LGBTI Rights in the Western Balkans - ERA Conference 2018

In recent months I have taken on a new role on the board of an organisation known as Rainbow Rose. It is an umbrella organisation of all the LGBTI organisations associated to social democratic and labour parties across Europe. My appointment came on the back of my two and a half year co-chairpersonship of LGBT Labour. To those of you who have read my posts, my awareness of south-east Europe came to maturity thanks to my work with the Labour Party. The board want me to lead on a new working group on the Western Balkans; so it seems that the three interests of my life – Labour politics, LGBTI activism, and south-east Europe – have come together in a new and exciting challenge for me.

So the start of this work centred on my organising a delegation of activists to the Equal Rights Association (ERA) Conference for the Western Balkans and Turkey in Skopje, Macedonia. ERA emanates from civil society, so we were lending our support as social democrats in order to learn, share our knowledge and experiences, and to create networks for our new working group. Noting my affection for Macedonia, the week we visited happened to be when Macedonia had just held the referendum on its name change.

So I organised for a delegation of 11, 7 from the board, 3 activists, and one speaker. We arrived after a Ministerial meeting took place on the Thursday morning, and went straight to the plenary hall. I was with Jose, Secretary General of Rainbow Rose, who was introducing me to a few people in the room – an ILGA Europe representative, two representatives from the Commission, and Dragana from ERA. I also met Amarildo from ERA again, as I first met him three weeks previously in London, at a Western Balkans event in Lancaster House and then Speakers’ House. It was nice of him to stop and chat for 5 minutes, given he was organising the day and I’m sure had more things to be doing. The plenary then began.

We had a couple of opening speeches, one of who was by the SDUM Minister for Labor and Social Affairs, Mila Carovska. This was my first hint of the seriousness and commitment that the new SDUM-led Government had taken LGBTI rights, as well as neighbouring countries. Especially those from Macedonia, where you would have thought they could have used the excuse of the name referendum to withdraw from participating. Over the course of three panel events throughout the day, we heard from a mixture of Ministers, MPs, NGO activists, and individuals just living their lives in the countries of the region. The one particularly striking panel was on trans and non-binary rights, as it laid bare how uneven the legal rights of trans people were across the region, but also how much depended on the state having to recognise you in order to provide for you. Unknown to me that day was the SDUM MP Pavle Bogoevski, who sat on a panel on non-discrimination. Jose and I couldn’t grab him as he left, but I soon invited him to a dinner I had planned on Saturday night for the social democrats present at the conference. After our first day, we met more of the delegation who arrived in the evening, on the central square at Pelister restaurant.

On a side note, I was in my element having returned to Skopje after 2 years. On the Wednesday, I explored a little by myself as no one else had arrived. I walked through the eastern side of Karposh district, where the hotel was located, as I had not done so on previous visits. Once you turned into the residential area between two parallel east/west main boulevards, there was a hive of cafes and bars. One of them, Radiobar, was noted in the schedule of the conference as being a ‘liberal’ bar to drink at. I popped in for a beer on the way to food. On the Thursday night, I returned to the main square. It was a lot quieter that it was when I was here last, in the hot August nights of 2016. It was mid-week, I supposed. The hideous statues and building facades remained, but I noticed that the splattered paint had now gone. The traces of the Colourful Revolution may have gone, but their legacy was established within the political ones.

The Friday of the conference was the first of the two-day ‘Open Source Technology’ workshops. An innovative approach to decide what issues should be discussed, relying on what participants bring to the table and what they want to participate in. The speaker we brought over, Cllr Bev Craig from Manchester City Council and an old friend of mine, was going to pitch in to discuss how we can create LGBTI polices at the local government level. I was to present on how LGBTI people can organise within political parties, and Arturas from our delegation was to lead a discussion on whether pride is a celebration or a protest. As participants added their interest to the workshop board, I was proud that our sessions were going to be well attended.

Over the course of the two days, we had genuine interest and participation in our sessions. The one thing I wanted to avoid was a patronising tone to come from our contribution. I would be embarrassed if we were seen to have just turned up, delivered a speech on what was wrong and how our way was the best way to solve it, and then leave. Instead what we aimed to do was provide an overview of our journey, and then provide a few questions/statements in order for participants to share experiences and decide on the best action plans in each of their countries. Macedonian and Turkish participants eagerly attended Bev’s session, with many representatives of NGOs attending my own.

We on the board had to miss out on the Saturday proceedings, as we had to take the day to plan for our General Assembly that was taking place a few weeks later. The Friday evening saw us all congregate at RadioBar. This underlined the change in atmosphere that I felt whilst I was in Skopje. Although still very conservative, and LGBTI people could not be open, having a group of 100 odd LGBT people in a bar, out on the streets, felt liberating. Someone had even gone on well-known gay social networking apps to tell people that we were at this bar and to come and meet other LGBT people. A very novel and positive thing to do, I thought.

