Symptoms of Unresolved Conflict.

52 nd OC TOBER SALON SymptomS of UnreSolved ConfliCt 2011/2012 2 SymptomS of UnreSolved ConfliCt 3 Symptoms of Unresolved Conflict 52 nd October Salon Belgrade, 2011/2012 Founder and Patron The City of Belgrade October Salon Board A leksandar Peković, chairman Mia David, Vladimir Perić, Miroslav Perić, A na Perović 4 5 6 ContentS SymPTOmS OF UNRESOLvEd CONFLiCT Galit Eilat BROThERhOOd ANd UNiT y Damir Avdić Graha UNdERSTANdiNG diSOBEdiENCE : L A BOéTiE ’ S ANTi - ONE ANd dEFiANCE mANOEUvRES Udi Edelman BLEEdiNG hE ART Ran Kasmy - ilan ThE dUTCh vETER ANS iNTERviEw PROjECT: RECOGNiTiON ANd AT TENTiON iN E xChANGE FOR vALUABLE iNFORmATiON Stef Scagliola REvOLUTiON iS GONE Damir Avdić Graha SOCiET y: whO iS ThE OThER ? OR , BECOmiNG - PUBLiC Noa Treister SENTimENTAL EdUC ATiON – ThE LOGiC OF A BiOGR APhy Branimir Stojanović hOOLiGAN - FANS ANd ThE NEw FASCiSm – E x AmPLES FROm SERBiA Ivan Čolović iT’ S OvER Damir Avdić Graha iT’ S TimE wE GOT TO KNOw E ACh OThER AS wE RE ALLy ARE Damir Arsenijević AN ARChE OR BARBARiSm : ThE RESPONSiBiLiT y OF BEiNG OF / iN ThE wORLd Lana Zdravković LOG ON Damir Avdić Graha BiOGR APhiES 7 8 SymptomS of UnreSolved ConfliCt Galit Eilat The reader Symptoms of Unresolved Conflict is the concluding project of the 52 nd October Salon , which adopted the title of Damir Avdić ’s poem , “ it ’ s Time We Got to Know Each Other.”1 The 52 nd October Salon is the perfect example of a project that has tried to sustain non - consensual democratic processes while encountering the inability of such a democracy to exist in the socio - political sphere of present- day Serbia . By non - consensual democracy we mean conditions that allow for the existence of conflict among its members , yet still preser ve a unified social and democratic nature . This Reader brings together essays that continue the discussions spawned by the work presented as part of the project , addressing civil obedience and disobedience , social and institutional responsibility , NGOs , refusal and trauma , post- trauma , and the canonical narrative on which the State is founded . Is it possible to disobey a state dictate or state power, and how is all that being translated in the local sphere ? 1 The poem’s title is “Brotherhood and unity” Four of Avdić’s poems are included in this anthology. Udi Edelman analyses obedience to authority through one of the first – possibly the ver y first – texts to engage directly in this subject : that of étienne de la Boétie , a young law student who , in 1552 , wrote his thesis about “The Discourse of Voluntar y Ser vitude ” (“ Discours de la ser vitude volontaire ” ), a treatise also known as “Anti - One ”. For the most part , this 9 discourse pertained to the morality of the act of disobedience as well as the ethical questions of why and when a person must cease obeying , refusing the law and order he had previously followed . Ran Kasmy - Ilan attempt s to reconstruct the feelings he had during his militar y ser vice in the Israeli Defence Force ( idF ) bet ween 1995 -1998 . In unfolding a testimony he recapitulates a personal experience – which does not mean that it was a unique one – and thereby validates it . For Kasmy - ilan , the process of taking responsibilit y and confronting the past by providing knowledge reaffirms his work as a curator and an educator who engages in issues around obedience , authorit y , conformism , responsibilit y ( social responsibilit y in par ticular ), disobedience , and non - conformism . He concludes his testimony by describing the process of his release from the IDF ’ s reser ve ser vice ( obligator y by israeli law ) following a meeting with the militar y psychiatrist at the PTSD Unit . While Post-Traumatic Stress disorder ( PTSd ) is associated with soldiers ’ war experiences , it is not exclusive to them . Rape , incest , and child abuse may also cause post- trauma , as well as road accidents , and any event that contains a threat to human life . Research into PTSD began in the aftermath of World War I . Back then , the term “ shell shock ” was used to describe the phenomenon and it was thought to be connected to the sound of exploding heav y artiller y . Only after the Vietnam War did psychologists gain a more profound understanding of this condition . A militar y historian exploring oral histor y in the Netherlands , dr. Stef Scagliola , inter viewed Dutch veterans from World War II to the war in Afghanistan . Her research is intended to present oral historical information to the scientific community and the public at large : to provide data about men and women who shifted from civil to militar y life and back again . The inter view outcomes challenge existing knowledge and understanding regarding the state of these individuals , and maps impor tant terrain of the social dynamics within the armed forces . Scagliola ’ s study spanned approximately 1, 0 0 0 personal inter views with World War II veterans . The oldest inter view contains a testimony about the Dutch forces that objected to Na zi occupation in may 194 0 , and the most recent ones relate to the international campaigns in Afghanistan . 10 Areas defined as geopolitical / ethnic / national conflict zones are characterised by the repression of social conflicts . This is achieved either directly ; by intensification and provocation of historical conflicts , bringing to the fore several incongruous historical narratives that spawn contention within society itself and obfuscating those conflicts which require immediate treatment ; or by radicalising existing conflicts within society itself, defining society as a collection of different groups urged to battle one another. In her text “ Society : Who is the Other ? Or, Becoming - Public ,” Noa Treister maintains that the State ( Serbia ) deconstructs the idea of society as a single group , instead positing it as a collection of individuals and interest groups that “ naturally ” have antithetical goals which must be managed by the State itself. This management happens via the delegation of authority to private organisations and NGOs that assist the different groups ( from humanitarian assistance to assistance through visibility ). The government thus supports a politics of division and of separation of identities . In other words , the government sustains war and conflicts ( e . g . when one of its representatives asks students “ if we lower the tuition fees and you receive a larger share of the State budget , what will the workers , ex - ser vicemen , or the disabled say?”). Naming IT War is the title of the project launched by Treister in collaboration with the Center for Cultural Decontamination (C ZKd ) 2 during the 52 nd October Salon . The project ’s title does not refer exclusively to the infrastructure developed in Serbia during the 1990s that anyway continues until today. Naming IT War remains relevant as the current form of government continues to sustain war against members of Serbian society , and against the ver y concept of society , by turning organizations and groups in society against one another. Another member of C ZKD , Branimir Stojanović , studies disciplines ranging from philosophy and psychoanalysis to ar t . For this anthology he chose to write the biography of B . S ., a student of philosophy at the University of Belgrade in the late 1970s , whereby the paradox of the ruling par ty at the time is unfolded in the repression of philosophy during the course of Yugoslavian socialism . Stojanović describes the philosophical field at the time as imbued with hatred , aiming at the total destruction of philosophy , as philosophers forced themselves to speak in the name of democracy , multi - par ty rhetorics , and the State . B . S ., the student , distanced himself not only from the Par ty , the State , and factionalism , but also from the study of philosophy . he left his theoretical discipline and turned to theoretical and practical psychoanalysis instead . http://www.czkd.org/ aktuelno.php?lang=en 2 In his anthropological work , Ivan Čolović explores the emergence of new fascism in Serbia through football hooliganism . Via examples pertaining to the sport ’s fans , he analyses present- day Serbia . Čolović describes how these fans gather according to various groupings and “ firms ”, certain that they are the best the countr y has to offer, that they are the kingpin of the Serbian state , ser ving its interests and representing its identity. These fans regard themselves as the defenders of Serbia ’s heroic tradition and orthodoxy , and their mission is to spearhead ever y battle over Serbia , not only on the pitch , but also elsewhere . The football hooligans do not have to organise ; they are always ready , willing to kill , destroy and burn in the name of Serbianness . Entering one of the group ’s websites , one will find the slogan : “ Kosovo is Serbia ”, rather than the 11 usual declaration of support for a sports club . The slogan has been used over the past ten years to promote so - called “ stable national forces .” damir Arsenijević cites a conversation in a poetr y - reading group , a meeting held in Banja Luka , analysing Damir Avdić ’s poem “ it ’s time we got to know each other as we really are ”. The poem incited a debate amongst the group on two main levels . One is the brutal language used by Avdić , and the other, is the mirror he puts up in front of Tito ’s regime or yugoslavia ’s socialist era . yugoslavia ’s disbanding , the war, and the constant conflicts have long occupied scholars , philosophers , anthropologists , artists , culture makers , as well as government and policy researchers . The dissolution of the socialist bloc in Yugoslavia , as well as the political changes and reforms of various government systems , arises in the subsequent texts in the reader. Most of those in the following pages analyse the ways in which tactics of domination and control , rather than actual leadership , are implemented under different forms of government to construct a divided , hence obedient society. Lana Zdravković maintains that today we are left with ‘ idyll states of the political ’ habitually named ‘ consensual democracy ’, but really presenting antithetical conditions : such as the creation of artificial democracies versus resistance of totalitarianism , or the ultimate clash between good and evil . The victor y of democracy is presented as the victor y of a ( national , super- national , cross - national ) structure over institutions that are supposed to manifest the sovereignty of people as a political and economic system , understood as something that is ideologically imposed . Today , a state cannot be simply a democratic state but must proclaim its democracy as part of its identity. Moreover when democracy is likened to humanitarianism anything non - democratic is perceived as pathological or, at best , in need of re - education . At worst , these pathologies supposedly require militar y inter vention by the so called “ forces of democracy ”. 12 13 BROThERhOOd ANd UNiT y Brotherhood and unity died on two floors in mass graves and concentration camps to which of these floors should I play for you you nostalgic cunt Fuck your yugoslavia fuck your Balkan beat fuck your region , and have Tito fuck your parents Brotherhood and unity died on two floors with firing squads and mass killers which of these two are you dancing to , you nostalgic cunt Fuck your Bijelo Dugme fuck your Lepa Brena fuck your Johnny Štulić fuck your Paket Aranžman shove communism up the ass of your swastika * and your mother Brotherhood and unity have ended it is time we got to know each other as we really are… Damir Avdić Graha 16 UnderStanding diSobedienCe: la boétie’S anti-one and defianCe manoeUvre Udi Edelman “ Why should I obey ?” In a sense this is a childish question , a question put for ward by an infant even before he can pronounce his first word . For a child , this is also the question , “ Why are you asking this from me ?” or even more precisely , ‘ What do you want from me ?” These doubts in the early stages of life come back again and again as the child grows mature ; always directed towards some kind of sovereignty , identifying it . Whether the one who asks doesn ’ t want to obey , cannot obey , or does not understand how he is supposed to obey , what he does know at this moment is that power is standing over him . As Louis Althusser explains , this is actually a moment of interpellation – where one gets his subjectivity in the first place .1 It is the elementar y constellation of the two , master and subject . Louis Althusser. “Ideology and ideological State Apparatuses,” in Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays (New york and London: Monthly Review Press, 1971) pp. 162-183 1 Henry David Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience is the first paradigm for this discussion. 2 Questions of obedience and disobedience have been discussed by various thinkers and philosophers for thousands of years . Much of the discussion has dealt with the morality of an act , as well as the ethical questions regarding why and when a person should assert their own sovereignty : refusing the laws and orders that he obeyed until that moment . 2 it is a discussion about ‘ the great privilege to say NO ,’ as a well - known hebrew song says . I would like to leave aside the discussion of whether one has a right or even an obligation to disobey. instead , i would like to go back to an arbitrar y zero point in the histor y of this . 17 discussion in order to tr y and figure out what the possible maneuvers of disobedience are , or simply put – how one can disobey and what disobedience should look like today . This preliminar y quest aims to draw a sketch of these possibilities . in 1552 , étienne de la Boétie , a young law student , wrote a treatise that is thought by many to be the first to deal explicitly with men ’s obedience to power and the possibility of disobedience . 3 “The Discourse of voluntar y Ser vitude ” ( discours de la ser vitude volontaire ), better known as Anti - One ( Contr ’ un ) was written while La Boétie was still studying at the University of Orléans . 4 This subversive and unique text was never published during his short life but was circulating among his friends and colleagues until first printed in 1574 . It is interesting to note that La Boétie himself chose a different and much more conser vative path which calumniated in a position at the Bordeaux parliament in 154 4 . In this early text there seemed to be no need to morally justify disobedience , but merely to question the reasons for men ’s obedience at all . Anti - One discusses how come people obey ; how obedience ser ves and creates power and why one should disobey no matter what regime governs him . Underlining this discussion is a musing by La Boétie present amongst the first pages : how it happens that so many men , so many villages [ .. ] suffer under a single tyrant who has no other power than the power they give him ; who is able to harm them only to the extent to which they have the willingness to bear with him ; who could do them absolutely no injury unless they preferred to put up with him rather than contradict him . 5 There is no question here of why disobey , but rather, how is it that men obey to begin with ? What is it that makes them obey rather than not ? These questions concerning political reality already indicate La Boétie ’s fundamental insight – an understanding that will bring forth the whole case of the text – and it is that ever y political power must be grounded upon general popular acceptance and that fact that it will fall and disappear if people stop doing what this power asks from them , if they refuse to answer its calls . As he explains this constellation of power: There is no need of fighting to overcome this single tyrant , for he is automatically defeated if the country refuses consent to its own enslavement : it is not necessary to deprive him of anything , but simply to give him nothing [ .. ] It is therefore the inhabitants themselves who permit , or, rather, bring about , their own subjection , since by ceasing to submit they would put an end to their ser vitude . 6 18 Relations between a tyrant and his people are reciprocal , but in a sense that the tyrant gets his sole power from the people ’s consent . For La Boétie there no longer exists divine right for the ruler – one that gives him . Some go back as far as Plato’s “Apology” or Sophocles’s “Antigona”. Although these texts explain important ideas about obedience, this is not done as a study in obedience as such. 3 Etienne de La Boétie. The Politics of Obedience: The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude (montreal: Black Rose Books, 1975). Online version available: http:// www.mises.org/rothbard/ boetie.pdf 4 5 ibid., 42. 6 ibid., 46. external power – only this relationship with the people that is obtained . Later on , La Boétie will explain that what guards this formation is a pyramid of interests and personal benefits that gain power from this structure , but the basic formation will still be that of the people versus the ruler. This being the case , La Boétie ’s central concern is thus , why do people remain obedient ? Why do people choose to live under power, to be subjected to it , if these relations are so fragile that they can break at any moment people choose ? in La Boétie ’s understanding as well as in later views , the explanation of fear is certainly not the first reason for subjection . La Boétie claims that customs and habits make people stay in this unfortunate situation . Customs that oppose the way people are supposed to act by nature . It is crucial to understand the abyss open between men ’s nature and reason and what La Boétie calls “ custom ”. We return here to the position of the infant , as La Boétie suggests the following thought experiment : let us imagine some newborn individuals , neither acquainted with slavery nor desirous of liberty , ignorant indeed of the very words [ ... ] There can be no doubt that they would much prefer to be guided by reason itself than to be ordered about by the whims of a single man . 7 This argues that a different path is taken somehow out of reason , and into the arms of power and obedience . it is so , says La Boétie , because ever y newborn comes already to a world of obedience , to parents who live under a certain regime , in a land and people that already have their master and accepted his authority. In this case the ones born into submission are content ‘ to live in their native circumstance [ ...] considering as quite natural the condition into which they were born .’ 8 As a whole generation knows of nothing else , they : will grow accustomed to the idea that they have always been in subjection , that their fathers lived in the same way ; they will think they are obliged to suffer this evil , and will persuade themselves by example and imitation of others , [ ... ] based on the idea that it has always been that way. 9 It is our parents and native environment as such that bequeath us customs and teach the way men and women are supposed to live . moreover, we can say that it is not only obedience per se they teach us , it is also how to think and reason itself, or common sense if you would like . 7 ibid., 54. 8 ibid., 55. 9 ibid., 60. If this is the case , then disobedience can be conceived not only in relation to rules but also in a much wider range of customs , habits and norms . It cannot be the refusal to obey some concrete law or even the complete law book alone . There are a variety of maneuvers which do not merely say “ NO ” to power, and which do not comply to the set of given possibilities – which answer in non - sensical way . 19 In the summer of 2011 a housing protest broke out in Israel . What started as a few tents in a main boulevard of the city of Tel - Aviv became , within a few weeks , the biggest civil protest ever known in Israel with more than 40 0 , 0 0 0 protesters in the streets , “ tent cities ” alongside hundreds of assemblies and civil acts in public space . As this protest grew , the government and the media required the protest leaders to present an explicit and complete list of demands . The response was unusual in this political landscape . The protest leadership refused to produce such a list ; moreover, they declared that they would speak only with the Prime Minister directly and if this conversation were broadcast live . This act was more than just a refusal to respond in regard to what the protesters wanted ; it was a response that did not operate like former struggles . This was a refusal to respond as expected – the way that power wants to be answered . Throughout the protests , journalists and professional politicians argued that the group of young protesters did not know how to handle the struggle , saying that they should step down and let the “ experts ”, trade unions and so on , take over the struggle and negotiate with the government . What these professionals were actually asking for was a calculable gesture , a sign that ’s already had its preordered reactive sign , and the delegates who know how to produce these signs . By refusing to produce such a sign , the protesters refused to obey the predetermined and dictated conditions of the situation . I would like to suggest that these kinds of refusals and acts of disregard for the “ rules of the game ” are crucial for the struggle . These forms of response have , at the ver y least , the potential of gaining some power and sovereignty back by refusing the requests issued from a position of assumed rationality . In their eminent book regarding the one and the many , A Thousand Plateaus , Deleuze and Guattari ask what are is the relations between the State ’s form and human ( rational ) thought . Their answer intertwines the two elements in a reciprocal relation : 20 Thought as such is already in conformity with a model that it borrows from the State apparatus , and which defines for it goals and paths , conduits , channels , organs , an entire organon . There is thus an image of thought covering all of thought [ .. ] by developing in thought in this way the State form gains something essential : a whole consensus . Only thought is capable of inventing the fiction of a State that is universal by right , of elevating the State to the level of de jure universality [ ... ] It is no longer a question of powerful , extrinsic organizations , or of strange bands : the State becomes the sole principle separating rebel subjects , who are consigned to the state of nature , from consenting subjects , who rally to its form of their own accord . If it is advantageous for thought to prop itself up with the State , it is no less advantageous for the State to extend itself in thought , and to be sanctioned by it as the unique , universal form [ ... ] For the modern State defines itself in principle as “ the rational and reasonable organization of a community.” 10 10 Deleuze, Gilles & Felix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus (London: Continuum Books, 1987) pp. 413-414. This image of thought suggests a unique and exclusive connection between rationality and the State . Through this kind of rationality the rebels find themselves away in the state of nature , but this is no longer La Boétie ’s “ nature ” that is the basis of freedom and reason ; rather it is a Hobbesian one that brings only suffering and no possibility for civil life . Whatever lies outside the State ’s form is only negativity. Rationality , they say , is made in the form of the State , meaning that the State is the only possibility of this thought for human life . In this sense the ‘ rational reason ’ that La Boétie thought could save us , is also the place of our rigid State disciplinar y . What Deleuze and Guattari find outside the state is the nomad and the social assemblage of what they call the ‘ war- machine ’ – each possessing a different constellation of thought and relation to the world . we can leave aside Deleuze and Guattari ’s complex understanding of the outside as positivity for now , so long as we take this tension between the State and thought and ask ourselves what this offers us as a field of conflict . What I would like to suggest is that if rationality is made in the form of the State – and therefore justifies the State as the only possible form of civil life as Deleuze and Guattari put it – disobedience should not only be about saying NO , but it should also contest rationality and sense as such . And so , the disobedient should consider as his contested sphere not only the law of the State but also the laws of rationality , or quite simply what is a customar y understanding of a “ rational act ”. we can say that rationality is a way of understanding the world , and so this kind of disobedience should be conceived as a political tactic that mis - understands . misunderstanding , with or without intention , in this sense determines what it is that needs - to - be - done at a certain point in a conversation with power, when doing “ what is expected ” would already be obedient to the order of power. 11 Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri. Empire (Cambridge: harvard University Press, 2001) p. 204. W hen power is answered in a way that differs from the set s of assumed possibilities , an embarrassment may occur . In these moment s of incompatibilit y , power loses it s own sense of coherence and the seemingly continuous presentation of it s sovereignt y . To expose the power without answer of it s own reviles the problematic of it s rationalit y , it s incompleteness . however , these moment s are almost always shor t and are bound to disappear as fast as the power organises it self once again , offering new answers to the disobedient presentation of misunderstanding – putting things back in order. A general response may identif y the subject s in different ( but preordered ) positions , calling them in such names such as : Anarchist s – those who just want to destroy ever y thing , C hildish – those who play games and do not know how to act , or Criminals – those who have unmoral interest s in their act s . This is why these moment s of disobedience and instabilit y can never come alone , and can only be , as hardt and Negri say , the first step towards ‘ liberator y politics ’: on a path to a new social body . 11 21 This short treatise is the beginning of a thought , an outline for what disobedience can mean today , how we can disobey , or if we can do it at all . La Boétie may have been the first to tr y and understand how obedience works , and still today he offers a ver y fundamental understanding of constellations of obedience in human life . Today however, obedience is so embedded in life and in our conception of citizenship that it is ver y hard to grasp and believe his basic premise , namely the possibility to stop obeying . We must understand disobedience in all its complexity – as a work on sense and reason , as a work of the subject on his own subjectivity and as part of numerous acts of revolt and liberation . Addressing thought and reason , what needs to be done , maybe more than ever before , is to stop understanding how we are supposed to obey , and to adopt a childish misunderstanding of what power want . 22 23 24 bleeding Heart Ran Kasmy-ilan I ser ved in the Israeli Defence Force in the years 1995 -1998 . during that time I experienced as a soldier the implementation of the Oslo Agreements ( entitled by the militar y as the “ rainbow of colours ”); the assassination of Yit zhak Rabin ; and the following elections that brought Binyamin Netanyahu to power for the first time . most of my militar y ser vice was spent in the occupied territories – in a base outside the settlement of Barkan , and then later in nearby Kalkilia , but the majority was spent near Nablus . I thought to open with this information because it is omitted from my resumé . IDF duty is mandator y for all Jewish citizens of israel . It is the ultimate rite of passage for ever y young Israeli . At the age of 18 your childhood ends and from that moment onward you are someone in ser vice to your countr y . Although the number of young people who refuse has consistently increased each year, there is still a large Jewish majority that does its duty in full . In my profession , talking about your personal militar y ser vice is usually avoided . From the moment I was asked to write this text and throughout the writing process I was over whelmed with guilt . I found myself thinking about the soldiers I ser ved with , imagining their reactions in case they ever read this , conducting conversations with them in my mind – being defensive . I have had no contact with the soldiers I ser ved with from the moment of my discharge almost 14 years ago . i didn ’ t even go to the 25 official memorial ceremonies for my battalion , as I stopped attending a few years ago . however, the fact that I am expressing a minority opinion rattles me . Israel leaves ver y little room for opinions that deviate from the national consensus . You are either a Zionist or an anti - Zionist ; you are either with us or against us . I enlisted in March 1995 , my serial number is 5198735 – and I have never managed to forget it . Until this day that number remains on the tip of my tongue , instantly ready to be let out to the wide world , reducing me to another in a long and unending list of militar y serial numbers . At 18 I ignored my personal responsibility for the actions of my society ; i distanced myself from it and from any form of collective accountability . I was never forced to put my opinions through the test , a fact that made keeping them substantially easier. i wasn ’ t willing to pay the price of refusal , despite the moral principles I had against it . i didn ’ t recognise my own right to protest because I wasn ’ t willing to deal with the consequences . My refusal to doubt was my refusal to bear the weight of collective responsibility . This is no mea culpa ; rather, this is a testimonial – perhaps confused , non - chronological , fragmented , but still real testimony . i don ’ t believe my stor y is unique , and this may be the ver y reason for its validity . It is a small part of my taking responsibility and dealing with the past through the telling of a tale . It is one explanation for my occupation , as a curator and an educator in matters of obedience , noncompliance , conformism , responsibility and social accountability , disobedience and nonconformism . From as early as the first days of basic training , which lasted four months , my system of checks and balances under went a recalibration . The only way I could sur vive the next three years required a complete suspension of my ethical principles . i integrated into the strict hierarchical structure to feel I “ belonged ”. I gave up personal characteristics and in return I was relieved of any personal responsibility . I became an arbitrar y signifier of the collective . The re socialisation process implemented in all armies is violent and cruel ; this is a way to prepare soldiers for combat , so that in the moment of truth they can function dispassionately , so that the clash with reality is dulled . From the first week on we were told again and again that the army ’ s job is to win the war , they explained combat methods against the Syrian army and taught us to identif y Jordanian tanks – but police work was never mentioned . 