By Veton Surroi
Serbs living outside Serbia reside in states where human freedoms and democratic rights are greater than those enjoyed by Serbs within Serbia itself. A Serbian citizen in Serbia has yet to attain the basic right to a free vote — a right already exercised by Serbs in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Kosovo.
In the dissolution of former Yugoslavia, one of the primary motives was the emancipation of states and nations from Serbia, from a politics of domination and supremacism. Yet that process left Serbia isolated with its fundamental code of domination and supremacism still alive — a code that requires the homogenization of the population, the treatment of opposition as national heresy, and ultimately the obstruction — even through violence — of forces advocating liberal democracy.
1.
Next week Montenegro marks the twentieth anniversary of its declaration of independence — or, to be more precise (and here Montenegrins insist correctly), the restoration of its independent statehood, first declared in 1878 and then more or less annexed by Serbia in 1918, forty years later.
This penultimate act in the dissolution of former Yugoslavia was supposed to produce added value. Not only would Montenegro become an independent state, but the dissolution of the State Union with Serbia would also allow Serbia itself finally to become an independent country.
Two years later, Kosovo’s declaration of independence — the final act in the breakup of Yugoslavia, and part of an internationally coordinated process initiated within the obligations of the United Nations — was likewise meant to help Serbia finally become an independent state.
Yet this does not appear to be the case.
Serbia stands with one foot as a state negotiating — not particularly successfully — for membership in the European Union, while with the other foot it remains trapped in a role it still refuses to abandon toward its neighbors.
For Serbia, what is evident to all the other states that emerged from Yugoslavia is somehow still not evident: Yugoslavia dissolved, new states were created, and Kosovo is one of them.
2.
This historical process, still unresolved for Serbia, has transformed itself into political doctrine.
Since contesting Kosovo’s independence simultaneously means contesting the dissolution of Yugoslavia itself, Serbia has developed a doctrine of denial on three levels. The first two are history and geography — or more precisely, political geography.
The act of denying the breakup of Yugoslavia begins with denying Kosovo’s historical reality, but it expands further, challenging the historical realities of all neighboring states.
For Serbia — and here I refer to the majority either in power or supportive of the dominant narrative — Croatia remains a genocidal state against Serbs; Bosnia and Herzegovina appears frozen somewhere around the Austro-Hungarian annexation crisis of 1878; Montenegro lingers in the days before deciding whether or not to be annexed at the end of the First World War; while Kosovo remains trapped in an eternal moment — from the folk songs collected by Vuk Karadžić in the “Kosovo Cycle” onward — in the collective gusle lamenting the loss of Kosovo to the Ottomans while simultaneously announcing the day of its return.
The dominant historical discourse in Serbia long ago forgot the year 1945 and all the subsequent decades of Yugoslavia and Serbia within it. The selected history of this discourse is sometimes the medieval empire of Tsar Dušan, sometimes one royal dynasty or another, as though projecting a straight line beginning in the Middle Ages and ending, within a few years, in a Serbia that gathers all Serbs into one state — forgetting, conveniently, that Tito’s Yugoslavia had already accomplished precisely that before Serbian ultra-nationalism shattered it with the occupation of Kosovo in 1989–1990.
3.
In psychology, the phenomenon closest to describing Serbia is called “cognitive immobility,” a term coined by Dr. Ezenwa Olumba, a British scholar of Nigerian origin. It describes the mental paralysis experienced by people — particularly migrants — who remain trapped in the life they left behind.
In much the same way, the collective discourse of Serbia’s majority remains imprisoned in the past — and, as we have seen, in a past that ends somewhere at the beginning of the twentieth century. Serbia lives trapped in a pre-modern past, before mass literacy, before modern political consciousness.
Unlike the immigrant’s trap, however, Serbia experiences this without ever moving geographically. Serbia remains where it always was, yet in confronting history — the unfinished dissolution of Yugoslavia — it now also confronts political geography.
The new realities of political geography are the independent states surrounding Serbia, realities that clash directly with this “cognitive immobility,” with the old belief that Serbia possessed the right to administer those territories or at least determine their future, that it was the geopolitical center of the region.
This confrontation with the new political geography is among Serbia’s deepest cognitive frictions.
Where Serbia attempted most forcefully — through war — to dictate the conditions under which Serbs would live, namely in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo, fewer Serbs live today than before.
Serbia’s relevance to the better life of Serbs outside Serbia remains overwhelmingly negative. Serbia continues to matter primarily as a generator or instigator of problems for neighboring states, not as a force for solutions or good-neighborly coexistence.
And, more importantly, Serbs outside Serbia live in states where human freedoms and democratic rights are greater than those enjoyed by Serbs inside Serbia itself. A Serbian citizen in Serbia still has not secured the fundamental right to a free vote — a right possessed by Serbs in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Kosovo.
4.
If the first two levels of Serbia’s denial are history and political geography, the third level remains to be explained.
The third level of denial is Serbia’s denial of itself; the Serbia of the dominant discourse contests the very idea of an independent Serbia.
The persistent denial of historical and geopolitical reality leaves Serbia uncertain about its own state identity.
Is it the responsibility of the Serbian state to decide how a Serb from Banja Luka should live? Is the Adriatic a “lost Serbian sea” since Montenegro restored its independence? Should a deputy from Štrpce or Novo Brdo think politically through the head of Belgrade while sitting in the Assembly of the Republic of Kosovo? Is Serbia the westernmost territorial extension of Russia? Is the European Union merely an ATM machine from which Serbia withdraws money while sending back the young people who flee in search of work and refuge from a state whose greatest achievements are visible only in the rear-view mirror?
And how much of all this truly matters to the ordinary citizen of Serbia?
How much of it constitutes genuine state interest? How much does it determine salaries, roads, water supply, electricity prices, school quality, public safety, environmental protection, pensions, and the feeling that the next generation of Serbs can grow up happy in this country?
In the dissolution of Yugoslavia, one of the fundamental motives was the liberation of states and nations from Serbia, from its politics of domination and supremacism. Yet that process left Serbia isolated with the core code of domination and supremacism still intact — a code requiring the homogenization of society, the branding of opposition as national betrayal, and ultimately the obstruction — even through violence — of those advocating liberal democracy.
Now the time has come for Serbia to free itself from this Serbia.