But before we arrived at the bar, 3 of the delegation were keen to see Skopje and I was more than happy to take them on a tour. Over the course of an hour and a half, I relayed my knowledge of the history of the country and the city, as I pointed out such buildings as the Government HQ, the old, brutalist Post Office and the Kale Fortress looming over the city, hidden behind those horrid buildings. We ventured into the old town, which was buzzing with a mainly younger crowd. This area has clearly seen investment as many of the shop fronts had been done up, and many of the bars and cafes had a hipster feel to it. It also seemed that this had not led to residents being pushed out, which is pleasant to see. We had a beer at one of the cafes, as I continued my history lesson. My only hope was that I didn’t bore my colleagues.

The Saturday night saw us host our social democrats dinner at La Terrazza, just off the main square. I arrived with a small number of our delegation, the rest following half an hour later. We had Julie Ward MEP, Pavle Bogoevski MP, Danijel Kalezic from Queer Montenegro, Antonio Mihajlov from Subversive Front, and Cllr Stamat Stamatovski from Skopje. Over the course of dinner, wine, and a few Rakija, we had a great discussion on the current state of politics in Macedonia, commitments to help our Montenegrin MPs set up an LGBTI working group in their parliament, as well as the great back story of Pavle.

He worked for the LGBTI Support Centre in Skopje, and it was this organisation that he said gave him a leg up in the world of work. It was his work for this organisation, too, that gave his cousin the courage to come out to his family. I was genuinely struck by how Pavle’s work and advocacy had helped his family member, and reminded me how small acts like this can help those closest to us. His activism then spread to become one of the leaders of the Colourful Revolution. I sort of knew this, having done a quick Google search of his name. But the stories he came out with were second to none. For example, in order to not be prosecuted by the authorities, instead of breaking windows by throwing objects, which was a criminal offence, they came up with using paint to merely mark the outside of buildings, as this was only a misdemeanour. This way they could make their point, without going to jail. But then the plans had to be expanded. As the police cordoned off buildings, they had farther to send their balloons of paint. So they made huge catapults in order to reach the buildings now a hundred or so yards away.  Despite getting elected to Parliament, and the paint being washed off the walls, he said that there is still a small patch of paint at the back of the Government building. When he takes guests on a tour, he proudly points out this reminder of recent political history of which he was a leading part.

That night, as we went to a bar where his cousin was actually leading a karaoke night, we rejoined the rest of the participants. The bar was packed, and Jose and I sang a rendition of Fuego. We met the Mayor of Skopje, and we thanked him for hosting the conference. I also let my guard down as, whilst I was in the queue to the toilet, I began chatting to a young woman, who asked why I was visiting Skopje. Perhaps the Rakija Pavle fed me made me lose my inhibitions, but I said I was here for an LGBTI conference. Her non-reaction to this news led on to a short conversation about why Macedonia needed to move forward on this issue. A sense of joy rose up within me.

The next day, I left Skopje full of hope. Pavle’s story and his continuing solidarity with us was a major factor in this. I look forward to his star rising. But the ERA conference really showed the power of collective action, with the participants sharing ideas and best practice, and then going away to accelerate the work they have already begun. From our perspective, it allowed for us to gain further knowledge of the situation in each of the countries and to develop our own strategy to support the LGBTI community in each country. The obvious channel is with those countries that have PES member parties in Government. But the role of our movement is not solely in getting the low hanging fruit, but to meet the challenges head on, especially when we are not in power.

Thoughts on Saviours of the Nation by Jasna Dragovic-Soso

Essentialist views accounting for the rise of nationalism in the Former Yugoslavia have taken a myriad of paths. Whether they be the return of ‘ancient hatreds’ ingrained in the people, the economic decline during the 1980s fuelling social discontent, the fall of communism more generally in the east, the actions of political actors wishing to consolidate power and using any tool at their disposal, or others.

However, if we are to understand how nationalism forms as an ideology, as opposed to a movement as it often becomes, then there have been few analyses of the role of academics in Yugoslavia, and Serbia specifically, in how they (re)constructed and projected Serbian nationalism during the 1980s. Jasna Dragović-Soso goes further than the usual sign posting of events, such as the leaking of the Memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. She describes how nationalism developed among the intelligentsia, and traces its origins from the 1950s when they originally formed as an opposition movement to the regime that subsequently called for human rights and democracy in the immediate post-Tito era. She observes how many of these opposition intellectuals, a potential political alternative championing the human rights causes of Serbs in Kosovo, mutated into nationalists and became neutered as the ‘opposition’ when their cause received acceptance and promotion in the social and political realm. It was this capitulation that allowed Milosević to gain a tighter grip on power during the 1990s, and suffocate any building of a political alternative.

Miroslav Hroch’s Social Preconditions of National Revival in Europe is clearly an influence in Dragović-Soso’s work. Although his empirically backed theory is indicative of novel nationalist movements, his three-stage process of nationalist mobilisation is evident in this book as its accounts for the re-emergence of Serbian nationalism in the 1980s. It is the first stage, the 'heightened cultural awareness of national distinctiveness among intellectuals and the literati' that Dragović-Soso captures superbly.

