University: Paris 8 Saint-Denis Subject: Nation, empire, post-colonialism Professor: Elsa Dorlin Student: Slavica Ilieska

Problematic - How the national discourse on the Balkan starting from the 1990s effected the formation of imagined communities in the region since?

Introduction This paper aims to apply Andersons theory of imagined communities and printed capitalism on the region of the Balkan, focusing the attention concretely on the years after the death of the Federations idealistic founder Josip Broz Tito and the following breakup of Yugoslavia. The intention is to make a connection between the so-called Gutenberg Revolution transferred into the national discourses in the republics of the Federation as means of building violent nationalism and promotion of ethnical cleansing. The specific conditions during the period since the 1990s to current, involve disintegration of a Federation of 6 Republics and 2 provinces, into 5 nation-states, 1 union of two autonomous units, and 1 United Nations protectorate, all of which during the same period make effort to become members of another union, the European, with the following results: one is integrated in the EU (Slovenia), one is currently finishing the negotiations to enter (Croatia), and other 4, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Serbia (including Kosovo) are applying for membership.

Imagined communities as a Gutenberg creation: The effects of Printed Capitalism In order to understand the importance of nationalism in the current political situation we have to analyze where this deep attachment came from, what are its origins and how did it reach the point of high emotional legitimacy as Benedict Anderson would address it. Our analysis is based on Andersons theory of imagined communities and the belief that once nationalism as an artifact was created in the XVII century it easily began to spread, multiply, while adapting itself to different environments, social conditions and ideologies. While exploring different theories of nationalism, Anderson is noting a fact that there are some elements of nationalism that have aroused which are in contradiction to the facts and the history. He is especially focusing on the huge time differences between creation of nations and

nationalist feelings' reach, the modern normality of belonging to one specific nation and the phenomenon of enormous political force that nationalism is reaching.
Theorists of nationalism have often been perplexed, not to say irritated by these three paradoxes: (1) The objective modernity of nations to the historians eye vs. their subjective antiquity in the eyes of nationalists. (2) The formal universality of nationality as a socio-cultural concept in the modern world everyone can, should will have a nationality as he or she has a gender vs. the irremediable particularity of its concrete manifestations such that, by definition, Greek nationality is sui generis. (3) The political power of nationalism vs. their philosophical poverty and even incoherence. 1

Furthermore, Anderson is introducing a new definition of nationalism which will revolutionize the research field of Nationalism studies by creating the concept of so-called imagined communities. The whole concept is based on the notion that one member of a nation will never meet all the other co-members, yet they share a common feeling of belonging to the same imagined group and even more as an imperative they have joint set of values and beliefs (set by others). Not having in mind the distorted balance between different groups in the same group, based on the existing distinctions in class, race, status, this groups are imagined to be horizontal. As Anderson precisely defines:
In an anthropological spirit, then, I propose the following definition of the nation: it is an imagined political community and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign. It is imagined because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion. The nation is imagined as limited because even the largest of them, encompassing perhaps a billion living human beings, has finite, if elastic, boundaries, beyond which lie other nations. It is imagined as sovereign because the concept was born in an age in which Enlightenment and Revolution were destroying the legitimacy of the divinely-ordained, hierarchical dynastic realm. Finally, it is imagined as a community, because, regardless of the actual inequality and exploitation that may prevail in each, the nation is always conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship.2

