NOTEBOOKS FROM FREEDOM
What I argue at the beginning is that in
spite of many differences among (classical) concepts of freedom, they
have all been negated by the post socialism. Homer’s absence of
slavery, Plato’s freedom as a “rule over sense”, Hobbesian
freedom as the absence of the restriction of movement, even Locke’s
freedom as the subordination to the system instead the subordination
to the unstable and unpredictable will of another man. Let alone
Marxian or Rousseau’s interpretations, which both tightened closely
freedom to equality. On the other hand, it seems like some more
recent interpretations have been taken into account more seriously by
the post – Yugoslav elites who were predominantly in charged for
both ruling over the meaning of freedom and its instrumentalization.
Here I refer to Hayek’s understanding of the concept, who
understands social equality as the biggest enemy of freedom.
One of the most striking elements of the
legitimization of the newly established national elites in former
Yugoslavia was demonization of the socialist past, and consequently,
demonization of the revolutionary foundation of it. Instead, they
have introduced new fundamental ground for “national liberation”
from, what had been labeled as a “dungeon of nations”. The
support for this kind of counter – revolutionary engagement was
coming both from the outside and from the inside.
After the basics embodied in national
liberation and primitive accumulation of capital (through killing,
robberies and war), the new, “civilized” superstructure called
“European integration process” have taken place. Post –
socialist superstructure involved further economic
liberation, after the political
freedom
had been won. This economic freedom we are living today. “Marshal
plan 2”, or Marshal plan for the Balkans as Zoran Đinđić titled
the call to the foreign capital for overwhelming domestic market,
came into force. Economic validation of previously achieved political
and national freedom became ever clearer indicator that actually, war
was the true beginning of the European integration
– or, in other words, the necessary precondition for continuing the
process of practicing freedom, understood as a freedom from the
“dungeon of nations”, as well as freedom from other nations,
former “dungeon mates”. Post – Yugoslav states hence, have
followed the European path with regards to national liberation, since
all national formations applied the same violent methodology in that
process. After “uncivilized war”, the Balkans stepped into the
new era of “modernization”, modeled after Western European
recipe. What has nevertheless been neglected is the fact that, as
Mladen Dolar claims, the Balkans actually represented modern European
unconscious, or purposefully forgotten. Unlike the mantra about war
being “anti – European” and later stadiums of post –
socialist times being modern, civilized and European - I
argue that these two stages represent two sides of the same coin –
mutually dependent of each other.
Post – socialist freedom therefore, has had two stages, both
equally relevant and important for what we live today in former
Yugoslavia.
One rightfully wonders – how come that
legitimization of the political agenda which denies freedom to the
people in the name of freedom itself, has succeeded to be
legitimized? One possible direction for thinking about this
contradiction is the way in which the notion of necessity
was introduced as a backup concept of legitimization. Parallel to the
direct people’s experience of every day life after the “national
liberation”, the notion of necessity developed as a sort of
offsetting medicine for securing social stability. The logic applied,
was the one of Baruch Spinoza, who did not consider necessity to be
the opposite of freedom, but rather coercion. By mystifying post –
socialist condition, by calling it freedom, elites also succeeded in
turning coercion into necessity or in other words, they constructed
the notion of “necessary coercion”. Moreover, this necessity was
not totally false, since it was true that in order for the new
liberal (therefore nationalist) elites to be legitimized, they had to
launch the war and do everything according to the liberal nationalist
recipe. However, this necessity guided by the self-interest of the
new elite, has been presented as an objective, universal necessity.
In order for this political game to be spread to the society as a
whole, one had to involve coercive means, mixed with brutal
falsification of objective circumstances as well as falsification of
the past. This was again, done by using the omnipresent form of
power and its new methods, described by Michel Foucault as methods of
power whose operationalization is insured by control, not punishment,
which are applied upon all the levels of society and in forms, which
are exceeding the state and its apparatus.