The example of Serbia in the 1980s must be viewed in the context of the history of Serbian nationalism. It had existed and thrived before, and had been a leading element in the struggles of the first Yugoslav state. The inability to challenge official historical thought during the Tito era meant that Serbian history was both petrified and silenced. It sat alongside other nationalisms, historic and new, that bubbled under the surface in a similar manner during the second Yugoslavia. The Croatian Spring that ended the liberal period in academia in the 1960s, was followed by a liberal period in Serbia, whilst the crackdown ensued in Croatia. Slovenia gradually liberalised and reached its zenith in the 1980s. These environments set the scene for how the republican intelligentsia’s interacted and began to diverge in their outlook. Dragović-Soso’s hones in on the situation in Kosovo and the subsequent split between the Serbian and Slovene intellectuals as the two occurrences that allowed the intelligentsia in Serbia to move from being a political alternative to one in the keeping of Milosević.

Kosovo came to the fore in the early 1980s following years of disgruntlement regarding the now majority-Albanian’s demand for republican status. Violence and civil disobedience resulted in a brutal crackdown. The Serbian intelligentsia championed the desire for human rights to take precedence in Kosovo, which rested mostly on the situation experienced by the Kosovan Serb population. But Dragović-Soso emphasises that the key issue was about human rights, and had the support from other republican intelligentsias. This was also a manoeuvre by the Serbian intelligentsia to show that they could critique the existing regime and pose alternatives. Prior to this, the intelligentsia debated the revision of official Partisan history, therefore rocking the foundations of the myths of the establishment of Socialist Yugoslavia in 1944. In tandem with this, the wider demand for democratisation emerged, whether that would result in internal party pluralism or multi-party pluralism.

It was following this that certain individuals within the formal institutions of the intelligentsia – the Writers Association or the Academy of Sciences and Arts – began to bring forth arguments that put Serbian history and identity as a solution to the demise of the Socialist Yugoslav regime. Past events such as the Serbs being eternal victims of others and renegotiating the numbers of Serbs killed during WWII struck a nerve during the topical issue of Kosovo and the plight of the Serbs there. The infamous ‘Memorandum’ was seen as the fusion of these ideas with the wider alternative programme sought in opposition to the current regime.

But how did this Memorandum make the leap to the political sphere? Dragović-Soso plays down the direct link to the growing power of Milosević, and critiques the timing of events. She points out that Milosević had no part in the Memorandum’s writing or leaking, and actually dismissed it as ‘Serb chauvinism’. It wasn’t until a year later that he espoused themes from it. So the intelligentsia were still acting independently of party politics in 1986. Moving from the document itself, the authors themselves provided the link. Dobrica Ćosić and Mihailo Marković were two of the main writers who would eventually go on to become political leaders in the 1990s under Milosević’s newly created Socialist Party of Serbia. The document itself caused a public sensation and fed into public discourse on the issue. I do not share the same view that Milosević could not have known about it, as he socialised in similar elite circles in Belgrade. Instead I feel he allowed it to play out in the public arena first to test the waters, and then come in with his own version of it sometime later.

Parallel to these events were the relationships between the republican intelligentsias. The one relationship singled out is that between the Serbs and the Slovenes. Slovenians were at one with the Serbs on the issue of Kosovo at the beginning and, separately, both moved towards developing their own renewed sense of national identity and history. However, in Slovenia this also went in tandem with democratisation in society (for example youth organisations being able to criticise the regime), but this did not occur in Serbia. It got to a point where Slovenians began to criticise the situation in Kosovo in opposition to the claims of their Serbian counterparts. Slovenes stuck to human rights and democratisation as fundamental ideals. The Serbs stuck to them only in the context of protecting the Kosovan Serbs.

The Slovenes experienced their national renewal coming about through democracy. Serbs saw theirs coming about through Milosević. Dragović-Soso concludes that the Serb intelligentsia for the most part chose the nation over democracy after Milosević sang a similar tune to the Academy’s Memorandum.

One question that Dragović-Soso fails to account for is how the regime in Serbia allowed the proliferation of dissent to occur in regime-controlled institutions. Although partially explained under the general ‘liberal’ period that followed Tito’s death, it is not explained why the regime acted leniently towards these individuals and their work. Did personal relationships exist between middle and top ranking regime officials and the intelligentsia, particularly on the Belgrade scene, which meant rebukes were mild ‘slaps on the wrist’? Or was the weakness of the regime so much so that they did not have the ability to instil conformity as they had done in the past? It is plausible that some in the regime wanted this dissent grow to in order to bolster their hand in the wider political games being played during the period to consolidate personal power.

What Dragović-Soso delivers is an in-depth account of the leading players in the intelligentsia and their institutional bodies in Serbia, and how their critical thinking in the 1980s turned from human rights and democracy to nationalism by the 1990s. Once this project was taken up by leaders wishing to direct the future of Yugoslavia, the dissident intellectuals who would have been natural alternatives to the regime, instead made a choice and became co-conspirators in promoting Serb nationalism they originally, perhaps naively, articulated.