What is interesting in Andersons research is the explanation how did nationalism reached todays limits. He is focusing the attention to the empires which in order to protect their own interests created the concept of official nationalism. The term has its origin in the state interests, because everything that comes from the state is official, has to be protected under any circumstances and cannot be questioned. Furthermore, this theory is developed, getting the form of replicable solution for other empires which introduce official nationalism as a way to protect their own interests. There is one element that Anderson sees missing in order to make it easier to communicate the idea of nationalism and belonging among the other members, which will consequentially unite them under the same set of values. With the appearance of the first official newspapers one person got the exclusive opportunity to simultaneously know what happened to another person located far from him, which he doesnt know and have never communicated with. The important change here is that at the same time, different people on different locations were reading the same news and got the same information. But the revolution in this exchange of information,
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Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities

according to Anderson happened as a result of publishing houses attempt to find another market to earn from. The race for profit, which lays in the basis of capitalism, forced publishing houses to change the borders of activities from national to international. And the essential means used for easier communication were the print languages. Anderson specifically explains their role:
These print-languages laid the bases for national consciousnesses in three distinct ways. First and foremost, they created unified fields of exchange and communication below Latin and above the spoken vernaculars. Second, print-capitalism gave a new fixity to language, which in the long run helped to build that image of antiquity so central to the subjective idea of the nation. Third, print-capitalism created languages-of-power of a kind different from the older administrative vernaculars. 3

The importance of the theory of Anderson is that it closes the circle established between the print-languages as means, the print technology as element of transporting the information from national to international borders, and the same nationalistic ideas, values, beliefs transferred to huge mass of people which consequentially get a feeling of belonging to the same group/nation, referred by Anderson as imagined community.

Justification of ethnical cleansing We will now use the analysis of Andersons theory of imagined communities as an argument to explain why extreme measures are used in the creation of modern nations on the specific case of the Balkan. The researcher David Storey in his book Former Yugoslavia: Territory and national identity, notes that the increased nationalistic rhetoric was one of the key factors for reaching the Dayton Agreement, which brought peace in the country after redefining the borders with new ones, made on the basis of ethnical cleansing. The idea behind the agreement is that in order to stop the violence in the country, new maps have to be written which will divide the citizens (mixed for centuries before) based on their ethnicity on Serbs, Muslims and Croatians. Storey precisely explains:
After a number of failed alternatives, the Dayton Agreement of 1995 divided Bosnia-Herzegovina into two autonomous units a Muslim-Croat Federation and a Bosnian Serb Republic. Nationalistic rhetoric and the associated desire to control particular portions of territory for that group have hardened divisions which were of relatively minor significance only a few years previously (Campbell, 1999).4

Another researcher, Anthony Oberschall uses a similar methodology as Storey when explaining the relation between the nationalistic rhetoric and violence. Oberschall focuses on the essential link between the political elites expressing through a nationalistic rhetoric, using the state military forces, and both elements supported by the population which leaded by pure nationalistic feeling believe that the cause should be reached by all means.

Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities Storey, David, Former Yugoslavia: Territory and national identity

Collective violence against civilians has three levels of perpetrators and enablers. 1. Political leaders and elites in a party-state with an ethno-national program. 2. The perpetrators are violence cadres, made up of special forces and paramilitaries, 3. A public, not necessarily a majority that supports and is complicit with the policies5

Furthermore, Oberschall quotes a Serb political analyst, Aleksa Djilas, in order to explain the manipulation that political elites used on the population which leaded to extreme nationalist ambitions, fears and frustrations: The force of nationalist passions whipped up by these opportunistic leaders not only made conflict inevitable but ...it made it exceptionally brutal. New borders were created not just by force, but ethnic cleansing and the rape, persecution and murder of civilians. [Fear Thy Neighbor, 1995]. Concretely, even Anderson confirms this link between nationalism as a concept and violence as means. He is centring his explanation on patriotic feeling based in the willingness to give your life for your imagined community, the nation.
Ultimately it is this fraternity that makes it possible, over the past two centuries, for so many millions of people, not so much to kill, as willingly to die for such limited imaginings. 6

The analysis of the definitions of nationalism and the extreme ways of writing borders will be used in order to question the thesis that the national discourse on the Balkan, after the 1990s was a key factor for the breakup of the Federation and consolidation of 6 new imagined communities.