Liberation narrative in post - socialism
had of course, more than one concept serving as a backup support. Let
me now briefly address the concept of post
– politics, which somehow
became a superstructure to the basics, which is (coercive) necessity
of national liberation. Post – politics is in a dominant narrative
another element of post – socialist freedom, which actually
accommodated itself to the global trend of freeing political life
from ideology. After “the end of history”, there was no place
for ideologies – except for the winning ideology. However, this was
presented both globally and in the region of former Yugoslavia as the
end of ideology and politics. Every attempt to go back to the
politics, to think, talk and agitate out of the “naturalized”
framework of the winning ideology, was considered to be the attack on
the newly established, civilized, free society. In other words,
subjectivity was demonized, conformity coming from the notion of
necessity, celebrated. Mono – ideological framework was therefore,
presented as post – ideological and consequently, post –
political. The only struggles allowed to be lead within such society,
are those within the post – political framework. Such fights are
systematically allowed, even welcomed due to their impotency to
challenge the given framework. Moreover, they serve as an additional
legitimization mean, since battles, which are particular in nature,
are seemingly proofs of freedom. However, whenever social demands go
beyond post – political and seemingly limitless system, the
coercion and brutal objective, state violence occurs. Some of the
examples of this kind may be found in Turkey, or in Bosnia and
Herzegovina. People within the limitless free societies are free, as
long as they do not attempt to universalize their demands and thus,
challenge the system as a whole. In other words, we
are free until we do not seek freedom.
Additional trump in the hands of the elites
in order to prove the liberation content of both post – socialist
basis and its superstructure, was the notion of revolution.
Already Condorcet (Kondorse) claimed the revolution to be only an
Event that seeks freedom. Due to this liberation tone of the
revolutionary activities, the whole post – socialist space was
overwhelmed by
claims about revolutionary undertaking in the end 1980’s. Unlike
authentic revolutionary Event which took place in 1945, what I would
call the counter – revolution in the end 1980’s unfortunately did
not have liberation pretensions. Hence, I argue that what contributed
to the dissolution of the socialist Yugoslavia, was not
revolutionary, but counter – revolutionary activity. Very briefly,
I will here expose an argument to back up this claim. Namely, one of
the crucial components of revolutions, according to Hannah Arendt, is
irresistibility. Even though this notion seems to be more suitable
for describing natural motions, Hannah Arendt argued that French
Revolution was irresistible because Luis the 14th
could have done nothing to prevent it. Following this, I would argue
that the event is irresistible if the human factor in power, can do
nothing to prevent the coming social transformation. This means that
the impulse should come from the bottom, not from above. This is
precisely what did not happen in former Yugoslavia, since the change
came strictly from above. Additionally, this was not an “Event”
in terms of Alan Badiou, but counter – revolution conducted by the
elites was nothing more than an act of Being – assimilation to the
structure and (post – ideological) global trends. The farthest we
can go, as we already indicated, is to describe the whole event (with
small “e”), as necessary for the elite in order to find a new
space for narrow fullfilment of the self – interest.
To come finally to the title of our
discussion, due to all these weaknesses of the liberation narrative
in post – socialism and the absence of freedom, the last trump of
the elites was to play on the card of political freedoms, reduced to
the existence of political pluralism. Since political pluralism had
been absent from the previous era of socialist Yugoslavia, this has
been the strongest argument in favor of the superiority of present,
over the past. With this respect, one rightfully wonders what is the
purpose of political pluralism in post – political, or post –
ideological system? As Boris Buden noticed recently, there was more
ideological pluralism within the former communist party in
Yugoslavia, than today in all the post - Yugoslav national
parliaments. “Political pluralism” as an indicator of political
freedom therefore once again, becomes only one among many other
fruitless back up superstructures of the post – socialist system.
Finally, what we are witnessing today is a
global trend of removing limits to our freedom. With this respect, it
seems to me, that actually there is no less free society than the one
with limitless freedom. Sartre famously claimed that he felt the most
free in the concentration camp. One may easily think that if someone
claimed the concentration camp to be the most suitable place for
achieving freedom, this has to be possibly reachable everywhere. Here
is the catch. One indeed may reach freedom transcendentally under
conditions of strict physical lack of freedom. But what should we do,
with our limitless freedom where restrictions seem to be invisible
but at the same time omnipresent? Conclusion could be, that freedom
is always reachable, even in the concentration camp, but only if the
rules are stricty posed and one may see the limits of freedom. In
post – socialism therefore, we first need to demystify false
limitlessness of the so called freedom, in order to start looking for
the real one – whether transcendentally or in any other possible
way.