Thoughts on Ger Duijzings’ Religion and the Politics of Identity in Kosovo

Although Kosovo is its locus, this book observes the developments of several ethno-religious groups in the region on a wider scale, with focus on different aspects of identity. Duijzings brushes off the carte blanche descriptions and nationalist narratives of the two dominant ethnic groups/nationalities, the Serbs and Albanians, to demonstrate a deeper and wider plethora of people's with a distinct yet shared history and territory in the late 1990’s. How identities play out, are flexible (then rigid), and the complexities of these on social/political and economic relations are what is threaded throughout his work. One example is Letnica and its Catholic minority, about how they lived there, looking at the overarching battles that narrowed to two national narratives that they could not identify with, and their moving to Croatia proper. The next is the example of the diffuse Muslim identity, initially viewed as a unified whole across Yugoslavia, with its splits between official and Sunni, beside unorthodox dervish practices and Shi'a tendencies. Whilst he delivers ethnographic accounts, he also provides historical overviews of how these identities, national and religious, formed; and explains how objective and subjective relations meant that some peoples were included and excluded in these group/social events and practices. Fundamentally he portrays an image of religions that co-existed, tolerated each other, and shared each other’s holy sites; yet witnessing a descent into isolation and confrontation. The concept of syncretism is applied to highlight how religious practices on the ground weren’t those imposed via orthodoxy nor a pure form dictated from above, especially when new religions came to the fore and needed accommodating. This mirror’s Tone Bringa’s work in ‘Being Muslim the Bosnian Way’, which looked at village life in a Croat/Muslim mixed village on the eve of the collapse of Socialist Yugoslavia.

One specific and novel group he (re)’discovered’ were the 'Egyptians', who were presumed to be a new phenomenon, although lots of ethnographic and linguistic work has been written on this group. Debates around their 'origin' play to perennial views on nations and national identity, but Duijzings critiques these and suggests that, even if one took the term Gypsy as the core of their identity, the current identity was pulled together from diverse historical fragments and forged into a generic 'outsider' label. But this also aligns with the 'nestling orientalism' thesis, whereby this group wants to disassociate themselves with those identities that others seek to place them with. So the Egyptians use classifications to say why they are not like Gypsies, socio-economically or culturally. And so this argument builds by looking at the process of Albanianisation of Muslim Gypsies, to show how one group of people (Serb and Macedonian authorities) claim they wished to assimilate and wanted no conflict, and those groups themselves who had no vehicle for official recognition up to the 1990s. In detailing this recognition vis-a-vis the census, he describes the group’s mimicry which led to them being unaccounted for. This ties in with themes in my previous book review, that of Christian Promitzer et al, of groups hiding or being hidden.

In tandem with this he looks at the timing 'of emergence', or more precisely, who were the political rulers at any particular time. He errs close to portraying a clientistic relationship, where state jobs are sought and thus identity alters or (re) appears to curry favour. But he fundamentally dilutes the 'invention of Egyptians' argument because identity traits must have resided locally anyway. It was timing and changes to the political discourse that allowed a space for these to come together on a wider, national space.

Yet by 1990, ethnic unmixing had already reached its goal, with communities having as little contact between them as possible. All have suffered, not just one side or another. It wasn’t ‘ethnic problems’ as such, but problems ethnicized by politicians and populations at ease to point the finger, and so one needs to see the problems from a politico-socio-economic perspective not an ethnic-national one. To resolve this, he declared that democracy and an opposition were needed in Serbia.

Although this prescription was a viable one when the book was being written, in the immediate years after publication the world witnessed the fall of Milosevic, and Kosovo was already being run as a UN protectorate. So events altered to hamper this path to de-escalation of the ethnic unmixing. Instead, secession and ultimately independence, seen as the answer, created new problems. As is the nature of nationalism, when a political boundary is newly defined, nations not happy with the delineation argue for a revision or for secession themselves. Hence the Serbs of the northern enclave of Mitrovica demanded their ‘right’ to leave Kosovo. And so the spiral continues. Thus the artificial maintenance of groups seen as ‘units’ continues, whether that’s on the ground as tangible relations (or lack thereof) between people, or merely from a theoretical point of view. And the myths used as a tool for unmixing leading to the solidification of these groups as units, seen by Duijzings as having a lifespan, continue to have a powerful negative impact, despite democratization in Serbia and independence of Kosovo.

So the return to a Venn diagram of ‘groupness’, as ethnographically accounted for by the author, is still a far way off. Yet, this does not underline and prove the nationalist argument that violence is the result of these differences in cultural traits. It is the conclusion reached from that very Western, enlighlightened, and rational notion of the nation-state.

What Duijzing’s provides us with is a deconstruction of the usual debate around identity in Kosovo. By ethnographically portraying the people within the area, he knocks down the binary of two, fixed identities of Serbs and Kosovans, as so typically seen by people in the West, and develops an overview of a diverse people whose path to unmixing stemmed from political and socio-economic factors ethnicised by political leaders. One could claim, however, that by unveiling ‘new’ identities in the region he is simply following the nationalist argument and identifying these groups as units. But I would agree with his assertion that there aren’t groups, but groupness. And what he portrays is a centre/periphery description of how one subjectively accounts for one’s own identity, and that the concentric circles of identity classifications that flow from the centre multifariously link up with identities’ of the ‘other’. So although the centres may not match, the lesser priority identity classifications may do so and create that common bond. The sharing of religious sites is a prime example of how this was done in Kosovo.

