Svetlana Slapsak
Zizek's Lads
In all of the many violent crises we have lived through over the past ten years in former Yugoslavia, voices like that of Dejan Krsic would come to the surface: voices strident with sudden zeal for taking profit, with no risk involved, by forgetting intellectual honesty and self-examination, while others dither, because in doubt or simply because they are ashamed. The past has been brutally erased by new ideological interventions and the protegees and parasites of the old regime can now spill their bile on those who had the guts to speak then, and will not keep silent now. These types breed on falsifying memories and disseminating oblivion or straight misinformation. Slavoj Zizek, quoted by Krsic, is indeed a good reference in this respect: he presents himself to the West as a Marxist, while in his native Slovenia he operates as ideologist, slightly on the right-wing, of the liberal-democratic party; for the outside world he's a poor intellectual emigre, in Slovenia he's an "ambassador of science for the world"; moral authority when speaking about the Balkans in the West, he thinks he can afford sexist and racist outbursts at home. The admiring gang of old lads, with Dejan Krsic, would have the same. There we have a success story through ideological humdrum and cynicism which sweeps former leftists in the West into raptures: the expert from the East, connoisseur of mechanisms of destruction of their own leftist ideals, has a message for them: swallow that Western junk you've always despised, it's good for you since it's good for us. For manipulation, there's nothing better than separate, easy-to-control worlds. Srdjan Dragojevic and his utterly reckless and amoral films are good; Veran Matic and Radio B92's honest reporting are not, because they muddy the image of nasty filthy Serbs who are all the same and who are excellently represented by Dragojevic, openly vilifying Croats, Muslims and Slovenians. When the heat is off, the lads gather between the trenches to exchange the latest curses and slap one another on the back, but when the going gets tough again, back they go to their respective camps.
Things become clearer only with a careful reading of Dejan Krsic's attack on Radio B92. First comes the author's peevish complaint that he can only see "Help B92", no word about Koha Ditore and the Kosovo Albanians. Heady stuff, but merely a lie. The truth is that Radio B92 was virtually the only Serbian media outlet which reported on Koha Ditore and the Kosovo Albanians. It also gave them practical assistance such as carrying Radio 21 and other Albanian broadcasters via satellite as part of the ANEM project. Unlike other media, Radio B92 had correspondents in Kosovo whose mother tongue was Albanian. B92's correspondents had access to places where other reporters, even independent journalists, were not present. If he was unable to listen to Radio B92 directly, Krsic could have read all of that on the Internet several times a day. As he obviously didn't bother to do so, it's hardly surprising that he can't comprehend "what is so special, independent and democratic" about B92. Mere ignorance and lack of information, or a case of brazen, Zizek-style manipulation of his ill-informed readers? The latter, I would say. B92 has built a reputation which irritates Dejan Krsic a great deal: he believes this sort of status properly belongs only to those who are firmly "on the right side". He is further irritated by the fact that this status is earned by courage, in opposition to prevailing collective values. Also, he is irritated because such prestige seriously diminishes the prospectives of all those who, like himself, having done nothing for Kosovo Albanians in the past, now gnash their teeth over TV footage, from a safe distance. Is he perhaps suggesting that Croatia should accommodate some of many Albanian refugees? When Serbian authorities denied the exhausted Serb refugees from Krajina the possibility to rest and seek help in the capital, herding them towards remote villages and rounding up recruitable males back in 1995, B92 staff at least went out to help these unfortunate people; the nationalist elites in Belgrade retired to their penthouses and left the homeless to fend for themselves. Needless to insist on the long history of B92's problems with the Belgrade regime, including bannings, obstruction, and, on the other side, B92's key role in stirring up, nurturing and enlightening Belgrade's rebellion in 1996/97. It is hardly surprising that the regime's first response to the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia was to arrest Veran Matic.
But Krsic's intervention is in fact much more low-key and therefore offensive to the misfortunes of the Kosovo refugees. Krsic dubs Veran Matic "mister", which is a shabby trick hailing back to the Socialist tradition of public slurs and should imply deepest contempt for the addressee. Matic has received a large number of international awards, therefore for Krsic he is "a master of self-promotion". To add transparency to his claim, Krsic calls Matic's maturity into question and proposes the image of "his child, B92" deliberately and not at all naively "wallowing in the filthy water of the Milosevic regime". This is a phantasmagoric image which poignantly reveals all about Krsic himself. But the matter does not rest there. For those completely unfamiliar with the issue, Krsic likens Matic to the completely out-of-control Vuk Draskovic. The maliciousness of this parallel is lost in the puerility of the approach.
However absurd, Krsic's intervention raises questions about the position of people such as Veran Matic and the whole B92 team, and of some others in Belgrade, like those who were travelling, under NATO bombing, to Pristina to collect evidence on the crimes of the Milosevic regime. What is the most efficient way to maintain the stereotype of all Serbs, and of all Serbs being alike, and thus do away with any hope not only for Serbs, but also for a good many Montenegrins, Macedonians and Kosovo Albanians? Silencing? Refusing to help? Or simply denouncing any Serbs who break the mould? The moment has never been more favorable. While bombs are dropping on them, "deviant" Serbs can be denounced for "failing to voice themselves". Or, they can be silenced when they voice themselves, while bombs are dropping on them. The argument, current in the West, that a large part of the Serbian opposition was nationalistic, seems hypocritical to me. Western politicians and analysts have times and again legitimised Milosevic; they have been protecting top war criminals; they had no scruples in collaborating with nationalists in other parts of the former Yugoslavia; they did not really invest in Serbian opposition. Had the Serbian opposition, nationalistic or otherwise, had the support of the international community to win in 1997, when Milosevic was seriously weakened, its nationalism could hardly have the same reach as under Milosevic, plus it would at least have an anti-nationalist counterbalance. In any case, now that Serbia's showdown with the rest of the world is on, some would push the stereotype all the way and eliminate "the other Serbs" altogether. Indeed, those who do not fit the stereotype will be attacked first, and thoroughly, lest they muddy the image later. All I can do is to expose the moral and intellectual misery of this thinking and to point out my belief that "the other" and "different" Serbs should now shut up and survive. Let those who don't have bombs falling all around speak for them in the meantime. And in case they choose not to shut up - yes, B92 does have the moral right to call for a halt to the bombing of a country in which it is oppressed and harassed by a government against which it has struggled openly and systematically. No, B92 is not to blame for the lack of morals and style among those who consented or kept silent while others in Yugoslavia were bombed, and now moan for their own selfish benefit.