When he was asked in an interview for a German magazine in August
1999, about the desirable strategy of the West towards the Balkans,
Mr. Djindjic replied:
'What should be done now is to dry out the 'bar of destruction'.
Joschka Fisher (at the time Vice Chancellor of Germany) has already
given the first propositions which go into that direction. Some kind
of Marshall Plan for the Balkans.' The second participant in
this interview, Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek replied: 'That
is so naive. I'm afraid that the Marshall plan would turn the Balkans
into a temporary protectorate that it will exploit the region
economically.76
On
one hand Mr. Djindjic envisioned European Serbia. As he put it, 'The
west has to accept that the Balkans is a part of Europe. Without the
Balkans, Europe is not complete and without Europe, Balkan is a
ticking time bomb which explodes every five years'.77
Thus, he was strongly dedicated to
the project of 'Serbia in Europe'. His assumption was of course that
Serbia should return to Europe, after a decade of destruction and
wars. Or might he be referring to a much longer period of Serbia
being out of Europe? According to his most famous book “Yugoslavia
as an Unfinished state” he found that Yugoslavia it self was not a
part of modern Europe – at least not in terms of the western legal
definition of a modern state. According to Djindjic, even the SFR
Yugoslavia was a state
without statehood.78
Nevertheless, what concerns us here, is rather his suggestion of
imposing some kind of Marshall
Plan upon the Balkans
and by default, on Serbia. As we already know, the Marshall Plan was
created after the Second World War, with an aim to help Europe
economically which is why its other name was 'The
European Recovery Programme'.
The purpose of the plan was to create economic cooperation
among the states of Europe and to stimulate economic growth in
Europe79.
Up to this point, there is nothing controversial about it. Still, the
Plan carried the idea that creating hope and relieving misery would
diminish the appeal of Marxist arguments and the appeal of communism
among Europeans that also existed80.
It is precisely this, not explicitly stated part of the plan (it was
more concretely presented in in the Truman doctrine) that
puts into question the real aim of the Marshall Plan. Was it an
altruistic move on the part of the US, or it was just a perfect means
for spreading the 'American way of life' and hegemonic role of the US
around Europe in order to prevent any further spreading of communist
ideology to Western Europe and so, any kind of possible resistance to
the domination of the US? Perhaps the truth lies in the middle, but
what may be asked in addition is, which motive prevailed, altruistic
or hegemonic? The answer to this question might be crucial if we want
to interpret what Mr. Djindjic meant by mentioning the 'Marshall
Plan' for the Balkans.
If we take the
Marshall Plan as a reference for our analysis and put the Balkans in
place of Europe, and Europe in place of the US, the logic would be
the following. Djindjic obviously imagined him in the role of Konrad
Adenauer. Joshka Fisher, who according to Djindjic had already in
1999 envisioned a 'Marshall Plan' for the Balkans - may be George
Marshall. Lets first compare the similarities.
In the original
situation, the US was involved in the war (WWII), though, the extent
to which the US as a state was damaged was minor in comparison with
Europe. Fifty years later, the damage from the Yugoslav wars had been
contained within Yugoslavia and hadn't spread to Western Europe.. So,
we can say that in both cases, the regions emerging less damaged,
tried to invest their money into the economic rebuilding and recovery
of the wounded regions. As in the former case, the main political
forces were in favor of this aid in the case of Serbia. Both Adenauer
and Djindjic were somewhat cosmopolitan, but nevertheless
nationalists as well (Adenauer was a CDU member, while Djindjic had
on numerous occasions called for the unification of the Serbian land
-Serbia, Montenegro, Republika Srpska81).
In spite of the opposition coming from the Soviet Union and European
communists in the former, and Serbian far right nationalists in the
latter case (due to the absence of the real left), in both cases these plans had been implemented. Foreign
capital entered into the damaged regions. Here we come to the crucial
difference in terms of the outcomes.
