HOPE LIES IN INSANITY

The effects of reason on Serbian population

AIM, Belgrade

Milica C. is 62 and, while sipping her first morning coffee with her neighbours, she exchanges with them political "slogans" suggested to her by the regime in the central TV news program the evening before. She is never in a dilemma, she easily accepts arguments offered by the TV for fundamental political turns of her favourite leader - Milosevic. When war with the Croats was topical, she fumed: "They are preparing to take Zemun from us." When students during demonstrations at the so-called Terazije Parliament demanded that the war option be abandoned, she readily claimed that "they seek wealth without work, they all want to drive Mercedes cars and do nothing". In the beginning she was reserved in relation to Seselj, but she soon accepted that "we need people like that too". When Milosevic had no more use for Seselj, she claimed that he was a bully and that he was - good for nothing. When xenophobia became the very essence of Serbian diplomacy, she too agreed that evrybody hated the Serbs, especially the Americans, the Pope, the Germans and the Turks.

All opposition leaders were foreign mercenaries for her, especially Vuk Draskovic, and she used to wake Dragoljub Micunovic who was the President of the Democratic Party at the time, by phone in the middle of the night to tell him that he was a traitor of the Serbian people. When last winter the hyper-inflation completely devalued her pension, she used to say: "We must be patient when they hate us". Through Dafina, the state took all her savings, but Milica was not too angry because - Dafina had given it all for the front and our state, to help our people across the Drina survive. Her closest relatives were cowards because they did not go to war. She cried over the tragic destiny of the refugees.

Plasticity of the Nation

Nowadays, in compliance with what the regime tells her, she claims that she was always in favour of peace, that Sloba has saved us and that the sanctions cannot be supported any more. Radovan Karadzic is certainly the greatest enemy of the people, because, as she heard from reliable sources, he is a gambler and a war profiteer. The sanctions introduced against the Serbs across the Drina are perfectly justified, she says, because they are "crazy and want to ruin us". The refugees should finally return to their homes, and not let us "wage war instead of them". And she bitterly said to her close relative who is by origin from Bosnia and who financially helped her survive last winter, that if she could she would send them all back across the Drina.

People who had left this space would probably wonder in astonishment what is happening to Milica C from Belgrade. What mechanisms does she apply to reconcile the irreconcilable? Did politics disorder her mind, disturb her mental health? Psychologists and sociologists, on the contrary, claim that she is neither sick, nor an isolated victim of an experiment of the regime. She is a typical representative of the "species" fostered by the regime and modelled by its propaganda, and at times of crucial, frequent changes, that is exactly who the regime counts on.

When the long forgotten the Hague Agreement was in the centre of interest in the beginning of the war, the Department of Psychology of the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade made a little experiment. The day before this peace plan was rejected, 250 people were contacted. Majority of them believed that the authorities in Serbia would adopt the provisions of the Agreement and was in favour of its adoption. A day later, after the regime had declared itself against it, the survey was repeated and this time, majority thought that the Hague Agreement should not be adopted.

An agency called the "Medijum" had registered the frame of mind just before Milosevic decided to agree to sign the Vance-Owen plan. At the time the media controlled by the regime had still not received the instructions to be in favour of it, so about seventy per cent of the subjects on April 9, were against the plan. When the poll was repeated on April 27, only 20 per cent of the persons polled (the same sample, the same question) were against it.

When speaking of the latest political turn taken by the Serbian leader towards peace-making and adopting the plan of the Contact Group, the poll of the "Telegraf" weekly shows that in the period between August 6 and August 21, the number of persons polled who supported the sanctions of Yugoslavia against the Republic of srpska increased three times, and that the number of those against them and those who were wavering was reduced. THe September Forum of the NIN weekly reveals that 70 per cent of the persons polled believe that peace is in the interest of all Serbs. In August, 21 per cent thought that observers on the Yugoslav border should be accepted and in September there were 37.5 per cent of them. Before the conflict with Karadzic, the Serbs were spoken of as a single nation "of St. Sava and brotherly" wherever they lived. Now as much as 29.5 per cent of persons polled think that there are essential differences between these and those Serbs, that the Serbs across the Drina are a completely different nation.

What is happening with the mental health of a nation which so easily jumps from one political skin into another, and are the consequences of such precipitations temporary or permanent? Will our descendants tell us that we were deranged, or are we going to derange them too?