Nationalistic discourse on the Balkan If we take as a starting point the previous conclusion that people are ready to sacrifice their lives for the wellbeing of their nation, we can introduce a new angle to our analysis, brought by David Storey, who is opposing nationalism with globalization. He is trying to make a parallel of expectations that in todays modern societies, affected by globalizing forces it is expected that nationalism and identities will gradually lose their importance. Under globalization forces he understands everything from flows of capital, activities of transnational corporations, international migration to global diffusion of ideas and global movements (as feminism, environmentalism, protection of minorities rights). But on the contrary of the expectations, nationalism is not a thing of the past Storey claims: In places such as the Balkans, national identity is of huge importance. In order to give coordinates to our analysis, we have to explain the precise conditions and political events that lead to the violent breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, and even more specifically, the nationalistic discourse used by the political leaders. Researcher Anthony Oberschall is centring his attention to the first post-communist multiparty elections, and their

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Oberschall, Anthony, Ordinary People in the Balkan Wars: Ethnic Nationalism, Opportunism, Fear, Conformity and Confusion Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities

aftermath, which he sees as a great opportunity for aggressive ethno-nationalism and for political mobilization through ethno-national appeals:
From my content analysis of Oslobodjenjes coverage of the campaigns I will mention two examples: on 6/9/90 in Bosanska Gradiska the local HDZ handed out flags that read Serbs are swine, Serbs should leave. Two days later in Novi Pazar, Vuk Drasovic, the Serb firebrand, proclaimed at an election rally all those who like Turkey (i.e. Muslims) should go to Turkey and pledged that he would personally cut off an arm that raises the green (Muslim) flag. The rally precipitated a fight that ended with teargas and arrests by police. Such rhetoric and election fights occurred in lots of places and saturated television news of the campaigns.7

What is obvious from the analysis of political campaigns done by Oberschall is the extremely low level of communication the political leaders are using. In absence of any political program or substance they are using nationalism as only means in order to rise the nationalistic feeling of the population, in order to gain votes, power, and protect their interests, and end up in what will become to be a cruel and violent civil war. Here we will introduce another argument given by David Storey as opposition of Anderson theory of nationalism. Storey is explaining that given the current circumstances, of xenophobia, racism and brutal events, all associated to nationalism, the pejorative reading of nationalism is, in part, understandable. But his intention is to prove that this way of analysis is simplistic. Therefore, he is stressing out that we have to have in mind that nationalism still gives a significant right to people to ask for democracy, that nationalism accepted or not is still powerful, and that even today the idea of their own nation is leading force for some people. Precisely he concludes with three main reasons:
However, to dismiss it in this way is simplistic for three main reasons. First, it ignores the importance of nationalism as an ideology offering (or appearing to offer) a route for oppresses peoples to claim their democratic rights. Nationalism, in the eyes of some, may offer a path to freedom and emancipation. Second, regardless of our opinion of nationalism, it remains a potent social and political force. As such it deserves close scrutiny. Third, it is important to examine the myriad of mundane everyday ways in which people accept, reproduce and reinforce ideas of the nation (Billig, 1995). People read national newspapers, support national sports teams and use national identity for classifying people. In all of these and many other mundane ways, the nation is constantly re-affirmed and re-produced. 8

Furthermore, Storey focuses his attention on a study, introduced by Paasi (1999) of how Finnish nationalism is nurtured through the education system. He argues that: the official curriculum for geography teaching continually stresses the promotion of a Finnish national identity [and] textbooks used in schools are an effective part of a states socializing system and inculcate youngsters with the societys values and traditions and its political and social culture. To bring our research to most current conditions we will analyze the nationalistic discourse that paved its way to the educational systems of all Balkan countries. In this process the textbooks were collectively re-written with an aim to focus on the national identities of the countries, to stress out the unique history of every respective country, and to alter events from recent and not
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Oberschall, Anthony, Ordinary People in the Balkan Wars: Ethnic Nationalism, Opportunism, Fear, Conformity and Confusion Storey, David, Former Yugoslavia: Territory and national identity

so recent history. To argument our analysis we will quote three textbooks coming from three Balkan countries: Serbia, Bosnia and Croatia, which were especially involved in the recent violent conflicts.
Quote from a History textbook for 9th grade, published in Serbia, by author R. Pejic: The NATO pact started bombarding Yugoslavia on the 24th of March, 1999. The most powerful military alliance in the history of humankind, which includes 19 states with 500 millions of inhabitants, attacked a small peaceful Balkan country. 9

