Croatian - Serbian Talks in Zagreb

AIM Zagreb, October 1, 2000

"It takes a willing ear to hear something in order to hear something one must have a will to do that" is the title of talks conducted between Serbian and Croatian intellectuals held in the Zagreb club "Tvornica" (factory) on September 28, 2000. A play "About Germany", produced by the Belgrade Centre for Cultural Decontamination was show for two nights in the same premises where the talks were held. This was the first guest performance the Yugoslavs had in Croatia. However, it seems that the Croatian side was not too willing to listen, let alone talk, because on both nights the actors played in front of an empty house, while the audience - both at the talks as well as the play - mostly consisted of Serbian intellectuals from Croatia and journalists of the independent papers and representatives of non-governmental organisations, i.e. those who spoke and listened all these years. The misunderstanding was created by the same ones who initiated it ten years ago.

Despite the fact that the Serbian intellectuals and actors came to Croatia only three days after the elections in FR Yugoslavia, elections which the entire world, and not only Yugoslavia, expect to mark the final stepping down of Slobodan Milosevic and his clique, from power, the Croatian audience remained unmoved by this guest performance, as if no one in Croatia cared what would happen to Milosevic and Yugoslavia. And while some blamed the organisers, the club "Tvornica", whose management did not even try to advertise either the play or the talks, the majority of gathered visitors agreed that the reasons for such a small number of spectators was the ignorant relation of the Croatian political elite towards Yugoslavia. The new authorities find it hard to change this relation which is reflected in the behaviour of common folk.

Moreover, only some guests from Croatia, who were officially invited to take part in the talks, responded to the invitation. Present were: the announced Slobodan Snajder, a writer from Zagreb temporarily working in Germany, but also the unannounced Igor Galo, an actor and producer, as well as an activist of the Human Rights Protection Association-HOMO from Pula. On the other hand, the announced Zagreb theatrologist Vjeran Zuppa did not show up, nor did Viktor Ivancic, executive editor of "Feral Tribune", although he was expected in Zagreb. The Belgrade team came in full number and adequately represented. Apart from Borka Pavicevic, founder of the Centre for Cultural Decontamination, Drinka Gojkovic served as the moderator. Present were also Ana Smiljanic, a director, journalist Petar Lukovic, Vladimir Arsenijevic, young and world-renowned author and David Albahari, Yugoslav author currently living in Canada.

Partly because of the events in Serbia and partly because the theatre play was about guilt and accountability of Germans after World War II, the talks were also dedicated to guilt and accountability, primarily in the past wars in these parts, but also for the silence which was characteristic for both Serbian as well as Croatian intelligentsia. Although the play started with the words "Forgive me!" , its director, Ana Smiljanic asked: can one word - "Forgive!" resolve problems between the two nations? Snajder said that the performance was actually about everyone one of us.

"For ten years the same people in Croatia have been spreading the unfounded claim that east of us there is a country populated by people who never felt any guilt for all that has happened, nor have done anything against Slobodan Milosevic. It is true that there were people who were equally desperate about what was happening. Those were isolated individuals, cases of non-institutional resistance. Those people were the bridge between quarrelling nations and cultures", said Snajder expressing his fear of new caravans of brotherhood and unity, a symbolic manifestation of the Yugoslav togetherness that tragically ended in blood.

"Things are repeated in history, although we thought the opposite. The current Serbian authorities have produced the way of thinking and understanding whereby the past is erased. Now we are the ones who are conservative because we deal with the past which they have pushed aside. The new language which has been created disgusts us and I think that the years of our opposition to war-mongering rhetoric gives us the right to say that", said Borka Pavicevic who concluded her address with the following words: "Those in armchairs were the ones who started the war, and voluntary executioners around us were willing to carry out their ideas".

Igor Galo said that the life of fascism continued in the post-Yugoslav territories. "Today, we meet again with fascism, but in new forms, as we have also developed an attitude towards fascism. We look for fascists around us, but they are no longer so easy to spot. We know that they surround us, but they are harder and harder to recognise, and there is also a large number of those who turn a blind eye to it. That is why we all need a new anti-fascist front, a movement that will show and clearly point to the imminent danger."

"We proceed from the assumption that all men are good", said David Albahari asking: "However, perhaps the evil is dominant, while the good is the choice of just a minority? Should we wait for a new generation which will refuse to accept this evil and call it by its real name? The guilt is most easily determined according to facts, but then comes the question of responsibility, which is much more difficult." Albahari's colleague Vladimir Arsenijevic, whose new book "Mexico" was published together with a book of poems of the Kosovo Albanian Xhevdet Bajraj just a few days before his arrival to Zagreb, spoke about this extraordinary publishing project.

"Total lack of interest in establishing contacts with the Kosovo Albanians, even among the self-proclaimed liberals and democrats, is characteristic of these times. There is no Serbian translation of Kosovo literature, but only because neither of the sides has shown any interest. But, it is precisely that lack of interest has been totally disregarded. We have to open up communication channels and renew those from the past, and we must keep them functioning. This is a process of comprehensive emancipation which the Serbs must go through primarily in their relations with the Albanians, but other nations and states of former Yugoslavia will also have to undergo the same."

In Petar Lukovic's opinion, man is above all stupid. "All the stupidity and horrors that Serbs have lived through are incomprehensible to a normal person", said Lukovic emphasising that the freedom once enjoyed by the Serbian press now boils down to "the absolute freedom of fabricating and publishing anything that crosses one's mind", especially if that is directed against those who have betrayed "the sacred Serbian cause". Thus, one text wrote that Krleza, Tito and Hitler attended the same school, but according to Lukovic "the crazier the news the more the Serbs believed it". Drinka Gojkovic warned of the different way the guilt has been discussed before the changes and is discussed now following the changes, which will soon be the Serbian problem too. Because after each committed dishonourable act, every one of its numerous perpetrators claims that he was against it.

After that she asked "can peace and justice go hand in hand, in general. Change of power is not a magic wand that can resolve all the accumulated problems. It is from heterogeneous population that a group should come forward that will raise all the issues that we have touched upon, and answers to these questions will bring about substantive, and not just cosmetic changes", which is what the elections are actually all about. Or, as pointed by Lukovic, what lies ahead of Serbia is "the de-stupidisation stage", and which will not be easy to implement. We might add, Serbs are not the only ones who need it. If it were not the case, the interest in the talks would probably be much greater.

Milivoj Djilas

(AIM)