Assisstant Professor at the Department of social psychology, Dragan Popadic, claims that these shifts of the masses from one extreme to the other seem disastrous only to laymen. Science is well acquainted with the phenomenon of plasticity of people, the characteristics to claim that obviously different things are the same under the influence of an authority (or due to fear). In normal circumstances, a man owes the stability of his stances precisely to the external stable circumstances, so it seems to us that people are rational and not subject to influences. In troubled times, people tend to oscillate, and this is in no way a "specialty" of the Serbs. All experiments, and most of them were made in the West, show that the level of demonstrated conformism is extremely high, and that as much as 30 per cent of the subjects will claim, under no pressure, that something obviously false is true, if other members of the group say so.

• There is no fear for mental health of the nation - Dragan Popadic says - because the mechanism of rationalization helps, so people easily justify turns with illogical arguments, like today when the latest turn is interpreted by the fact that "we have actually won". They don't even need to seek arguments, television offers ready-made interpretations, simple phrases, a model which can be repeated. It is easier to swallow anything once the people are linked to some "worthy cause". For instance, if I say that to me the Serbian national interest is above everything else, then I can more easily change my attitude towards peace, war, sanctions, and justify the change with the worthy cause.

According to Dragan Popadic, the political situation is not clear, war objectives are poorly defined, but this still does not leave serious consequnces on people; it just shows how easy it is to manipulate people and make them act contrary to their interest. He reminds that in the Second World War, the Germans were a nation in a trance, and everybody could swear that there was no hope for them. The fact that people are plastic to such an extent in unfavourable circumstances actually offers hope, because they are just as plastic when circumstances get back to normal. Isn't propaganda about brotherhood and unity which annulled the crimes of the Second World war in just a couple of years the best proof for this.

The leader as the measure of things

In authoritarian societies like ours, unreserved linking to the leader and blind accepting of the adventure he is offering is quite obvious. In these spaces, all parties have had their own leaders and followed their transformations. Many investigations show that people are firm in their commitment to one or the other leader, and much less to their programs. Popadic claims that people are often unable to explain stances of their leaders, they just express their own affinity. The only hope, he says, is that Milosevic will transform into a true peace-maker and completely fit into world trends. Then he will again model the consciousness of the people through propaganda, but in a positive direction and they will readily accept that too.

Dr. Nikola Rot is very cautious in his interpretations of the obvious mass shifting from one conviction to another. He believes only in results of empiric research, so he proposed to the Institute of Psychology to illuminate seriously three categories of people: converts (they were in favour of one thing in the past, and now they are in favour of another), transverts (they just pretend that they have changed their opinions), and transients who are on the point of abandoning one stance and adopting another.

Dr. Zarko Korac places the serbs high on the list of authoritarianism. According to his opinion, the so-called control locus has been displaced outside the man, and the authorities like national celebrities, church, famous intellectuals have become the criteria.

We are living at a time when the effects of propaganda, especially those of television, on the change of political stances can be measured quite tangibly. This is the end of one era, there is no firm support, the situation is hazy and it is suitable for a collapse of social values and fundamental changes of stances. It is difficult to prove that the nation will get permanently sick, but for a short while, it is faced with aggression, intolerance, a feeling of insecurity, fear, Dr. Zarko Korac says.

The telephone of the emergency ambulance service or the so-called "tele-appeal" of the Psychiatric Hospital can certify that the wounds are still open. As the journal "Politika" recently reported, calls of panic-stricken citizens have become quite frequent, they claim that they would kill themselves, or break everything in their homes, or that they feel frightened that their hearts will stop beating. They often need urgent medical care which they can find in the Urgent Psychiatric Hospital called "Laza Lazarevic". People desperately crying for help, according to Dr. Jivan Maric, are those who have not succeeded, in a healthy manner, to cope with stress situations, political turmoil or just small salaries. Their ego defense mechanisms have failed, they simply cannot defend themselves any more.

It appears that the "species" of converts manifests the greatest psychological stamina, their ego mechanisms function faultlessly. It may seem absurd, but this is the species which is a guarantee of future healthy generations which they will convince that they were always in favour of peace and cooperation in the world. Milica C. from the beginning of the story can be regarded as the essence of national health. So who is, after all, insane here?

Gordana Igric