute to its downfall in these
elections?
In the Socialist Party -- which carried the defense of basic socialist
values -- at the beginning there was certain amount of inner democracy,
and
morale was also at a certain high level. Even now naturally you have a
great number of socialist executives who remained honest and
non-corrupt,
who didn 't abandon their leftist orientation.
But the situation was gradually changed by the fact that inner erosion
took
place. First of all, Slobodan Milosevic himself was very insensitive
towards corruption. Even if he himself remained honest through and
through
until the end, even in his own family he wasn't principled enough to
punish
the behavior of his son and his wife Mirjana Markovic. All that had a
really bad influence on society, on followers, on members and executives
of
the Socialist Party itself.
This played a big role in inner erosion. And creation of Yugoslav Left
(JUL) played a devastating role.
The JUL figures as a left party, but according to the informal admission
of
Milosevic himself, this "left" party was created under sanctions, under
the
blockade. To break through this blockade the Yugoslav government had to
tolerate some forms of gray economy. A certain number of private owners
had
to pay bribe-money to functionaries of European Community and NATO. This
is
how we managed to come by oil, gasoline and all the rest.
But those private owners, through gray economy, gathered a certain
amount
of wealth. Milosevic, when he thought about how those people, who
actually
became capitalists now, as a matter of fact will be the adversaries of
socialists, decided it would be good finding some way to make them
allies.
Eventually, this is how JUL was created, and Milosevic's wife took its
leadership. But, in essence, this was after all a bad idea and no matter
how attractive this seemed at first glance, in the long run the
consequences were bad as we can see.
People in this so-called left party were there just to enrich themselves
further, and to gain perhaps some political position on the top of
everything by which to protect their capital. Of course it had a very
demoralizing effect on Socialist party itself.
And then, Milosevic even made socialists promote the JUL everywhere, be
in
coalition with it, and on elections give a great number of seats to
representatives of the JUL. For years this has been causing increasing
unrest among functionaries of the Socialist Party.
- You are one of the ideologists of SPS...Some say even so called
Serbian
nationalism and its establishing in program of Socialist party
contributed
also to the downfall of the leftists...? - "Serbian nationalism",
nationalism as such and even patriotism, are often confounded with
chauvinism...This is a simply a big defect in thinking, so let me
explain
this.
Nationalism? I have critical attitude towards nationalism, in a sense
that
nationalism always means one-sided approach to a problem, seeing only
national dimension of it. So all is seen in the light of national
relations, national interests. I am critical towards it. But even there,
you have two
kinds of nationalism. You have "benign nationalism" which is, as I said,
just one-sidenesness. But chauvinism, which I would call "malign
nationalism," is an entirely different thing.
Chauvinism is hatred of other nations, non-acceptance of other nations,
and
is something absolutely negative. So people who do not or cannot make a
difference between those two kinds of nationalism, or can't even make a
difference between nationalism and patriotism, are simply not educated
enough. They just don't see the problematic of our times in all its
nuances, but take things superficially. They see only black and white,
where there are shades of gray.
Therefore, this is not the question of "Serbian nationalism," not even
benign one, but of Serbian patriotism. Patriotism is love for its own
people and its own country, and is completely justified. You can't be an
internationalist without being a patriot, and when injustice and
aggression
is done, you have to defend your country in a way you would defend any
other country as well. Patriotism is something entirely positive.
Nationalism could be present in some right parties, Seselj's or
Draskovic's
parties for instance, but in Socialist Party case we can speak only
about
patriotism, accepting other nations but at the same time readiness to
defend interests of own, Serbian nation.
It is entirely unjustified to say SPS was infected with any form of
nationalism, and Milosevic himself can't be called a nationalist. His
famous Gazi Mestan speech in 1989, was a completely anti-nationalist
speech. Some people are calling it nationalistic, even without reading
it.
Or before this, Memorandum of Serbian Academy of Science - in the whole
world it was considered a base of Milosevic politics, and called a
nationalistic document which lead to breaking of old Yugoslavia. Anybody
who had a mind to do that, could read this document and see that in it
is
spoken uniquely and only about equality of all nations.
---
Bollettino di controinformazione del
Coordinamento Nazionale "La Jugoslavia Vivra'"
> http://digilander.iol.it/lajugoslaviavivra
I documenti distribuiti non rispecchiano necessariamente le
opinioni delle realta' che compongono il Coordinamento, ma vengono
fatti circolare per il loro contenuto informativo al solo scopo di
segnalazione e commento ("for fair use only")
Per contributi e segnalazioni: jugocoord@...
*** QUESTO SERVIZIO E' ANCORA IN FASE SPERIMENTALE ***
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
eCircle ti offre una nuova opportunita:
Il tuo sondaggio sul web sugli argomenti che preferisci
Facile da gestire e con rappresentazioni grafiche dei risultati.
E' facile, veloce e gratuito!