26 As a new recruit you are forced to deal with external pressure from higher up the hierarchy , and you rapidly comprehend that any attempt to undermine the basic principles and dare take on risks carries a heav y price . you are ground down to your most basic needs because you are in a constant state of deprivation . The food you get is limited ; mealtimes are predetermined ; your sleep is regulated but you are never informed when or how long it will be ; the day is divided into units of time you never know in 1961 Stanley milgram conducted his famous social psychology experiment, Obedience to Authority. Milgram sought to answer the question of whether collaborators of the Nazi extermination program were simply “following orders”. The experiment examined the influence of authority and participants compliance to authority figures, instructing them to carry out orders that went against the moral principles they held dear. In the first series of experiments, 65% of participants agreed to give electric shocks of increasing power, ranging from 15 to 450 volts, to another person simply because an authority figure instructed them to do so. Even though several were resistant not one stopped the experiment before administrating shocks reaching 300 Volts. 1 In 1971 the basement floor of the Stanford University Psychology Department and several offices were cleared out and entrances barred in preparation for Phillip Zimbardo’s prison experiment. Male participants were enlisted through a newspaper ad, and were divided arbitrarily into prisoners and guards. “Prisoners” were “arrested” by local police and led, with blindfolds and handcuffs, to the Zimbardo “prison”, where they were sanitised and dressed in uniforms by “guards”. Guards also had uniforms and had complete authority to control prisoners as they saw fit. The experiment was designed to continue for two weeks but matters already began spinning out of control on the second day when the guards violently suppressed a prisoner’s rebellion. the order of; and you lose any control over any aspect of your life . you do not decide , you are in a constant state of sur viving . Ever ything has its predetermined time , often aimless – keeping to schedule supersedes the actual completion of the task at hand . You learn how the system works ver y quickly , and discover that the only way to sur vive is by blind obedience stemming from utter submission to the crushing force you are being subjected to . i remember us , a company of new recruits , sitting in the mess hall , eight around each table , all quietly ner vous and looking at each other, busy calculating our approximate distance from the food plates , waiting for the command allowing us to eat . i used to do a lot of guard duty at night , much more than necessar y , as other soldiers in my company soon learned that if woken I would always report for duty , whether it was my turn or not . It was then I learned that sleep deprivation made soldiers talk in their sleep , sometimes even cr y out . One night , while we slept in the training grounds , I stood amidst the incessant murmurings of sleeping soldiers , tr ying to listen to what they had to say . A second later a scream from one of the company soldiers cut through the hum : “ i want to do the medics course !” – an impassioned desire to leave training for even just a few months . The scream was terrible and resonated as it echoed from the hills surrounding us . it didn ’ t wake a soul . Individual dependence on authority was researched after World War II in a series of experiments in the field of social psychology . The most notable of these was Stanley Milgram ’s Obedience to Authority experiments , first conducted in the Yale University Department of Psychology in 1961. The second was the prison experiment conducted a decade later by Phillip Zimbardo in the basement of the Stanford University psychology department . The examination of obedience to authority and its effects became valid in a world that had produced the Nazi extermination programme . One of the more astonishing findings of the Milgram experiment was that , of all the examinees instructed to give electric shocks to a person they had just met , not one chose to immediately refuse the order.1 Even those that resisted fulfilling orders that went against their morality – people who finally stopped the process despite the authority figure ’s relentless instructions to continue – even they did not terminate the experiment before handing out 30 0 Volts worth of shocks . The experiment was abruptly terminated on the sixth day and was never again conducted as it is now considered a breach of ethics to re-enact it. Obedience is critical in any militar y system . Relying on your judgment and undermining this basic principle is unacceptable ; the entire training process programmes you for that moment of truth when you will be required to act automatically . Dulling the senses is necessar y for war ; it mutes as much as possible the shock of confronting reality . The problem lies in the fact that the majority of regular army ser vice is spent policing the occupied territories and controlling the lives of a civilian population . 27 A series of harsh movement restrictions are imposed on Palestinians via the army . “ young ” soldiers (“ young ” referring to the first 36 months of mandator y duty whereby soldiers are at the ver y bottom of the hierarchical food chain ) spend most of their time in permanent checkpoints or mobile road blocks – these control Palestinians movement in the West Bank . This is carried out without ever explaining the interests behind such assignments apart from a few mumbled slogans . At the end of the training and re - socialisation process , where we find our slot in the collective paradigm , where we lose our personal traits in return for fitting into the hierarchical system and feeling a sense of worth and belonging – here the significance of the “ other ” is finally and totally negated . After long months of being utterly powerless during basic training and advanced combat training – of being the weakest link even within your own unit ( required doing assignments and duties veteran soldiers are unwilling to do ) – at that moment you are suddenly given the power over others . In that situation , the checkpoint becomes a possibilit y of attaining a cer tain measure of control over your own life . The lack of clear commands as to the tolerable and the inviolate creates confusion : a grey area where soldiers act individually . Of ten enough , you see drawn - out check s and searches of Palestinians that should not have required a search of any kind . The routine 8x8 guard shif t s ( 8 hours standing and 8 at rest ) is exhausting and wears you down – giving soldiers an opening to find various , creative ways to cope with realit y . Suddenly an option exist s for letting some of the pressure caused from above to be vented below . Of ten the easiest of means is to create cues of tens and hundreds of Palestinians , people waiting for hours to get to their jobs in Israel . Frequently you can see the deliberately slow work of the unit soldiers : humiliating treatment that , more often than not , turns into physical violence . Young men are handed an unreasonable measure of power after having had no authority for months . I managed to avoid the checkpoint duty with a fairly random traffic accident that took me out of training after several months , and so I escaped from having to face that dilemma on a daily basis . I obser ved that impossible daily grinding routine as it transformed my fellow soldiers into men aspiring to the ver y pinnacle of the professional elite – an opportunity to fulfil , even at a fraction , the task for which we were trained , so that the slightest glimmer of resistance was met with a wildly disproportional response . 28 The militar y system did not enact strict , clear rules about use of force or control of others . Abuse of innocent civilians became a possibility if conceived as the best method of adhering to commands from on high . I often look back at my ser vice and wonder how I never thought to question the legality of the commands I was given , how I didn ’ t take responsibility for being par t of an entire system that dehumanises people . Over the years I discovered that a sense of collective responsibility is a true force propelling disobedience of authority . At the time I was not willing to pay the penalty . Another alienation technique employed by the army pertains to language . Radio communication between soldiers is always encoded . words are transmuted through the code system because “ the enemy is always listening ”. The language that evolved is designed to distance reality , to sanitise it . Palestinians are called “ locals ”, a soldier is a “ matchstick ” and female soldiers are , quite obviously , “ skirts ”. What always surprised me was the reference to wounded soldiers as “ flowers ” and fatalities as “ harduf ” ( a native israeli flower ). Whole phrases and terms from the academic world and that of philosophy in particular are hollowed out and diluted to create distance from the conflict and a de - humanisation of the other, while maintaining a clean , reasoned discourse . For example , the term “ searing consciousness ” coined by former IDF Chief of Staff Moshe ( Boogie ) ya ’alon refers to war as a sterile space in which awareness motivates action . Another example is the division of the population into “ involved ” and “ uninvolved ” categories ( because defining them as innocents or innocent civilians would make soldiers criminals ). Phrases such as “ scenario ” and “ leverage ” are designed to alienate you from the other so that you can wipe away their existence . This simplification of reality creates a problem generally referred to as the “ human element ”. Dispelling the other in the name of justice allows you to do things to him and with him that would be considered inconceivable for a “ human being ”. The Western Wall Tunnel events of 24-27 September 1996 were three days of intense fighting between Israel and the Palestinians. violence broke out after the entrance tunnels were opened beneath the Old City of Jerusalem at the order of Prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu in his first term in office. 2 The morning of 26 September 1996 , af ter t wo days of violence in response to the opening of the Western Wall Tunnel in the Old Cit y of jerusalem , 2 began with heav y combat in the entire Nablus area . Eleven soldiers and 69 Palestinians were killed . At the day ’ s close tank s surrounded the cit y and a unit of soldiers , my unit , found it self trapped in the monument of Joseph ’ s Tomb , a tiny enclave on Palestinian soil . Within one hour attempt s to bring in reinforcement s ended with the deaths of five soldiers and many others injured . This was the moment in which my personal realit y and that of the general region ( i . e . “ the situation ” ) collided in force – a moment that still resonates today . it was a single day that lasted 70 hours ; at it s end my knees shook and I could no longer suppor t my own weight . I knew it could not have been in vain . Not af ter having run bet ween gurneys with the dead and wounded . A Ch - 53 Sea Stallion helicopter , a terrif ying ungainly lump of steel , landed on the field out side the enclave entrance , driving rock s into the air with it s propulsion . i , along with the medic , hunched over a gurney , glued to a soldier ver y much in pain , flying rock s cutting into my back , the sharp stink of sweat and blood in my nostrils , not hearing any thing but the aw ful noise above me . I was completely dependent on the system and had to verif y the values for which all this had occurred . 29 In the next weeks I had no contact with my family. They were abroad when all this happened and immediately returned on hearing the news reports . It was three weeks later when I finally managed to get a phone line and speak with them . The conversation with my father was brief and he promptly handed the phone to my mother. On hearing her voice i burst into uncontrolled tears , the weeks finally caught up with me in that instant meltdown . At that exact moment , alone in the unit control room , one hand on the phone and the other gripping the table , the door opened behind me and someone walked in , asking for the intelligence officer. Without turning I yelled as loudly as I could that he , “get out !” The ensuing silence made me turn around to see who I ’ d yelled at . Before me was a colonel , a senior- ranking officer with the unit of reinforcements sent after the riots . I stood there cr ying and shaking . I had made the mistake of yelling at a commander in my first week of basic training and had never forgotten the consequences . This time the officer was of ver y high rank and subsequent repercussions much worse . i didn ’ t care . he stared at me a long while , silent . Finally he left the room . In that instant where all hell had broken loose , the one moment I lashed out against an authoritative figure in one uncontrollable burst , authority crumbled . In that last year of militar y ser vice , until my discharge , i was often sent to visit the families of the soldiers that had died that day . my battalion commander realised I had a way of communicating with the bereaved families . In these situations I could act naturally and be suppor tive , I managed to avoid the paralysing awk wardness that usually characterised these meetings with people who had lost ever ything that was dear to them . I saw up close the justification mechanism I thought so impor tant when facing parents of children that had died in their early twenties . Their deaths had to mean something ; it had to be a hero ’ s death if it was to be coped with . The burning loss welling up from within them had to have an outlet , they had to have something to hold on to , some noble cause . On the morning of my last day before my final leave , I woke up in a jeep after a large military exercise in the south of Israel . i didn ’ t wait for its completion and left straight from the training grounds towards home . i was still in my fatigues , dirty and sweaty , hitchhiking all the way to my parent ’s house . I asked one of the guys who lived close by to bring my personal kit . i didn ’ t care about anything besides my freedom and the hope of putting it all behind me , letting it gather dust and sink into oblivion . it was important to forget . Just a few days after my discharge I found a job in theatre production , working round - the - clock , seven - day weeks . That ’s what I wanted . Two years later I started my studies in the Bezalel Academy Art Department in Jerusalem . I had a new, full life . i managed to distance myself almost completely from the events of those army years . 30 I knew that one day I would be called for reser ve duty but nothing could have prepared me for the impact this would have . 3 The militar y - Israeli citizens that have completed their regular service are later assigned reserve duty to provide reinforcements during times of emergency and mostly to perform “routine” security tasks. Reserve duty is considered an essential part of the national ethos. it lasts 20-30 years after discharge, depending on your military rank and training. 3 stamped envelope in the mail stopped me in my tracks . All the things I had suppressed with the passage of time came welling up – but now I was no longer part of the system , I had nothing to rely on , the break was complete . The first thing to return was the smell , an unbearable mixture of sweat , blood , asphalt and dirt , a living memor y . From that moment anything and ever ything became a catalyst returning me to that point in time . Helicopters flying above , the sight of soldiers , loud noises or the smell of eucalyptus trees like the ones that surrounded the shack where the cold business of identifying and tagging the bodies had been done . i went sent , per protocol , to the army psychiatrist in the PTSD ( Post -Traumatic Stress disorder ) unit . This unit is located outside the reception and sorting base where thousands of new , 18 - year- old recruits are enlisted in an endless assembly line . They don ’ t wear uniforms in that unit . The series of meetings I had there eventually brought about my final discharge . I ser ved in the IDF in the years 1995 -1998 . In my profession one does not discuss ones militar y ser vice ; guilt is not a good starting point for action . I have found myself returning to those places in recent years , participating and promoting various projects in the West Bank , dealing with questions never asked in the society I am part of; taking responsibility for anyone living between the Jordan River and the sea ; making myself accountable for the terrible acts committed in my name – digging up old wounds . I belong to a small group of the arts community that operate an uncompromising centre for contemporar y art , an institution that from the day of its inception works on the assumption that if art cannot change reality , it must at least take part in it . A personal opinion is much more than your right ; it is , above all , your first civic duty. 31 32 tHe dUtCH veteranS interview projeCt: reCognition and attention in exCHange for valUable information dr. Stef Scagliola “I shot at the enemy without hesitation , but today I wouldn ’ t dare kill a chicken .” Accounts from people who have been actively involved in warfare , which are then told in a peaceful and safe environment , are excellent resources for studying the shifts in norms and values between the militar y and the civilian realm . It is with this contention that the Netherlands Veterans Institute ( vi ) decided to engage , in an extensive oral histor y project consisting of 10 0 0 collected biographical inter views with a representative number of veterans from all recent conflicts and militar y missions involving the Netherlands . The oldest inter viewees were conscripts in the defence of the Netherlands during the German invasion in may 1940 ; the youngest are professional militar y , trained for international operations such as those recently deployed in Afghanistan in the context of the International Stabilisation Force Afghanistan . The project ’s aim was to make this oral data accessible to the general public , media , educators , as well as the academic community . it was 33 thought that spreading knowledge of the personal experiences of men and women who have undergone the transition from civilian to militar y life and back , contributes to a better understanding of the position of such individuals in society and also provides insights into the social dynamics within the Armed Forces . Generating these type of narratives within the militar y context can be seen as a “ productive exchange ”: it is a token of attention and recognition to the veteran from a representative of the Ministr y of Defence in return for a retrospective account on how the organisation is seen by a former member now at liberty to speak openly about their experiences . To put this oral history project into perspective , this text first offers a brief description of the history and mission of the VI . This is followed by an explanation on how oral history can be applied as a multidisciplinary method to provide insights into the social dynamics of the Armed Forces . AN iNSTiTUTE FOR dUTCh wAR vETER ANS Not being involved in a large - scale conflict such as a World War I has many advantages , but for generations of veterans of later, smaller conflicts , one could say there are also negative long - term consequences . Dutch neutrality during the First World War and the relatively small militar y role that the Netherlands played in the Second meant that Dutch society lacked both the experience and institutions usually created in the aftermath of war – when the need for psycho - social care arises and offering recognition to war veterans is imminen t . The veterans of the unpopular and lost decolonisation war with Indonesia between 1945 and 1949 were the first to bear the consequences of this flaw . yet , due to their protests and a number of public controversies in the 1980s and 1990s , this topic was finally placed on the political agenda .1 One of the recommendations to the Ministr y of Defence was the establishment of an institute that would take care of the legitimate interests of veterans . This was the incentive for various social partners to combine forces with regard to care for, recognition of, and research on , veterans . in may , 20 0 0 Prime Minister Wim Kok officially opened the Dutch Veterans Institute . The concentration of ser vices and knowledge provided in one place , was now to the benefit of various generations of ex - militar y. In the meantime , the Dutch militar y contribution to international peace operations had been intensified in the aftermath of the Cold War in 1989 . 34 The aftermath of the Srebrenica genocide in 1995 , and the powerlessness felt by servicemen and women while deployed in peace - observing missions in general , were major issues in the veterans policy of the Nineties . S.Scagliola, “The Silences and Myths of a dirty war, coming to terms with the Dutch-Indonesian Decolonization War (19451949),” in European Review of History, june 2007. 1 ChAR ACTERiSATiON OF OR AL SOURCES ; AN OR AL hiSTORy ARChivE What is Oral Histor y? Oral histor y consists in eliciting a person to tell about his or her past while documenting the ensuing narrative so that it can be used as a historical resource . Unlike most written sources , the quality of the information is dependent on the interaction between two parties , the inter viewee and the inter viewer. Good preparation and an appropriate attitude on the part of the inter viewer are crucial . When combined with an inter viewee who possesses a sharp memor y and verbal skills , this can result in a rich and detailed inter view . 2 This type of oral histor y source can provide access to the experiences of social groups that are usually under- represented in written forms . By capturing narratives by representatives of groups who might lack verbal access to public life ( as in the case of unskilled workers , women , ethnic minorities and homosexuals ), oral histor y sources can function as a counter- weight against the dominant discourse of the more powerful in society . 3 Oral histor y not only provides unknown facts or illuminates unknown aspects of known events , it also provides insight into the way common people attribute meaning to the world around them – how they live through and shape social processes . By focusing on the micro - level and covering daily life , emotions , behavioural routines , material culture , family life and life in small - combat units , militar y oral histor y is able to offer a better understanding of particular human relationships . This enhanced understanding emerges not only by what people tell – the content – but also by the way they shape their stories : the form . 4 it is this multi - layered character of oral sources that makes this type of data relevant for a variety of scholars . Oral historian , valer y yaw refers to the emergent intellectual fields that work with memories and the ‘ trickle over effect ’ from related disciplines such as qualitative sociology , anthropology , biographical and literar y studies , linguistics , communication and narrative studies , folklore studies and other interdisciplinar y work exploring the relationship between memor y , narrative and personal identity . 5 [this paragraph contains a lot of lists – maybe think about restructuring sentences ? ] See Leydesdorff, 2004, p. 80; Yaw, 2005, pp. 3-4; Thomson and Perks, 2007, ix. 2 See Thompson, 1988; Leydesdorff, 2004, pp. 23-42. 3 4 5 See Portelli, 1991. See yaw, 2006. OR AL hiSTORy COmPAREd TO OThER SOURCES By its very nature , oral history is about retrospective accounts , descriptions of experiences in the past that have been affected over time since they occurred . Even more so , this kind of history is about the place and meaning of experiences in someone ’ s personal biography. For the historian who is less interested in the “ psychological ” dimension of reality than in factual truth , these constructions of the past can be a challenge . 35 He or she must know the context of the narrative and the complementary sources very well to be able to distinguish facts from fabrication . 6 Additionally , in the realm of oral histor y it is uncommon to hide the identity of the speaker. C onsequently the veterans that have contributed to the project cannot remain anonymous , as the goal of an oral histor y archive is precisely to offer the persons involved a platform from which to present their “ authentic ” stories . moreover, knowledge about who is speaking , as well as when and where the event took place , enables other researchers to link one oral account to other types of sources . There are , of course , limits to this due to the National Archives Act , which obliges the keeper of a collection to ensure the protection of the privacy of the speaker and of third parties mentioned by them , at least for some period of time . The openness of many oral histor y projects with regard to the identity of a source represents a significantly different approach to the practice of journalists or social scientists , who generally guarantee their sources anonymity with the expectation to increase the chance of obtaining pieces of information that would other wise remain hidden . 7 A last point that characterises material generated for an oral histor y archive is that it has been collected with future listeners in mind . Although the term “ oral histor y ” has a ver y broad meaning – referring to both individual researchers who conduct inter views with the goal of answering a specific research question , as more general archival efforts to create a broad range of experiences on a specific topic – oral histor y experts agree that the term is appropriate when the data is and remains available to third parties . ThE PROmiSES ANd LimiTATiONS OF OR AL SOURCES As previously stated , an oral source is not a factual account of past experiences that can be retrieved from our brain like a computer file . it is an interpretation of an experience by an individual who can provide information on a historical topic which is relevant and unique . Of course , when experiences are put into words , our memor y has already , both consciously and unconsciously , selected specific details that seem meaningful for the recall in a given situation . As time goes by , it is likely that people mix up details and dates and that their memor y has been “ tainted ” by what has been heard or read about an event later on . When a stor y has been told over and over again , it can become “ fossilized ” – blocking the possibility for the inter viewer to uncover new details by asking different questions . 6 36 Yet one can easily find the equivalent of these flaws in written sources , which are , after all , often the written form of something that one person told to another person . The chance of distortion in oral accounts See Yaw, 2005, pp. 8-9. See janoviceck,2006; Ni Laoire, 2007; Freund, 2009. 7 certainly is no less than that in written sources when these represent the standpoint of a powerful authority that has a motive to control certain types of information . Goffman ’s concept of a ‘ total institution ’ refers to subcultures in hierarchical organisations where ‘ uneasy truths ’ and ‘ myths ’ form a threat to the central authority . 8 Another problem is memory , especially with elder people . yet someone who does not remember what happened yesterday or a week ago , can have a very sharp memory of an event that occurred 30 years ago , especially when the experience refers to an existential threat to one ’ s life or to that of a comrade . These type of experiences tend to be strongly imprinted in our in memory. 9 Other aspects that should be taken into account when assessing the value of an oral source are the universal psychological tendency in retrospective accounts to justify one ’ s behaviour and to present one ’ s course of life as a logical sequence that can be steered , while in reality life is much more determined by coincidences . in sum , an oral histor y account can be seen as a multi - layered message , were facts , fabrication , imagination and meanings attributed to experiences are intertwined – representing different aspects of the same memor y. The narrative captured in an inter view is the product of a dynamic process between inter viewer and source .10 Together, they enter a “ negotiated “ process between past and present , between official and personal histor y , between norms and values in the Armed Forces and in civilian life , between sur vival strategies in wartime and social desirable behaviour in peacetime and especially between what they did at the time and what they now think they did . This is why biographical inter views contain a wealth of information not only for oral historians but also for academic colleagues from the social sciences . ORGANiSATiON OF ThE PROjECT ANd ACCESS TO ThE CONTENT 8 See Goffman, 1957. See Yaw, 2005, pp. 35-50; draaisma, 2008. The organisation of the Dutch Veterans Inter view Project was in the hands of a coordinator – the author of this contribution – and an assistant , who were responsible for the recruitment of the respondents , for an appropriate match between the veteran and one of the inter viewers as well as for the logistics of inter view training , data collection , processing and archiving . A team of fifteen inter viewers – most of them freelancers with an academic training or a background in journalism – received training on a regular basis with regard to the methodology of oral histor y as well as the militar y histor y of the various conflicts and militar y missions . 