The Scars of the Erasure_web

Erasure_4a 10.1.11 20:29 Page 2020 THE SCARS OF THE ERASUREgleaned from their narratives and, indirectly, from the new definition of the bearerof sovereignty.These changes in the system and their many aspects are the thread thatruns throughout this text. It is common for the erased people to compare the socialistera in the former Yugoslavia, i.e. the time when they moved to Sloveniaand found jobs there, with the period following the erasure, when they were deprivedof their rights in sovereign Slovenia. Some among them were born in Slovenia;for them, their growing-up and transition to adolescence were marked bythe loss of rights, which is a leitmotif that usually comes at the beginning andend of each narrative. 2The period of immigration was characterized by the formal equality of immigrantsand their simultaneous ostracization by local people. As Veronika Bajtemphasizes (see Bajt in this volume), “differentiation based on ethnicity is not aproduct of the last twenty years, thus not something that emerged in 1991 withSlovenia’s independence.” In addition, in the new country, neoliberal capitalismdisplaced state socialism. The former Yugoslavia had put into law many socialrights won in the past by worker movements and trade unions, while neo-libera -lism brought what can be described as a reverse process – the curbing of theserights. Paradoxically, the very worker movements that had succeeded in winningmany social rights were not always capable of reflection on ethnic or “racial” divisionswithin the working class itself. At the time when the socio-political systemwas undergoing changes, the Slovenian worker movement was no different inthis respect. While trade unions succeeded in preserving crucial employmentrights, they failed to address changes in the employment concepts themselvesthat increasingly led to precariousness related to ethnic hierarchization of wor -kers. Many erased people told us that as Bosnians they were among the first tobe put on the lists of workers made redundant by technological progress.The case of the erased people reflects the breakdown of the welfare state.Its most conspicuous implication was the exclusion of people without legal status(erased people) from welfare services. The revocation of their permanent residentstatus was an illegal act motivated by their ethnic origin, or rather, theirpersonal migration history.The personal stories of erased people reveal their critical perspective onthe period of transition and Slovenia’s gaining of independence. While thesestories are indeed crucial for our understanding of the erasure and circumstancessurrounding it, we should not forget that their narration was a result ofa specific process rather than a spontaneous reaction. Similarly, the naming“erasure” was a result of thoughtful deliberation necessitated by the nature ofthe act itself. It was neither a unique nor a simple act, and accordingly, publicreflection on it was a difficult and complex process, as suggested by the fact2 According to the Ministry of the Interior, 5,360 children and 5,008 adults aged between 18 and 29 years were erasedon 26 February 1992. Source http://www.mnz.gov.si/fileadmin/mnz.gov.si/pageuploads/2009/izbrisani-koncni_podatki.pdf (8 August 2009).