Thoughts on Branka Magaš' 'The Destruction of Yugoslavia: Tracking the Break-up 1980-92'

Deftly avoiding the western media’s, some academics, and some historians, portrayal of the reasons for the collapse of the second Yugoslavia and the wars that followed, Magaš provides an ‘insider account’ which details the events as they occurred in the 1980s and early 1990s.

Magaš charts in ‘real time’ the course of events during the 80s and early 90s with snippets of political and historical context that allows you to comprehend how she came to some conclusions on the actions that led to a notable events in this period. This may come across as somewhat repetitive as you near the end of the book, but understanding that this book’s writing was not a fixed event with the benefit of hindsight, but a commentary on events as they happened, explains her style. Thus she doesn’t resort to explanations of the current collapse of the State, Party, and descent into war on a return to ‘ancient hatreds’ or ‘unsettled scores’; but points to the immediate causal chain of events to set the ‘present’ event in context.

Focus of the book falls on the nature of relations between many actors, processes and events; the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (LCY) and the state; the federal LCY party and the republican and provincial LCY parties; democratizing forces and orthodox Stalinist zealots; economic reform and adherence to self-management; the ‘Memorandum’ and the 14^th Party conference; and calls for decentralization and recentralization.

It is this latter tussle between centrifugal and centripetal forces and actors advocating these positions that provides the central theme in the text. This originates from the 1974 constitution in a political/legal manner regarding the distribution of power (in a post-Tito world), and the reactions of the federal and republican LCY parties and state bodies to the growing economic instability in the 1980s. However, Magaš places emphasis on Kosovo as the arena in which the post-Tito consensus began to waver. Disturbances in the region due to socio-economic factors, brought with it calls for martial law, and later calls for repatriation of the Autonomous Province’s powers, to the Serbian republican centre. Latterly, most Western blame lies on the doorstep of Slobodan Milosevic, and Magaš provides enough illustration later on in the 80s as to why he is largely the actor who is responsible; but at this moment it is the Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences and the leaking of their infamous ‘Memorandum’ which draws her ire. 

Nationality and the ‘national’ question only come into play after this event in official political discourse. This event witnesses a chasm appearing, eventually turning into a gulf, between official federal LCY ideology epitomized by ‘Brotherhood and Unity’, and the Serbian party’s increasing nationalist rhetoric backed by its local media. Stambolic’s fall symbolizes the latter’s eventual take over and is parallel to the accession of Milosevic to power.

The arena of Kosovo and the linchpin of the Memorandum fused and led to the events that we are familiar with – the fall of republic and provincial LCY party leaders in three eastern regions, the centralization attempt of Milosevic at the federal LCY level, the counter response by Croatia and Slovenia to thwart this attempt, the deepening economic stagnation, and finally the collapse of the LCY after the Slovenes walked out of the 14^th Party congress. This final act, and the observation that the Party held the second Yugoslavia together, saw the Federal idea diminish. What then occurred was an acceleration of the centralizing forces of the Serb leadership (evolving onto calls for a ‘Greater Serbia’) being juxtaposed to the loose confederation idea espoused by Croatia, Slovenia, tentatively backed by Macedonia and Bosnia & Herzegovina. However, the former idea took the view of uniting all Serbs whilst discrediting the idea that republican borders were inviolable. The other republics saw them as such. On top of this was the role of the Army. If Yugoslavia ceased to exist, so would the Federal Army. They had a stake in the future of the state, and thus sided more with Milosevic in order preserve the external borders of Yugoslavia. Yet, not even a short war with Slovenia could prevent this. So the Army, with a lot of its officer corps being Serbian, backed Milosevic and the Greater Serb idea, as their preferred option was now redundant. Croatia was its next focus.

You can see Magaš’ tone change in the course of the text; initially it is the Party that needs to work together internally to ensure the return of economic and national stability. Yet as bureaucratic machinations prevented the effective functioning of the LCY (and thus the state) she comes to see that the Party is then the problem; and without economic reform and a democratic Federal Yugoslavia, she predicts that the state would collapse. The constant underlying anti-Albanian rhetoric from the Serbian leadership acts as the kindle for the future fire.

Magaš delivers a text that looks at the power struggles at the bureaucratic and elite levels, and the actors that interact with them, such as the media, at this level. With this in mind, it seems to suggest that nationality and the exploitation of socio-economic conditions were mere tools for certain actors to pursue their goals. And this relates back to the theme of a clash between centrifugal and centripetal forces. However, with this as the dominant theme of the text, its does not investigate from an anthropological perspective the events, actors and processes that either informed this clash or were in contradiction to it. An example would be that she looks at how national tensions were used by certain republican leaders (and tried to be quelled by federal leaders), but it doesn’t seek to inform us whether this debate was being had at the village or town level, or if national tensions were present prior to such inflammation at the republic/federal level. In saying that though, extensive attention was paid to family living standards decreasing in the 80s, with focus early on in the text looking at the non-nationalist actors who were agitating in the spirit of ‘Brotherhood and Unity’. But this reinforces my critique that only those who were organized received any attention, so one could assume that the rest of the population were either ignored or lazily assumed to have ‘followed’ their co-national ‘leaders’. Overall, its power is in the descriptive observation of the collapse of the LCY and the second Yugoslavia, from a bureaucratic and elite level; providing a refreshing ‘event by event’ analysis detailing the causal chain context prior to each event and its possible implications in the future.