Da oggi su
http://www.ecircle.de/ad199884/www.ecircle.it
MARKOVIC SULLA SITUAZIONE IN JUGOSLAVIA DOPO IL COLPO
DI MANO DELLE DESTRE NAZIONALISTE E LIBERISTE, CORREDATA
DI UN COMMENTO CRITICO DI JARED ISRAEL.
Ricordiamo che una precedente, interessante intervista a Mihajlo Markovic, effettuata da J. Elsaesser della rivista tedesca KONKRET prima dell'estate, e' disponibile in versione italiana a cura del Coordinamento Romano per la
Jugoslavia: http://www.egroups.com/message/crj-mailinglist/455
---
Interview with Mihajlo Markovic, former vice president of the Socialist
Party of Serbia
'A counter-revolution, and not all that velvety'
Tanja Djurovic, Belgrad
(October 11, 2000-for junge Welt - www.jungewelt.de )
Mihajlo Markovic, member of the Serbian Academy of Science and until
1995
the vice president of the Socialist Party of Serbia, was one of the
ideological leaders of that party. Before 1989 he had a reputation as a
'reformer' and opponent of Tito within the Yugoslav left. Because of his
position in the movement in Yugoslavia, we thought this interview with
him
would be of interest to anyone following the current developments-IAC
- Professor Markovic, following the all-level elections on September 24
in
Yugoslavia, a certain "coup d'etat" took place on the streets of
Belgrade
on October 5, organized by the Democratic opposition of Serbia (DOS).
Some
are already calling this "a velvet revolution." How would you describe
what
happened?
October 5 started out as one of the "rebellions" we've already had an
opportunity to see. On March 9, 1991 to begin with and from then on
there
were several attempts on the street to scare the regime, to make it back
off, to perhaps enter state institutions and take them over by force -
as
was the case elsewhere in the countries of Eastern Europe.
Of course this October 5 protest was not simply a "peaceful" expression
of
civil disobedience and was not even planned to be peaceful, no matter
what
its organizers say. There was a lot of violence in it. A couple of
people
were killed and around 100 injured, material damage was considerable.
...All this shows clearly that this was a counter-revolution, and not at
all that
"velvety," as some are calling it now.
By my definition, a revolution is a social coup, a social
transformation,
which leads to some higher, more progressive form of society. When this
is
not the case, then we're speaking of counter-revolution.
Slobodan Milosevic should have admitted the defeat on presidential
elections immediately. Then the damage would be smaller. But, he made
another in a sequence of mistakes, and decided not to accept
presidential
election-results from September 24. Finally, when a big wave of protests
was initiated, when on October 5 the DOS rallied the people to the
Yugoslav
capital for mass demonstrations, the number of people gathered wasn't
even
important anymore, because Milosevic in the meanwhile already decided to
capitulate. The army didn't react. The police gave more-less symbolic
resistance, and power was simply given up.
- What were the factors to bring this situation about, and put an end
to
the Serbian 10-year-long resistance under Slobodan Milosevic? Why didn't
it
happen before?
Here, in Serbia, the "transition" scenario didn't work out for a long
time,
for several reasons.
One of those reasons is that in Serbia already certain necessary reforms
had been carried out. In year 1989 we had reforms of both the political
and
economic system. Therefore, what was later changed in East European
countries, in Yugoslavia had been reformed and changed already, but of
course the government was firmly in the hands of socialist forces.
Besides, the Serbian nation is very resilient when it comes to attempt
to
impose on it solutions from the outside. It resisted firmly and for a
long
time the attempts coming from reactionary circles from the West - to
impose
"transition" here, as it is called, transit to liberal [unregulated]
capitalism, with "shock-therapy" and all the other catastrophical
consequences for people and for society. So some kind of consciousness
about all this existed, and therefore the resistance.
Nevertheless, the combination of certain factors in last 10 years
brought
about the gradual change in this attitude. First and very crucial, an
enormous pressure from the USA and the West, which directly interfered
in
our internal matters, gave directives to opposition leaders and spent
from
70 to 100 million of dollars on these last Yugoslav elections alone.
On the other hand, an inner weakening in the government itself occurred,
and certain demoralization of Socialist party of Serbia (SPS) cadres
[leading organizers]. And what's worst of all, the people, who found
itself
in a very difficult material situation, almost direct misery, couldn't
take
it anymore.
And then this motto "Change" at any cost, even if it was said that those
changes can be for the worse (as they will be), prevailed. This is how
the
electoral defeat of the leftists occurred. Not total defeat naturally,
in
the Federal Parliament the coalition of left forces still has the
majority -
but on local level it was total indeed, and defeat on the presidential
level, of course.
- You mentioned "inner weaknesses" and "demoralization" in SPS... Apart
from the foreign factor, which is more than obvious, how much did the
Yugoslav leftist government itself contribute to its downfall in these
elections?
