Nowy Eurodialog

It is the year 2002. Ivan D., a Serb from Belgrade, is on his way to Paris. Citizens of the European Union run their identification cards through a slot in a machine at the border, which reads the information on the card and opens the automatic gate. The gate does not open for Ivan. A signal directs him to a room where a bored official questions the Macedonian cheese and dried meat that Ivan is taking to a friend in Paris. "Those goods are not produced in accordance with Union standards and are therefore inadmissable," the European official tells the glum Serb.

A Lost Chance

This not-necessarily-fantastic story comes from the book Notes from the Future which is being written by Professor Ivan D., an internationally-known radiation expert from Belgrade. The self-directed irony does not conceal the regret over the chance that Yugoslavia irreversibly forfeited when it succumbed to ethnic madness. Post-Tito Yugoslavia had a foreign-financed infrastructure, an economy unhampered by dogma. The country was more open to western influences than its communist neighbors; all citizens could have passports at their disposal. It could have been the first post-communist country to qualify for European Union membership. The residents of Belgrade, the capital of the former federation, now feel frustrated and melancholy. Some regard themselves as humiliated in the eyes of Europe and the world. Yet they cannot turn back the clock. Their country is frozen in an economic blockade, morally and economically devastated, and filled with hateful thinking. The time of reflections will mean adding up the losses.

Today's Belgrade is the capital not of the powerful Federation, but of "New Yugoslavia," a state on the periphery of the civilized world whose citizens need visas to visit European countries. Foreign planes land sporadically at the international airport. Big multinational capital steers clear of Serbia and Montenegro; domestic capital is bound to the governing party and the interest groups that grew rich on the war.

"Not much has changed," Dusan Kovacevic, the major Serbian dramatist who wrote the screenplay for Emir Kusturica's film Underground, says ironically. "The old communists have become capitalistic managers. Now they work for the Mafia instead of the Party. Belgrade today is like Al Capone's Chicago." The euphoria and hope that accompanied the last street demonstrations, when thousands of Belgradians banged pots, blew whistles, threw eggs or stood in silence to protest the rigging of local election results, are gone. Slobodan Milosevic had no problems becoming president of the rump federation of "New Yugoslavia." Zoran Dzindzic is mayor of Belgrade, but this means little except that the streets are sometimes cleaned. The rival ambitions of its leaders have prevented the "Zajedno" opposition coalition from working together. Apathy and resignation have left people without ideas and canceled the sense of community activism.

The Battle for the Media

On the screen of the old hotel television with its off-hue colors, one word keeps dropping from the lips of a homely newsreader dressed in the fashion of the eighties: "Serbia," the most sacred incantation for the creators of nationalism. Next, we see the smiling "presjednik," Slobodan Milosevic, pressing the flesh in Kragujevec, Uzice, Nis, and Sabec. He talks to the people and kisses a tow- headed little boy's head. Everything happens according to the formula I remember from the time of the war.

A battle over the media is underway in Serbia. Who controls the media, runs the country. The information monopoly has in effect been broken in Belgrade. New, independent newspapers like Nasza Borba, Blic, Demokratija and Dnevni Telegraf are available in the numerous kiosks. Foreign papers, though slightly out-of-date, can be bought: The International Herald Tribune, Le Figaro, and the Croatian satirical opposition weekly Feral Tribune. The independent Beta news agency functions. Radio B92, now legendary, and Studio B Television, controlled by the Belgrade local government, are on the air. Things are worse in the provinces, where state-run RTS television still dominates. In mid-March, Radmila Milentijevic, the newly-named Serbian Republic minister of information, announced a proposal for a new Press Law. All the opposition parties blasted the document, stating unanimously that it would be one more step cutting Serbia off from the democratic world. Among other things, the proposed statute contained provisions limiting the range of private broadcasters to 25% of total Serbian territory and requiring all newspapers receiving financial or technical support from abroad to publish details on the source of such backing. When we spoke in her office at the Ministry of Information, I asked Radmila Milentijevic for a copy of the controversial proposal. She stiffened: "Oh, that version had some flaws and is inoperative."

She promised to send me a copy of the new version. I am still waiting. She also told me about the steps she is taking to force Serbia's two journalists' unions, The Serbian Journalists' Association and the Independent Serbian Journalists' Association, to produce a common code of ethics. This was the objective of a meeting she was organizing, and to which she proposed inviting representatives of both groups. Unfortunately, a situation where the government initiates the establishment of the journalistic code of ethics does not auger well for the future. In an interview with Nasza Borba, Radmila Milentijevic expressed her sincere conviction that Slobodan Milosevic "is firmly determined to lead the country in the direction of further democratization" and that the Serbian print media enjoy "total freedom" while the situation in the electronic media "remains somewhat different." "However, she said, "our freedom of the media is not limited to the degree that is commonly thought throughout the world." (After my visit to Croatia, I would agree.) Radmila Milentejevic is not popular among the journalists that I spoke to. Like former prime minister Milan Panic, she spent much of her life in the United States. Her enemies maintain that she often refers to those days as a weapon in arguments, saying "In America we...." One newspaper wrote, "In America we certainly would not make her minister of information." Mrs. Milentijevic is regarded as a pawn of Milosevic. She was a member of the Panic government, and her registration, along with other members of the cabinet, brought that government down.

"Revanchism" has recently become a popular word in the government press. The Serbian Journalists' Association joined in with a demand for the "protection of journalists against revanchism." The issue concerned the recent elections in which the opposition took over local governments in several Serbian towns, which was allegedly to be followed by mass dismissals of journalists from local media. The English-language monthly News on Media, published by the Soros- and EU-funded Media Center in Belgrade, states that such fears are groundless, and that reports about the firing of 46 people at the Kragujevec television station are false.

Like the government, the opposition would like to control the media. Sasa Mirkovic, managing editor of Radio B92, speaks of the trouble he had with the new local government, which wanted to draw the popular radio station into politics. Mirkovic is invited to opposition conventions and meetings, but not as a journalist. Some people would be flattered and agree to attend, but not Mirkovic. He prefers to "run his radio station," go around in jeans and sneakers, and spend his time at the smoky, crowded B92 studio on Makedonska Street. A big sign on the door to his office reads "No Hate Zone." The fact that such places exist in Belgrade is grounds for optimism.

Equally optimistic is a conversation with Vesna Vujic, chairperson of the Independent Serbian Journalists' Association. She tells about a training course for journalists organized by the FOJO institute in Kalmar. Reporters and editors from the various republics of the former Yugoslavia were invited. They finally had a chance to talk to each other. The training sessions were forgotten; they stayed up all night talking and talking in their smoke-filled rooms. Since they did not manage to finish their discussions, they decided to hold another meeting in the autumn at Ohrid in Macedonia. Nationalistic politicians attempted to create as many divisions among the journalists as they could.

It's Difficult to Look Ahead

The Serbs feel cut off from the world. They are wrapped up in their own problems and in settling accounts with the past, with the heritage of Tito and the war that set the spirals of history in motion. "The wounds are still bleeding and infected," as Minister Radmila Milentijevic told me.

"The media in the old Yugoslavia presented a beautified reality that did not exist," says Nebojsa Curcic, assistant editor of the pro-government Polityka. "Yet people believed in it. When Tito died, everything began falling apart. The media did not prepare people for the division of Yugoslavia. Then the unspeakable began... The generation of 40-year-olds had lost their world and they could not find their way."

The residents of Belgrade are hospitable and open-hearted after the Slavic manner; they have few occasions to entertain foreign guests. Their tongues loosen over a glass of Macedonian wine or Serbian rakija. "Macedonia is a part of Serbia, just like Kossovo," says Boris, who has often joined other students in demonstrations and cannot conceive of turning Kossovo over to the Albanians.

Boris is a practicing Orthodox believer, and says grace before we eat. I ask him about the future, about whether he foresees any kind of union or cooperation among the former Yugoslav republics, Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia. "I can think only of Serbia," his mother replies. "Too many horrible things have happened. I cannot think of all Yugoslavia."

"Perhaps some sort of economic cooperation, someday.... The time has not yet come. We're not ready," says Boris, shaking his head. Aleksa Dzilas, son of Milovan Dzilas, the famous dissident and one-time colleague of Tito's, is also skeptical. He feels, however, that Serbs must reconcile themselves to the loss of Kossovo. In his opinion, the Croatians are making eyes at the European Union in order to show the Serbs that they are better. Aleksa states that the Dayton Accords should be viewed realistically and that, in order to avoid violence, refugees should receive compensation rather than go back to their homes. The process of European integration should also be seen from a different perspective -- against whom is Europe being integrated?

Sasa Mirkovic, managing editor of Radio B92, believes in the possibility of someday creating a sort of federation of the former Yugoslavian republics. The ongoing process of European integration will force such a solution. The dramatist Dusan Kovacevic turns out to be the greatest Cassandra. He believes that NATO will have to keep its troops in the Bosnia for the next twenty years if it wants to avoid a Balkan war.

His new play Larry Thompson, at the Zvezdara Theatre, is full of allusions to the present political situation in Serbia. The audience applauds when an actor wearing the characteristic fatigue cap of the Serbian militia, like "Slobo," appears on stage. Just as we Poles did under communism, they can instantly read the author's intentions between the lines of every word and gesture. Kovacevic is universally treated as a cult figure. His famous line from Radovan III has even been quoted by the New York Times: "Don't allow them to kill themselves until we've won."

"He is our conscience," Belgrade Theatre director Boba Durovic told the Times reporter, "even though not everyone wants to listen." With the corruption of the art and culture of the ex-Yugoslavian countries being demonstrated by the universal glorification of nationalism, Kovacevic holds an unquestioned position. His work forces people to think in categories of the big truths that break through the constricting cocoon of nationalism.

The sun sets over Kalamegdan Castle, which was once a Turkish fortress. I watch a barge float along the Danube. Lovers come here. As in a million other places all over the world, they kiss. Belgrade throbs with life. People drink coffee or the local BIP beer at tables outside cafes. The cover of the issue of Mladina magazine on sale in the kiosk depicts caricatures of Milosevic and Tudjman frozen in a kiss - an allusion to a once-famous image of East Germany's Erich Honecker and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev in a similar pose.

A legless beggar in front of St. Mark's Orthodox church stretches out his hand in a mute gesture. In the chilly gloom of the interior, a young girl lights two long, thin candles, one for the living and one for the dead; perhaps for her kin who died in the war. Colorful throngs of pedestrians fill the streets and it seems that they are an elemental power that no dictatorship could ever tame.