9 See Portelli, 1991; Leydesdorff, 2004. 10 The inter viewers were recruited in different regions of the countr y in order to be able to inter view the veterans at home , in a familiar setting , without having to travel to far. 37 After having conducted the inter view , the inter viewer could log in from home with a password to the database and insert the metadata of the audio recording according to a set of guidelines . First the personal data and data related to militar y career would be filled in . Subsequently , the inter view itself would be summarised in writing , based on units of 10 - minute recordings with key words attributed to each segment . Also acronyms , lingo and other specific terms used by the respondent would be listed , anticipating developments in speech retrieval techniques . At the end of the inter view the respondent signs a consent form in duplicate and transfers the copyright of the inter view to the VI . The inter viewers are asked to write a short brief on how the inter view was conducted . This helped the staff to determine which passages that are privacy - sensitive may be eligible for classified status . After receiving the signed consent statement , the veteran receives a complimentar y C D audio copy of their inter view , accompanied by a letter of thanks . It is remarkable how often the inter view on the CD would be the first time that some of the experiences of the veteran become the possession of the whole family . After his death , the sound of the veteran ’ s voice on the CD remains a cherished piece of memor y for those who stay behind . As half of the respondents had agreed to grant free access to their inter views , at the end of the project in September 2011, 50 0 inter views could be accessed through the Internet after registration on the VI website . The other half of the collection , which often contains sensitive information , can only be accessed with a password after signing an agreement about respecting cer tain archival rules regarding appropriate use of the documents . As the audio soundtrack as well as the metadata ( summaries , personal data , chronology of an individual ’ s militar y career, key - words ), have been stored in a digital format , the whole collection can be navigated with the help of a search engine in three environments : one for the general public with the help of basic search fields , one for researchers with extended search fields , and one for the administrator of the collection which also allows research in all fields and in classified inter views . The large amount of practical knowledge , unusual experiences , personal opinions and individual reflections supplied by the respondent ex soldiers yielded by the project , confirmed the initial assumption that this archive would be a rich source of information for various audiences . whO TALKS ANd whO dOESN ’T ANd why 38 The ambition of this project was the creation of a collection representative of the variety of conflicts and missions Dutch militia were engaged in , and , within these missions , the collection also represented the diversity of experience . This means the ambition was to give equal attention to representatives of the various branches of the Armed Forces , their soldiers ’ and officers ’ ranks and functions , as well as gender. Within a conflict or mission histor y , an effort was made to take into account differences in time and space as deployments in different periods , in different parts of a countr y , can differ significantly. The choice to select 10 0 0 veterans out of a number of approximately 120 0 0 0 Dutch veterans , was partly based on the symbolic appeal of a round figure , partly on the belief that 10 0 0 inter views would be enough to cover existing diversities and provide a satisfactor y degree of representativeness . The latter was a challenge , since what is desirable , was not always possible . Of the total population , after all , only two - thirds of the veterans are registered in the address database of the VI and receive the contact instrument , the monthly magazine Checkpoint , where advertisements were placed . Veterans also reacted to articles in professional magazines , to lectures held during veteran reunions , media coverage on the project , and to calls on new social media . One challenge was to reach the younger group of veterans since many of them were not registered at the VI . To reach them , advertisements were placed in trade journals of professions that are chosen by many young veterans – journals reaching police -, transport- or ambulance - personnel . Their cooperation in the inter view project was important as we wanted to know whether they had developed a different mindset with regard to their identity as veterans . In addition to finding a diverse but balanced group of respondents , another problem was finding enough former higher- profile members of staff who were willing to tell their stor y . in general , the “ urge to speak ” was stronger among veterans from the lower ranks . From the inter viewer ’s point of view it would have been desirable to begin inter views higher up in the militar y hierarchy , talking first to former commanders who could offer an over view of the entire mission because of their position of responsibility . Yet the “ higher ups ” had , in the course of their lives , already been asked several times about their experiences . Therefore their motivation for allowing themselves to be inter viewed was often not ver y strong . moreover, as representatives of the higher authorities , they tended to reproduce information that reflected the stor y which can be found in written sources . Their status , knowledge and skills are connected to the official policy , and they have been trained to reproduce the politically correct and militarily desirable version of what happened during a militar y mission . Counter- narratives and “ second thoughts ” are mostly found among older ex - commanders . They can look back and reassess what has been accomplished without the risk of damaging their own reputation or that of some colleague . A ver y small 39 za budućnost za budućnost for thezafuture budućnost za budućnost for the future for the future for the future za budućnost za budućnos za budućnost for the future for the futu the future za for budućnost za budućno za budućnost for thethe future for the fut for future group that has a strong motivation to speak are the – often low - ranking dissenters , who have distanced themselves from the organisation . PAT TERNS iN diSCOURS Troops i Actual place of the event my mates my commander At home my orders Criticism Reflection diaries Letters memoires Staff we The UN – NATO my unit The Armed Forces The Netherlands The mandate Professional Second thought Operational Reports historical accounts based on official source In the lower ranks the need to express one ’ s personal feelings and opinions tends to be stronger. Most of these individuals have never had this oppor tunity , nor have they had the chance to share their experiences with peers in civilian society – as former officers often do in establishment clubs . Besides the aspect of lacking motivation to speak among upper - ranking officers , another limitation we encountered in this inter view project was the fact that commanders of recent missions are still in active ser vice . The VI does not have the permission to inter view active ser vice personnel due to the risk of disclosing classified information . This is also a consequence of the definition of a veteran in the Netherlands – former militar y personnel who par ticipated in war or international operations – and thereby of the scope of the VI . 40 Another factor motivating participation in this inter view project was the need to speak out about a personal grievance linked to the active ser vice period . Finding the right balance between relatively neutral , factual inter view accounts and listening to strongly emotional or political narratives from veterans who had some old account to settle with the Ministr y of Defence was essential in this project as our aim was to provide a representative collection . Nevertheless , there was also an element of self- selection when it came to the ultimate composition of the thousand inter views . We also found that there is a strong difference in the readiness to tell one ’s life stor y between older and younger veterans . Members of the older group we found to be in a phase of looking back on their lives , whereas the younger group left the Armed Forces after their temporar y contract period , still having half a life or more before them . As is shown in the scheme beneath , they have an interest in keeping inconvenient truths to themselves , and thus a specific categor y of personal experiences is left out of histor y for some time . There were marked differences in the responses from the oldest generation who had been in militar y ser vice as conscripts during W WII and the decolonisation - war with Indonesia ( 1945 -1949 ) and those who had ser ved in the following peacekeeping and enforcing missions from Unifil ( Lebanon , 1979 -1984 ) onwards . za budućnost za forbudućnost the future for the future za budućnost za budućnost for the future za budućnost za buduć za budućnost za future buduć for the for the future for the f za budućnost for the future for the f za budućnost zafor budućnost the future for the future for the future diSCLOSURE OF SENSiTivE iSSUES AT AN OLdER AGE Adulthood Adolescence Childhood Old age No longer fearful of loss of status / face Public memor y Public histor y War experience Stor y in hindsight inconvenient truths ( taboos ) inter view Personal memor y Personal histor y whAT iS ThE iNTERviEw ABOUT? The inter view of about 2 . 5 hours follows a semi - structured biographical approach , in which the different stages of life are covered such as family background and education , entr y into the armed forces , training , experiences during the conflict / militar y mission , return to Netherlands and finally the transition to the current situation in civil society . The main focus of the inter view is on the personal experiences during the militar y or peace - keeping mission and the aftermath . These include sub - 41 items such as : first impression of the deployment and adaptation , the actual execution of the task , social aspects , contacts with the home front , intense experiences , satisfaction , reintegration upon return to the Netherlands , looking back on the mission and striking a balance in terms of taking pride in one ’s role or expressing regrets about one ’s participation . The autobiographical nature of the inter views is essential in order to understand whom the veteran was before he entered the armed forces and how he or she developed after reintegration in civilian society. Compared to traditional militar y histor y sources that focus exclusively on operational aspects , these oral histor y sources provide continuity on the personal , micro - level and illustrate the relation to the wider public knowledge on specific historical events . As warfare and militar y issues are usually phrased in formal discourses generated and controlled by an institute that represents the interests of the nation state , one could characterise the experiences within the perspective of one ’s biography described in the inter views as “ denationalised ” and “ deinstitutionalised ”. za budućnost za budućnost for the future za budućnost for the future forbudućnost the future za for the future za budućnost za budućnost for the future for the future dE-NATiONALiSEd ANd dE-iNSTiTUANALiSEd E xPERENCE 1 Personal biography Public histor y Personal expirience during war Official biography At the same time they offer the possibility of reflecting on the adaptation of norms and values during the transition from the militar y to the civil realm or from circumstances of war to those of peace . 42 This structure results in recurring themes which offer the possibility of comparing one specific theme between different generations of veterans . Yet the topic list is not a straightjacket ; it also provides opportunities for inter viewers to dig deeper regarding new , unexpected aspects of someone ’s life trajector y as they become apparent . This is , forzathe future budućnost za budućnost za budućnost for the future za budućnost for the future za forbudućnost the future for the future za budućnost for the future za budućnost za budućnost for the future for the future for the future NORmS ANd vALUE S war Solidarity Lack of resources Self- reliance Act of resistance Peace individulalism Affluence Trust in authorities illegal activity Extreme emotions grief, excitment ) Life is monotonous violence is lurking ecer ywhere Monopoly op violence by police and army ( fear, after all , the added value of consulting living sources to “ dead ” sources such as minutes , photos and letters – they can still talk back and in doing so sometimes cause an unexpected turn to an inter view . This approach demanded specific instructions for the inter viewers in order to control the process . They have been asked to give the inter view the form of a ‘ steered monologue ’, with an absent future listener in mind . So the narrative of the speaker takes the lead . When he or she describes events and experiences , the inter viewer is instructed to ask specifically were and when the events took place . The reason for this is that if used as a historical source , the inter view has to include clear clues that make it possible to link it with other, complementar y sources . In practice , the character of the answers that were given is ver y dependent on the personality and narrative style of the stor yteller. The inter viewers are , however, instructed to steer the inter view in a direction that makes sure that all items on the list of topics were covered . The topics and sub - topics were generally dealt with in chronological order, and the respondents were asked to specify time and place , before elaborating on details related to one ’s personal role as militar y or veteran . When an inter viewed veteran begins to express themselves in general terms , using the term “ we ” or giving their opinion on unrelated political issues , the inter viewer must lead the respondent to the next question on the list of topics . however, not all inter viewees accepted to be led by the inter viewer in this way . 43 A specific problem is the failing memory of older veterans . To minimise this issue , respondents from the older generation were all contacted by telephone in advance to get an idea as to whether they were suitable candidates . In most cases a phone conversation would give a good picture of the capacity of people to tell a coherent story. In cases where memory failed , the inter viewers were instructed to let the veteran determine the agenda on the basis of what he or she considered important to tell . One feature that is recurrent in the inter view material is the tendency of former officers from the higher staff in the militar y hierarchy to identify strongly with the formal declarator y policy of the militar y institution . This sometimes comes down to reproducing facts , figures and policy guidelines that can be found in other sources . Again , the inter viewers are , in such cases , instructed to steer the inter view back in the direction of personal memories and reflections . za budućnost za budućnost for the future ućnost za budućnost ućnost za budućnost for the future e future for the future e future for the future idE AL COURSE OF ThE iNTERviE w FOR hiSTORiC AL RELE vANCE inter viewer 1st question of the topiclijst Possibility to interact / ask for details inter viewee 1 act , experience , place , time , detail eleboration spontaneous recall lead back to the 2nd question of the topiclist Expand , partly relevant za budućnost for the future 2 act , experiance , place , time , detail Possibility to interact / ask for details 44 eleboration in general , the quality of the archive is dependent on the ability of the inter viewers to make good assessments on the investment in time and the expected result . A good balance has to be found between steering the respondent and giving him or her space to elaborate . This means the inter viewer has to have enough background to be able to assess the historical relevance of what is being said , including the elaborations on specific sidetracks . This process of steering between mainstream and side - stream narratives was frequently discussed between inter viewers and the coordinator in order to find a midway between wider relevance and personal idiosyncrasy. PRELimiNARy ASSESSmENT As the project has only just concluded it is still too early to present a thorough evaluation on whether the initial goals of the project have been achieved . Yet the efforts successfully realised during the course of the project – in terms of the educational and academic realm and the positive feedback from the veteran community – suggest that oral histor y is an effective method of combining a policy of veteran care and recognition , which is not based on the usual therapeutic / medical or heroic / dramatic discourse , with generating essential historical and social - scientific data . This potential for broad use is connected to the fact that it concerns a “ digitally born ” collection . in fact , several innovative initiatives were realised together with IC T- researchers . These included multidisciplinar y digital publication with audio - fragments , a speech retrieval annotation tool , and an inter view meta - data standardisation - project to improve access to digital inter view - data for researchers . In the references the links to these projects are included . Literature Commissie-Thoenes. “Rapport van de commissie maatschappelijke erkenning veteranen“ (Den haag: ministerie van defensie, 1991). draaisma, d. De heimweefabriek (Groningen: Historische Uitgeverij, 2008). Goffman, E. “Characteristics of Total Institutions,” in: Symposium on Preventive and Social Psychiatry, Washington 1957, see: www.diligio.com//goffman.htm Janovicek, N. “Oral History and Ethical Practices: Towards Effective Policies and Procedures,” in Journal of Academic Ethics (2006, 4), pp. 157-174. Leydersdorff, S. De mensen en de woorden (Amsterdam: Meulenhoff, 2004). Ni Laoire, C. “To name or not to name: Reflections on the Use of Anonymity in an Oral Archive of migrant Life Narratives,” in Social and Cultural Geography, vol. 8 (2007, 3), 373-390. Perks, R. & A. Thomson (Eds.), The Oral History Reader (London: Routledge, 2007). Portelli, A. “What makes different oral history,” in The Death of Luigi Trastulli and Other Stories; Form and Meaning in Oral History, ed. A. Portelli (New york: University of New york Press, 1991). Raleigh Yaw, V. Recording Oral History (Oxford: Altamira Press, 2005). Rietveld, N. De gewetensvolle veteraan. Schuld en schaamtebeleving bij veteranen van vredesmissies (Oisterwijk: Uitgeverij Boxpress, 2009). Scagliola, S. “Het belang van de verhalen van Mars voor de kennis van Clio; over de plaats van oral history in het (post) militaire bedrijf,” in Kwalitatief interviewen, kunst en kunde, ed. J. Evers (Hoofddorp: Uitgeverij Lemma, 2007), pp. 185-199. Scagliola, S. Last van de oorlog, de Nederlandse oorlogsmisdaden in Indonesië en hun verwerking (Amsterdam: Balans, 2002). Scagliola, S. “Silence and myth; the complexity of coming to terms with the Indonesian decolonization war against Dutch military forces (1945-1949),” in The European Review of History, (june 2007). 45 Schok, M. L. Meaning as a mission, making sense of war and peacekeeping (delft: Eburon Publishers, 2009). Links to digital projects related to the Interview project: The public site with unrestricted access to 500 interviews: http://interview.veteraneninstituut.nl An interdisciplinary enhanced digital publication: www.watveteranenvertellen.nl Enhanced publication veteran tapes: http://www.youtube.com Speech retrieval and oral history annotation tool: http://wwwwlands2.let.kun.nl/spex/annotationtool 46 47 48 REvOLUTiON iS GONE Revolution passed by the barricades Went unnoticed by those Who sang its praises it had lost its patience too little action too many songs revolution passed by cursing at protesters they were lost in flags their voices lost in slogans revolution passed by without billboards or sponsors it followed those who were willing to pay revolution passed by putting those who died in the same rhyme with those sick of singing revolution passed by unnoticed by revolutionaries it went after those who knew not what they were doing but had to do it anyway revolution is gone all that ’s left are barricades to pose for pictures and kid ourselves Damir Avdić Graha 49 50 SoCiety: wHo iS tHe otHer? or, beComing-pUbliC Noa Treister Naming IT War is a series of meetings with Serbian war veterans from the wars held as part of the disintegration of yugoslavia in the 1990s with the intention of articulating a public call or demand for the government to declare these wars as “wars” rather than, “armed conflicts” or “military drills”, and to regulate the status of war veterans and other participants of these wars. These meetings are held as part of The Ignorant Schoolmaster and his Committees Platform, which is an archive of the yugoslav humanities and a forum for self-education held within the Centre for Cultural decontamination. The Platform is exhibiting its continuous work as part of the October Salon, under the name → 1 Naming IT War,1 is the name of a cooperation between Serbian war veterans and anti - war activists in naming the wars in the 1990s and today. The name was given not only because many of the structures and attitudes that exist today in Serbia were established in the 1990s . Naming IT War is pertinent because the current State system in Serbia continues to conduct war against the members of its society and against the concept of society itself, in that it turns different groups within society against one another. For example when government representatives say to students : “ if we reduce your tuition ; if you get more of the State budget , what would the workers , the veterans , disabled people , etc . say?” Consequently , the State dismantles the idea that society is a whole – without external borders – presenting society as a collection of individuals and interest groups whose “ natural ” conflicts it has to manage . This management the State delegates to private bodies and NGOs which , by helping the various groups ( from humanitarian assistance to visibility ), also helps sustain the politics of division and separate identities : i . e . to maintain the war. One of the most sophisticated ways of doing this is by hiding the socio - economical and political conditions that produce these divisions under the banners of “ authenticity ”: such as ethnicity , gender, nation , class , trauma , profession , ability or disability , etc . (“ customise your site according to the newest trends but only one choice at a time ”) and “ sectarian justice ” or rights . The constant systematic pressure on any 51 of these groups for concrete demands and tangible solutions for “ their ” problems – in the form of ad hoc sectarian solutions – leave space only for very superficial solidarity and political subjectivation in relation to the whole . Political acts are understood only when they gain material benefits or participate in the play between various political parties . It is therefore important in any struggle to identify the conditions that create these societal separations ( which are also the condition that create identity ) and resist them – this would mean putting the concept of society first . The second mechanism in the politics of division is Naming the groups or individuals instead of Naming the war. The act of naming ends the processual , plural nature of self, self- organising culture ( as opposed to petrified , representational forms of culture in museums and folklore ). It is sometimes necessar y to use this Naming strategically , but one needs to be clear about what processes naming puts an end to and what is allowed to continue . The procedure of naming itself – whether “ it ” be war veterans , Students , workers , Roma , jews , Serbs , intellectuals , artists , or war, education , art , work , etc . – creates an inner split between the name and the unlimited , always multiplying plurality of experiences and positions that one name can represent . The name ser ves to create inner cohesion : to give a sense of belonging , and to articulate as well as regulate the sense of joint- experience within a person or a group . however, often name - giving , that is the marking of a group ’s borders ( including the procedures of inclusion and exclusion ), is usually done from the outside – by those in power or by experts who are delegated meta - power in a neo - liberal ideology in general and especially in the ultra - authoritarian society in Serbia . These name and boundaries also fix the group ’s inner structure , while super vising its position , function and meaning ( and therefore its experience ) in a society ideologically divided and formed by the power play between factions . In the case of war veterans of the ‘ 90s wars as Yugoslavia fell apart , the name “ veterans ” or “ veterani ” in Serbian , which is not a Serbian word , and the official Serb position was that there was no war, only “ armed conflicts ” or “ militar y exercises ” – makes an important distinction . This nomenclature divides the veterans from the “ legitimate ” fighters , or “ borci ” in Serbian – the fighters and tradition of the Yugoslav People ’s Army who perpetuated the partisan glor y – and to indicate that the participants in these wars were not representatives of the people , but individuals who fought on their own account . Apparently these veterans were not acting in the name of the State but in the name of a dictator or false ideology that manipulated them , and therefore they have no place in Yugoslav or Serbian histor y , no voice in today ’s public sphere and have to carr y the consequences on their own if not as punishment , then as bad luck . 52 Beyond the proper name there are the attributes , war veterans are cast either as “ losers ” in that they lost the wars , or “ criminals ” that primarily went there to kill and loot . In both positions they are presented as victims of Milošević ’s manipulation in the past , and are currently mentally Spacing – Naming iT war, which implies on the one hand, that the War today is not limited to the wars in the 1990s but a war against the concept of society, and on the other the continuous and rhythmic nature of this work. damaged by war and its ripple effects : a seemingly pre - modern , primitive , dangerous conflation that could be reactivated in a social setting at any time . in any case war veterans are no t full - fledged citizens , they are not eligible to make demands , and certainly not qualified to represent society or speak in public . war veterans need to be taken care of by experts . As victims , they can only appeal , with the generous help of private bodies and NGOs , to the regime for charity and goodwill , which will be granted , of course , to the extent that it will keep society calm and the system stable . An NGO worker said recently in a rare televised report on the situation of war veterans : “ I cannot exactly talk about data , or generalise things , but many people still have weapons and this is generally a problem .” This statement has a double function : it intends to remind or threaten the government into taking care of these “ many people ” but at the same time , it recriminalises the veteran population . Taking into consideration the current situation in Kosovo , the NGO worker ’s statement allows words like “ paramilitary ” and “ ethnic Serbs ” to be heard in public once more – clearing the government in advance from any responsibility for the occurrences there . The government , in an attempt to counter the self- organisation of war veterans , has nominated a few associations to represent the veterans . The leadership in such associations is directly involved with party politics , or is at least loyal to these parties . They serve to then occupy the space in the public sphere delegated to veterans so that any voice beyond the improvised solutions given to maintain status quo – any voice that demands to Name IT War is stifled . The naming and labels that divide society , especially the divisions between war veterans and anti - war activists , have helped the current dominant factions of society consolidate their power, which they have been using in the last few years against students , workers , minorities etc . to manage the so - called conflicts between the different groups . To a great extent , those labelled as war veterans overlap with the working class population – since the mechanisms that exclude both groups ’ speech from the public space are practically the same . This overlap has aided the auto - censorship of self- organisation of workers , and the external silencing which occurs in matters of corrupt privatisation . in a sense this continued the centralised approach of the Milošević regime that privatised the capital ( both physical and symbolic ) that under socialism , at least formally , belong to the society as a whole . Under these new divisions workers have reappeared as an interest group : many times classified as working against the welfare of the State by resisting privatisation i . e . also a dangerous element within society , including many of the same attributes allocated to veterans . Another example : students ( in the reformed higher- education system developed according to Bologna recommendations ) can only be consumers and the product they consume is the degree . When the students step out of that position and demand a truly educational process that insists on education as a common good ( accessible to all ) they become a disruptive element that 53 in the theor y and practice of self- organisation as a plenum , reminds the university ’s administration , the government , as well as others members of this society , that “ society ” still exists . The structure of a plenum is open to any member of society as is , at least in theor y , with the opportunity to propose discussion and decision - making on any topic . To condemn and contradict this move on the part of the students , certain voices from the university ’s administration have cast them as “ parasites ”, “ hooligans ”, “ bad students ”, “ anti -Serb ” – threatening them with violence , as well as disciplinar y and criminal action . Using the same methodology as that applied to war veterans and workers , the students ’ place in the public sphere is supplanted by “ official representatives ” who , again , are either members of political parties or directly connected with them . But what would it mean to speak in public ? To speak in / to society? it would mean that when s / he speaks , I speak in my name ; and you speak simultaneously as an individual and as the whole society – as a student and in the name of students , but at the same time speaking as a future professor, worker, entrepreneur or tycoon in the name of professors , workers , entrepreneurs and tycoons ; as a possible war veteran in the name of war veterans ; as a potential Roma and in the name of Roma ; a handicapped person and in the name of handicapped people ; a nationalist and a anti - war activist – from positions of power and of helplessness . Becoming “ public ” or “ society as a whole ” means the understanding that these position are always already plural because each of them is an unlimited and diverse collection of experiences ( rather than people ) and that they are permanently in a state of articulation and re - articulation with no fixed borders between or around them . Therefore these positions have no possibility for totalisation or conflict . Understanding that the divisions inner / outer, personal / public , private / common that enable identities to be formed , are artificial divisions ideologically created to regulate power. in losing “ our ” “ identity ”, we experience loss of unity , function and placement , but in fact we gain all other identities as well as the concepts of language , society and public . 