In his interesting piece, “Misreading Yugoslavia” (July 8), Dejan Kovacevic, emphasizes the ethnic roots of the Yugoslav crisis but seems oblivious to huge ideological differences between the Yugoslav republics. Communist-dominated Serbia and Montenegro are the two republics that are least interested in large-scale market reforms for fear of losing control over the federal bureaucracy and army. Although the records of Slovenia and Croatia are far from perfect, these republics have made bold steps in the direction of market reforms and safeguarding the rights of their minorities. Kovacevic’s allegations that 700,000 ethnic Serbs were killed by Fascist Croats during World War II are reminiscent of the decades-old Yugoslav propaganda whose purpose was to discredit Croatia’s claims for an independent homeland. World War II in Yugoslavia was a messy affair, involving a dozen different factionsm each with an impressive record of butchery. Of course, with the dissolution of communism, some of these exaggerated war casualties are bound to come under close scrutiny. In the long run, neither side in Yugoslavia will benefit from manipulating their war dead. Kovacevic should have also looked at the record of 45 years of Communist Yugoslavia in which Serbs played a dominant role in the secret police, federal bureaucracy and the army. Although Serbs make up 37 percent of the Yugoslav population, 76 percent of Yugoslav army officers are of Serbian origin. In independent-minded Croatia, at least until last year, Serbs made up a staggering 67 percent of the police force. Lastly, it is unwarranted to blame Croatia or Slovenia for the breakup of Yugoslavia, as some recent news reports have suggested. Ironically, the most expedient destroyers of Yugoslavia have been the Serbian leadership, under Slobodan Milosevic, and the federal army – both of which have had a hard time adjusting to changes in Eastern Europe. As long as the threat of the federal army looms large on the Yugoslav horizon, any meaningful dialogue between the Yugoslav republics is doomed to fail.
The end of communism in Yugoslavia has brought the return of nationalism and a host of new problems steeped in ethnic roots, said Tomislav Sunic, a Croatian who now teaches in Juniata College.
I read rather belatedly the delightful article by the Yugoslav expatriate Mihajlov [September 1986,] in which he successfully exposes the myth of Titoist Yugoslavia as a form of political charade. He is right in observing that it is now Yugoslavia’s turn to face increasing economic chaos and the complete erosion of federal authority. I would like, however, to point to some details that Mihajlov did not fully elucidate, and that may lead some uninformed readers to the conclusion that problems in Yugoslavia are exclusively due to communist mismanagement of the country’s economy. Equally important causes of Yugoslav problems lie in the intricacies of the Yugoslav multiethnic system. The lack in international consensus is by and large the main factor in political and economic instability in communist Yugoslavia, the factor that was also decisive for the failure of prewar non-communist Yugoslavia. It would therefore be wrong to assume that some Western-imported quick fix of liberalism and democracy could bring the everlasting remedy to a country still searching for its national legitimacy. Even in a highly democratic Yugoslavia, such as Mihajlov and probably many other scholars envision, the ethnic tensions, particularly those between the Serbs and Croatians, would simply not go away. Interethnic resentment in Yugoslavia must be understood as a predictable outcome of circumstances surrounding the creation of the Yugoslav state, which to this date, for many Yugoslavs, remains an artificial geographic entity. Ever since its inception at Versailles in 1919, Yugoslavia has been more in line with the panslavist ideas of nineteenth-century politicians than with the hard-core reality of the nationalist twentieth century. It should not come as a surprise, therefore, that the opponents of panslavism and its offshoot “Yugoslavianism” have traditionally been Slavs themselves! It is a sad but also instructive reality that Poles, Ukrainians, Slovaks, and Croatians often perceive their Slavic Russian, Czech and Serbian neighbors as a far greater threat than their non-Slavic neighbors. In many aspects Yugoslavia is the ideological and legal replica of the Soviet Union, with one major exception: Yugoslavia is eighty times smaller in size, and when ethnic ferment emerges within one constituent republic, its signals are rapidly sent to its neighbors. There is hardly any possibility of geographically accommodating one ethnic group in Yugoslavia without automatically raising the fears