The dissolution of the Yugoslav polity – Thoughts on its demise

The question of the dissolution of the Yugoslav polity has led to varieties of theoretical explanations. These explanations vary from legacies of the former Imperial empires and the clash of civilizations, the incompatibility of the separate nations’ ideological goals during the 19^th and early 20^th centuries, aspects of the Socialist structure of the second Yugoslav state, and the impact of intervention by foreign powers. However, I will focus on the actions of certain social and political actors within Yugoslavia during its demise, beginning in the 1980s - not because the other periods are unimportant, but because this decade immediately predates the collapse, and thus must witness certain events and actors that played a central role to its demise.

To investigate this I will initially provide a brief description of the events and battle of ideas that occurred in the 1970s and early 1980s. This will provide a context within which to view the events that occurred from the early 1980s onwards. Two political actors will receive particular attention, Slobodan Milošević and Milan Kučan, as these were the two significant individuals who led Serbian and Slovene political elites, respectively; and contributed to the tumultuous political discourse of the late 1980s and early 1990s. I will look at the intelligentsias of Serbia and Slovenia and their relationship to the rise and backing of more nationalist movements in their respective republics. I will also pay attention to the leaking and content of the ‘Memorandum’ of the Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences and the final extraordinary League of Communists of Yugoslavia (LCY) in 1990 as two events that spurred the dissolution of Yugoslavia.

In 1974 the new constitution of Socialist Yugoslavia was enacted that shifted power from the centre to the republics, appeasing some of the demands that Croatia and Slovenia had been requesting in the previous years in regards to decentralization. It proclaimed Josip Broz Tito as president for life and codified Kosovo and Vojvodina’s position as autonomous provinces from Serbia. Once Tito died in May 1980, the 9-member Federal Presidency governed Yugoslavia. Rajko Muršič (in Halpern & Kideckel’s Neighbours at War, 2000) believes that the socialist revolution and federal constitution, along with Tito, were what kept the country together and that ‘As long as enough ordinary people acted as believers in self-management, one of the bases of support for the second Yugoslavia was affirmed. But when this confidence was lost…then questions about the pre-existing Federal Constitution inevitably came to the fore.’

Although a fatalist statement in its suggestion of inevitability, it does highlight the dominance of the League of Communists in the political life of Yugoslavia. Yet, the other party concept of ‘Brotherhood and Unity’ had pressure exerted on it from events in Kosovo, according to Muršič, and I believe can be viewed as one departure point for the dissolution of Yugoslavia. A shift in demographics in the region over the decades since the establishment of Socialist Yugoslavia produced a commanding Albanian majority that left the Kosovan Serbs feeling sidelined by the local political apparatus, as Albanians took up the party positions, and thus began to agitate. This unrest was seen as a test of both ‘Brotherhood and Unity’ in post-Tito Yugoslavia and the Party itself.

Michael Palairet (in Cohen & Dragovic-Soso, State collapse in South-Eastern Europe, 2008) describes the economic situation in the 1980s as dire for the Socialist planned economic system that led to a test of its durability. From this emerged a shift in the debate about reinvigorating economic growth from one of funding an investment cycle by making those idle performers more efficient in a Yugoslav context, to one which charged the republics of finding their own way towards growth. This was viewed through the debate on the 1974 constitution over decentralization.  The excuse each republic used to justify their own misfortune was that of exploitation by the other republics. This led to resentment between the northwest republics and the southeast ones over distribution of federal funds.

A picture of the early 1980s can be characterized as being in flux with regards to political, economic and ethnic tensions and rivalries, which the federal system and LCY had to balance. The issue of decentralization re-emerged as different actors came to the fore to achieve their preferred remedy for the Yugoslav malaise.

The ‘Memorandum’ of the Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences (SANU) was leaked to Večernje novosti in September 1986, and is the first event that led to the start of the renewed public interest in nationalist rhetoric that involved Serbia’s intellectual elite. It was seen as a document that reified already held nationalist beliefs, criticizing the state of the economy and decentralization. But Dr. Jasna Dragovic-Soso (Saviours of the Nation, 2002) sees it as a relatively conservative programme – one that harks back to the golden age of the 1960s. Its content chimed with the already developed notion of national victimhood suffered by the Serbs, epitomized by the loss of control over Kosovo. It blamed Slovenia and Croatia for wanting to maintain the status quo – and thus Serbia’s inferior position in Yugoslavia’s institutions. The ‘Memorandum’ didn’t advocate violence nor call for a greater Serbia but called for a revision of the 1974 constitution to re-establish federalism over decentralization.

