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26 N.Y.U. J. Int'l L. & Pol. 527 (1993-1994)
The Rise of Serbian Nationalism

handle is hein.journals/nyuilp26 and id is 537 raw text is: THE RISE OF SERBIAN NATIONALISM STOJAN CEROVIC* As a state of mind, nationalism is always the same. It speaks about the purity of blood, history, language, myths, and traditions-anything that can be used to reinforce a kind of national narcissism. It consistently requires confrontation in order to feed its hostility and hatred. The break-up of communism gave birth to an especially malign breed of nationalists who are extremely ambitious, un- scrupulous, irresponsible, and aggressive. The most aggressive are those who attempt to stay in power and preserve for them- selves the privileges and monopolies of the collapsed regime and its failed ideology. They do not really care for the people or national interests and are ready to sacrifice everything for war, even their country's economy and their people's future. In short, they do not believe in any future. Former Yugoslavia was a country that could not bear much nationalism; obviously, it could take less nationalism than more homogeneous countries. It was a country of minor- ities. Only Slovenia has virtually clear ethnic borders. But in all the other Yugoslav republics there are many, and some- times huge, minorities. Albanians in Serbia, Macedonia, and Montenegro; Hungarians in Serbia; Serbs in Croatia; Moslems in Serbia and Montenegro; to name just a few. The central republic, Bosnia-Herzegovina, was composed of Moslems, Serbs, and Croats in an approximate proportion of 4:3:1.1 Nonetheless, through the centuries Bosnia-Herzegovina has built an identity of its own. Yugoslavia needed collective wisdom, tolerance, and good will to survive the disorder and chaos that came in the post- communist era. Yugoslavia, of course, was not of any value per se, since it was viewed as an artificial country that should be destroyed.2 The nationalist stirrings made deliberately by Ser- * Nieman Fellow, Harvard University, 1993-94; journalist and co- founder of the independent Belgrade weekly VRFtFE 1. Steven Engelberg, Carving Out a Greater Serbia, N.Y. TuLtEs, Sept. 1, 1991, sec. 6 (Magazine), at 19. 2. Although this view only became fashionable in Serbia in the late 1980s, it has been widely held by the Croat nationalists for decades; indeed, 527 Imaged with the Permission of N.Y.U. Journal of International Law and Politics

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