In the Socialist Party -- which carried the defense of basic socialist
values -- at the beginning there was certain amount of inner democracy,
and
morale was also at a certain high level. Even now naturally you have a
great number of socialist executives who remained honest and
non-corrupt,
who didn 't abandon their leftist orientation.
But the situation was gradually changed by the fact that inner erosion
took
place. First of all, Slobodan Milosevic himself was very insensitive
towards corruption. Even if he himself remained honest through and
through
until the end, even in his own family he wasn't principled enough to
punish
the behavior of his son and his wife Mirjana Markovic. All that had a
really bad influence on society, on followers, on members and executives
of
the Socialist Party itself.
This played a big role in inner erosion. And creation of Yugoslav Left
(JUL) played a devastating role.
The JUL figures as a left party, but according to the informal admission
of
Milosevic himself, this "left" party was created under sanctions, under
the
blockade. To break through this blockade the Yugoslav government had to
tolerate some forms of gray economy. A certain number of private owners
had
to pay bribe-money to functionaries of European Community and NATO. This
is
how we managed to come by oil, gasoline and all the rest.
But those private owners, through gray economy, gathered a certain
amount
of wealth. Milosevic, when he thought about how those people, who
actually
became capitalists now, as a matter of fact will be the adversaries of
socialists, decided it would be good finding some way to make them
allies.
Eventually, this is how JUL was created, and Milosevic's wife took its
leadership. But, in essence, this was after all a bad idea and no matter
how attractive this seemed at first glance, in the long run the
consequences were bad as we can see.
People in this so-called left party were there just to enrich themselves
further, and to gain perhaps some political position on the top of
everything by which to protect their capital. Of course it had a very
demoralizing effect on Socialist party itself.
And then, Milosevic even made socialists promote the JUL everywhere, be
in
coalition with it, and on elections give a great number of seats to
representatives of the JUL. For years this has been causing increasing
unrest among functionaries of the Socialist Party.
- You are one of the ideologists of SPS...Some say even so called
Serbian
nationalism and its establishing in program of Socialist party
contributed
also to the downfall of the leftists...? - "Serbian nationalism",
nationalism as such and even patriotism, are often confounded with
chauvinism...This is a simply a big defect in thinking, so let me
explain
this.
Nationalism? I have critical attitude towards nationalism, in a sense
that
nationalism always means one-sided approach to a problem, seeing only
national dimension of it. So all is seen in the light of national
relations, national interests. I am critical towards it. But even there,
you have two
kinds of nationalism. You have "benign nationalism" which is, as I said,
just one-sidenesness. But chauvinism, which I would call "malign
nationalism," is an entirely different thing.
Chauvinism is hatred of other nations, non-acceptance of other nations,
and
is something absolutely negative. So people who do not or cannot make a
difference between those two kinds of nationalism, or can't even make a
difference between nationalism and patriotism, are simply not educated
enough. They just don't see the problematic of our times in all its
nuances, but take things superficially. They see only black and white,
where there are shades of gray.
Therefore, this is not the question of "Serbian nationalism," not even
benign one, but of Serbian patriotism. Patriotism is love for its own
people and its own country, and is completely justified. You can't be an
internationalist without being a patriot, and when injustice and
aggression
is done, you have to defend your country in a way you would defend any
other country as well. Patriotism is something entirely positive.
Nationalism could be present in some right parties, Seselj's or
Draskovic's
parties for instance, but in Socialist Party case we can speak only
about
patriotism, accepting other nations but at the same time readiness to
defend interests of own, Serbian nation.
It is entirely unjustified to say SPS was infected with any form of
nationalism, and Milosevic himself can't be called a nationalist. His
famous Gazi Mestan speech in 1989, was a completely anti-nationalist
speech. Some people are calling it nationalistic, even without reading
it.
Or before this, Memorandum of Serbian Academy of Science - in the whole
world it was considered a base of Milosevic politics, and called a
nationalistic document which lead to breaking of old Yugoslavia. Anybody
who had a mind to do that, could read this document and see that in it
is
spoken uniquely and only about equality of all nations.
---
Bollettino di controinformazione del
Coordinamento Nazionale "La Jugoslavia Vivra'"
> http://digilander.iol.it/lajugoslaviavivra
I documenti distribuiti non rispecchiano necessariamente le
opinioni delle realta' che compongono il Coordinamento, ma vengono
fatti circolare per il loro contenuto informativo al solo scopo di
segnalazione e commento ("for fair use only")
Per contributi e segnalazioni: jugocoord@...
*** QUESTO SERVIZIO E' ANCORA IN FASE SPERIMENTALE ***
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
eCircle ti offre una nuova opportunita:
Il tuo sondaggio sul web sugli argomenti che preferisci
Facile da gestire e con rappresentazioni grafiche dei risultati.
E' facile, veloce e gratuito!
Da oggi su
http://www.ecircle.de/ad199884/www.ecircle.it