Nick Miller (in Cohen & Dragovic-Soso, State collapse in South-Eastern Europe, 2008) believes the issue of Kosovo cemented the intelligentsia’s union with nationalism, with the ‘Memorandum’ acting as one of those events that highlighted this. Dragovic-Soso agrees and feels the Serbian intelligentsia turned towards a more national than civil cause, especially because of Kosovo. Stuart Kaufman (Modern Hatreds, 2001) sums up the importance of the ‘Memorandum’ by stating that ‘The fact that the respected Academy made such charges gave them a weight in public opinion that protestors in Kosovo lacked.’ However, Miller argues that ‘Their movement did not become political until a political figure emerged who would…embrace the picture that the intellectuals had created; Slobodan Milošević did this.’ Yet one must recognize that the document came first and Milošević ran with many of its ideas afterwards. However, Kosovo provided a link between the ‘Memorandum’ and Slobodan Milošević, and would later fashion an alliance between him and the Serbian intelligentsia.

There are two ways in which to view the development and progress of Slobodan Milošević in Yugoslav political life. One is that he had a set plan with goals to reach, and the other is a populist who saw emerging issues and took a lead on them. Sabrina Ramet (Nationalism and Federalism in Yugoslavia, 1962 – 1991) felt that he had a four-stage plan. First was to establish control in Serbia, along with a ‘cult of personality’. Second was to reassert control over Vojvodina and Kosovo. He then sought to recentralize the state apparatus and reduce the powers of the 6 republics. Only then was he going to enact dubious ‘controlled democratization’ whilst consolidating political control for himself. The extent to which this was ‘a plan’ needs more research and questioning on events and conversations to uphold these claims, yet one can accept that the first two steps were achieved.

So how did he achieve the first two ‘goals’? His career in the LCY saw him aligned with Ivan Stambolić, which earned him the accolade of being the future Serbian President’s ‘right-hand man’. However, in April 1987 Stambolić sent Milošević to Kosovo to meet Party delegates there because of the unrest. At the supposed closed meeting, thousands of Serbs and Montenegrins converged on the meeting, and were beaten back by police. In reaction to this, Milošević went out and uttered the infamous words that Ramet felt ‘assured Milošević of a place in Serbian mythology. Bette Denich (in Halpern & Kideckel’s Neighbours at War, 2000) places a lot of emphasis on the importance of the visit to Kosovo by Milošević. ‘That moment transformed Milošević from a Party bureaucrat into a mass leader.’ Months later, he made a decisive move and ousted his former mentor so he then commanded the Serbian party. Denich also believes that the mass public in Serbia was fed the image that Milošević was their natural leader, standing up for Kosovo, against the rigid bureaucratic establishment, with apparent popular support. The importance of this event led to a strengthening of his image in Serbia proper, and highlighted his ability to manipulate the Party machinery to his advantage.

What followed was the reassertion political control over the autonomous provinces. He had been leading on the Kosovo issue almost as a civil rights issue on the side of the Kosovan Serbs, but then sidestepped to be seen to take on the ‘establishment’. The ‘anti bureaucratic revolution’ was Milošević’s attempt to recentralize power in Serbia through ‘unity’, harking back to Titoist ‘Federalism’ via mass demonstrations. His campaign achieved the results that he desired and his allies were installed in Vojvodina, Kosovo and Montenegro. On a constitutional level this was important as he could now rely on the support of 4 republics or provinces out of 8 with votes at the federal level. These processes wedded Milošević and the Serbian intelligentsia together. It instilled in the intelligentsia the idea that change was on the horizon, by combating the old guard of the LCY, yet have one of its members at the helm, i.e. Milošević, as the head of state. He tied it to the Kosovo issue and became outspoken on it. Dragovic–Soso believed it was this union that led the intelligentsia into the arms of Milošević.

Meanwhile, the Slovenian intelligentsia took a different approach to the Yugoslav state, and observed the Serbian developments with unease. The Slovenian intelligentsia grew out of the political and economic context of the early 1980s. It created an ‘Alternative Scene’, one more academic and cultural that gathered around various civil rights type issues. Dragovic–Soso believed that they centered on the notion of ‘Central Europe’ that ‘became the symbol of Slovenia’s national revival, with the Yugoslav ‘Balkans’ replacing ‘Asiatic’ Russia as the alien ‘Other’.’ With this in mind, during that period Slovenia viewed the crisis in Kosovo as a human rights issue on the side of the Albanians, which infuriated the Serbs in Kosovo.

This renewed friction between Serbian and Slovenian intelligentsias started in 1988 when the Serb political elite approached the Slovenes to agree to party reform. Slovenes said no and consequently criticized the Serb leadership. This led to an economic boycott of Slovene products. This then led to elements of the Slovene intelligentsia becoming involved in the Kosovo dispute by criticizing Army deployment there. A dispute followed between the Serb and Slovene Writer’s Associations leading to a declaration by the Slovene political leadership regarding the republics right to self-determination and its right to get involved with Kosovo. Serbia then promised to send the ‘anti-bureaucratic’ movement to Ljubljana but this was thwarted.

