The Scars of the Erasure_web

Erasure_4a 10.1.11 20:29 Page 23REGISTERED AS WORKERS, ERASED AS NON-SLOVENES23with a specific name and surname, an address, existed for the purpose of theplebiscite, to put it like that, it was acceptable to inform such a person, that personenjoyed some kind of respect. But when the rights of these same people were inquestion, they ignored them. Therefore, we could as well say that the plebiscitewas an abuse. (Begeš, 89)2.1 EmpowermentThe erased people’s stories that emerged in 2002 at the general assembliesof the Association of the Erased Residents and were reported in the mediaencouraged other erased persons to step out of their isolation, establish contactwith others and recognize that the responsibility for the erasure rested with stateinstitutions.One day I heard on TV about the Association of the Erased Residents and someguy called Aleksandar Todorović. I saw him speaking on television and there wasa telephone number. I quickly jotted it down. I was mulling over what to say, howto introduce myself and register with that association. I had no idea that therewere so many erased people. […] Oh dear, when we started to talk, and Aca issuch a candid person. I felt like I got wings. As if the stone fell from my heart.Pains literally began to peel off my body, I could feel life, health, the future, I couldsee the light at the end of the tunnel. Here, it came out. Now it’s common know -ledge what actually happened and who was responsible for it. And it was not onlyme that was erased, it was not I who messed up things. I thanked God, I don’tknow how many times. (Ismeta, 49)This passage shows how negative public opinion or social nonchalanceabout the erasure affected erased people’s self-perception and their dignity. AsCharles Taylor (2007, 291) emphasized, and as these stories testify, distortedinterpretation of the situation may cause genuine harm to both individuals andgroups if “the people or society around them mirror back a confining or demea -ning or contemptible picture of themselves.” The following is how one of the intervieweesput it:For me, the most important right is the right to dignity, so that one cannot takeit away from you in such a banal, total way. Everyone was deprived of this rightand it is what’s the most important. (Ivan, 56) 6The reason is that “our identity is partly shaped by recognition or its absence,often by the misrecognition of others” (Taylor 2007). Uršula LipovecČebron (2007a) showed how an enforced degrading self-image, in combinationwith the inaccessibility of health care and other social rights, can be the source6 The interview was conducted by Vesna Pušič, a student of the Faculty of Social Work in the academic year 2007/08.