of others. This is particularly the case when unexpected demographic changes, such as those in the Serbian southern province of Kosovo, occur. Even before the Second World War, the ethnic Albanians in southern Serbia were in the majority. Today their tremendous growth has given them a complete numerical edge over the Serbian population in Kosovo, whose longstanding claims to an “historic” Kosovo of Serbian “ethnic purity” appear increasingly unrealistic. One could probably argue that demographically, for the traditionally oppressed ethnic Albanians, is the continuation of politics by other means. Despite the overwhelming majority of ethnic Albanians, the police in Kosovo, just like anywhere else in Yugoslavia, are staffed predominantly with Serbian nationals, especially at command levels – a fact that only fuels the already existing anti-Serbian resentment in Yugoslavia. But the Albanian question is only the tip of the Yugoslavian iceberg. Ironically, at the time when Belgrade party communiqués, along with the pronouncements of many prominent Serbian intellectuals, pathetically deplore the exodus of Serbs from Serbian Kosovo, the same party communiqués and pronouncements pass over in silence the decade-long Croatian exodus from Bosnia and Herzegovina – the region to which Croatians lay ethnic and historic claims. And while the Serbian exodus often ends up in the historic parts of Croatian Bosnia and Herzegovina, or at “worst” in central Serbia, the Croatian exodus ends up in emigration overseas. Hundreds of thousands of Croatians scattered from Seattle to Sydney could certainly write, whether right or wrong, a long litany of their “historic” grievances. To many Western observers, who are often unable to grasp the meaning of nationalism in Eastern Europe, the interethnic tension in Yugoslavia appears negligible, or on the wane. Such a Western attitude is excusable given the totalitarian nature of the Yugoslav system, which forces its citizens to self-surveillance and utmost caution in discussing national issues with foreigners. Everybody wants democracy in Yugoslavia, and I have no doubt Mihajlov and other scholars do too. But democracy is not a perishable commodity to be sold to Yugoslavs as a short term loan, or wrought by inducing the party potentates to a miraculous shift in their behavior. Democratization of Yugoslavia implies first and foremost a thorough assessment of the very concept of Yugoslavia. Is Yugoslavia a viable reality for the twenty-first century? How will this third “democratic” Yugoslavia match the aspirations of its constituent nations? Last but not least, what role will Yugoslavia play in a crisis situation, and will that role be beneficial to the NATO powers? As long as democratic forces in Yugoslavia are stigmatized by the government and media as foreign agents, CIA conspirators, and fascist counterrevolutionaries, there is little hope for change. The atmosphere of a political witch-hunt in Croatia, for which the party officials bear great responsibility, can disappear only if the central government grants Croatians the legal right to speak their own language and stops using the “Serbo-Croatian” hybrid that is now mandatory in all public institutions, including the army. A good step in that direction would include the gradual removal of the Serbian-staffed police in Croatia and their replacement with Croatian officials. Such a positive action could significantly defuse the often irrational fear and hatred between the Serbs and Croatians that has long prevailed and that has inflicted immense human suffering on both peoples. But are the Titoist inheritors really ready for a dialogue with their democratic opponents? De they wish to widen or to bridge the gap between the rival Yugoslav nations? Have they not proclaimed themselves “democratic” and their opponents “fascists”? A case in point is my father, 72-year-old retired judge Mirko Sunic. His numerous appeals to the party for respect for the legal aspirations of the Croatian people, as well as for other nations in Yugoslavia, have never been heeded by the authorities; instead, he was recently sentenced to four years in prison on a charge of “hostile propaganda.” Another illustration is the horrifying death of a Jewish Croatian, Ernest Brajder. He died under extreme police torture – for collecting signatures for a petition (the so-called Zagreb petition) against the mistreatment and for the release of political prisoners.
Whenever an article appears in the foreign media dealing with the role of Croatia during WWII, the reader must expect a deluge of unsubstantiated body counts. For their part, to prove their anti-fascist atonement, Croats worldwide must resort to apologetic disclaimers and self-accusatory mea culpas.
