From: harelb@math.cornell.edu (Harel Barzilai)
Subject: Z MAGAZINE: _Community Lost_
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: daemon@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: ?
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 1992 06:04:01 GMT

...Via "P-News"...
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Topic 41        Community Lost 
pnews   "Z"      8:36 pm  Dec 11, 1992 
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/* ---------- "Community Lost" ---------- */ 
From: Hank Roth <odin@world.std.com> 
Subject: Community Lost 
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From: Philip Feeley <pfeeley@unixg.ubc.ca> 
To: odin@world.std.com 
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		    =============================
		     C O M M U N I T Y   L O S T
		    =============================
        by Gordana Rabrenovic, Z Magazine, Nov. '92, p. 37 


        For the  last two  years  I've  been  torn   apart by what  is
happening in Yugoslavia.  Eight years ago, when my  husband and I left
and came to the United States we had a country.  Today we do not.

        What is being destroyed in  the former Yugoslavia are not just
cities and villages,  but   also the  concept  of  an  integrated  and
ethnically diverse society.   In their   desire to create  homogeneous
regions, nationalist groups  are  driving out, killing  or imprisoning
everyone who is  not   a "legitimate" member   of  their  group.   The
underlying  logic of such  actions is  that it  is impossible to  live
sagely in heterogeneous communities.

        However,  for 27 years I  had  a very different experience.  I
lived  in  a large cosmopolitan  city,  Belgrade.  My  friends were of
different ethnic  origins, and so were my  family members.   My father
was Montenegrin, his two  best friends and godparents to  his children
were  Croatians.  One of  his sisters  married  a  Croatian, another a
Macedonian.  His brother's wife was  from Bosnia.   One  of his nieces
married a Slovenian, another a Hungarian.

        We had fights in our family,  but they had  nothing to do with
our  ethnic  origins.  There were fights   between men and  women over
their  roles in  the family, and  between   parents and children  over
children's rights and responsibilities.

        When my cousins and I are asked about our own ethnic identity,
we identify  ourselves as Yugoslavs.  We  do not want to chose between
our  mothers' and fathers'  ethnic groups.  We  are the losers in this
war, just like the Croatian woman who, when urged  to move to Croatia,
responded: "But, why should I go?  I do not know anybody there."

        The existence of  diversity within Yugoslavia made it possible
for writers, painters, and  free-spirited  thinkers  to break norms in
their  own  communities and  still be   able to work  in  another.   I
remember  in  the  early 1980s a   number  of  intellectuals moved  to
Belgrade or Zagreb to  escape the totalitarian  regime  of the Bosnian
and Herzegovin government.  But in the late 1980s  the most democratic
views and  the   only  alternative  to  nationalist  policy  came from
Sarajevo through an  independent television station with a Yugoslavian
orientation.

        Nationalism is so popular these days because it promises order
and  stability by conforming  to uniform sets  of rules.  Now when old
ideologies of class-based socialism are dead, the new nation or ethnic
based socialism  is emerging.  The ethnic  leaders promise prosperity,
democracy,   and full  employment  but  only  for  their own  members.
Nationalism is a new political resource.  And the way to gain power is
to capitalize on peoples' emotions and question their loyalty to their
ancestors.

        Diversity   was   part  of  a   set  of  beliefs  known as the
Enlightenment- based modernity.  I grew  up believing in the  power of
science  and   education to  bring  progress and economic development.
Society was  supposed to  be based on the ability  and  achievement of
individuals   that  created opportunity  for   everyone.  In  reality,
Yugoslavia was divided between developed  and  underdeveloped regions,
between modern   cities  and  traditional towns  and   villages.   Not
everybody shared   equally in the   fruits   of modernity.   When  the
Yugoslavian economic  development slowed down, living costs increased,
and unemployment became chronic.  Nationalistic ideologies flourished.
They divided  people into groups of  "us" versus "them."   "Us" became
the suppressed,  exploited victims.  "Them"  became the exploiters who
snatched our jobs and stole our opportunities.

        It  is not surprising that the   fiercest fighting and "ethnic
cleansing" is taking place in the most divers, but also  most unevenly
developed, part of Yugoslavia: Bosnia an Herzegovina.   Destruction of
Sarajevo symbolizes the failure  of modernity, the  failure to sustain
and ethnically diverse community and to expand economic development to
the less fortunate.  The   longer the  fighting  goes   on,   the less
realistic it is that after the war a common life can be recreated.

        When the war  finally stops, the  survivors will have  to face
the consequences of the  imposed ethnically homogeneous   society.  In
such a  society,  unity,  identity,  and stability based   on   ethnic
background will result in  a lack of tolerance for  individual freedom
or individual  development.  What kind  of social and  political order
will develop?  Who will then be the enemy?

        What will  happen to my family in  former Yugoslavia?  It will
be much harder for us to maintain  our relationships across barricaded
communities.  But more than that, I see my  niece and nephews with few
options and a terrifying   future  which  at best simply limits  their
education and opportunities; at worst, it makes them likely victims of
continued fighting, killing  and maiming.  For  this war  to stop, the
people of  former  Yugoslavia must face    the economic and  political
consequences.  They  must know that  their enemy  is  not  a member of
another ethnic group but their leaders  who  are robbing them of their
future.

(Gordana Rabrenovic  is  an   Assistant  Professor  of  Sociology   at
Northeastern University.  She  teaches Urban  Sociology, Community and
Sociology of Family.)

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