Civilizing Nationalism – Pacification of the Region
Lecturer: Ugo Vlaisavljevi?
Assistant: Faris Cengic
Course objectives:
The main objective of the course is to expose the militant nature of the ruling forms of party politics in the region, which are understood as ethnopolitics (i.e. the politics of self-aware, state-building ethniei – nations). A critique of their militant character is undertaken as “the critique of the ideology of ethnic community”. Accordingly, it demonstrates that the experience of a millennial struggle for survival of “small Balkan peoples”, particularly the very tragic experience of the last war, is also formative for the current dominant politics and for the current form of collective identity. It will be shown that all recent politics of whole-nation support were actually war politics of collective identity forged in a bloody conflict against an enemy. This is precisely what makes these politics “ethnic” ones, and what prevents them from adopting the true form of modern politics, particularly its civic character. The militancy of ethnopolitics will be deciphered in contrast to the civility of civic politics, particularly in its differences from the typical politics and sociability of civil society. We will strive to show that a necessary condition for a lasting peace in the region is transforming the dominant ethnopolitics into politics in the true meaning of the word, namely, its civilizing and demilitarization.Educational units of the course:
The first day: Ethnopolitics – Main Characteristics and its Recent Historical Genesis
Ethnopolitics in Tito’s socialism and in post-socialist ethno-nationalism
Who is the (political) subject of ethnopolitics
Pre-political and non-political characteristics of ethnopolitics
The second day: Collective Ethnic Identity and Collective Survival
Millennial collective experience of being incorporated in great empires
Great foreign culture and local ethnic tradition
Lethal dangers of collective existence: war extermination and peacetime assimilation
Concept of “agonistic acculturation”: How does a sworn enemy and foreigner become internalized in an authentic cultural form, in the collective identity
The third day: Civic Characteristics of Politics and Ethnopolitical Subversion of The Political Citizens’ community and ethnic community
Transcendental character of citizenship and modern society
Alienated citizens and fraternized members of ethnie
Danger of modernization for sociability of an ethnic community
Citizen’s morals and traditional common morals
The fourth day: Militancy of “Politics” in the Real Socialism and Current Ethnopolitics
The most important political issue has always been the issue of collective survival
War of National Liberation as the basic content of politics
Modern age as the age of national uprisings and national liberation
Sacrificing of individual freedom for national freedom
Politics of permanent mobilization and state of emergency
Sovereignty of leaders in a state of permanent mobilization
The fifth day: War as the Ultimate Meaning of Politics and the Greatest Cultural Event
Implications of continuous invoking the previous war in public communication of politicians
Holiness of war victims as a source of legitimacy of the ongoing politics
Modern legitimacy and sacrosanct character of local patriotic politics
Detent as a source of illegitimacy of Real Socialism
The role of heroes and war veterans in ongoing state politics
The sixth day: Civility of Civil Society and Militancy of Ethnopolitics
Formative difference of private/public for politics
Ethnopolitics as the politics of private publics and public privacy
Citizens’ morals as an empty form of civilized behaving towards the Other
The Other as the enemy or friend
Paranoid character of ethnic being-together
Militancy of the prevailing politics and non-comprehensible character of civil society
Misuse of civil society: recent attempts of its militarization
The seventh day: Process of Civilizing Local Ethno-nationalism
National and civic parties in BiH
Nationalism as militancy of “leftist” political options
Missed modernization of politics: unknown liberalism and deliberative democracy
Civilizing “wild nationalism” and outlook for pacification of politics
Pacification of militant political parties as a precondition for peace in the region.
Literature:
- Norberto Bobio, Liberalizam i demokratija, Zavod za udžbenike i nastavna sredstva, Beograd, 1995, VIII, IX i XI poglavlje
- Georges Devereux, Komplementaristi?ka etno-psihoanaliza, August Cesarec, Zagreb, 1990, VIII poglavlje
- Dominique Schnapper, Zajednica gra?ana, Izdava?ka knjižarnica Zorana Stojanovi?a, Novi Sad, 1996, II, III i IV poglavlje
- Jael Tamir, Liberalni nacionalizam, Filip Višnji?, Beograd, 2002, II i VII poglavlje
- Charles Taylor, Prizivanje gra?anskog društva, Circulus, Beograd, 2000, III i VII poglavlje
- Ugo Vlaisavljevi?, Rat kao najve?i kulturni doga?aj, Mauna-Fe, Sarajevo, 2007, VI i IX poglavlje