Namely, the level of the
development of the regions that needed help wasn't the same. In the
first case, we had highly industrialized Western Europe, which had
already been an integral part of the world's flow of capital and
commerce. Two wars in the first part of the 20th century
destroyed much of what had been achieved until then, but at the same
time, rapid recovery after the two wars proved that their power and
influence in the modern world system82
still remained among the very strong. In other words, Western Europe
at the time could have afforded to it self even the second scenario
(that the Marshall Plan had pure ideological or even imperial aims),
because the price they would have to pay would not have been that
high. This means that the economy of these countries would recover
with the help of the foreign capital (while at the same time
increasing benefits for the foreign investor's state(s)), but the
mechanisms for developing the economy independently would still
remain and it would only be the matter of time when this process
would cease to be considered as exploitation, but rather as a game
with the 'win – win' outcome. Therefore, Adenauer did not
have any doubts on whether to accept the foreign aid or not - what
ever the real intention of the US was. The same was valid for other
developed countries of the European core at the time.
On the other hand,
the situation with the Marshall Plan for the Balkans, or more
specifically, Serbia – was different. Unlike Western Europe, Serbia
was not as developed before the war. If
we go back for a few centuries, we see that Serbia has always been
the European periphery 84.
Therefore, despite the progressiveness of the Yugoslav era, Serbia
was, after the wars, almost totally economically destroyed, as was
Europe after the Second World War. However, the crucial difference is
that Serbia in 2000 was not even close to being in a position to
accept foreign aid unconditionally, as if it would be able at some
point to start its development independently, while at the same time
escaping from the political influence of its financial backers.
Therefore, Serbia was not in a position to be careless about the real
interests of the 'Marshall Plan' for the Balkans. If it happened that
the interests are rather neo imperialistic than altruistic, Serbia
would never be able to manage a 'win – win' outcome. On the
contrary, it would pay the highest possible price for the decision to
imitate Germany after WWII. This would mean not just temporarily
accepting foreign rule, but also legitimizing the unequal relation
between the subordinated and the dominant.85
This would again mean that, considering the present condition,
Slavoj Zizek was also wrong when he responded to Djindjic that 'the
Marshall Plan would turn
the Balkans into a temporary protectorate and exploit it
economically'. The
mistake is located in the word 'temporary',
due to a simple reason. Even if the dominant side relinquishes its
dominant position, the subordinated side will not be able to do
flourish on its own, but will rather have to continue seeking
subordination in order to survive. Perhaps the best explanation for
the outcome of the implementation of an unofficial 'Marshal plan' in
Serbia after 2000. was given by the current Serbian prime minister in
an interview for the UK's 'The
Telegraph',
when he said that 'Serbia
has become a pariah nation, untouchable like a leper'.86
If
this is so, one could think there is no other solution but to recall
the ideas of the famous doctor, who specialized him self in curing
leprosy.87
76Süddeutsche
Zeitung, Magazin No. 34, 27. 8. 1999
78Đinđić,
Zoran (1988) Jugoslavija kao nedovršena država
(Yugoslavia as an Unfinished State), Novi Sad: Književna
Zajednica Novog Sada.
79
see: Truman Doctrine and
the Marshall Plan, to 1948 http://www.fsmitha.com/h2/ch24cld2b.htm
80Ibid.
81Djindjic,
Zoran, Interview for 'Radio Devic', 27.9.1995 in a small place
called Smederevska Palanka : 'Serbian national question should be
resolved by the creation of the Union of Serbian States (serb.
Savez Srpskih drzava)
82
Immanual Wallerstein developed a theory in order to explain
historical changes involved in the rise of the modern world. The
modern world system, essentially capitalist in nature, followed the
crisis of the feudal system and explains the rise of Western Europe
to world supremacy between 1450 and 1670; see: Wallerstein,
Immanual, The Modern World System: Capitalist Agriculture and
the Origins of the European World Economy in the Sixteenth Century ;
Academic Press, 1974
84For
instance, in 1834, the pro cent of rural inhabitants in Serbia was
93.15 %, and in 1874 - 89.74 % ; see: Miljkovic, Katic, 2002 ; from
Lazic, p. 115
85The
new ruling class did not form the conditions for the establishment
of capitalist policies and structures on the basis of the
assumptions found within the existing state order, but these
assumptions were imposed upon them from the outside ; see: Lazic, p.
164
86
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/serbia/10093578/Serb-prime-ministers-battle-to-rehabilitate-the-Leper-of-Europe.html
Нема коментара:
Постави коментар