I have read with interest Jeffrey T. Kuhner's Dec. 26 Op-Ed column on Croatia and its difficult road to democracy, "Not yet Bush of the Balkans." Mr. Kuhner is right in critically assessing the pervasive Balkanesque cronyism and corruption in Croatian politics. Yet he briefly and only sketchily mentions the large-scale massacres and removal of thousands of Croat civilians and competent professionals by the former Yugoslav communist security apparatus, which is still partially alive in Croatia. One's view of what happened in ex-communist Yugoslavia - and later in the late President Franjo Tudjman's Croatia - depends on the observer's vested interests, his ethnic prejudices and his historical perspectives. One thing remains certain, though: Croatia lacks solid elements of civil society and ignores the Western rules of meritocracy. Similar to other post-communist countries in the region, modern Croatia is deeply infected by the legacy of communist mendacity and double-dealing and the spiral of silence and civic fear. Waffling empty Western-imported clichés about human rights and market democracy, the revamped Croatian diplomacy shows amazing signs of provincialism and incompetence. What a would-be democratic Croatia needs is a solid dose of re-education and decommunization. Undoubtedly, a staggering number of Mr. Tudjman's officials were recycled communists who briefly put on display a feigned Croat patriotism. Was not the current President Stipe Mesic also Mr. Tudjman's pal until their fateful split in 1994? These remarks may seem of minor importance, but what is worrisome is the present ungovernability of Croatia. Mr. Mesic and Prime Minister Ivica Racan may have good intentions about the country's future. Yet, good intentions do not suffice to make a good politician or make a country safe for entry into the rich men's club of the European Union or NATO.
Since 1980, the year of President Tito’s death, Yugoslavia has been edging toward a political, economic and ideological crisis. Until last year, the Communist League had been able to achieve a semblance of stability by repeatedly reassuring its disgruntled citizens that "next year it will be better." But the ongoing deterioration of the Yugoslav economy and the continuing ethnic ferment has finally made the party hard-liners realize that the survival of the country depends on urgent political and economic overhaul.
With the conversion of the Roman Emperor Constantine to Christianity, the period of pagan Europe began to approach its end. During the next millennium the entire European continent came under the sway of the Gospel-sometimes by peaceful persuasion, frequently by forceful conversion. Those who were yesterday the persecuted of the ancient Rome became, in turn, the persecutors of the Christian Rome. Those who were previously bemoaning their fate at the hands of Nero, Diocletian, or Caligula did not hesitate to apply "creative" violence against infidel pagans. Although violence was nominally prohibited by the Christian texts, it was fully used against those who did not fit into the category of God's "chosen children." During the reign of Constantine, the persecution against the pagans took the proportions "in a fashion analogous to that whereby the old faiths had formerly persecuted the new, but in an even fiercer spirit." By the edict of A.D. 346, followed ten years later by the edict of Milan, pagan temples and the worship of pagan deities came to be stigmatized as magnum crimen. The death penalty was inflicted upon all those found guilty of participating in ancient sacrifices or worshipping pagan idols. "With Theodosius, the administration embarked upon a systematic effort to abolish the various surviving forms of paganism through the disestablishment, disen-dowment, and proscription of surviving cults."1 The period of the dark ages began.
There is ample evidence that pagan sensibility can flourish in the social sciences, literature, and arts, not just as a form of exotic narrative but also as a mental framework and a tool of conceptual analysis. Numerous names come to mind when we discuss the revival of Indo-European polytheism. In the first half of the twentieth century, pagan thinkers usually appeared under the mask of those who styled themselves as "revolutionary conservatives," "aristocratic nihilist," "elitists"-in short all those who did not wish to substitute Marx for Jesus, but who rejected both Marx and Jesus.1 Friedrich Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger in philosophy, Carl Gustav Jung in psychology, Georges Dumézil and Mircea Eliade in anthropology, Vilfredo Pareto and Oswald Spengler in political science, let alone dozens of poets such as Ezra Pound or Charles Baudelaire-these are just some of the names that can be associated with the legacy of pagan conservatism. All these individuals had in common the will to surpass the legacy of Christian Europe, and all of them yearned to include in their spiritual baggage the world of pre-Christian Celts, Slavs, and Germans.
To the critics who argue that polytheism is a thing of the prehistoric and primitive mind incompatible with modern societies, one could respond that paganism is not necessarily a return to "paradise lost" or a nostalgia for the restoration of the Greco-Roman order. For pagan conservatives, to pledge allegiance to "paganism" means to rekindle Europe's historical origins, as well as to revive some sacred aspects of life that existed in Europe prior to the rise of Christianity. One could also add that, as far as the alleged supremacy or modernity of Judeo-Christianity over the backwardness of Indo-European polytheism is concerned, Judeo-Christian religions, in terms of their modernity, are no less backward than pagan religions. To emphasize this point de Benoist writes: