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On November 23, Raccoon held the roundtable with Bogdan Denitch: Democratization - the rise of the nationalist parties and prospects in former Yugoslav states. Nationalist parties are on offensive amidst attempts on denazification in Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia. Bogdan Denitch is Professor Emeritus of Graduate Program in Sociology at CUNY Grad School, President ToDa (Center for Transitions to democracy in Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia), and President of the "Socialist Scholars Conference in New York"

If we can draw a conclusion to Bogdan’s report on the State of Disunion of former Yugoslav realms, that will be that there is no solution to the crisis that can be found locally, painting a rather bleak picture of post-Yugoslav societies. Instead, Bogdan tends to favor a solution imposed from above, or, more realistically, given that God forsook those peoples many years ago, from outside. Bosnia, Bogdan says, has the best prospects.

While what-to-do-with-sovereignty is an obvious conundrum for both ruling and opposition politicians in the nascent wanna-be democracies, suggesting that an outright occupation and colonialization would be so much more better misses one important point: the hypothesis that the West may have its own ulterior motives, which may not be benevolent to the region, was never completely and successfully discarded. Croatia went ‘the full turn’ of many a Eastern European society, getting back in power the same communist aparatchiks, renamed as social-democrats, but, as Bogdan humorously noted, still thinking of social-democrats in the bolshevik fashion - that they are sell-outs and capitalist lackeys. Racan sure behaves like one. His opposition, however, is not your classic Christian-Democrat conservatives, but the nationalist, ethno-fundamentalist, so to say, right. The one that would never even consider co-operating with The Hague. The one like it is in power in Serbia. Where nearly a quarter of electorate voted for a fascist candidate, backed by Milosevic’s version of social-democrats.

Democracy Watch: Following organizations provide independent elections monitoring in the emerging post-Yugoslav societies: GONG - Croatia OSCE - Bosnia CESID - Serbia C4C- Macedonia The Forum - UNMIK

One would wish that the military staged a coup in 1989 or 1990, arrested all secessionist leaders and called federal elections within six months. That did not happen. Instead, military went along with one of the secessionist leaders and engaged in crimes against humanity in his name. Now, it may look acceptable that NATO assumes the role of Yugoslav Army and force-feed democracy into the recalcitrant, boney, Balkan heads. But if one retrace activity of the ‘international community’ in the first five years since Milosevic took power in Serbia, one may question their good intentions.

As the ultimate responsibility for preventing the collapse of Yugoslavia was with the local political leaders (one of which was Racan at that time, failing at the task), now the ultimate responsibility for survival of emerging post-Yugoslav states is with the local political leaders (one of which is Racan, again, not faring much better than he did the last time). And they do not have an easy task, being faced by two complimentary forces: the isolationist domestic ethno-fascism and correspondent quasi-globalist imperialism of rich and powerful countries.

It is also questionable whether the third post-Yugoslav society, the one that was stripped off real sovereignty, Bosnia, fares much better. In fact, it is at the very bottom of GDP per capita in Europe table - one notch above Moldova. One of its constituent ethnic group (Croats) have double citizenship. Another (Serbs) run their own state within a state. Voters vote for their ethnic parties. And a pile of war criminals is still at large, just as they are in sovereign Serbia and sovereign Croatia.

In other words, there is no palpable difference between the local and the foreign rule in the Balkans. All societies are poorer than they were before the war. Everywhere people vote for their ethnic parties, in the middle of Europe, at the beginning of 21st century. The rule of law is rather sporadic. Corruption looms large. And the people there are as protective of their war criminals as environmentalist in US would be of the spotted awl. Bobetko in Croatia has a status of wildlife threatened with extinction.

This all apparently regardless of whether they are governed by fascists, "social-democrats", or the ‘international community.’ The solution, therefore, cannot really be imposed “from above” - it was tried and it is failing in Bosnia, it is not making much progress in Kosovo. It has to come from below, from a process of various grassroots initiatives of citizens, which in a hopefully more open political and media space would transform those societies.

One earlier study in Serbia showed how ethnic identity grew in value between 1985 and 1987. A sample of 10 year old pupils had to list 5 things that describe their identity. In 1985 many students omitted the ethnic identifier completely, or placed it at the 4th or 5th place. In 1987 the ethnic identifier became 2nd on average. This was a very important change in societies in which ‘nationalism’ used to be punishable by jail time. Now, this change needs to be undone. And nobody can undo it, but those who had changed. Trying to help them, may just breed resentment.

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This project was made possible by a generous grant from The New York Foundation