Bosnia-Herzegovina: A part of the Serbian
national project
07/09/2007
The second conference in the series, realized with
the assistance of the Fund for an Open Society under the project
"Opening a Dialogue of the Recent Past 'within' the Serbian Society"
Source: www.slobodnaevropa.org, July 3, 2007,
16:08:37
Is There an End to Serbian Delusions of Bosnia?
By Zelimir Bojovic
Historians Latinka Perovic and Olivera Milosavljevic
told today's conference "Bosnia-Herzegovina: A Part of the Serbian
National Project" - organized by the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights
in Serbia - that Serbia's nationalistic elites still strongly aspire to
Bosnia-Herzegovina. Such aspirations, as they put it, considerably
jeopardize Bosnia's society. For her part, Sonja Biserko, chairwoman of
the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia, suggested a revision
of the Dayton Peace Accords.
Sonja Biserko underlines that the issue of
Bosnia-Herzegovina is crucial for all future processes in the Balkans,
which is why the international community should take a more responsible
and by far more clear-cut attitude towards Bosnia-Herzegovina.
"In brief, that's the topic that sublimates, so to
speak, all regional developments over the past 15 years but also the
international community's inaptitude and inadequate behavior," said
Biserko.
Historian Latinka Perovic says that the present-day
problem of Bosnia-Herzegovina can be hardly understood outside the
context of the Serbian nationalistic ideology "the sum and substance of
which is the Greater Serbia project." "That substrate remains the same
for two centuries now. Though it suffered three actual defeats in the
past century, this substrate is kept alive in people's minds," said Ms.
Perovic.
Latinka Perovic pinpoints that today's
Bosnia-Herzegovina is "in a blind alley" and will hardly find its way
out without an intellectual and perceptional endeavor to analyze the
developments that have brought about its situation. Such processes, say
Perovic, necessitate serious historical analyses, rather than
historicism that predominates today.
"Historicism emerges whenever something is taken as
the truth today and something else tomorrow. Historicism relativizes the
significance of accumulated knowledge and leads to intellectual
degradation that surrounds us today. That intellectual degradation leads
to moral indifference and hinders proper perception of the ongoing
developments," said Ms. Perovic.
Historian Olivera Milosavljevic pinpoints that almost
no new rationality adjusted to the modern age has taken root in the
Serbian society.
"All we have now is what a few truly believed in 100
years ago. The myths of the so-called historical and ethnic rights, and
epics, as the sources of historical truth, which used to be mobilization
auxiliaries in early 20th century became the only argument and purpose
of mobilization by the close of that century."
For Latinka Perovic it is the absence of the process
of facing the past in the Serbian society with its warring past that is
problematic not only for the Serbian society but also for further
democratic processes of Bosnian society.
"From the angle of the science of history, we are
still far from taking the stock of the Bosnian war and accepting it was
an aggression against an internationally recognized state, a war that
resulted in the most heinous crimes, and that is the Greater Serbia idea
that still refers to it as a part of Serbia's epic and heroic past, and
postpones punishment of those crimes. And without punishment of the
crimes, the Serbian society would never recover its morals. The absence
of accountability fosters the process of disintegration in Bosnia, but
also hinders Serbia's progress, leads to all her misunderstandings with
her neighbors, destabilizes the entire region and blocks integrative
processes," said Ms. Perovic.
This is why Sonja Biserko takes revision of the Dayton
Accords imperative. According to her, the revision would turn the
society of Bosnia-Herzegovina into a predominantly civil one, which
would cut down the aspirations of Serbia's nationalistic elites.
"The purpose of the Dayton Accords was to put an end
to the war. Unfortunately, they cemented Bosnia's system by ethnic
principle, that is along the lines of partition. Therefore, the revision
of the Dayton Accords aimed at integrating Bosnia as a functional state
would simultaneously put an end to Serbian delusions of Bosnia," said
Biserko.
HCHRS |