54 Speaking as and in the name of societ y does not mean in any way , taking authorit y or having power over , owning or representing . it means being aware that at any given time , it is possible , on the one hand , to find oneself in each of these positions : rich or poor , sick or healthy , uneducated or intellectual , and so on . This contingency , on the other hand , allows an experience of various positions and their inner scission ; it is having the freedom not to be tied down by identit y and identit y politics , even within concrete materialistic conditions . This freedom is possible only by refusing to submit to the pett y bourgeoisie law of help / charit y in exchange for loyalt y , ser vilit y , and the inner repression of all other identities – a law that in fact seek s to ensure de - politisation and de - subjectivisation of the individual , as well as social stabilit y ( ex ternal assignment of meaning and position in societ y ) or / and oppression . These scissions are not only the pluralities inherent in and between different “ inner groups ” and “ identities ”, they are the pluralities within speech itself: cleavage between the saying and the said , the place of witnessing the announcing , the announcement and the split , etc . The plurality of origin establishes that speech is always public speech , in that the multiple embodiments and annunciations always expose the heterogeneity of speech itself, calling into being a public in us . As one of the war veterans described , the biggest trauma is seeing a person that has , more than once , saved your life kill civilians . This innate awareness of the cleavages in constituting “ public ” and “ speech ” is a guaranty that we will not take the place of the other, or Other. This awareness , which is the event of witnessing , is blind to both itself as an event and to the “ external ” event that it is witnessing . Therefore a person is always a guest to their own witnessing – aware of their own finitude . From this position , the idea of society not as a collection or collective but as a whole can begin . From the point of view of society as a collection of experiences not a collection of people , the question of education for all is not only a question of the individual ’s possibility for a better life . It is a question of what kind of relationship between theor y and experience is formed in the university and in public discourse in general , which is a political ideological one . It is a question of what kind of knowledge and experience is allowed to enter the university and to be affirmed there . Consequently , it is also about what kind of research and science comes out of the university . Taking into consideration that this research later becomes a basis for policies ( not just in the field of education itself ) the range and choice of themes , methodologies and presuppositions that lead the research and its conclusions will be crucial to the society as a whole . In my experience , especially in the Social Sciences , there is ver y little research into many phenomena , compared to the weight and effect they have on the contemporar y society in Serbia . Examples of these are the relationship between city and village ; centre and peripher y ; gastarbeiters ; sex and intimacy at a time of transition ; the figure of the worker in current neo - liberal ideology ; war veterans and the consequences of the last war; and many more . Where are these people ? Where are the students whose lives were formed by these phenomena ? Where does their experience fit into the research and educational system that is The University ? Are these experiences not a part of society? Who does the university answer to ? is not the role of the university to reflect , map , and examine the needs and experiences of society into articulated knowledge that forms a common good , since it is based on the experiences of common people ? is it not the role of the university , as an educational institution , to encourage each student to use his / her own knowledge and life experience to articulate a position and consolidate their own place of public speech – not as a place of power reser ved for “ the expert ”, but as a member of society? Have intellectuals become another interest group , promoting 55 their own welfare by competing for grant money to market their own discipline and narrow field of research ? Do intellectuals turn the people , texts , experiences , ideas comprising their research into objects and objectives ? And their students – are they now products to be consumed by a neo - liberal system ? It must be mentioned that viewing knowledge and experience , even personal , as common is the basis of any process of education . Another question here is , of course , what is common and to whom ? But that , we will leave to another occasion . Paradoxically , it seems that the policy and politics of the university today cast the role of the university as one reser ved for applied or market research or in the European context acts to secure the EU from unwanted immigrants , so that when a student with a certain formative experience enters , s / he is not encouraged to research it or their own position of stating , annunciation , speech – certainly not in any critical way . Rather these students are required to repress that content in “ politically correct ” themes and methodologies . As our co - worker, Mile Milošević , president of the Serbian War Veteran Association , said “ the State has its own veterans , students , workers , professors , fisherman and hunters .” In this , science and the university lose independence as well as autonomy ( much more so than via any direct State inter vention ) – becoming part of the ideological - market apparatus , instead of being a place for public speech of society about society for society. This scenario delegates to both student and professor a place of ser vility instead of responsibility , and all that in the always already deferred promise of a better life . The issue of responsibility becomes prominent here , or rather that of hidden responsibility , in which the State throws the ball of responsibility and accountability between its different bodies and institutions so that one can never know which person , position or entity is answerable and to whom different appeals should be addressed . The usual answer one gets to the question : when , how and from whom I can get information or a response to my request is , “ well , i don ’ t know .” This methodology , of presenting the weakness of the State , which could be an emancipator y call for collective social initiative , is not ideologically neutral . it is designed to show the incompetence of the State in running and regulating production and ser vices in order to justify the privatisation of these institutions . Therefore , any attempt at self- organisation and self- education in a creative and constructive way , especially those that do not fall within the NGO sector which the State controls through financing , is bitterly crushed . 56 The lack of responsibility is demonstrated on many levels with the refusal to name the wars in the Nineties that maintained the division between regular soldiers , volunteers and paramilitar y forces – a division that carries on till today. For this constituency , the State neither recognises its involvement and control over its “ additional force ”, nor does the State punish them for disobedience if they fought against the State interests . This show of “ weakness ” by the State not only encourages and legitimises its citizens to take the law into their own hands but simultaneously casts itself as the victim of the play of forces between different groups in society. This was demonstrated in the cancellation of this year ’s gay parade were the state allegedly was not able to provide security for the participants . It was evident in the call by the university ’s rector for State interference in the students ’ blockade , where , due to the State ’s “ no comment ” policy , right wing activists took the liberty to throw burning sticks at the university building threatening the safety of the students without any police reaction . In many corruption cases , especially around privatisation ; and , of course , in the reappearance of paramilitar y forces in Kosovo – the State ’s supposed inefficacy and victimhood is repeated . The response lies at the basis of responsibility : who is the State ’s addressee and whom does it answer to ? well , to everyone , for all . And who is “ all ” and “ everyone ”? “All ” and “ everyone ” shows a certain degree of equality and inclusion following the liberal idea of “ accessibility for all ”. At the same time however, this thinking reveals an atomisation of society into persons that , as individuals and as interest groups ( powerful or marginalised ), talk in their own private languages that are not political : in that it is a language of promotion not of communication and response ability in society , languages of servility that through visibility appeal to the charity of the State in order to be granted certain privileges . This is not a language that fights for rights . And so the various speakers end up fighting each other for recognition , power and resources , while the government continues to referee – taking protection fees from all . In this language , the language of neo - liberal servility , public turns into audience , solidarity into charity or alliance against an other ( even if that other is the government ), diversity into folklore and political position into participation . Yet what language is appropriate to the society as a whole ? What would put society as a priority? A language that is in the process of articulating itself as a language , so that naming becomes a process of exposing the plurality or the scissions : a language that is the result of an inner struggle of formulation of public speech . The language which students , workers , minorities , LGBT, immigrants , the rich and mighty , authorities and others use . Not to consolidate their identities and power but as guests , in common . It is the broken Serbian - Croatian - Bosnian - montenegrin , it is a broken English - American - French - German mix with endless other languages , translated from one particular locality to another. It is the language in which transition is impossible but communication is indispensible . it is a language that is always political because it directly refers to the relations between people – making us mindful of who has the right to speak in public and under which conditions ; and that for many people , speech in public is an inner and outer risk . Therefore , I thank all the people , the students , war veterans , workers , artists , and those who are guests in these names – whose life experiences composed this text . 57 58 Sentimental edUCation tHe logiC of a biograpHy Branimir Stojanović Marquis de Sade was not stranded by his own fantasy. Namely , Marquis de Sade was not sadistic – on the contrary. This opens the possibility for us to imagine what Lacan called the logic of a biography , hence , the radical non - coincidence of personal biography and work . Jacques - Alain miller, from a symptom to fantasam and back , unpublished seminar, 1981-1982 A ChiLd wAS BE ATEN , BELGR AdE 1979 The spring of 1979 at the Belgrade Faculty of Philosophy was really boring for B . S . He was in his second year, studying “ pure philosophy ”, as his father used to call his son ’s studies . His father did not have a clue what was the purpose of pure philosophy : “ Unless you are thinking of finally joining a youth working action – become a member of the Party and become a diplomat .” B . S . himself wasn ’ t exactly sure what philosophy was either, as he was surrounded by confused assistants who were constantly secretly whispering ; a professor who sexualized Greek metaphysics during the first year thereby attracting unstable and tipsy students still inebriated when he took them for fieldtrip to Greece ; a bunch of bearded young men 59 with shiny suits and eyes that moved around the faculty conspiratorially , demonstratively carr ying theses on Plato and Orthodoxy , with gold crosses embossed on covers of their first tiny philosophical work ; a huge number of fools for C hrist that had their own philosophical system even before they enrolled the faculty and they enrolled only to find audience and followers . He himself, B . S ., was still fantasizing about what he wrote in part of his admission examination , in response to the question , why do you want to study philosophy? ‘ i want to make a film based on Plato ’s dialogues . I actually want to inter weave philosophy with art that have been totally alienated since the time it was created .’ He wondered where in all of this , “ pure philosophy ” was . Until one day , he and his friends heard in the hallway the stor y about the situation at the faculty from a senior colleague , “This situation at the faculty started four years ago , when eight professors got expelled . don ’ t you see how much the assistants are confused ? They are totally incapable of lecturing , but they have to . you see , the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing ! Mar xists argue with the Analysts ; a Greek metaphysician produces seminar y staff for Theology and staff for Monaster y C hilandar – total chaos !” This may be considered to be the first time that B . S . was startled from the dogmatic slumber he was in , he realised that the reason for the endless grief that could be cut with a knife in the corridors of the faculty , was the recent loss of professors . He had heard something about it , about these teachers , but it never occurred to him that their absence could produce so much confusion and sadness . He began to talk about it with his friends . Him and several of them , while visiting the university librar y discovered librarian J . K . i ., who concluded that , judging by the amount of borrowed books written by the expelled professors , there was an organised interest about the subject . They learned ever ything from her. j . K . i . told them the stor y of 1968 ; about her and her husband ’s arrest in 1971; about the disputes and tendencies at the faculty in the period from 1968 to 1975 ; about the faculty ’s spasmodic fight to retain professors ; about the final collapse and the tragic irreplaceable loss of colleagues and friends . She told them that she thought some professors who remained to teach at the faculty actually sided with the State and they even helped with the expelling of the professors . The group was in shock . B . S . then realised that philosophy was not quite so pure , that it was actually ver y dirty – so dirty that it could not get any dirtier. He proposed to his colleagues to organise a panel discussion about expelled professors : to call their current teachers and those expelled to speak on that event . 60 however, B . S . realised that the ideas and the reality of a Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade in 1979 were two different things . For a debate to be scheduled , it was necessar y for it to first be proposed by a youth organisation . hell , no ! No one in the group was active at the faculty ’s youth organisation . They were a generation that boycotted even the idea of membership in the youth organisation…ever since high school . They had no contact with politics or political education organised solely around the Party ; they were , as said in the police jargon , druggies and hashish users : an extremely colorful group of escapists , quite deaf from rock and roll , apolitical , narcissistic and completely out the public scope . B . S . knew some colleagues in his generation who were the members of the faculty ’s youth organisation and he conveyed to them the idea of a debate . They liked it and said that they would propose a debate at their next meeting . After the meeting , youth philosophers invited B . S . to join them at the Faculty Club , which B . S . started together with them a while ago when he brought a record player and records from his home . They told him that it was not possible to organise this debate in the way he wanted and that they could eventually provide Amphitheatre 101 where older colleagues , senior officials of the faculty ’s youth organisation , could explain what happened to the eight professors . At that point B . S . decided to get entangled in the philosophy of that time without knowing it . Usually , he would just shrug his shoulders and resign himself to the fate of the decision being made by someone else , or would simply say to himself, “ It makes no sense to bother with this , the world is completely incompatible with my ideas .” This time however, the words , “ it ’s better than nothing – if only this sadness would go away ,” ran through his head . B . S . told his youth companions , “ Let them schedule the debate – let ’s hear what they have to say .” The response was beyond all expectations : the largest amphitheatre was full and a spark of vitality could be felt for the first time . Three youth representatives ( fourth - year Pedagogy students ) came before the crowd and presented themselves as the members of the Party ’s University Committee . They began to talk about the ideological currents in society , the socio - political moment at present ...The language of the lower party volunteers was hovering between simulated euphoria and metal - cold jargon . One of B . S .’s present colleagues from the Department of Philosophy , h . m ., got up and said , “ Please , we read all of it in the newspapers , we want the faculty to present the minutes of meetings of the Department of Philosophy , when it was voted to expel the eight professors . Do you know something about it or not ?” Total silence reigned for a moment . The youth officials said the debate was not so designed , that they knew nothing about it and that they wanted to give information about the socio - political circumstances of the event ... As if commanded , ever ybody got up and left the room ver y unhappy and started discussing in the hallway how to pressure the faculty into dialogue . however, the youth officials who had also left the room , continued to address all gathered in the lobby from the top of the stairs – promising to schedule a new debate in several days and to bring relevant speakers . 61 The debate which they were soon invited to , was as a small miracle : there were uniformed policemen a half - kilometer away and at the entrance of each faculty building , a bunch of strangers in the lobby ( probably agents in civilian clothes ) and masses of people in front of the amphitheatre . B . S . knew some of them , as his colleagues from the Department of Histor y that walked around the faculty in their tracksuits – a not- so - ordinar y way for students to dress at the time – but he ’ d never seen so many of them gathered in one place . B . S . entered the amphitheatre which was already full and sat on the only available seat . Behind him were his colleagues , histor y students in tracksuits that virtually surrounded the students . A middle - aged man , well dressed , entered the room , accompanied by one of the three youth officers from the last debate . “This is comrade Milan Milutinović , the Head of the National Librar y and a member of the Belgrade League of Communists who will tell you something about the case of eight professors .” Just as comrade Milan Milutinović began to talk , a student from the audience got up and popped out the question : “ Why would the director of the National Library talk to us about the case of expelled professors ?” The roar could be heard in the hall , and all of a sudden historians in tracksuits began to beat the students . Turmoil irrupted and everyone left the amphitheatre in indignation , while unidentified men in civilian clothes waited for them outside , shouting : “ Get out , get out !” Everything was on the verge of a fight . It all ended very quickly. When B . S . came to the afternoon lecture , everything was as usual , as if nothing had happened . many years later, B . S . discovered that the party - police collaborator and police informant working on the expulsion of the professors in an operational and technical manner, was none other than the Greek metaphysician . B . S . found out that the metaphysician was blackmailed because of his past , that is , in 1945 when he was a fifteen year- old boy , he got picked up from his native village by his older brother, who was retreating with a group of Chetniks towards Bosnia . The partisans caught them somewhere in Bosnia , and the metaphysician was later sentenced to two years in prison , but he never ser ved the sentence : the price was set and had to be paid thirty years later. The minutes of meetings of the Department of Philosophy are not available even to this day , but no one is interested in them anymore . 62 It was then that B . S . realised that his father was right : that pure philosophy was meaningful only if related to the Party . In other words – pure philosophy was the Party . B . S . also understood that metaphysics had to do with a sort of evasion of reality which the secret police attached itself to . Philosophy , if it wanted to be metaphysical , had first to distance itself from the Party. It was the only philosophy , at least the one available at the Department of Philosophy back in 1979 , at the Belgrade Faculty of Philosophy . The catch with philosophy however, was not in the books that he was reading , but rather in his relation to the people with whom he was sharing the experience of pure philosophy with , at that time . FAThER dOES NOT BE AT mE , BELGR AdE 1980 During the next year, B . S . met all of the expelled professors and was visiting them regularly at the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theor y , where they got jobs after they were fired from the University . He had an idea of making video - inter views with them , as they were interesting to him as tragic heroes . Through personal contact and reading some their books , B . S . realised that he was not interested in them as philosophers , in fact none of them was a “ philosopher ” – they were excellent teachers of Philosophy. In addition to this , B . S . attended the Free University : an illegal university where expelled professors thought , and had become a member of an ultra - leftist dissident group gathered around the librarian of the Department of Philosophy J . K . i . and her husband , P. i . They experimented with the ideas of Solidarnošć together with a group of students from the Faculties of Philosophy and Political Sciences . in other words , B . S . began to deal with dirty philosophy , the philosophy of his time . He saw that a group of people called “ Eight teachers ” was heterogeneous by philosophical , political and human standards and that this stigma was the only thing that held them together. At that time , B . S . together with his older colleague T. L ., a psychology student , worked on the thematic issue of the magazine Vidici on psychoanalysis , the magazine of the Youth of Serbia in rise at the time . The magazine was edited by A . P. and S . S . and became well known thanks to the issue entitled the Dictionary of Technology , which was the first journal to experiment with the jargon of post - structuralism and emerging postmodernism . B . S . and T. L . were collecting texts , writing their own articles , hanging out with members of the desk . B . S . travelled frequently to Zagreb to meet with M . K ., his philosophical idol at the time , and was tr ying to arrange with him to start teaching in Belgrade at the Department of Philosophy once a year. At that time , this was certainly the only valuable academic philosophy . however, just before the publishing of Vidici was terminated , members of the editorial office of the magazine Student Željko Simić and A . j . broke into the magazine ’s premises , changed locks , confiscated all texts and barred the entrance to the office . Some of the confiscated articles could be found , about fifteen years later, in parts scattered throughout the collected works of Željko Simić , which the new party SPS published for him as a token of appreciation for his work in the Nineties . Almost thirty years later, B . S . heard from A . d ., then a high - ranking official of the Serbian Youth who by the virtue of his position used to 63 take part in emergency and extraordinar y meetings of the University Committee , the stor y of how the magazine Vidici came under attack of the Party . in fact , the vast popularity of the magazine Vidici , and for the Party intelligence of that time quite secretive poststructuralist language of the magazine , caused Slobodan Antonić , a member of the University Committee and the student of Political Science , to be on increased alert . This negative interest resulted in his delusional attacks . Namely , Antonić explained to all present during an emergency meeting that the Dictionary of Technology was actually an encr ypted book of manuals for armed rebellion : when read correctly , a network of spies could perhaps be exposed and ways discovered of how they could be activated when needed . Although none at this meeting gave priority to this interpretation , Željko Simić , A . j ., and two editors of the Student magazine transformed Antonić ’s delusion into concrete action , which meant getting their hands on the Vidici magazine . Željko Simić was Editor in Chief of Vidici for four years . The magazine became an intellectual incubator for the University Committee and a point of intersection for anti - communist and Party intellectuals . After the Eighth Session , Simić reached fame by persecuting Bogdan Bogdanović in a text , which , because of its arrogance and thoughtlessness , should be included in all textbooks of political theor y as an example of empty discourse of power without risk . Three days after the text was published he was appointed to the position of chief of the Ideological and Information Commission of the Central Committee of the Serbian League of Communists . Before the multi - par ty elections , Simić became the creator of the “ Šešelj strateg y ”. This came about when , before the repeated elections in Rakovica , he ordered members of his Par ty in a meeting of the SPS City Board ( an informal transcript of that session was circulating Belgrade at the time ), to explain to the base unit that their task was to vote for Šešelj so as to defeat his rival , the DS candidate , writer Borislav Pekić . He had said that Šešelj was now a “ useful idiot ” for the SPS . Subsequently , Simić became Vice President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in charge of diplomacy : in fact a special commissioner for Slobodan Milošević ’s secret negotiations with Franjo Tudjman . he was suddenly removed from these functions , and the myth that circulated at the time in political circles says that after Simić returned from one of his many trips to Zagreb , he said while reporting to S . Milošević : “ you know what Slobodan , I am Tsar Lazar !” 