Therefore during the 1980s, two groups of intellectual elites in Yugoslavia didn’t come together to ensure that Yugoslavia remained united yet reformed its ways, but instead they retreated to within their respective republican borders and came to loggerheads on the question of self-determination. Slovenia wanted further decentralization for a move towards a more ‘Western’ and democratic path. It was willing to take Yugoslavia in this direction, but resistance was coming from Serbia who wanted to recentralize. Nevertheless, Slovenia’s developing democratization created a space within which to strength its civil society, one that expressed its opinions via cultural and social movements, which were ‘outside of the system’ thus neutering a more overt or dangerous nationalist one. ‘With the arrival of Slobodan Milošević on the Serbian political scene, however, recentralization became associated with Serb nationalism and Serbian interests.’ according to Ramet.

Milan Kučan was the person who took Slovenia on the path of democratization and nourished the new cultural expressions that were taking place, yet remained an LCY politician and leader. Kučan’s ability to hold on to the support of the intelligentsia, even to sacrifice Communist rule, showed his ‘common ground’ approach, according to Miller. The trial of journalists writing for Mladina magazine by a military tribunal in Serbo-Croatian emphasized the injustice of Slovene membership in Yugoslavia, characterized by Serb hegemony. The ‘Mladina affair’ united the Slovene people against Belgrade’s interference in internal matters and Kučan defended the rallies that followed. Although as this point his stance was not for independence, he was to play a crucial role in Yugoslavia’s demise.

And this is where I return to the point mentioned earlier regarding the dominance of the LCY in the life of the second Yugoslavia. The several pillars that provided legitimacy for the LCY had taken a knock, for example ‘Brotherhood and Unity’ and ‘Democratic Centralism’. The weakening economic situation had a severe effect on the citizenry, who now questioned the legitimacy of the regime because so long as living standards rose, political rights weren’t requested –this  was now being undermined. So Yugoslavia was stitched together by a party that was in constant conflict between its own power bases in their respective republics. However, the continuing debate over decentralization and centralization exploded within the LCY and culminated at the Fourteenth (Extraordinary) Congress of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia in January 1990. This is where Kučan came to the fore and locked horns with Milošević.

Eric Gordy (in Cohen & Dragovic-Soso, State collapse in South-Eastern Europe, 2008) writes that Milošević wanted to change the voting structure of the LCY from a republic vote to ‘One member, one vote’. Milošević, and Kučan for that matter, knew that Serbia and Montenegro together had 47% of the LCY membership and therefore could always count on winning the votes at the congress, even with minimal support from the other republic’s delegates. Every vote on a Slovene delegation policy was defeated. This humiliated the Slovenes. Even up to this point, Milošević must have wanted to retain the existing boundaries of Yugoslavia, and believed that the LCY was what kept Yugoslavia together. If not, then he wouldn’t have needed to go through the charade of a Party conference. His goal was simply the domination of the party. Yet, his proposal and the actions he took to secure it pushed the Slovenes to the limit. The Slovene delegation, led by Milan Kučan, proceeded to walk out of the congress auditorium, never to return. The Croats followed suit ensuring no quorum for the congress to continue. Days later the Slovenes left the LCY.

This event was the culmination of all the events that came before it. The rise in nationalist agitation by the Serbian intelligentsia endorsed and carried forward by Slobodan Milošević. The troubles occurring in Kosovo matched with the Slovene intelligentsia’s growing interest in civil rights issues. The economic decline throughout the 1980s and a dominating debate regarding the power and structure of the federal state and the fight to dominate. This led to the final questioning of the role of the LCY, and a loss of faith in the party to control the situation. The 1974 constitution presumed the dominance of the LCY in order to govern the country. Now that the Slovenes walked out, there was no all-Yugoslav party. Ramet, Gordy and Jovic (in Cohen & Dragovic-Soso, State collapse in South-Eastern Europe, 2008) all point to this congress as being a defining moment in the decline of the Yugoslav polity. So according to Ramet’s theory, Milosevic failed at the third step, thus the possibility of a smooth ride to the fourth was rendered void. He only achieved this in a rump Yugoslavia.

In summary, there are a many hundred contributing factors that led to the demise of the Yugoslav polity, and it would be unfair to assume that only the points I have covered are the full sum of those. I have provided a brief description of the events that occurred to place in context my reasoning for those people or groups that I feel played the most significant parts in the polity’s collapse. I feel that Slobodan Milošević, Milan Kučan and the intelligentsias of Serbia and Slovenia are the main political and social actors that most contributed to this, for reasons I have outlined. But an annex to this is the role of the League of Communist of Yugoslavia. One may debate whether it is a social actor or not, but the party’s influence on the life of the people and of its fundamental role in the institutions of the federal and republic institutions, leads me to conclude that so long as the party survived, so did the state. The culmination of events during the 1980s led to the eventual clash of two republican leaders in the arena of the 1990 LCY party congress, which ultimately sealed Yugoslavia’s fate as a functioning and unified.