As more details emerge about Radovan Karadzic's double life during his time on the run, it becomes fascinatingly clear that for this man nationalism offered a way to fashion himself as a mythical Messiah of his own people. As I wrote in a previous post, prior to the war, Karadzic tried (unsuccessfully) to penetrate the ranks of the Bosnian-Yugoslav intelligentsia: he attended poetry workshops at Columbia, wrote and published poems, and fashioned himself as a Bohemian. Along with his business partner Momcilo Krajisnik (who later became his deputy President of the Bosnian Serb Republic and is also currently in the Hague) he became embroiled in several business scandals. Apparently, he and Krajisnik used business loans to build themselves lavish homes in the Sarajevo suburb of Pale, which later became the headquarters of his murderous army. Reflecting on his prewar life is essential to understanding why this man not only embraced nationalist myths, but lived them: nationalism served as therapy for his inferiority complex. It allowed him to become a Messiah and in the process destroy the place which had reminded him of his own mediocrity: Sarajevo.
During the war, he would frequently recite his prewar poems to foreign visitors, boasting how he had predicted that Bosnia would descend into hell. The former US ambassador to Yugoslavia, Warren Zimmerman remembers that Karadzic's vocabulary was peppered with images of violence and horror. Karadzic never tried to hide this. In fact, he seemed to reach almost orgasmic levels of pleasure in boasting about the horror his troops were visiting upon the city of Sarajevo. In this Youtube clip, Karadzics hosts the Russian ultra-nationalist poet Limonov on the hills above Sarajevo, recites his "Sarajevo" poem from the 1980s in which he had "predicted" the massacre, and even invites the poet to shoot the sniper at the civilians in the city.
During this time, he fashioned himself as a direct descendant of Vuk Stefanovic Karadzic, the 19th century collector of Serbian folklore and the founder of modern Serbo-Croatian grammar. Although Vuk shares the last name with Radovan, there is no evidence that they are related. But in Karadzic's mind, the same Serbian blood flew through their veins, authorizing the 20th century Karadzic to act on behalf of the Serbian nation. As his troops shelled Sarajevo, Karadzic would often play gusle, the Serbian single-string instrument that had been played by Serbian folklorists while they recited myths from Serbian history.
In today's article about Karadzic's double life in Belgrade, one of Belgrade's daily newspapers recounts the stories of Karadzic coming to a small cafe in Belgrade during his hiding, taking up gusle, sitting below the picture of himself (which the nationalist owner had put up there not knowing that the real Karadzic was his frequent visitor), and playing for hours on an end, drinking the Serbian plum brandy.
Karadzic's disturbing story is illustrative of the way in which nationalism helps an individual find purpose in life. For Karadzic, it was a form of therapy (I use this term intentionally given the fact that Karadzic himself was a psychiatrist) that helped him transform himself from an anonymous mediocrity to a mythical figure (in the eyes of his supporters, of which there are many in Bosnia and Serbia). Yesterday's announcement that he would defend himself at the Hague trial is a sure sign that he will use the trial to perpetuate this image of himself.
But the fact that he will remain in prison for the rest of his pathetic life is sure to throw this man into the abyss of anonymity. This will be the most just punishment for a man who fashions himself a Messiah of his people.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Good post. I believe that almost all nationalist and religious narratives are, in the end, nothing more than stylized containers of Nietzschean ressentiment. Even those ideologies that the current intellectual establishment treats with kid gloves, or even wishes to show sympathy with - such as liberation theology or certain permutations of post-colonial nationalism - often rely upon embarrassingly transparent metanarratives in which the "chosen people" at once acheive salvation and exact revenge upon their oppressors. Needless to say, these ideologies have their hucksters, opportunists, and fellow travellers, who, like Karadzic, embraced the grand, collective narrative that supposedly has meaning for many so that their individual lives may have meaning.
We all do a great job of deconstructing nationalist narratives in the academy, don't we? Its a facile target at this point, and appeals to the lowest common denominator of intellectual agreement - almost every academic will tell you that nationalism is constructed and that nationalism, at least in its traditional European form, is a bad thing. What is much more difficult for people to accept is the challenge to metaphysical belief systems, the "containers of ressentiment" from which nationalism borrows its structures and much of its contents, that of course being organized religion, which has been the recipient of newly found hands-off approach from social theorists.
I am hardly changing the subject - the ridiculous mythologies that Karadzic propagated, and in which he inserted himself, were largely at the bottom, religious. I obviously don't need to tell you how the Serbian myth of Kosovo is nothing more than a Christ narrative. The appeal of nationalist narratives, in all their transparent stupidity, will always have purchase as long as the fundamental claim, put forth and maintained by religion, that certain human collectives are promised a metaphysical destiny denied to the Other, exists unchallenged.
We have all heard the multicultural prattle that "it is sacred to them and provides their lives with meaning, so you have an ethical responsibility to respect it." This is quite an amazing, and I believe, an absurd philosophy. Nationalism, the modern religion, provides meaning to individuals lives, just look at Karadzic. Does this mean that nationalism should be left off the hook? After all, its sacred to many - sacred to the point that people are willing to die for it. No, precisely the opposite. Because these beliefs, whether nationalist or religious, inform one's ethical actions toward the Other, because they very often the SOURCE of meaning to which one subscribes, you not only have the RIGHT to challenge it, but the RESPONSIBILITY to challenge it.
I don't think I need to justify how I am not falsely equating between nationalism and religion. Both have their relatively benign and violent forms, but it is the metaphysical certainty of collective or individual salvation that these narratives promise, as well the so-called "tolerance" for this rubbish is allowed to perpetuate itself, that is the source of the appeal of these narratives.
You'll never slay the dragon until you cut of the head. Instead of world in which a plurality of equally moronic collective narratives coexist, we should imagine a world in which no speculative or metaphysical claims, national or religious exist - that is a world absent of the herd.
Now on the subject of mediocre psuedo-intellectuals, I have to stop checking my friends blogs on the hour and get back to editing my novel.
Post a Comment