64 After that Simić rested for several years in the C ommission for Nuclear disarmament in Geneva . Three years before the collapse of the regime , he was appointed Minister of C ulture and also Director of the National Theatre . In 20 01 the RTS C hannel 1, where had Simić appeared for a decade as a top political authority , aired on its prime time news , footage recorded by security cameras in the antique shop of certain Miša Grof. The footage featured Željko Simić stashing antiques into his pockets as well as 40 0 Deutschmarks which he took from the owner ’s desk . Today , Simić is a prominent columnist of the magazine Pečat , a magazine - cum - shelter for all intellectuals of the Nineties regime . This type of violent and extra - institutional takeover of a magazine was the first pronouncement of a policy of extra - institutional violence which was subsequently legalised by the Party . B . S . realised that even outside the Faculty the Philosophy he was still at the same distance from the Party , and that the Party remains the only philosophy . Desperados were still emerging and committing violence on behalf of the Party , to which they are not closely related , at least not at first glance . The only philosophy is the actually distance from the Party , particularly from the University Committee and its members , and also from the new desperados , and anti - communists who , for some reason , made an unprincipled coalition with the Party as long as it gave them power in return . What B . S . might have understood fully just recently , and what was his father ’s political insight ‘’ par excellence ’’ were the words that he often repeated to him , and which meant nothing to B . S . at the time : “ When the Socialist Communist Youth of Yugoslavia ( SKOj ) and Anti Fascist Front of women ( AFŽ ) were dismissed the counter- revolution began ” and “ the Communist Youth and AFŽ carried out the socialist revolution , the Communist Party was already the state party . “ ThE FAThER BE ATS ThE ChiLd ThAT i dO NOT LiKE , Belgrade 1981 B . S . and his father ( who still did not understand what pure philosophy was and who still asked B . S . when he would join the Party ) were rapidly approaching the Militar y Medical Academy in Belgrade , where the father ’s oldest brother, a retired C hief Militar y Prosecutor of Serbia and member of the Communist Party since 1926 , was dying . The younger brother of B . S .’s father, a senior official of the Secretariat of Foreign Affairs of yugoslavia , a Consul in Rome , San Francisco , and later on the Ambassador to England and Cuba , was waiting for them in the room . The uncle who was dying was almost a father to his brothers , as he was 20 years older then B . S .’s father, and 26 years older then the other brother. A long while later, B . S . learned that his younger uncle was in fact a key political figure in the Secretariat of Foreign Affairs ( SFA ), counterintelligence officer. he was also one of Tito ’s greatest confidantes , assigned to keep notes of all important meetings outside 65 the official protocols and minutes , which he reported to Tito personally . At the time of the hospital visit B . S .’s uncle was an unassigned diplomat , meaning he had some assignments at the SFA . As an aside , when he was little , people used to call him Lenin , because when he was thirteen he would climb the stool and begin to lecture people ten and twenty years older than him on Mar xist Leninism . B . S .’s father, who was a ver y snappy and hot- tempered man , showed ser vility only before his brothers . Earlier, in the rush to appropriate the philosophy of his time , B . S . realised from a conversation with his father that , back in 1948 as a student of Naval Architecture in Zagreb where he was sent as a prominent recruit from Serbia on the inter- republic exchange of students , his father pleaded for the Cominform Resolution . He had been a member of the Communist Youth League of Yugoslavia , and it was thanks to a fortunate set of circumstances that he was not sent to Goli Otok . This does not mean that it all went well for him : only a few days upon his return to his hometown after the youth working action , which he joined a day after he pleaded for the resolution and where the Commander of the camp degraded him to the position of brigade leader – people started to yell at him in the street : “ Booo , gang !” B . S .’s father saw that there was no chance for him to return to Zagreb and continue his studies , and that something was seriously wrong because his brothers refused to talk to him , let alone to see him . He then decided to spend a year in total isolation in his parent ’s home , and in order to preser ve himself from going insane – he enlisted in the army , even though he was not obligated to do so , since he had participated in the PLS . While there , B . S .’s father was assigned to a penal paratroops unit , where he ser ved for two and a half years with criminals , delinquents and other social scum . After leaving the army , he could not enroll at any college . The brothers kept him at a safe distance – inviting him once a year for a lunch where they criticised him quite openly , telling him what a great obstacle he was in their careers . Through a distant relative , who was a State Security member in charge of the Faculty of Technology , B . S .’s father managed to enroll into the college and was welcomed with these words : “ If I discover that you have something to do with Cominform gang , I will personally kill you .” When he graduated college and started to work , upon the recommendation of the general manager of the factor y where he already worked , in order to become a director of production , he sought membership with the Communist League , and was admitted on the day B . S . was born , which was also the day of the October Revolution . 66 So , four of them in the room : the eldest brother of B . S .’s father, who is almost dead , B . S .’s father, bent over him tr ying to squeeze a word out of the dying , while B . S . and the younger brother of B . S .’s father stand opposite each other at the feet of a dying man . At the time B . S . and the dissident group gathered around J . K . i , librarian of the Department of Philosophy , and her husband , P. i . were participating in writing and distributing a petition requesting the State to immediately release all pupils and students from prisons , who were arrested during demonstrations in Kosovo , and that none of the arrested be tried on the basis of the criminal law provisions on counter- revolution . While they were standing across from one another, B . S . said out of the blue to his father ’s younger brother: “ Why are you arresting children in Kosovo ?” Silence reigned in the room . Younger brother of B . S .’s father reacted immediately : “ What children ? it ’s scum , they are counterrevolutionaries , and you , and you ...what else could I expect from the son of Cominform lover ”. B . S . started yelling at his uncle : “ You are the counter- revolutionar y ! Shame on you !” The daughter of the dying B . S .’s uncle came running into the room and asked them to leave the room . B . S .’s father took his son by the hand and left the room . he never told him again that he should join the Party . With the petition written by B . S .’s dissident group , a petition requesting protection of the Serbian people in Kosovo also appeared simultaneously. It was signed by some of the professors expelled from the Faculty of Philosophy , together with political immigrants and Orthodox priests from Australia and America . After the petition , besides the Party , B . S . also held at an arm ’s length the newly formed Joint Opposition of Serbia . Under the influence of left dissident group , B . S . became a communist without the Party , the communist at a distance from the Party , and also at a distance from the national party which was just founded , and mostly distant from his father ’s political trauma : being a member of a party that you hate . B . S .’s uncle remained a diplomat for a long time , long enough to publish a Mar xist- Leninist text in Politika just before the fall of Milošević , which at the time was a sign that he was in contact with JUL’s ideological delirium . After the Militar y Medical Academy , B . S . met with him a few times only at relatives ’ funerals . The last time they saw one another was in the hospital room of B . S .’s father, a few days before his death . B . S .’s uncle said to B . S .’s father at that point that Djindjić was the greatest Serbian politician after Pašić , to which B . S .’s father replied : “ you reactionar y bastard , get out of the room !” After his father ’s death in 20 03 , B . S . found a diar y among his things , with covers reading : 1946 -1948 DIARY. He expected to find a political confession , some trace of communist youth work , stories about dozens of youth working actions he participated in or at least about when he met Paul Pot during one such action , the one which he used to tell him about . instead , only the names of 86 girls were written on few pages , the date and place where they met and what happened between them , written in a virtuous language : 76 , Zagreb . I lightly kissed her on the 67 mouth , at the dance on Tuskanac ..., ’42 , Samac-Sarajevo . We met after the Yugoslav Communist Youth League meeting behind the barracks and were together.’ B . S . visited his father in the hospital the night before he died and asked him : “ Do you fear death ?” and he replied , “ my dear B ...What is my death in the histor y of the matter ? An insignificant event !” my FAThER BE ATS mE , Belgrade 1982 It turned out that the assistants who were constantly whispering secretly , and were unable to cover all teaching duties at the University – had a plan . Namely , two assistants from the Department of Philosophy , m . K . and S . Z ., together with their somewhat older colleague Z . K . had formed a group of philosophical writers and translators : N . d ., m . B ., O . S ., i .v. and m . K . This colorful group has , based on the decision of the Parliament of the Philosophical Society , taken over the magazine , Teorija . Up until that time , Teorija was a sad and provincial magazine , edited , after the expulsion of college professors , by the so - called Analysts : a group of apolitical hesychasts of Anglo -Saxon school of philosophy , for whom the entire philosophy from Plato to Heidegger was metaphysics , and in fact the shortest and most reliable path to totalitarianism . Basically it was an anti - intellectual , anti - communist and anti - philosophical group , which will re - appear on philosophy ’s corpse after the year 20 0 0 , and which will , as things are , control the Faculty of Philosophy in the next hundred years . B . S . was invited by m . K . to participate in the debate organised by a philosophical magazine , focusing on how the magazine Vidici was taken over by the University Committee – a debate which for the first time in a long time , publicly raised the question of a relationship between the Party and philosophy. The debate was published in Teorija , and B . S . was happy to be a part of the collective that was the first to raise the issue of relation between the party and philosophy in the public discourse . in Teorija , for the first time the “ gaslight ”1 being rapidly produced by party intelligence ( whose function in the early Eighties was to conceal the violence over social institutions ) scattered ; it became public . Over several years , 1982 -1986 , Teorija became a place where public discussions were raised , with a circulation of 50 0 0 copies and an editorial board that kept increasing with each issue . 68 For the first time B . S . felt the creation of an entity , a political subject , the emerging subject of a philosophy that managed to keep at a distance from both the Party and the dissidents . This entity imposed on all , as an obligation of participation in the editorial board , the cooperation in the production of truth about a situation , and not the transfer of finished statements . B . S ., together with his friend S . Š ., translated from Slovenian to Serbo - Croatian for the first time the most recent products “Gaslight” is a colloquial Serbian term, associated with the film GasLight (1944). it is used to describe a situation when someone is cheating. 1 of “ Ljubljana ’s signifying materialism ” ( an excellent collection of texts by S . Z ., R . m . m . d , which appeared in the edition featuring the crisis of Mar xism ). As a rule , Teorija had a principle of publishing only previously unpublished texts , whether they come from a local or international scene , this being a criterion that usually only the largest philosophical journals could afford . however, at the zenith of Teorija ’s run , a number dedicated to the crisis of Mar xism , was the first time the publication was attacked . Namely , the illustrations which editors of the magazine used to randomly “ colour ” the magazine were borrowed from a French Maoist magazine published in the late Seventies , in which Mar x , Lenin , Stalin , mao , and Engels were cartooned in different sex positions . These drawings became subject to prosecution and Teorija was threatened with banning . Specifically , the Serbian Chief Attorney , Tmušić banned the edition on the crisis of Mar xism , explaining that animated illustrations were insulting presidents of foreign countries . The accusation was a farce even from the point of basic legal technique : if mao , Lenin and Stalin , at least basically , yet simultaneously and deliriously , fulfilled the criteria of judicial decision referring to foreign statesmen , namely , once while they were alive , Mar x and Engels certainly could not have been defined as such . All in all , this comic prosecution could not produce a total ban of the magazine and the compromise was reached between the desk and prosecution that the number will be released for distribution after the incriminated illustrations were removed . Of course the publication was followed by a ver y large public outcr y of the editorial board . B . S . had , with some members of the editorial desk , personally torn out eight controversial illustrations from at least a thousand copies of Teorija . They did this in the presence of agents in plainclothes and uniformed police officers on the magazine premises at the Institute of Philosophy , of the Belgrade Faculty of Philosophy. The fatal knot of the Party , police and philosophy in this scene of magazine page - ripping was the last image of the philosophical subject Teorija , since as of that moment the events took a direction that the desk least expected . The restraining order had increased the interest in Teorija , in that the ban and the scandal surrounding it was a sign to dissidents that this philosophical magazine deserved their attention . It became a place of prohibited speech , a place that suddenly was of high symbolic value . Thus , only a few weeks later, the already famous dissident Vojislav Šešelj appeared behind the desk . He entered the editorial board , and loudly said as he was coming in : “ Mihailo Marković and Dobrica Ćosić sent me here for you to publish my text in Teorija !” All laughed in a restrained manner, because no one believed that those were the exact words that Mihailo Marković had used . Because he was a colleague and friend , Mihailo Marković ’s comprehensive inter view took up almost one - third 69 of the magazine and was published just before this event ( which had introduced him back into the public life for the first time in ten years ). Markovic was well aware that all texts went through a rigorous editorial review . m . K ., the Editor in C hief at the time , invited Šešelj to have a seat and asked him what kind of text he had . Quite simply , Šešelj said in one breath : “Aleksandar Ranković ...” So , the text was about the former second in power over the State , the creator of the police , once the famous Marko from the poem on Ozna by Oskar Davičo , but for quite some time he had been the irrelevant , Aleksandar Ranković . Vojislav threw a bundle of about hundred pages of text on the table and simply asked , “ When is the next edition to be published ?” m . K . took it upon himself to explain to Šešelj that this was a magazine in which articles are reviewed and that it was a serious question whether his article would be reconsidered at all as it is neither philosophical nor theoretical but rather a feuilleton , as it appears based on the title . This was , as proven later, a prelude to the destruction of the desk : Mihailo Marković really insisted on releasing Šeselj ’s text while the editorial board wouldn ’ t hear about it . The latter considered this to be a worse pressure than the one imposed by the Party , having come from a respected colleague who had experienced what it means to introduce issues of power into philosophy . To cut the stor y short , Mihailo threatened the editorial board with having them all dismissed at the next annual meeting of Philosophical Society of Serbia – if Šešelj ’s text was not published . As of this moment ver y unpleasant scenes were launched : O . S . and i .v. became Mihailo Marković ’s Trojan horses using key moments of veto : important help to M . B . and N . d . On the other hand , m . K ., S . Z . and Z . K . were frantically tr ying to convince fellow editors of the magazine not to enter into any transactions with Mihailo Marković , since an unprincipled and unprofessional pressure was in line . At the session of the Serbian Philosophical Society , members of the editorial board found out that members of the Philosophical Society were Vojislav Šešelj and Dobrica Ćosić , Vladimir Šeks ... and a number of other dissidents of the former Yugoslavia . however, despite the undoubted authority held by Mihailo Marković in the Philosophical Society and the enormous authority of Dobrica Ćosić , it was not enough to dismiss the editorial . A compromise was reached , saying that in addition to former editors : m . K ., Z . K . and S . Z ., O . S ., i .v., m . B . and N . d . – the editorial board would have a section entrusted to Mihailo Marković , with Vojislav Koštunica , Zoran Djindjić Kosta Čavoški . 70 Even at that point it was clear that such a group of people put together cannot produce a magazine , and thus another compromise was reached : the old editorial would edit one issue , and the new part of the desk the next . however, during the first joint meeting , Zoran Djindjić , Kosta Čavoški and Vojislav Koštunica ( Zoran Djindjić was the one who spoke mainly ), asked to edit the first upcoming issue , although the Assembly made a different decision . B . S . could not believe that , contrar y to what had been agreed , “ dobrica ’s secretaries ” ( the old members of the board who were called newly appointed ones ), were only interested in a de facto take over of the magazine and to demonstrate the power vested upon them by Mihailo Marković and Dobrica Ćosić . The only philosopher among Mihailo ’s messengers was Djindjić , at the time already popular philosophical writer of the anti - Communist manifesto Subjectivity and Violence , a book well - written , which instantly became the bible of conservatives and intellectual anti - communists . The other two , Koštunica and Čavoški , as lawyers , were members of the Serbian Philosophical Society just because they were dissidents . B . S . was the only one of them that ever wrote a review of the book , although not so well written and not easy to read . Nevertheless , with Trojan horses in the old editorial team , they had a majority and could easily impose a decision , the editorial decision , to publish the next issue of Teorija , in which the central section would focus on the situation in the village Batusi in Kosovo . At that point B . S . realised that the brutality of the Party intelligentsia was nothing compared to the philosophers who have the power. Thus , the philosophical subject Teorija 1982 -1986 , was destroyed , and the scene was taken by the new political class of cynics , who call themselves philosophers : the class so deeply narcissistically hurt , so bitter and ready for revenge . The alliance of philosophy , conspiracy and terror – terror which no longer hesitates to destroy any institution – any relationship of trust – is actually a new resentment ready to destroy anyone who opposes it – and back then when it appeared historically , it managed not only to destroy a philosophical subject in emerging but to indirectly destroy the entire Department of Philosophy . In other words , philosophy was banished for the next fifty years from the faculty and public life . Soon , just a year later, the cynics philosophers will enter into an alliance with the desperados á la Zeljko Simić , who in the meantime took over the University Committee , preparing the ideological platform for a new party entity , the Socialist Party of Serbia . Even then no one dared to write about it , as Mihailo and Dobrica – obeying the principle of promise that bought Trojan horses in the desk of Teorija – were already deeply involved in buying the editors of all major media . The only exception was a brave NiN journalist Lj . S . who wrote the text on the dispute , providing the old editorial board members with a place to speak and also enabled the discussion between M . K . and Mihailo Marković . This was the only trace in the public about the disappearance of the philosophical subject Teorija . The violence that philosophers can execute over other philosophers was even comical , but the violence exposed over an emerging philosophical 71 subject was a first- degree crime . Teorija soon became what it was back in 1982 : an anonymous publication of anonymous hesychasts of analytical school of philosophy. B . S . and the old members of the magazine desk left the magazine and he never became a member of the Philosophical Society of Serbia , but he learned that the violence that a father imposes over his sons is a violence that others could not perceive but also recognised the least by the ones over whom father exercised it – the sons . Unfortunately , six or seven years later, m . K and S . Z . became the main promoters of Mihailo Marković . In the recently published History of Serbian Philosophy by S . Ž , declared Mihailo Marković as logical the ending of the self- propelled philosophical spirit in the 700 year- old histor y of Serbian philosophy. While M . K . in a ver y pathetic , anti - philosophical and anti reflective In memoriam , dedicated to Mihailo Marković after his death , published in Politika , showed that neither could remember the philosophy sequence of Teorija 1982 -1986 , as surely such a text would never have been published in a magazine where they were Editors in Chief. The paradox that the Party was repressive towards philosophy during socialism , and that saturated philosophy is nothing compared to the total destruction of philosophy that philosophers have committed themselves to in the name of democracy , a multiparty system and the State . B . S . distanced himself not only from the Party , State , multi - party system , but also from philosophy. He decided to change the theoretical field and started to practice first theoretical and then clinical psychoanalysis , heavily influenced and under the friendly conduct of S . Ž . Without psychoanalysis , B . S . would have never been able to understand the paradox , the Father beats me epoch in the development of the subject which is hidden within impersonal and anti - subjective fundamental fantasy of Child is beaten . And that this paradox remains completely out of subject ’s memory : it is completely and only available through the logical constructions for which philosophers were unfortunately not ready. At the end of the Eighties M . K . and B . S . organised an informal course on Althusser and Lacan at the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade , and this was their last collaboration . After failing to start a private magazine in collaboration with S . Ž . and B . m . ( whose first issue was to feature an extensive inter view with Bogdan Bogdanović on “ Mrtvouzice , mental traps of Stalinism ”), B . S . and m . K . ceased to communicate because of their differences in political understanding of the Nineties . 72 B . S . met Zoran Djindjić only one more time , after several unpleasant encounters at Teorija , when in 1989 , his friend S . Š . asked him to go help him overcome his fears and assist in an inter view with Djindjić for the Slovenian youth weekly , Mladina . The inter view was made in Djindjić ’s studio in Strahinjića Bana Street , and after a three hour- long conversation , when the inter view was coming to an end , transforming into an informal chat , B . S . asked Djindjić , “ do you really believe , as you wrote in the Književne novine that Milošević was Napoleon Bonaparte on a white horse . The one that breaks the feuds of self- governing socialism throughout Yugoslavia ? It seems to me that he was rather the Bonaparte of Mar x ’s 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte .” Djindjić replied , “ it does not matter what I believe in , it ’s what is on the agenda , and that ’s a State and national issue .” B . S . answered , “ Is it not important who and what makes an agenda ?” Djindjić laughed heartily and did not say anything . diSCONTENT iN PSyChOANALySiS , Belgrade 20 08 As a candidate of the Belgrade Psychoanalytical Society , B . S . was asked by his colleague in 20 08 – analyst B . A . – to join the Librar y Committee , one of the four bodies of the Psychoanalytic Society . “At the Society assembly you were nominated for member of the Librar y Committee . just to let you know , i ’ m ver y authoritarian , and I request work and order and I have great ambitions with the Librar y : i want to organise a series of lectures of non - psychoanalysts on psychoanalytic topics or themes close to psychoanalysis , i want our members to review books of new psychoanalytic production and want to publish a library newsletter Večeri biblioteke .” B . S . asked why the newsletter and not the magazine . B . A . laughed and said : “ my colleague , you are even more ambitious than me .” in brief, B . S . and B . A . launched the first debate with colleagues from the Committee , where speakers from the fields of anthropology , literar y theor y and film theor y appeared . Candidates presented over fifteen new psychoanalytic books and simultaneously the emerging magazine launched a project “ Nikola Mikloš Šugar ”, which again , after Peter Klein in 1979 , revealed for the first time for the new generation of psychoanalysts a Yugoslav psychoanalyst who founded the first local Psychoanalytical Society : Belgrade Psychoanalytical Society 1938 . The magazine initiated a translation from Hungarian and German of N . m . Šugar ’s entire oeuvre , as well as organised a discussion entitled “ Psychoanalysis and its enemies ”, where psychoanalysts from the Society discussed the reasons for the lack of psychoanalysis in the public space and the lack of historical memor y of psychoanalysts themselves about the histor y of psychoanalysis in Yugoslavia . All these were elements , along with a few interesting articles that were slowly piling up and led B . A . and B . S ., with some of their colleagues from the Committee of the Society ’s librar y , to decide on launching a magazine Archives of Psychoanalysis , which would record news , events and histor y of psychoanalysis in Yugoslavia / Serbia . Throughout the entire year of magazine ’s production , B . S . used say to B . A . that huge problems would emerge after the release of Archives of 73 Psychoanalysis , as the oral tradition of psychoanalysis became written and public histor y. The histor y of psychoanalysis in Serbia is a painful , dark and long histor y of prohibition , persecution and discrimination of psychoanalysis and psychoanalysts . It started in 1941 with the decision by the minister, Andrei Korosec to label psychoanalysis as a “ Jewish science ” in the University of Belgrade . This continued with the death of N . m . Šugar in the death camp Theresienstadt on May 9 , 1945 ; then the prohibition of private psychoanalytic practice ; psychoanalysis as private education and organisation during socialism ; and the systematic persecution and annihilation of all that was done by its leader at the time Vojin Matić . This goes all the way to the denigration of psychoanalysis as a “ sect of dangerous intent ” during the Nineties . Ever since N . m . Šugar produced the first two analysts Vojin Matić and vladislav Klein , as of 1938 , psychoanalysts were , for nearly seventy years , a kind of illegal resistance movement , which since then , has developed a ver y high degree of intolerance to the outside world and almost no habit of addressing that world . Unfortunately , the B . S .’s catastrophic anticipation became reality : at the ver y end of the production of the magazine , when it was proposed as an item at the Assembly agenda , the magazine was sharply criticised by T. Š . P. ( practically the most prominent member and founder of the new Belgrade Psychoanalytical Society ). Thereafter, the Committee requested the Librar y C ommittee to conduct talks with a panel consisting of three members of the Executive Board of the Society to discuss certain formulations set under the Introduction section and many other objections to the Archives of Psychoanalysis . The Librar y C ommittee first rejected the tone of voice and the way it was talked about the Archives at the Assembly , and then any discussion in this atmosphere . On the basis of the executive board decision , the Librar y C ommittee was disbanded and the issue of Archives of Psychoanalysis was put ad acta . The Society entered into mutual combat , it split , and on the basis of the decision by the International Psychoanalytic organisations in 2010 , a kind of protectorate was introduced over the Belgrade Psychoanalytical Society , which became a full member of the International Psychoanalytic Organisation in 20 07. The only thing that B . S . missed in his catastrophic anticipation was that the Society has split before , and not after the release of the Archive of Psychoanalysis . 74 B . S . who is a member of the Belgrade Psychoanalytic Society as of has since 20 02 . When he first agreed to any membership , he thought for a ver y long time that psychoanalysts were reasonable people who respect the principle of reality and that , unlike philosophers , they could cope with a social twist of fundamental fantasy the Child was beaten . Unfortunately , he found himself where he was in 1979 : the largest amphitheatre of the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade , where he awaits an answer to the question of expelled professors . Frankly speaking , where he sits , feeling like an old dog lying near the fence . He sees everything , hears everything , all is clear to him , but he is too lazy to bark . 