yugoslavias implosion

leading to its virtual isolation – economic, political, social, cultural …
How could the small Serb people exist on its own and be its own master
and free at the same time, when bigger peoples, though their own masters
and free, cannot exist on their own in this world where all peoples
and all people are increasingly interconnected and dependent on each
other? … I think it is beyond all doubt that every leadership in Serbia
aware of the danger would be capable of acting towards the resolution
of the difficulties in which we have found ourselves. 131
Ivo Banac describes this brand of nationalism as a
new form of Serb integral nationalism bearing evidence of Fascist and
Communist influence. Although it ostensibly supports parliamentary
democracy, Milošević’s ideology binds together antidemocratic ideas
from both Left and Right. It is saturated with the Communist aversion
to the “formalism” of democracy even though it retains the right-wing
belief in the spontaneity of a homogeneous people. Milošević’s ideology
is also anti-liberal and anti-West. It has adopted the restorative Communist
thesis blaming the West for the collapse of Socialism and Yugoslavia,
as well as of the ussr. It also gives utterance to the reactionary
pan-Slav idea that the present war is actually a crusade orchestrated
by an Atlantic civilization of quantity against a Euro-Asian civilization
of quality: an onslaught of vulgar materialism on spirit, sacrifice,
and nobility. 132
MILOŠEVIĆ’S COLLABORATORS
Milošvić implemented his plan with the help of his mouthpieces—the
Serbian Renewal Movement (spo) led by Vuk Drašković,
the Serbian Radical Party (srs) of Vojislav Šešelj, and the Serbian
131 Slobodan Milošević, Godine raspleta, Eighth Session address, 1989, p . 171 .
132 Ivo Banac, Raspad Jugoslavije, p . 32 .
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