Balkan Idols: Religion and Nationalism in Yugoslav States

the golden calf.” According to their views of the history of the Yugoslav
peoples, short periods of normalcy are interrupted by long dark moments
“when fools speak out, the wise shut up and bastards get rich,” as Andrić
has written. Andrić died in 1975 and Krlezˇa a few years later. If they were
alive today they would probably have little to revise in their conclusions
expect perhaps to add a few more bitter notes. Would these two, who also
blamed Europe for much of the Balkan misfortune, have changed their views
on Europe, hoping for her healing role in the Balkans?
At this writing, neither the EU project has been completed nor the Balkan
problem solved. There exist again “two Europes.” Symbols and landmarks
of the wealthy, stable, religiously indifferent, and seemingly happy one are
Brussels, Maastricht, the rebuilt whitewashed city of Berlin, and rejuvenated
east-central European urban centers such as Warsaw, Prague, and Budapest.
By contrast, symbols of the new “Other Europe” are zones of conflict such
as Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Northern Ireland, Cyprus, and
the Basque country. At any rate, while Europe is “reinventing” itself, the
Balkan nightmare continues. From the 10-day war in Slovenia in the spring
of 1991, followed by the long wars in Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Kosovo,
to the most recent Macedonian-Albanian strife of 2001, the dismembered
country, at this writing, commemorates one of its history’s darkest
decades.
During 2000–2001, the infamous ethnic nationalistic leaders Slobodan
Milosˇević, Franjo Tudjman, and Alija Izetbegović, designated by Western
media and politicians the principal architects of the Yugoslav tragedy, have
all been removed from positions of power. At this writing Slobodan Milosˇević
is being prosecuted for war crimes before the Hague International War
Crimes Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. Yet neither Milosˇević nor other
two ethnic leaders were the sole agents of the conflict, and their departure
cannot alter the situation profoundly. And while Milosˇević, along with many
Serb, Croat, and Muslim military and police officers and other executive
officials of the Balkan conflict, face prosecution, other agents of the conflict
will not. Nationalistic historians, novelists, and intellectuals, and religious
leaders who mobilized people in pursuit of criminal projects will get away
with it. Accordingly, the Hague trial is analogous to the Nuremberg trials
in that all the culprits are not there.
In the meantime, the heirs and ideologies of Milosˇević, Tudjman, and
Izetbegović, as well as parties they founded, together with the religious institutions
that helped their rise to power, have continued to exert considerable
influence in politics and public life in the successor states and even in
international affairs. New wars are probable while local incidents recur. Most
recently, an all-out war broke out between the government of the Republic
of Macedonia and an Albanian guerilla force. Incidents continue in Kosovo,
in the Presˇevo region bordering Serbia and Kosovo, and throughout Bosnia
and Herzegovina. The fates of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, and Montenegro
as viable nation-states are uncertain. Six years after the Dayton
conclusions 235