75 76 Hooligan-fanS and tHe new faSCiSm E x AmPLES FROm SERBiA Ivan Čolović Football hooligan - fans in Serbia , gathered in various groups and “ firms ”, are convinced that they represent the best this countr y has to offer: that they are the pillars of Serbian national interest and identity. They see themselves as guardians of the heroic Serbian tradition and Orthodoxy , and assume the task of being at the forefront of ever y battle for Serbia , not only on the “ green field ” but in other places as well . They need not be summoned , they are always prepared , ready to kill , destroy and burn for “ our cause ”, i . e . for Serbishness and Orthodoxy. Thus , one who opens the website of Cr vena zvezda supporters ( going by the name Delije ) should not be surprised to find on its homepage , not a sport message supporting their beloved club , but rather the slogan “ Kosovo is Serbia ,” which in the last ten years has ser ved for the promotion of the so - called stable national forces . Likewise , I was not surprised when I saw the same slogan , though in italian (“ Kosovo e il cuore della Serbia ”), on the banner held by hooligans who provoked the breaking up of the football match between Italy and Serbia in Genoa on the 12 th of October, 2010 . Neither was it unexpected that the main agent of the incident , a guy by the name of Ivan Bogdanov , had a full - body tattoo with various religious , warrior ’s and national symbols , which he proudly displayed to journalists when the Italian police arrested him . The journalists noted that Bogdanov was a ‘ real picture 77 galler y ’ and mentioned some of the imager y : a hand - grenade , a death mask , the temple of Saint Sava in Vračar ( one of Belgrade municipalities ), Belgrade Arms , the year 1389 , an Orthodox cross decorated with the sign of Cr vena zvezda , several winged angles ... The “ gallerist ” Bogdanov explained to journalists that he was a Serbian patriot who loved Italy , but he and his pals wanted to turn Italian public attention to the problem of Kosovo . in Bogdanov ’s opinion , the leftist Serbian government , which he described as a ‘ democratic dictatorship ’, did not know how to solve the problem . Another supporter from the group arrested in Genoa with Bogdanov, said the same thing to a journalist of Corrierre della serra – showing that the group was ideologically well prepared for Genoa : ‘ What did we want to achieve ? Exactly what you have seen . we raised hell because we want Kosovo .’ ( According to the article in Alo daily newspaper, 5 October, 2010 ). Already for many years hooligan - fans in Serbia have been presenting themselves as an important political factor and a relevant social force . However the political and ideological side of their violent behaviour in Serbia has somehow gone unnoticed or at least has not received appropriate attention . When their behaviour is publicly condemned , the objections usually concern antisocial and criminal excesses – which should be stopped by the police and judiciar y , but are not considered worthy of that attention because of their lack of political and ideological background . It is only by situating this underrating of the politics and ideology that inspire hooligans , that I can explain an important oversight in the comments made around the incident that happened during the Partizan vs . Shakhtar, on 12 th december 20 09 . here , hooligan fans performed their “ happening ” by kicking and punching a plastic doll made in the image of journalist , Brankica Stanković , the author of an investigative T V show Insider ( aired on T vB92 during 20 09 ), which dealt with , amongst other topics , the relationship between supporter groups , A mixture of kitsch and state symbols 78 hand-grenade as a symbol of war Orthodox cross with the sign of Crvena zvezda The photo published in Belgrade daily Alo, 5 October 2002. Simone Arveda / AFP/ Profimedia organised crime and extreme right- wing politics . On this occasion the hooligans issued a death threat against the journalist formulated as a rhymed message : “ Brankica , you whore ! You are as poisonous as a snake , you ’ ll end up like Ćuruvija !” The statement alluded to journalist , Slavko Ćuruvija , who was murdered in Belgrade , in 1999 by the agents of DB ( State Security ). Journalists and other commentators who wrote about this symbolic lynching of a female journalist paid full attention to the hooligans ’ excesses with the plastic doll , but did not mentioned that this incident involved two symbols and not just one . During the entire spectacle , next to the doll there was a large sheet with Tsar Dušan ’s figure , which could be quite clearly seen both on television screens and in newspaper photographs . It is only when we take into account this other symbol , this tsar figure , that we can grasp the full meaning of the hooligans ’ visual artwork and political happening . On then does it become clear that those who performed it saw themselves not as destroyers of order and law , but on the contrar y , as guardians of its authentic , public spirit . That is why they put themselves under the command of the Serbian tsar and law - giver, who is also a kind of patron saint of the Serbian judiciar y – as evidenced by the fact that his statue stands in front of the Palace of justice in Belgrade . We are not primitive bullyboys – the participants of this symbolic lynch are telling us – but the conscious Serbian youth and respecters of Serbian tradition and Serbian justice . We are not against the order, we are for a genuine , rigorous , male and exclusively Serbian order that will make the Christless , whores , pederasts and other human scum fear and tremble . By assuming such an important ethical and political role , the present- day hooligan - fans in Serbia are following the tradition of their predecessors – football supporters who fought in the wars in Croatia and Bosnia from Stadion Partizan, december 12, 2009 79 1991 to 1995 . For those supporters ( then transformed into soldiers volunteers ) participation in the actions of paramilitar y units ( e . g . in the Serb Volunteer Guard , whose founder and commandeer was Željko Ra žnatović ) meant the continuation of support by mere mortal means rather than those used previously. That was the first generation of supporters with the reputation – unquestionable even in the presentday Serbia – of uncompromising fighters for the “ national cause ”. Contemporar y young members of supporter gangs nurture a kind of cult of those “ ancestors ” and pay them respect equal to that enjoyed by the founders of tribes and first Apostles . These forerunners are considered holy warriors and the pledge of allegiance and loyalty is given to them . Here is the example from a website of Partizan supporters : ‘The first group of Šabac Grobari ( Undertakers ) goes to the front to defend the Serb cause and the faith of Saint Sava in accordance with their ultra right political commitment , thus making room for a new wave of fans who are continuing , in spite of social and political strains , the sacred tradition of their forerunners .’ ( w w w . južnifront . com .) Their experience in war and football - support , glorified by songs and stories , inspires present- day hooligan - fans to achieve in peacetime the ultimate sense and supreme enjoyment of supporting , which their famous hooligan forerunners found in the war by killing and plundering on behalf of Serbia . Those who issued death threats against Brankica Stanković ; those who played havoc in Genoa ; as well as those who , on the 7 th of September, 20 09 , before the match between Toulouse and the Belgrade Partizan beat to death Brice Taton , a fan of the Toulouse Football Club ; all of them had before their eyes the example of their older mates – football fans and holy warriors from the 1990s – who would go to the ver y end in their enthusiasm for “ our great cause ”. In the meantime , loyal to their pledge to the “ ancestors ” and acting as their legitimate successors , hooligan - fans in Serbia have adapted to the conditions of the post- communist transition . Although their older mates sang praises to Slobodan Milošević they were not deterred from participating in protests on the 5 th of October, 20 0 0 , which marked the end of the once - untouchable Serbian leader ’s rule . ( It has been noted that the supporters of Cr vena zvezda were amongst the most ardent demolishers of the National Parliament building .) They turned their back to him as easily as did many other participants of the so - called October 5 th Revolution , including the leadership of Serbian Orthodox Church , leaders of some political parties , and many respected members of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts , who understood that after Milošević lost the wars he had waged , he was not so good for the Serbian cause and Orthodox faith ( i . e . that he was no longer capable of satisfying their ambitions and to protect their privileges ). 80 Today , hooligan - fans successfully impose themselves as agents of sport life who are by far more influential than football players themselves . Their conduct during the matches has become more important ( more interesting , more serious and more instructive ) than the match itself. They are feared and toadied by club management , coaches and players . It is known that angr y supporters have at times , invaded the playing field and begin to punch the players and coaches of their beloved club or to demolish their cars in the parking lot . To pacify them , club management teams are making various concessions . Several days before Brice Taton was beaten to death , on the sports page of Politika ( 14 September 20 09 ) I found the news that Cr vena zvezda supporters were participating in conditioning exercises on the main playground of Marakana with the professional help of the club ’s conditioning coach . The coach mentioned with pride that his collaboration with Delije had lasted for more than two years , adding that ‘Zvezda cares about the good shape of its supporters .’ I believe I know what purpose the players ’ physical training ser ves , and as for the supporters ’ good shape ...well , I believe I know that too . however, for these well - conditioned fans it is not sufficient to have an important role in clubs they allegedly support and in football in general ; they also claim the role of influential agents of social and political life . What they like most is to present themselves – and to act – as a kind of moral police , as angr y righteous men and moral cleaners . In the group of Partizan fans who call themselves the South Front ( who are recognised as partners by the club management ) one of the most respected , rather elite , subgroups goes by the name Keepers of Honour, was founded in 20 04 , on vidovdan – the day when Serbs , according to Serb nationalistic mythology , do great things . Acting as moral purists , hooligan - fans are ready “ to get accounts squared ” with “ morally aberrant ” citizens , “ bad Serbs ”. Examples of these groups are the Pride Parade or with foreigners who strayed into the sacred Serbian land like the unfortunate Brice Taton did . Until recently the Serbian state was extremely indulgent towards these fans - hooligans and their efforts to beat the meaning of the Serbian Cause and National honour into Serbs . The State pursued a policy of integration , pacification and legalisation , as if it believed that militant supporters and their strike groups would become something else , something acceptable , that they will give up their xenophobic and racist excesses when they get some attention from the society , for example when they are enabled to control the production and sale of sports souvenirs and when they are offered the opportunity to participate in the management of football clubs . The State treated them as essentially good , but naughty children who carr y Serbia in their heart , which they demonstrate in their particular, somewhat rude manner. Lately however, especially after the murder of Brice Taton , the State began to change its attitude to the hooligan - fan terror. Laws were passed that sanction supporters ’ excesses more strictly and some rioters were sentenced to a several months term . What is even more important , 81 the State began to take the warnings more seriously – above all those set forth in the B92T V show Insider – that supporters group are usually connected with extreme far- right organisations in Serbia , and that riots provoked or performed by those groups are not an ordinar y discharge of the “ surplus energy ”, the consequence of youth unemployment and failures in their education , but that they have clear political goals and an ideological background . In his address to journalists on the subject of Taton ’s murder, on the 1st of October 20 09 , Serbia president Boris Tadić said that the murder is ‘ the continuation of violence which started in the 1990s ,’ and also mentioned other links of what he qualified as ‘ a continuous chain of violence .’ Of particular importance is the fact that he related the hooligan - fan conduct to fascism – a somewhat expected remark from the political head of Serbia , who declaratively advocates the European orientation of the countr y. His words were fairly contradictor y as he had first said that ‘ violence leads us to fascism ’ and then added that ‘ ideas that lead to violence must be identified .’ Anyway , the second statement – the recognition of the need to identify the ideas inciting violence in hooligan - fans – and the suggestion that those ideas may be fascist in their nature , are new , at least in the context of the State ’s treatment of this problem . But even if Tadić ’s statement really heralds a new approach to the hooligan - fan problem , the question remains as to what extent the Serbian society would support this approach . One could expect that a more serious investigation of political and ideological background of the football supporters ’ terror would meet with the approval of the largest political parties , cultural elite and Serbian Orthodox Church if, and only if, such an investigation confines itself to the relation of supporters with several already proscribed and legally sanctioned extreme right- wing groups and organisations ( such as Nacionalni stroj ( National Formation ) and Obraz ( dignity )) who mostly pursue their own goals . That said , the approval would probably be withdrawn if the State dared to notice that the ideas which inspire hooligan - fans are also advocated and promoted by some other religious - patriotic organisations like Srpski sabor Dveri ( Serbian Association dveri ), Naši (The Ours ), Nacionalni pokret 1389 ( National movement 1389 ) or Slobodan Jovanović Fund . in name , these organisations have a wide support in the so - called Serbian patriotic public as well as within some parliamentar y parties . The fact is that some of them receive financial means from the State budget . For instance , in 20 07 the programmes of Dveri were financed by the Ministr y of C ulture , Ministr y of Religion and Ministr y for Kosovo and Metohija , showing what the Serbian State will face problems if it really decides to undertake more serious measures . 82 however, the harshest opposition to potential efforts by the State to combat fascist ideas among supporters and members of far- right organisations might come from the Serbian Orthodox Church . Following the example of the most important extreme right- wing organisations , squads of supporters ’/ are tr ying hard to present themselves as good believers and Orthodox Christians , and to show their para - police activities against deviant Serbs and undesirable foreigners – their “ spedizioni punitive ” ( punitive raids ) as italian fascists called similar actions against objectionable citizens – as an activity in harmony with virtues of the so - called St . Sava way. Serbian Orthodox Church not only passes over their acts in silence , but often shows understanding for these ‘ sound , patriotically disposed young people .’ Nothing new : the same church was full of understanding for the war sprees of Željko Ra žnatović and his volunteer- fans because he also presented himself as an ardent Orthodox Christian , and the Church interpreted it in the light of the Biblical doctrine , from the mouth of Patriarch Pavle himself, as the return of the prodigal son to the bosom of the Mother Church . ( more about this could be read in my text “ Football , hooligans and Politics ,” in The Politics of Symbols , 20 0 0 ). Today there are also many in the SPC who do not object to collaboration with Delijas and other football fan groups . For instance , at the celebration of Vidovdan in Gazimestan , on 28 june 20 09 , organised amongst others , by Diocese of Raška and Prizren . delije was charged with the task of covering the local memorial dedicated to Serbian heroes with a linen sheet with the icon of Prince Lazar and Serbian coat- of- arms . They certainly did not do it on their own initiative . They were entrusted with this honourable duty as an organisation close to church and faithful to Orthodoxy . in a way , this had been announced a year before in the newspapers Pravoslavlje ( 15 November 20 08 ), the mouthpiece of the Patriarchate of Serbia , by an inter view with two Cr vena zvezda fans . The Church gave them an opportunity to express themselves because , as is claimed at the beginning of the inter view , “ their voice is not admitted ” to other media . What they said was quite God - fearing . For example : ‘ 90 percent of supporters nurture deeply religious feelings ,’ they are people ‘ who love the community ’ and represent ‘ the voice of the people .’ They mentioned with pride that they ‘ help Serbian people in Kosovo and Metohija ,’ and emphasised that they managed to ‘ remain apolitical ’ and ‘ undivided ’ by adhering to one value they share : ‘ the Serbian cause is above all for us .’ They also submitted interesting information that there is an initiative to bring together an international organisation of Orthodox football supporters , in which the group of Moscow Spartak fans , going by the name “ Gladiators ”, would have a key role . From the Gladiators leader they had learnt that the only fight Orthodoxy accepts is the fight with bear hands . Considering the content , the title of the inter view was quite appropriate : “ Without God nothing can be done ”. In the context of the debatable success of Serbian State to seriously oppose hooligan - fans terror by , in the first place , denouncing neo - fascist ideas at its roots , the former cases mean that nothing can be done 83 before raising the question of responsibility of church dignitaries and circles who not open their door to extreme nationalism , but in fact , promote it themselves . This could provoke a crisis in the relationship between the State and the church , huge dissatisfaction amongst the so - called patriotic forces and meetings of support to the Serbian cause , St Sava way , and heroes imprisoned in the Hague and Zoran Djindjić assassins . No doubt , the bishop who likes to threaten with fire and sulfur would also raise his voice . But in my opinion , this is the price that the State must pay if it wants to convince its citizens that it is able to protect the secular order, and the democratic , humanistic values on which the Republic depends . if i am not mistaken , we still live in the State named the Republic of Serbia . This being the case , we are faced with a choice which was best formulated by my friend , French physicist , Georges waysand : ‘The citizen or the fascist , one must choose !’ 84 85 86 iT’ S OvER London Calling but too late there ’s no one left to sing Guns of Brixton London calling but in vein the guns of Brixton are now silent do you recall , my friend how few we were now ever y cunt thinks they ’ re with us it ’s over it ’s over all gone but the song there ’s no one left to dance by my side Anarchy communism nationalism and fascism duce and Gabbana are now our brands here I am , friend in a foreign land when things get rough i don ’ t cr y , my friend I wipe it off it ’s over it ’s over all gone but the song there ’s no one left to dance by my side it ’s over, my friend even the song has changed the bastards around us dig remixes instead Damir Avdić Graha 87 88 it iS time we got to know eaCH otHer aS we really are Damir Arsenijević A : Brotherhood and Unity Brotherhood and unity died on two floors in mass graves and concentration camps to which of these floors should I play for you you nostalgic cunt Fuck your yugoslavia fuck your Balkan beat fuck your region , and have Tito fuck your parents Brotherhood and unity died on two floor swith firing squads and mass killers which of these two are you dancing to , you nostalgic cunt Fuck your Bijelo Dugme fuck your Lepa Brena fuck your Johnny Štulić fuck your Paket Aranžman shove communism up the ass of your swastika * and your mother Brotherhood and unity have ended it is time we got to know each other as we really are… Damir Avdić Graha 89 Graha sent a text message , in which he explained to me what motivated him to write the poem : Damir I have nothing to add about the poem , ever ything I wanted to say is already there . It ’ s a hand reaching out , for us to realise who we really are without myths and legends about better times . If we want to find out how it really was we must go back in time , but not through poems and movies , but through graves and concentration camps because those better times ended up exactly there and thus only from that point may our reminiscence of those time begin . To remember it through choral singing of “ yes , and daddy would like to get some too ,” means keeping yourself , your mind , your awareness in the graves and concentration camps ; and to keep new generations in disbelief that will be their own concentration camp . The discussion is open , go ahead please . B : There is hardly anything more to add or to remove . I do not completely agree with him . A : Good . Tell me how and why? B : It is obvious that not even a part of that histor y should be encouraged judging by our standards which are pretty low in terms of life , development , progress ; how behind the rest of the world we were ; and to what extent we were bypassed by civil revolutions . We have never had that – that is , almost until the end of the Second World War – we have never had the industrial revolution , which occurred in the 19 th centur y. And when I think of it , and this is probably selfish to say , but when I think of it from the perspective of numbers and measuring things – if they can be measured – for me those 50 years were also years of progress in terms of some emancipation practices that existed at that time and the number of people born , regardless of all the bloody wars that occurred during those past 50 years . Of course this should not be the starting point , and I understand that he attacks people for romanticising the past , those who are Yugo - nostalgic , but I am not that man . And that ’s not all . I think that Yugoslavia cannot be reduced to the hatred that once destroyed it . 90 C : I think that he is right , but it ’s a kind of morbid result . One dimension is often overlooked among many others in such a conception of Yugoslavia . The whole stor y is full of shit , but to idealise it is a great idea ! i am not yugonostalgic , but when we look at the situation realistically , as he says , either through the numbers , or the economy of the society – that period was the most successful . Although that success was not something to be really proud of, but compared to what we have today : it was a success . it ’s like a step for ward , and I want to look at it that way instead . it is a criticism that goes into a bit of a nihilistic variant – a criticism that nullifies all , so that graves and concentration camps cannot be the only starting point . Before the graves and concentration camps there was something , and something , and something . Non - existence – that may be one of those reference points , one of the points from which we read the past or future . But there was more of it before all of that . And that ver y Yugoslavia was one of those points . I think he is pulled into that one dark spot , which is again a consequence of a number of others . So the poem is okay , it has its own good dimensions and it ’s critical . But for me it ’s a little too much . It might be ridiculous to say dark , but the poem is nihilist – nullifying , in the sense that it nullifies all . D : if i may add , all of what he objurgates and criticises , represents pop culture in a way. It happens nowadays , all of those artefacts that belonged to it , for example , the Balkan Beat , is a completely newly invented musical structure , the genre as it exists today . When I was in Amsterdam for example , there was a DJ Skoko or Shoko from Zenica – a refugee – and that man has made his living for 20 years now by playing the Balkan beat . Then you have all of those bands , Bijelo Dugme that merged last year. For commercial reasons of course . No , there is no nostalgia . Lepa Brena , and he even refers to Džoni Štulic , who is not here anymore . But for those who are a bit more urban , the Paket aranžman ... He simply criticises pop culture through its general points , the Bijelo dugme , it ’s a ... C : And experiencing Yugoslavia through the ... D : But it ’s not , you cannot say that ... E : But that was the only thing that sur vived . B : Like the audience . C : The way the audience is experiencing it today. B : And this audience is the same , those same urban nuclei in the cities divided into different sub - cultures , could not be heard in any part of our former joint state . There were some attempts during the war. The audience are members of the silent majority that withdrew and could not be heard anywhere , and have now emerged – wanting to continue where they left off, as if something happened , I have no idea what . “ When I remember the ‘ 87 Dugme concert… ” blah , blah . D : As the rural - urban division , the crisis of the war and ... F : This is a terrible way of thinking for me that goes along these lines : “ Something happened , but I have nothing to do with it .” G : “That ’s not my war.” 91 D : it ’s like Belgrade ’s stor y. The war. “ Bosnia is at war, but we are over here .” were hicks and they remained hicks .” But this is the truth , it ’s even worse , and I have often heard it : as if some hicks came , got into the war, and those nice city folks got killed . “They H : We have nothing to do with it ... I : we listened ... J : Urban guerrilla . D : Urban hick , that ’s even worse . J : We cannot speak in an urban manner in the territor y where not a single area has seen more than 30 0 years of urban life . The sewer systems in Belgrade were built in the 19 th centur y , but not in all parts of the city. And that is still the case . K : This poem annoys me terribly. A : Why? K : It annoys me because Tito fucks mother and father, and all others , only mother. Communism fucks mother and the swastika is of a female gender, not father. B : Any father would be proud to be fucked by Tito . I think that all is in the poem , and that both men and women were fucked as much as they could take it . K : We know that he had to get father and mother, but it annoys me that the text now says ‘ yes , and daddy would like to get some too ’. i mean ok , but it would ... L : It alludes to characters in the Yugoslav film Who ’ s Singing Over There . A : All right , and what about the invitation to get to know each other ‘ as we really are ’? 92 E : i just wanted to say , that I agree with you , as far as this first long part of the poem is concerned . But eventually it might be a positive move . At least I understood it that way . well , okay , it was what it was ; we are who we are ; and now it is finally time to get to know each other through what used to be – in fact , to realise who we are today . it ’s about finally admitting all the weaknesses and shortcomings ; getting rid of those illusions ; and now , supposedly , finally understanding who we actually are . This is a step for ward . That is how I ... J : I take it to mean the total opposite . Because of the aforementioned “ mother fucking ” and all , he caught a bit of each of us ...These introductions can lead to a general conflict because it ’s all ... E : Alright , I think that ’s correct . We have all been a bit frustrated . i perceived the poem as a provocation and in fact we , all of us , should probably start cleaning up our own mess . it makes us want to make a final clean - up , you know , of a mentality , in our own backyards and then move on to that of others : neighbours or whoever. A : Who are we ? J : We constantly have here allusions to a stor y of brotherhood and unity . What really happened against brotherhood and unity is all mentioned : the camps and all . The problem is in what was actually being hidden during the period of brotherhood and unity , and what indeed happened in the end . What was simmering during that time ? What was being suppressed in order to present this model of some former socialist yugoslavia ? is it a sor t of ... something that you said Damir…who are we ? If we look to this region of South - Eastern Europe , and speak about people currently in power in Croatia ( bearing in mind that most people vote for some existing par ties of national orientation ) – are people really satisfied with the conditions in which they live today ? What are the fact s on the ground ? It seems to me that people are incredibly satisfied ; as is the case for a cer tain group of people in Bosnia and Her zegovina . We definitely need to deal here with something that was a national frustration , which is obvious today in Bosnia and Herzegovina . is our right , or the right of some citizen in Bosnia and Herzegovina , to express ourselves and in fact , to be legitimated as a national Serb , Croat or Bosniak ? Have we not yet completed the process of national identification ? Somehow that ’s put aside and we are now in the position that we need to forget it all somehow . This makes us become products : the result , rather than subjects of what happened . What happened was suppressed brotherhood and unity – something which definitively failed throughout the 20 th centur y , from Austrian Hungarian Monarchy onward because the national moment existed at that time and because it was somehow suppressed within Bosnia and Herzegovina ... i don ’ t know , even in the context of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and later in the context of the Socialist Federal Republic of yugoslavia – all of it was part of the cause of what happened , and now we are calling upon the stor y of “ brotherhood and unity ”. I think therefore , that we need to take into account ever ything that led to these camps and all the crimes committed . That situation was the result of things being suppressed as long as Yugoslavia existed . I think that in a way , that was it . 