Gavrilo Princip, a hero?

Less than a year is left until the celebration of the hundredth anniversary of the outbreak of World War I, until then the bloodiest war in human history. As June 28th, 2014.is approaching near, it is more certain that the German government will take part in the organization of the celebration of the centennial in Sarajevo, where Gavrilo Princip assassinated the Austro- Hungarian Crown Prince and his wife. The greatest nightmare of our grandmothers and grandfathers begins to worry us as this date approaches. The question that bothers us is „What will the world say?"

When analyzing the role of Gavrilo Princip in world history first of all it is necessary to point out the epistemological error in dominating, but unfortunately revisionist interpretation of the assassination in Sarajevo. Almost all literature dealing with the causes of WWI on the very first page stresses the murder of Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie as a cause of the war. Despite in the subsequent analysis this conflict which had an impact on the world is connected with the clashes between the imperial pretensions of the great powers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, somehow there is still a bitter taste when the name of Gavrilo Princip is mentioned.

That the act of murdering a colonial subject by the persecutor is a sign of true self-liberation, we learned from Jean Paul Sartre. Since colonization during the nineteenth and twentieth century was followed by the promotion of so-called "scientific racism", according to which the colonization is justified because it is carried out against those who are unable to manage themselves, colonized people in these areas were placed in the position of an inferior race. Although Aristotle is often considered the father of "scientific racism", there are a fairly large number of modern, primarily liberal thinkers, who used this concept to justify colonial conquest
led by their countries. Thus JS Mill thought it was justified to go to imperial campaigns if that would mean that the "uncivilized" will become "civilized." Tocqueville himself, writing about Algeria, articulated the characteristics of the French ideal of "civilizing missions." Only Bentham was against British imperialism, and only because he thought it was not feasible, because he thought that such campaigns are a waste of precious resources. Besides Great Britain and France, there were of course united Germany, Austria-Hungary and Czarist Russia. Each of these countries was for imperialist campaigns. Of course, conflicts of great powers over territory occurred throughout the history of the modern state, and in addition to these listed, from 16th
century onwards there were also Spain and the Netherlands. So the world in a historic moment became narrow because the West progressed precisely because the race for world wealth included only a limited number of members. The West, according to many, progressed only because highly developed countries like China and India were ravaged by exploitation. Suddenly, the exploitative campaigns included too many countries, and it was a matter of time before the conflicts of the great powers will escalate. And then right out of nowhere, appeared a Gavrilo Princip, assassinated an occupation symbol, undergone self-liberation and began World War I?

It is said that Gavrilo Princip was a nationalist. In the region people do not like him because he was a member of an organization that aimed to unify the Serbs under Austro-Hungarian rule (and other South Slavs). World-wide he is called a terrorist because, in any case and under whatever circumstances, the murder is considered a barbaric act - especially the assassination of a Crown. Let's start with the first charge. All (successful) anti-colonial movements in the twentieth century, around the world, were the movements of "national liberation." As Alan Ryan writes, nationalism is a dangerous gift that colonizers inadvertently gave to the colonized. Even Marx thought that the colonial conquests are progressive, in the sense that they may lead to expansion of the capitalist mode of socio-economic organization, which would result in the formation of national liberation movements, which would as those European, firstly get free from colonial rule, and then take part in the world socialist revolution. These movements would firstly be national. Liberation from "imperialism as the highest stage of capitalism" (as follows the most famous Lenin's work on this phenomenon) starts with grouping the nation or a group that wants, modeled on the Western nation-state, to be freed from occupiers and then to form an independent state union. Hence the definition of "non-aggressive nationalism" under the doctrine "to each people its own polity" and a clear distinction in relation to the "aggressive nationalism" which undermines conquests. This classification is reserved for the period of the early twentieth century, and especially for the period of anti-colonial struggle and is not relevant to the present analysis of nationalism as primarily retrograde social tendency. This struggle, in all parts of the world from the beginning of the twentieth century was often very radical and because it was such it does not mean that it could be classified as "aggressive" - if you use the aforementioned categorization. In this sense, Gavrilo Princip was a nationalist as, for example, Simon Bolivar, the symbol of anti-colonial struggle in South America. The same can be said for the other allegation, that Gavrilo Princip was a terrorist as, for example, Ernesto Gevaro (without intention to compare their historical or ideological roles). Here we come to what I consider the main epistemological error in the analysis of the historical role of Gavrilo Princip.

From the perspective of the historical role, it is completely irrelevant whether Young Bosnia, whose member was Princip, wanted to liberate the Serbs and then the others, or just Serbs, or all South Slavs (although the first would be the most likely). Also, it is less important whether this organization was in conjunction with the Serbian „Freedom or death“(although it was), and also because the main ideologist of the Young Bosnia Vladimir Gacinovic was a follower of Russian anarchism (Kropotkin and Bakunin), and was a friend with Trotsky, whom he met in Switzerland. It is less important if Gavrilo Princip, if he had by chance survived and lived in free Bosnia, would perhaps at some point change his mind regarding his beliefs (for which we cannot claim what they exactly were) like the Egyptian anticolonial fighter named Sayyid Qutb, who at first was
considered a hero, and then he was killed by Nasser Regime because he did not support military dictatorship but advocated the Sharia (he wrote a book called " Social Justice in Islam " in 1949.). So for the analysis of the historical significance of the assassination in Sarajevo and its perpetrator, variables such as the character of Young Bosnia, its connection with the "Freedom or death", or beliefs of Princip, are totally irrelevant. The only thing that matters is- the historical context in which this event took place because the assassination was an expression of antiimperial struggle of people who lived under foreign rule for centuries. The people who were treated by the great powers in a "scientific racist" manner, through Gavrilo Princip experienced
self-liberation. The people who still speak the same language and has different religions and ethnicity, for a hundred years is waiting for another Princip in this modern empire that, as Hardt and Negri say in their "Empire", is not formed on the basis of the power itself but on the ability to present power as one that is at the service of peace.