In the quote you can apparently see the innocent victim image that Serbia is trying to build in the eyes of the children. Of course, in the eyes of neighboring countries the image is opposite.
Quote from an Islam religious textbook for 6th grade, published in Bosnia, by author M. Chatovic: The best proof how useful socializing is, was demonstrated in the B&H war. In the bloodiest war in the modern history, Bosnians remained psychologically healthy. Psychiatrists from the West made predictions that we will enter a war, and then get out of it depressed. That did not happen, because during the war we shared everything with our neighbors, and now when we go out freely on streets we are happy for every survived Muslim. 10

The quote aims to enhance the feeling of love and support between Muslims on the Balkan, but one more message it also manages to transfer is the unworthiness of other peoples (different than you) lives.
Quote from a Geography textbook for 8th grade, published in Croatia, by authors A. Markovic and M. Markotic Croats tend to keep their own cultural and national identity through the Croatian language and education, from kinder-garden to university. You surely want to follow movies and sport events on TV. Which television programme is dearest to you? You would feel good if Croatians have their own TV channel, right! 11

This quote is showing a successful attempt to infiltrate political propaganda of a strong national identity feeling in a totally inappropriate place. All this quotes from official educational textbooks just prove that the nationalist discourse in all Balkan countries has already passed all other levels of manipulation and now focuses its attention to the children, to raise them in a nationalistic spirit, in order to make it easier to control their opinion in the future.

http://okno.mk/node/24838 Quotes from official books for elementary education published by Okno online magazine on 5/7 January 2013 (source http://prometej.ba)
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http://okno.mk/node/24838 Quotes from official books for elementary education published by Okno online magazine on 5/7 January 2013 (source http://prometej.ba) http://okno.mk/node/24838 Quotes from official books for elementary education published by Okno online magazine on 5/7 January 2013 (source http://prometej.ba)

Conclusion The specific time of introducing Andersons idea of imagined communities coincides with an important event on the Balkan, the death of the Yugoslavias founding father Josip Broz Tito. The roots of this theory in the three paradoxes the modern researchers of nationalism are facing with can be proved using the specific case of the Balkan. The theory dates origin of nations back in the XVIII century, while the contemporary Balkan nations are currently researching and more important promoting the notion of origin of their nations that date even 300 years b.c. According to the theoreticians belonging to explicitly one nation is questionable, especially when comparing the Jus soli and Jus sanguinis laws on citizenship and nationhood in different countries, while current attempts to run censuses on the Balkan reveal problems of selfdetermination as a result of mixed marriages and not belonging to one of the constitutional peoples, or otherwise regarded as others. And third, most obvious surprising element to theoreticians is the political power of politic elites in the Balkan countries based only on nationalist rhetoric (previously discussed) without any support in the form of action program or philosophical idea. Furthermore, the concept of printed capitalism has its effect on the Balkan first through the marginalized nationalist magazines, that in the period of more than 20 years grew into national TV channels with an aim to promote national identity among the different nation states and seen through the last examples introducing the national discourse in the educational system from earliest age, following a specific strategy of glorifying the own nation and (at the basis) creating negative feelings towards the neighbors (seen as enemies).

Bibliography 1. Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities 2. Oberschall, Anthony, Ordinary People in the Balkan Wars: Ethnic Nationalism, Opportunism, Fear, Conformity and Confusion 3. Storey, David, Former Yugoslavia: Territory and national identity *Sources: Textbooks for Elementary education published in Serbia, Bosnia and Croatia