93 Nowadays , when you imagine all of the political structures and voters who form the majority : are they satisfied with what we have ? Are these processes of national identification the solutions to what we have been long awaiting ? When you look at it , what we have are actually the results of previous elections . Perhaps it ’s absurd that all of this leads me to that and brings me back to that context , but that is it : an ethnic hatred and frustration so obvious in Bosnia and Herzegovina from year to year. A : As if it is constantly present , as if it is not produced – as if it is there somehow naturally? J : It is produced . It is produced on a daily basis . That frustration and hatred have a continuous flow, but I want to say that this younger generation of people is growing up on very different , let ’s say, diametrical levels . One generation is in Sarajevo , the other in Banja Luka – if I may thus make simplistic the divisions within Bosnia and Herzegovina – but these are the generations that grow up with these divisions and hatred . We have here a few people that in a way , may have some opinion and speak of an urban rural division .... now I am talking about the relations that existed in former yugoslavia , but we know what comprises the majority. It is high time we got to know each other the way we really are . Perhaps it is a return , and then the opening of a new question . Who are we today and where do we go ? L : I also wanted to say the same regarding the time of brotherhood and unity and that invitation in the end . The whole stor y tells me about some pop culture , and about ever ything related to Tito and the Balkans and all these things ; and we ’ ve talked about the fact that , actually unity and brotherhood did not introduce us to who we are . This was the ideal that existed , it automatically minimised any potential problems , i . e . national – making sure that they did not grow . All these things that emerged were a result of a darkness , speaking from the perspective of this poem , that was created on the basis of brotherhood and unity. There was no time for us to get to know each other as we really are , and this led us to what has happened : firing squads and mass killers and ... Once again , it all emerged from a nation that developed over a period of 50 years , since 1945 , under the idealism and ideology of brotherhood and unity. So I think that to the poem expresses a lot of that nostalgia and what it actually led to . It brought people into a sort of delusion that these ideals existed . They turned out not to be there . Making us wonder what the people here are really like , when they had no opportunity to ... A : And what do you think that people are like , actually? L : Opportunists , so I think . 94 M : i do not want to go into individual cases . They are somehow similar in character. I do not think there is an excessive difference – there is just a difference . So we have the example of Belgrade getting a sewage system in the 19 th centur y. Even in the period when a nation - state is created , or during its existence over 10 or 20 years – the state is never truly independent or was under foreign rule ... A : You actually think that… ? M : A period of general evolution of states in this region did not exist ... A : You mean the nation - state ? M : Not only the nation - state . States as states , even this one that was created , was built on the brotherhood and unity of the poem Walter Defends Sarajevo . it went so far into communist blocks , for example in China even today , there is a beer with a label with Bata Zivojinovic who defended Sarajevo – things like that . So it is based on an idealisation of the struggle for national liberation , whatever it may have been . maybe we can say , maybe I can say , that the state we had was ideal for me because my roots blah , blah , mean that I should think that way , and it was better for me . Was the period of brotherhood and unity really that good ? And did it really require a suppression of certain things ? That ’s the same question . So the time when people asked questions did not exist . N : i just want to add my reaction . My reaction is partial . i was not able to catch it all , but one thing jumped out and I want to say that I refuse to accept the theor y that the people were , that something was being suppressed . I refuse this . i don ’ t know , I have no alternative , but i just want to say that I reject it . I think that ’s part of the mythology. A : Exactly. m : Graha does not say that brotherhood and unity did not exist , but that it all ended up on ‘ two floors ’, as it did . Now is not the time to know each other as we really are , but for each one of us to get to know us . meaning : those new qualities that ended up where brotherhood and unity ended . It is time to realise who we really are . Who are we ? There is no more brotherhood and unity – they ’ re finished . A : Who are we , how and together ? J : i didn ’ t understand this that way . Perhaps this should be analysed on ‘ two floors ’. A : Alright , let ’s analyse ‘ on two floors ’ then . J : The first would be the intention of Graha himself. He seems to take the position that something was being suppressed and that the period of brotherhood and unity was the cause of mass graves and concentration camps . 95 A : Where do you see that ? J : In the poem itself. A : Alright , show it to me . J : Brotherhood and unity ended on the two floors . That is already a cause - effect relationship . He tells us which are the two floors : graves and concentration camps . It is obvious if anything ... let ’s look at what is hidden . Now this is something important . If I speak about the intention . The intention lies in the last two verses . ‘ It is time to realise who we really are ’. It seems to me that he did not want to say it ’s time to finally realise our national identities , but rather that it is time to finally realise the animal in all of us . I think that it was that ... A : But i wonder, why plural ? Who are “ we ” as a collective , i . e . how and who are we as a collective now ? And what is really the possibility of a collective ? N : Maybe this sentence referring to the region is an indicative one . in this context , the word “ region ” refers to the Yugo - sphere : meaning all that is happening with the railways , post offices , and somehow all those economic moments that begin within what we could call a new imagined community. This , we may arbitrarily call “ yugo - sphere ” and it includes former Yugoslav republics , republics that were part of Yugoslavia . So it might be that all is managed from Slovenia to Kosovo , meaning all the people that have once shared a countr y together. B : It is clear from this listing , whom he is addressing : Tito . N : yugo - sphere is now the region . we do not say yugoslavia any longer, but we say the region , which refers to Serbia , Croatia , Slovenia , Bosnia , whatever. Who ’s gonna list them all ? When one says “ the region ”, it is actually a euphemism for “ yugoslavia ”. A : For what is not allowed to be said , actually. N : What is not allowed to be said is that it is Yugoslavia . That ’s why they would say that this is “ former yugoslavia ”. A : You have mentioned South - Eastern Europe . From which perspective is this South - Eastern Europe I want to know ? From whose point of view ? B : From the EU perspective . we are often so ... A : Because that ’s actually Vehrmacht ’s vocabular y : South - Eeastern Europe . 96 J : I think that “ Hypo Alpe Adria Bank ” strictly refers to this region in that manner, as it has a chain of banks , South - Eastern Europe . ... O : I think what he talks about in his poem are the poetics of the next generation . A : For whom , tell me ? Did you want to say something ? P : When I read it I felt that rage . i was born in ‘ 85 . in ‘ 92 I was six or seven years old . Thrown into chaos . Parents didn ’ t know how to explain what was happening ; they didn ’ t know what was going on themselves , let alone me . And now these are the consequences of all that . And i say , “ fuck that Yugoslavia .” if it was any good , it would still be , and that ’ s it ... And now it ’s time to realise who I am . I choose heroism , so what ? do you want me to be a beast ? I was born in chaos . it ’s better to be a nihilist . A : And why is that better ? P : What is the other option ? Start killing or be killed , what ? A : it is ver y interesting . Can I ask you something ? This is the second question raised by the poem , after saying that brotherhood and unity ends on two floors before firing squads and mass killers . On which of these two floors do you dance ? On which of these two floors do you all dance ? P : i don ’ t know . To me it all sucks , there is no light at the end of the tunnel . it ’s pitch dark . A : So there is no way out ? you can just be , either in front of the firing squad or be a killer ? R : But that is exactly the point of the poem . You do not have be one or the other. You can just be and watch all that , and not even that . Somehow , the choice should be set before , and not only when it is brought into the situation where it becomes either me or you . Of course there is that possibility , and it has happened before . But you shouldn ’ t bring the situation down to that alone – to a fait accompli . A : But interestingly , you have now introduced the generational gap . you said the generation that ... R : Precisely. I can feel both . i was born in ‘77 and I was 14 when the war began . I had an awareness . i lived in Croatia . I entered the war before you did . I was already aware of what was going on . There was an introduction to it all . I watched , I figured out what was happening . it was 97 written on the door of my school ‘ Dogs and Serbs not allowed .’ i realised that I am a Serb . i asked : should I go to school or not ? And then it all began . I understand the anger. I also experienced that anger in my life . i mean first you are a Serb , and then you realise it ’s you and that ’s not an issue . You have that detail , it is not arguable , and you are threatened in Croatia and then there are all the other things that go with it . First you obser ve ever ything from the position of the victim . And then I had to go through all the other positions when I moved to Bosnia and all that , but that does not matter right now . Ever ybody has a stor y. In one part of my life I would say that ’s my poem , in one part , so I understand that generation . Somehow , they feel the anger and this poem is a reflection of that anger. This is not positive , but this is the result and can only be dealt with , with that anger. People cannot be stopped really . They can in a way but that ’s a negative thing in that anger. Therefore , we need to talk . That anger should be channelled in another direction ... ... A : just a moment , let ’s focus the discussion . S : I think ... i wouldn ’ t agree . i was born in ‘ 84 . It seems to me that our generation is in a rage . I think it is ver y contradictor y in its appearance versus its reality. Why? i am constantly surrounded by generations younger than mine and it seems to me that they , under the influence of mass media , fill their heads with a variety of information . Then they apparently think of something , feel like they have a national identity and that all this concerns them ; yet on the other hand , they are totally contradicting themselves – exactly what you said – there are situations where they say one thing but do the opposite . For instance , there was this concert of Ceca in the city square . People who absolutely hate the Union of Independent Social - democrats came in busloads to hear the concert even though Dodik appeared and spoke highly of his party. This shows a complete contradiction in young people . I do not think that they are angr y , but my question addressed to you is in regard to something that ’s been bugging me . i am not angr y , though like many others I have suffered some particular consequences of the war. What I want to know , and what has been on my mind for years is that I often ask myself: who are they? Ok , I know people around me that are perfectly regular, normal , and well - intentioned . I am often haunted by this question . Fuck it , sorr y ever yone , who the fuck made all that horror and who are those people ? Where are those faces ? How is it possible that all of a sudden , we are all so fine , wonderful , beautiful , while someone has robbed , someone has killed , someone has raped , someone has been breaking into other people ’s homes ? 98 I can start from individual examples of the people around me and I ’ m not angr y. i am not really you know , and i will never be . i also come from a mixed marriage , and all that . So what I just want to know is who are these people ? How come all that aggression suddenly , supposedly , disappeared ? I do not believe that it has disappeared . We young people , we are not outraged , but somehow it seems to me that young people are still unaware , completely unaware , of what has happened and that they are being manipulated . i often ask myself – and hell , I wonder when I walk down the street – if some of the people I see are those someones who entered the apartment of my father and robbed it ; or if it is a person that killed my friend ’s father on one battlefield or the other. Someone had to do it . But we supposedly... J : But anger is one of the phases . Anger is a natural reaction . P : It might be much healthy I suppose . It is a normal thing to be angr y for a period . A : But who are these people ? I think it ’s a good question if you want to reflect on this issue . Who are these people ? What do you think ? S : The elite . The present elite . A : Interestingly there are currently 10 50 0 missing people in Bosnia . There used to be 15 0 0 0 missing persons…This means that 10 50 0 people who were not only killed and buried by the elite – who would have then moved the graves and buried them again . M : Some of those missing are there , those who were actually robbed and killed . I think they disappeared on their own . A : I think that there are currently 10 50 0 registered missing persons that are buried somewhere in mass graves the whereabouts of which we do not know . And for sure someone knows where they are , because some people had to make those mass graves . Š : I think that it cannot be hidden . You cannot hide it – hide it without a trace . it ’s really stupid because someone had to do it , and because they are where they are . This was done by ordinar y labourers , i wouldn ’ t know who . Karadzic relocated ... A : He could not physically relocate ... Š : Not by himself for sure ... ... T: People are ver y complicated and ... and are generally terribly manipulable . i don ’ t know , you say “ the people ”, but i don ’ t know what you mean by that ? 99 A : That ’s right ! i ’ ll cut in . Yesterday we spoke about how the institutionalisation of the political nation created in the NOB ( National Liberation Struggle ) was actually executed , and that if any conversion was carried out – if any transition was carried out – it was the transition of the political subject out of the political nation . When I say “ Serb ” today , it is not the same “ Serb ” as it was in yugoslavia , or in world war ii . When you say the “ Serbs ”, “ Croats ” and “ muslims ”, they are not the same anymore , they are no longer the same categories . What we have today are “ ethnic groups ”. They have no political subjectivity . Ethnic groups have the inevitability of inscribing the blood into the soil . And nothing else . This categorisation is a vicious circle . So that ’s exactly what you are saying Vahida . When I say “ people ”, it ’s confusing because there are no more peoples , political people , there are only ethnic groups .1 ... What the poem talks about the most is the pain that lasts because of a lie : about how we all are jointly convinced that we make neither histor y nor the future ; about how we are all slaves of the present and live our separate lives that never meet with others . The poem insists that we talk about the pain but in the name of hope . The poem brings histor y to justice . It exposes the lies – superseding and inviting us to establish a new way of being and acting , individually and collectively , on behalf of the forgotten future that is not the terror of inequality but rather а policy of equality for all . After the genocide , the poem provides a “ unique experience with the past .” It separates a collective memor y from the anaesthetic miasma of conformity. It reads it and constructs it in its outcr y against the dominant one , and thus conjures up the new policy . The poem bears witness to literature as a “ shared power of talking beings ’’ – relieving us of the feeling of the impossible . Excerpt from the transcript of the work of the poem reading group: It’s time we got to know each other as we really are, Banja Luka, October 22, 2010. 1 10 0 101 10 2 an arCHe or barbariSm: tHe reSponSibility of being of/in tHe world Lana Zdravković The so - called global financial crisis which is a direct consequence of the global , vulgar post- Fordist neo - liberal hegemony , through which the global market firmly established itself and introduced the market logic into all spheres of life – including life itself ! – while transforming the proletariat ( the working class ) into the precariat ( the imperiled class living in uncertainty ) – leading some progressive thinkers of contemporar y society to intensely contemplate the idea of a just social order. In this explicitly apolitical era of turbo - capitalism and related social arrangements , in which profit is more important than people – and animals , nature , social relations , in short , more important than anything – it has become clear that the concepts of state , sovereignty and ( consensual ) democracy , i . e . the concepts that are taken for granted and considered unchangeable and finite , should be seriously re - considered . This further raises the question of a ( new ) political subject and the ways to resist the brutal capital - driven system which , by producing and maintaining inequality , exploitation and control , with people valued only as cheap workforce or commodities , sustains the creation and preser vation of global governance . In the situation in which perpetual structural , State and economic violence , albeit somewhat concealed in certain cases , has been fully normalized ( and in some cases even legalized !), while ever y subjective , social violence as a response to it has been criminalized and brutally punished , the 103 question of resistance and its subject has become the key political question of the contemporar y era . Another question proceeding from that is of ( parliamentar y ) representation , advocacy or ( Leftist ) par ty organisation . What has become of the idea of the ( socialist ) Left , which proverbially and historically worked towards justice , solidarity and equality? At the time of its total disintegration and the over whelming domination of the Right , which is also or primarily enabled by the Left itself,1 some have revived the Mar xist , socialist and communist ideas . This is not surprising given that Mar xism represented a significant attempt at implementing the fundamental principle of equality and , in the spirit of its renowned slogan – philosophers only interpreted the world but the point is to change it – presented itself as the only revolutionar y teaching which was meant to become the state doctrine . As an idea about the governance of non - governance , i . e . the rule of socialism / communism , Mar xism promised the implementation of philosophy in practice through national - liberation struggles ( unifying people and the nation ) and through workers ’ movement ( unifying the worker and the citizen ). 2 The October Revolution was considered an event par excellence equal to that of 1789 in terms of its potential to change power relations . however, much like all other – social – revolutions ( by which Mar xists swore ), this too left untouched power relations forming the basis of State operation . The dictatorship of the proletariat proved to be commensurate with the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie , as a ‘ class essence of the socialist state ’. 3 The liberation of people exposed the impossibility of the organic connection between national and popular dynamism . The inherent connection between Mar xism and workers ’ social reference disintegrated . Consequently , as Badiou argues , no socialist state , national - liberation struggle or workers ’ movement today is capable of constituting a historical reference that would be capable of corroborating the universality of Mar xism . 4 The simple identification of the government and the State , the ideology and repression with the State apparatus – led to the death of Mar xism as a universal event of the political thought . 10 4 On the other hand , anti - Mar xists today offer various freedoms : western thought , equal opportunities , human rights , tolerance , multiculturalism , humanitarianism , the rule of law , parliamentar y democracy , freedom of choice , free market and so on — in other words , the liberal theor y of the political , which primarily implies the renunciation of radicalism of thought and the essence of politics . As Badiou writes — and for him , politics is that which radically alienates itself or withdraws itself from the experiences of the “ social ” contemporar y anti - Mar xism is subordinated to the Western , conser vative instinct . The core of anti Mar xism is a reactionar y conceptual formation in which the spirit of conser vative democratic spirituality replaced historical dynamism . For Badiou , this is a true catastrophe of thought . This catastrophe has sapped away all of the radicalism of philosophical questioning . 5 In this 1 Bauman, 2011, p. 33. 2 Badiou, 2004. 3 Ibid., p. 31. 4 Ibid., p. 34. 5 Ibid., p. 36. sense , it would be possible to truly rethink politics only when it becomes liberated from ‘ capitalo - parliamentarism ’, i . e . the tyranny of numbers , number of voters as well as number of demonstrators or strikers , or ‘ excessively objectivist marriage of the market economy and the voting ritual ’. 6 What we have today is precisely this “ idyllic state of the political ” which usually calls itself “ consensual democracy ”, but in reality it is a combination of contradictor y terms . Viewed from the historical perspective , both socialism and communism as Mar xist revolutionar y ideas about the governance of non - governance became entangled in controversy . Both fer vently fought for the constitution , rights , institutions and institutional functioning , which , as they themselves claimed at the same time , were only the expression of the rule of the bourgeoisie and capital . On the other hand , so - called liberal - democratic regimes that argue that Mar xism is outdated , have in realty adopted a kind of prosaic Mar xism for which politics is an expression of the certain state of society , while basic content for political forms is provided by the development of productive forces . The proclaimed success of democracy is accompanied by the reduction of this ver y democracy to a certain state of affairs within social relations . Such a regime , dominated by the principle of identity - based community and the identification of democracy with the rule of law , has , as its consequence , the creation of an illusion of a self- identical community and leads straight to the disappearance of politics within the concept of law , with politics equated with the spirit of the community . The subordination of the State to the legal is therefore the subordination of the political to the State . As Rancière argues , to identify democracy with the rule of law , and the rule of law with liberalism is to debunk the rule of the people . 7 6 Badiou, 2006, p. 239. 7 Rancière, 2006. It is necessar y to separate the essence of politics from “ political ” factuality and primarily from the related number- based approach . Today , in the name of the principles that the rule ( of law ) is better than selfwill , and that freedom is better than slaver y , discourse on democracy has become an imperative presented as the only possible model of promoting and implementing political equality . As a consequence of this general trend , ever y countr y has become “ democratic .” This has created an artificial democracy vs . totalitarianism opposition as an ultimate confrontation of the good and the evil . The victor y of democracy is presented as a victor y of the system of ( national , supra - national , trans - national ) institutions that embody the sovereignty of people and as a political and economic system that is supposedly the only just system . however, doubts about the “ genuineness ” of institution mediated democracy as an expression of the sovereignty of people , steadily increased , especially after the fall of the totalitarian regimes . The degradation and vulgarization of parliamentar y representation ; the obscuring of the boundar y between the legislative and the executive branch of the government ; the privileged position and corruption 10 5 of the local - global political elites that carr y no consequences ; and the systematic production and maintenance of inequality – all of these constitute the real image of democracy today . In the name of such a democracy , the significance of the national sovereign State has increased ( even if under the pretence of international – and EU – integration and opening up ), as has that of borders ( which do not only , or rather not primarily , run between neighbouring countries , although countries ’ borders continue to be fixed . Certain states and peoples are not only physically and financially exploited but also criminalised ; we live in the world of “ three speeds ” with nationalism , racism , neo - imperialism and neo - colonialism reinforced . “The democratic development ” has become a terrifying determining process which moves along the strictly formulated linear “ civilisational ” path of development – representing a norm to which one should aspire in the move away from totalitarianism and the terrorism of a non - capitalist kind . The meaning of the term democracy , as ‘ the most important organiser of consensus ,’ supposedly uniting the fall of the socialist countries with the allegedly favourable situation in the West and humanitarian crusades of the West in the East , is in fact ‘ authoritarian opinion ’ that actually precludes ever y critical position towards democracy . 8 Today it is simply forbidden not to be democratic . moreover, democratisation has been equated with humanitarianism , so those who are not democratic are perceived as being pathological or, in the best- case scenario , in need of painstaking re - education , while in the worst case they deser ve a militar y inter vention delivered by “ democratic forces ”. Today a large significance is ascribed to democracy and the struggle for it . But what is democracy as a concept , asks Badiou . What is democracy beyond the empirical collection of parliamentar y operations ? Is it possible to think that the global crisis of political thinking can vanish in these clichés and that the ( capitalist ) systems of the West are more flexible and more responsive to consensus than the ( equally capitalist ) systems of the East ? No matter how valuable the democratic idea is , if it is understood in this way it is by no means on a par with the historical nature of the crisis of the political . Its empirical domination is rather one of the symptoms of the extent and depth of this crisis . 9 For Badiou , democracy is undeniably a concept which comes closest to the real in politics , so it is never anything else but a form of the State . ‘ democracy and totalitarianism are two epochal versions of the fulfilment of the political in the doubled categor y of social bond and representation .’ But our task , says Badiou , is contrar y – aiming at the politics insofar as it is un - bound and un - representable .10 10 6 The fundamental problem in fact , is that the political reality of today ( political parties , elections , parliamentar y representation etc .) is presented as the only possible option – as a series of irrefutable realities . Such a presentation ensures the self- legitimisation for government which appears as an instrument of an almost scientific necessity that 8 Badiou, 2005, p. 78 9 Badiou, 2004, pp.13-14. 10 Ibid., p.14. must be forced upon “ democratic anarchy ” at any price . It also furthers the opinion that democracy of today is impossible to problematise . What this conception practically translates into is that good government is possible but only if the term “ people ” is excluded from it . This produces governing in the name of people but without people . how else is it possible to explain various “ reforms ”, laws and directives invented and adopted by various governments away from the eyes of the public and despite huge opposition by those affected by these measures – whose situation in the long - run is persistently and systematically aggravated rather than improved ? If governments represent people and act in their name , how is it possible that most of their measures fly in the face of the will of the people ? To whom or what can they appeal if not the people who they are supposed to represent , but who are , with rising revolt , drawing attention to these inconsistencies through street protests , strikes and demonstrations ? Is there anyone out there who still believes that in order to achieve a “ better life ”, social and health care rights should be persistently curtailed , jobs shed on the grounds of a need for “ cheaper workforce ” and the “ competitive edge ”, free education abolished , and science and arts systematically destroyed on grounds of applicable and financially profitable technology and cultural consumerism respectively? 11 Badiou, 2008, p. 31. At this moment , it is necessar y to seriously ask oneself if politics understood as political parties , parliamentar y representation and elections , ensures genuine democracy in the sense of true equality . Can those who go to the elections ( and their number, as we know , has been steadily decreasing ) really represent the people , and can they be considered a guarantee of equality ? If a new Hitler were to win the elections ( as has already occurred ) could we talk about the victor y of democracy ? we were witness to elections – called the “ celebration of democracy ” – won by populist leaders whose vulgar understanding and banal practice of politics borders on fascism and racism ( Berlusconi , Sarkozy , Putin , merkel , to mention only the most extreme examples in Europe at the moment ). If the sole number of voters determines democracy , then it means that democracy is not at all interested in content . “ democratic ” majorities are anything but innocent , says Badiou . To praise numbers simply because people went to the elections – regardless of what the outcome was – and to have respect for a decision brought by the majority without being interested in content , is something that is part of the general depression . For Badiou , the situation in which we cannot express our opposition to the result that we are forced to accept and in which we are expected not only to confirm the irrationality of the logic of numbers but also to express the highest respect for it , is simply unacceptable .11 Therefore , in the era of “ capitalo - parliamentarism ”, elections are not the “ celebration of democracy ” but rather have the conser vative role of maintaining the current order, i . e . the order of non - equality , as pointed out by the demonstrators in 1968 with the slogan : “ Elections are a trap for idiots .” Elections offer only an apparent option of choice , which in 107 reality is a non - choice within the given power relations . Political parties ( extensively and systematically financed from State budgets ) have established themselves as ultimate protagonists of the political and as representative bodies of the people ’s will , but it turned out on so many occasions that they do not understand politics as the rule of the people but as a means of realising their own pragmatic goals . They are not concerned with the essence of politics , but technocratically , deal only with the methods of ( effective ) government . Therefore , a deliberation on new ways of representation and participation in politics that would enable just distribution of both work and goods as well as government and ( self ) management , seems urgent . The traditional understanding of politics ( practised in parliaments by professional politicians - technocrats of various political parties chosen in elections to “ represent ” the will of the people ) should be confronted with Badiou ’s concept of meta - politics : a risky , dangerous , militant and invariably particular action , a fidelity to the singularity of an event led by self- authorised order.12 It is a process of active understanding and implementation of the political thought- practice , beyond the established boundaries of political theor y . Politics therefore can exist only as “ emancipator y politics ” which in its essence and operation is primarily a thinking process . This kind of understanding runs counter to what we are taught today – that politics is the management of the urgent . it is , therefore , necessar y to put an end to the understanding of politics as representative politics , i . e . as representing the social subject . According to Badiou , politics can by no means represent the proletariat , or a class or a nation . That which constitutes a subject in the field of the political cannot be articulated within that field but its existence is confirmed by the political effect itself.13 10 8 It is clear that the contemporar y State resting on neo - liberal principles cannot ensure genuine politics . The State is based on fear rather than freedom and on terror that is called “ democracy ” rather than on genuine of that , i . e . the ‘ equality of anyone with ever yone ’.14 The dialectics of fear and terror is the highest order dialectics . By legitimising the State through fear we potentially authorise it to become a terrorist State .15 What counts , then , is not the plurality of opinions regulated by a common norm ( consensus ), but the plurality of instances of politics which do not share common norms because the subjects involved are always different . There is no one politics , but various politics that do not create any kind of common , homogeneous histor y. It is a paradox that the political order of the State has been named “ democracy ”, given that , predicated on modern instances of politics , it can by no means be a metapolitical concept . Above all , democracy as a concept is always part of the State and therefore true politics must become liberated from the State which is ‘ static and does not think ,’16 as well as from democracy , meaning that it is anti - democratic . Given that it has a long tradition of connection to the State , democracy , as a categor y of particular politics , cannot . 13 Badiou, 2004, p. 60. 14 Rancière, 2005. 15 Badiou, 2008, p. 9. 16 Ibid., p.87. be an essential philosophical concept . Badiou , therefore , proposes that politics understood as an active thought should be denoted by the term equality ( justness or communism ). For him , communism is ‘ the only good hypothesis ,’;17 communism can be criticised and even buried , but only to be - reinvented , to be reborn . True politics is therefore not a regulator standing between totalitarianism and democracy , but must be ‘ interpretative , active thought and not coup d ’etat ’.18 It must be radically unacceptable at its source and non representable in its procedure . Only in this way can it be radical and infinite at the same time . Badiou named this concept ‘ politics unbound ’.19 Since no one can determine what is objectively good for a community , the fiction of political representation must be abolished in order to create conditions for the reality of the political process , because only in this way , the singularity of the political can be created . “ Politics unbound ” is therefore a creative act in which subjects renounce all other interests (‘ the exterritoriality of politics ’), 20 break with the routine and begin to encourage themselves as a collective . This radical conception of politics is at the same time a demand for political responsibility , which constitutes itself as a radical ethical conduct . in contrast to “ political plurality ”, “ coexistence ” and “ respect for difference ”, politics has no substance or community beyond real transformation that it creates in each concrete situation . There are no historical obstacles , or weight of traditional , national , cultural , racial , ethnic , religious or other common ties that could restrict or direct individual instances of politics , since these have nothing to do with it . At the same time , politics is not tied to a programme – in its singularity it does not represent , or stand for anyone in particular, and it engages ever yone who is in a position to be engaged at any specific time . Ever yone is fully entitled to be part of politics . Radical politics exposes the unstable inconsistency of social ties and in this way transcends the generally accepted structure of the existing state of affairs , stretching the situation beyond the boundaries of the current understanding – beyond that which appears to be impossible . 17 Ibid., p. 97. 18 Badiou, 2004, p.14. 19 Badiou, 2005, p.68. 20 ibid. 21 Rancière, 2005, p. 21. To think politics and seek genuine democracy therefore means to seek Rancière ’s equality of anyone with ever yone within the system of State endorsed inequality in which we live . in Rancière ’s view , politics begins where the balancing of profits and losses stops and the distribution of the parts of the common begins . 21 Therefore , if a political community is to be something more than ‘ a social contract ’, the equality within such a community must be different and fundamental , and the logic of exchange should be subordinated to the general welfare . The essential political question , as Rancière has shown , arises in connection with the “ basic miscount ”: the subordination of arithmetical equality , which governs the exchange of goods and determination of judicial penalties , to proportional geometrical equality that aims for common harmony , as well as the subordination of the collective part contributed by ever y 10 9 part of the community to the part it contributes to the general welfare . Politics thus exists because parts of the whole are miscounted . 22 This subordination of arithmetical equality to geometrical equality , which implies an unusual count of a community ’s “ part ”, while balancing the values contributed by the community with the rights accorded on the basis of these values , could prove to be a wrong constitutive of politics itself. In that way , a community , as a political community , is divided by the fundamental conflict that arises from the counting of its parts even before it comes to its “ rights ”. The people are not one class among others . They are the class of the wrong that harms the community and establishes it as a “ community ” of the just and the unjust . It is in the name of the wrong , done them by the other parties that the people identify with the whole of the community. 23 In this way , people become constituted as many , or demos , identical to ever ything : ‘ the many as one , the part as the whole .’ 24 Those who have no part ( ancient paupers , the third class or modern proletariat and today ’s “ new dangerous classes ”, the precariat ) have only freedom , nothing but freedom . What we have here is the display of the inequality of people for people . The ‘ basic miscount ’ lies in ‘ that impossible equality of the multiple and the whole produced by appropriation of freedom as being peculiar to the people .’ 25 So the struggle between the rich and the poor, which is at the same time the class struggle ( Aristotle established a long time ago that the rich always occupy the government ), is inseparable from the institution of politics . Or, politics exists ‘ when there is part of those who have no part .’ 26 Politics exists not only because the poor resist the rich . It is more correct to say that politics – meaning ‘ the interruption of the simple effects of domination by the rich ’ 27 – is what constitutes the poor as an entity. The unprecedented demand by demos to be the whole of the community , ‘ only satisfies the requirement of politics… Politics exists when the natural order of domination is interrupted by the institution of a part of those who have no part . This institution is the whole of politics as a specific form of connection . It defines the common of the community as a political community , in other words , as divided , as based on a wrong that escapes the arithmetic of exchange and reparation . Beyond that set- up there is no politics . There is only the order of domination , or the disorder of revolt . 28 110 Genuine , radical democracy is therefore not a form of society based on good government under the common denominator of consensualism , but a live principle of politics which reinforces politics in establishing “ good government ” based precisely on the absence of its own basis . 29 Democracy as live politics is precisely the absence of arche . democracy is anarchic “ governance ” based on nothing else than to the absence of anyone that can be governed . 30 Democracy is therefore not a certain form of the constitution of a State or society . “The power of the people ” 22 Ibid., p.25. 23 ibid. 24 ibid. 25 ibid. 26 ibid. 27 ibid. 28 Ibid., p. 27. 29 30 Ibid., p. 38. Ibid., p. 41. does not lie in their coming together as a majority or a working class . It is the power that is inherent in those who are no more entitled to govern than they are to be governed . The new political subject is therefore Rancière ’s “ part without a part ”: those who are dis - counted from the State order and who publicly draw attention to it ; those who appropriate words and speech when it is not expected from them ; those who are present where no place is set aside for them ; and those who introduce chaos into the strictly hierarchical order by refusing to accept its rules . They consequently introduce scandal into the social order of inequality − the order that is taken for granted and considered unchangeable − the scandal of thinking and of democracy. “The scandal of democracy ” consists precisely in stating that democracy cannot be anything but the absence of ( any ) government . Such power is then a political power and it is expressed as the power of those who have no natural , self- evident justification for governing over those who have no natural , self- evident justification for being governed . Consequently , the government of those who are the best and the wisest has no more weight and is no more just , unless it is the government of equals . 31 In the light of the above conclusions , the assertion that ever y “ government ” is a priori non - democratic and non - political because it undermines the fundamental basis of equality , becomes logical . Strictly speaking , there is no democratic government . Ever y government is necessarily the rule of the minority over the majority. Consequently , ever y government is inevitably oligarchic , i . e . unequal . 32 It is obvious that the “ scandal of democracy ” is structurally unrealisable by way of parliamentar y politics and left political parties or organisations . The traditional leftist ( social - democratic ) understanding of politics is unable to implement the equality of people , or the arche principle of “ simultaneously governing and being governed ”. The anarchist movement , which has common roots with the ( socialist ) Left and whose theories and practices often intertwine , has been drawing attention to this incapacity of the Left since its ver y inception . Wherever the socialist left has been successful in organising and taking power it has at best reformed ( and rehabilitated ) capitalism or at worst instituted new tyrannies , many with murderous policies — some of genocidal proportions . 33 31 Ibid., p. 47. 32 Ibid., p. 52. 33 McQuinn, 2011, p. 272 indeed , the Left has been increasingly moving away from even the symbolic opposition to the fundamental institutions of capitalism : wage labour, market production and the rule of values . The Left puts trust in organisations mediating between capital and the State on the one hand , and the mass of dissatisfied people on the other ( political parties , trade unions , political organisations , front groups ). Leftist activities are characterised by reductionism , specialisation or professionalism , substitutionism , hierarchical organisation and powerful authorities , loyalty to the one , “ correct ” ideology , etc . All this is radically opposed by . 111 the anarchist understanding of politics which rests upon individual and collective autonomy and free initiative , where an autonomous individual is the basis of all organising methods ; free association with anyone and in any combination ; rejection of the political authority and one , “ correct ” ideology , a small , simple , informal , transparent and temporar y association with simple structure and the least complex organisation that entails the smallest risk of developing hierarchy or bureaucracy ; constant adjustment to new circumstances free of rigidness and specialisation ; as well as decentralised , federal organisation that practices direct decision - making and respect for minority opinions . In the end , the biggest difference is that anarchists advocate self organisation while leftists want to organise you . For leftists , the emphasis is always on recruiting to their organisations , so that you can adopt the role of a cadre ser ving their goals . They don ’ t want to see you adopt your own self - determined theory and activities because then you wouldn ’ t be allowing them to manipulate you . Anarchists want you to determine your own theory and activity and self - organise your activity with like - minded others . 34 The anarchist experience and points of departure can help when rethinking and inventing a new political operation and a new political militant subject that cannot be represented – whose guiding principle is a thought- practice and who works towards the emancipator y politics – meaning non - etatist subjective politics that does not aspire to governance . It is necessar y to break with the blind trust in the Leftparty - organisation that repeats and perpetuates old mistakes from the past . It is necessar y to rouse the emancipator y political process that is open in terms of an event , meaning that it excludes representation and is never implemented as awareness about the programme . direct , militant posture of politics therefore consists entirely in the fidelity to the event materialised through a variety of inter ventions : an unmediated workers ’ and people ’s event not predicated on the existence of the “ working class ” or “ people ” but precisely on the absence of ever y presupposition of this kind , a complete de - qualification of a political subject . 35 Only this type of understanding - practicing politics can create the of democracy ” where the crucial point is that we all not only have the right but also the responsibility to act and think politically , since true politics does not take place in parliaments but among us . The scandalous aspect of democracy implies precisely the rule of anonymous individuals , those who are not entitled to rule and not expected to rule ( the people ), and the relativisation of the power of those who are “ called ” to rule ( professional politicians and their administrations ). it includes trust in the power of ever yone that leads to the power of ever yone , and the consideration and shaping of new strategies and forms of co existence based on justice and solidarity , with their point of departure being equality . Practising politics presupposes an active posture and courage when it comes to a collective action and solidarity beyond “ scandal 112 34 Ibid., p. 279. 35 Badiou, 2004, p. 57. particular interests and in the name of the people . The basic demand therefore should be the redistribution of work and goods ; the worker ( and we are ALL workers bar the parasites of the technocratic and the capitalist type ) should become the paradigm of a rebellious , thinking and emancipated political subject – since the worker is the pillar of society ; a foreigner should be perceived as an equal fellow resident rather than an enemy ; borders between countries should be open primarily for the flow of people rather than for the flow of goods and capital ; art should be more important and more respected than cultural consumerism ; non - profitable science should be more important and more respected than technology ( particularly technology that is in the ser vice of profit ); free schooling , health - care and social assistance should be accessible to ever yone and should become the absolute imperative ; ( media ) information cannot be anyone ’ s property and consequently cannot be marketed ; sexual emancipation should cease to be a taboo and should cease to be set apart from political emancipation . in brief, ever y procedure that aims to be part of emancipator y politics should be superior to ever y urgency of management . 36 What is most important is to understand that what the public administrators ( the ser vants or the “ watchdogs ” of the system ) hold to be “ impossible ” is in reality the only thing that is real and possible . in fact , it is the realisation of the so far unnoticed , universally valid possibility – the realisation of emancipator y politics . It is important to understand that “ modernisation ” is the term denoting rigid and enslaved definition of the possible ; that “ reform ” is a process of preventing that which is realisable ( in most cases ) and making profitable that which has not yet yielded profit ( for the ruling oligarchy ). Once we understand these things , we only need courage to engage in emancipator y politics that manifests itself as the virtue of insisting on the impossible , particularly and precisely when the ruling elite attempts to “ persuade ” us that equality is impossible and unreal . Emancipator y politics breaks with the predominant opinion that inequality is necessar y and that the State , perpetuating that inequality , is necessar y. Literature: 36 Badiou, 2008, p. 50. Badiou, Alain. Peut-on penser la politique? [Ali je mogoče misliti politiko?; Manifest za filozofijo], éd. Seuil (Paris [Ljubljana]: Založba ZRC, ZRC SAZU, 1985 [2004]). Badiou, Alain. Abrégé de métapolitique [Metapolitics], éd. Seuil (Paris [London]: Verso, 1998 [2005]). Badiou, Alain. Conditions [Pogoji], éd. Seuil (Paris [Ljubljana]: Založba ZRC, ZRC SAZU, 1992 [2006]). Badiou, Alain. De quoi Sarkozy est-il le nom? [Ime česa je Sarkozy?], éditions Lignes (Paris [Ljubljana]: Založba Sophia, 2007 [2008]). Bauman, Zygmunt. »Ima li budućnost ljevicu?«, Up&Underground, 19/20 (Zagreb: Bijeli Val, 2011), 32-39. Jason McQuinn. »Postlevičarska anarhija«, Antologija anarhizma 3 (Ljunlijana: Založba Krtina, 2011), 269-287. »P ost-Left Anarchy: Leaving the Left Behind« Online. A vailable: http://theanarchistlibrary.org/HTML/Jason_McQuinn__Post-Left_Anarchy__Leaving_the_Left_Behind. html (10. Oct. 2011) 113 Rancière, Jacques. La Mésentente [Nerazumevanje], Galilée (Paris [Ljubljana]: Založba ZRC, ZRC SAZU, 1995 [2005]). Rancière, Jacques. Hatred of Democracy (London: verso, 2006). 114 115 116 LOG ON I feel good in my skin in my home my connection is excellent my webpage is up to date I feel good while blood drips off the screen while they clean up leftovers of a suicide bomber while they pack kids in bed sheets at Baghdad markets i feel good because me and my comrades we ’ re striking back at global imperialism So wait no longer, no longer... Join the group on Facebook I feel good while paedophilia blooms with tiny butts crawling over my plasma screen I feel good because I signed a petition my keyboard is a lethal weapon i raise awareness , i warn , I protest I feel good because with my fellow revolutionaries we ’ ve set a trap for evil at a killer of a webpage So wait no longer, no longer... Join the group of Facebook i ’ m a fan of anarchy i ’ m a fan of liberty i ’ m a fan of revolution i ’ m a fan of me I was tagged in a photo if you wanna see a picture click the link below and fuck the system motherfucker jump jump ouch Damira Avdić Graha 117 118 biographies Damir A rsenijević is an international cultural worker, theorist , scholar, and translator working in the fields of cultural andliterar y studies and psychoanalysis. Lecturer at Tuzla University, Bosnia and Herzegovina,his research and ar t-theor y political inter ventions examine and impacton the terror of inequality, the solidarity of unbribable life, relevant knowledge production, and material memories of war and genocide. member of ar tistic-theor y Grupa Spomenik; one of the founder of the international platform Yugoslav Studies-a production space for the interaction of ar t , theor y, education, and politics. Damir Avdić Graha (196 4, Tuzla) is the founder of the punk band Rupa u Zidu (A Hole in the Wall), with which he recorded five albums. Avdić also published two novels: The Bridge on Blood (Na kr vi ćuprija, 20 05) i Enter Džehenem (20 09). He wrote the music for the theatre per formance Ein Kind unserer Zeit (hamburg 20 07/20 08), directed by Branko Šimić , in which he also appeared as an actor. Monodrama based on his novel Na kr vi ćuprija was per formed in Glej Theatre, Ljubljana, Slovenia (director maret Bulc). In 2011 he wrote music for the documentar y film The Total Gambit and fiction film Arheo, directed by Jan Cvitković . Ivan Čolović (1938, Belgrade) graduated from the Faculty of Philology (depar tment of General Literature) in Belgrade, and received the master’s degree in Romance Languages and Literatures and the PhD in Ethnology at the Faculty of Philosophy. Among his best-known books are the following: Savage Literature. An Ethno-Linguistic Research in Paraliterature (1985, 20 0 0), The Brothel of Warriors. Folklore, Politics and War (1993, 1994, 20 0 0, 20 08), Political Symbolism. An Essays in Political Anthropology (1997, 20 0 0) and Ethno. Internet Stories About World Music (20 06). In 1971 he founded the book series “x x vek ” (20 th Centur y) and has been its editor ever since as well as its publisher since 1988. So far, “x x vek ” comprises two hundred titles in the field of ethnology, anthropology and related disciplines. Udi Edelman is a researcher at the Political Lexicon Project , miner va humanities Center, Tel-Aviv University (w w w.mhc.tau.ac.il/en) and co-editor of Mafte’akh, an academic journal for political thought (w w w.mafteakh.tau.ac.il/en). he is currently writing his thesis: Guides to Perplexities: Embarrassment and Embarrassing as a tactic of political action, at The Cohn Institute for the Histor y and Philosophy of Sciences and ideas, Tel Aviv University. Udi is also a C urator at The Israel C enter for Digital Ar t , Holon where he works on projects exploring relations between ar t and the political. 119 Ran Kasmy-Ilan (1976) graduated from the Bezalel Academy of Ar t and Design, jerusalem. Ar tist , curator and head of the Education Programme and Community Outreach in the Israeli Centre for Digital Ar t . His work stems from the firm belief that ar t can and must shape the society in which it exists and he specializes in launching programs that cross the divide between various ar t mediums, education on matters of civic principles and social practice. Dr. Stef Scagliola is a militar y historian based in the Netherlands of Italian origin . Besides setting up this large scale oral histor y collection with narratives of veterans she has a par ticular interest in ways of disclosing historical taboos with projects and forms which are acceptable and accessible to the protagonists. She has written a PhD on the way Dutch society has dealt with war crimes committed by Dutch militar y during the Indonesian independence war between 1945 and 1949. The same approach has been chosen to deal with children fathered by this militar y and left behind in Indonesia. They have now the possibility to star t a family search and create a community through the website: w w w.oorlogsliefdekind.nl. She is a strong advocator of the use of internet and digital tools to involve people in sensitive historical subjects. She is currently working at the Erasmus Studio for e-research at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam, scagliola@eshcc.eur Noa Treister attended the Bezalel Ar t and Design Academy in Jerusalem, israel and is currently pursuing Postgraduate studies at the Media and communication program of the European Graduate School in Swit zerland. She is a practicing ar tist and a curator, presently living working in Serbia. Noa focuses on rethinking socio-economic-political issues in both curatorial and ar tistic projects. The main curatorial project Noa led is a series of ar tists’ and scholars’ interdisciplinar y workshops and exhibition under the general name of Ar t Inter ventions which focus of socio-political phenomena in peripheral places. it included: Sex in Transition, Kučevo, Serbia 20 08; The Return of the Gastarbajters Kučevo, Serbia 20 07; Požarevac, Serbia 20 08-2010; Between Town and villages, Majdanpek , 20 06; Under Construction, mayrau miners’ museum, C zech Republic 20 0 4; Employment, 20 03- 4, Prague, C zech Republic. Selected exhibitions: The Women of Debeli Lug 20 08-2010; Mi smo (se) navikli [ We Have Gotten (Ourselves) Used to] 20 07-9, Serbia; Noina Barka 20 06, Serbia; Employment, 20 03- 4, Prague, C zech Republic; Horníci na Kladně [miners in Kladno] 20 03, C zech Republic; Branimir Stojanović (1958) lives and works in Belgrade. Stojanović’s work , situated between philosophy, psychoanalysis and ar t , deals with practices of writing and conceptual-political inter ventions into institutional contexts of philosophy, ar t and psychoanalysis. Since 1980 he has published ar ticles and essays on philosophy, theoretical psychoanalysis, critique of ideology and ar t theor y. Projects and works: school of histor y and theor y of Images, founder and lecturer, 1999 – 20 03; production and distribution of pirate edition of the Serbo-Croatian translation of the book : Nicolas Bourriaud, Esthétique relationnelle, 20 01; Politics of Memor y, Group Monument, distributive object – par ticipative monument , Prague Biennale, Prague, 20 07; Politics of Memor y, Group Monument, distributive object – par ticipative monument , 24th Memorial of Nadežda Petrović , 20 07; Šugar – Das Unheimliche, theoretical-ar tistic inter vention into Psychoanalytical Society of Belgrade, Belgrade 12 0 University of Ar ts and Jewish C ommunity Belgrade, archive, conversation, lecture, 49 th October Salon, Belgrade, 20 08; Mathemes of Reassociation – newspaper editorial board, Group Monument , 49 th October Salon, Belgrade, 20 08; “The French, another small effor t to become l’Organisation politique”, januar y 5 –31, 20 09, catalogue– exhibition, political-theoretical inter vention, Ecole Supérieure des Beaux Ar ts, Cherbourg, 20 09; Mathemes of Reassociation (P ythagorean lecture), per formance– lecture, Group Monument , 15 th PSi Conference, Zagreb, 20 09. Lana Zdravković is a researcher, publicist , political activist and ar tist living in Ljubljana, Slovenia. She is a PhD candidate (The Policy of Emancipation – a ThoughtPractice of the Militant Subject) of political philosophy at Institute of Philosophy at the Scientific Research Centre of the Slovene Academy of Sciences and Ar ts, Ljubljana. Fields of her academic interest include: nation-state, national identity, nationalism, sovereignty, citizenship, ideology, migrations, social inequality, political engagement , emancipator pra xes. She works as researcher at the Peace Institute – institute for Contemporar y Social and Political Studies, Ljubljana. She occasionally publishes and collaborates within Slovene media: daily Večer and Delo, Dialogi – Magazine for Culture and Society, ČK Z – Journal for the C riticism of Science and New Anthropology, Borec – journal for histor y, Anthropology and Literatures, Mladina, Tribuna, Radio Student Ljubljana, Radio Student Maribor, Media Watch journal where she is also a member of the editorial board. She is a per former and co-founder of Kitch – institute of Ar t Production and Research, Ljubljana. Fields of her ar tistic interest include: neoliberalization and economization of the ar t , political per formance, pornography and kitsch ar t and trash ar t . 121 12 2 52 nd October salon Organiser The Cultural Centre of Belgrade logo Founder and patron The City of Belgrade logo Support : Republic of Serbia , ministry of Culture , media and information Society logo 12 3 Cip 124 Symptoms of Unresolved Conflict 52 nd October Salon Belgrade, 2011/2012 Founder and Patron The City of Belgrade October Salon Board A leksandar Peković, chairman Mia David, Vladimir Perić, Miroslav Perić, A na Perović Published by Cultural Centre of Belgrade Knez Mihailova 6 /i Belgrade 11 0 0 0, Serbia w w w.kcb.org.rs On behalf of the publisher Mia David, director Editors Galit Eilat, A lenka Gregorič Coordinator Svetlana Petrović Translators: A mar Bašić, Jasmina Ilić, Daria Kassovsky, Slavica Miletić, Ilan Mor, Olga Vuković Proofreader Clare Butcher Graphic design Mirko Ilić, Sandra Milanović Cover Sandra Milanović Printed by Publikum Print run 30 0 © Cultural Centre of Belgrade and the authors of the texts w w w.oktobarskisalon.org 12 5 126