yugoslavias implosion

82
ChApter 1
went in the wrong direction.” It also blamed the disintegration of
the Yugoslav economy on the confederation of the country under
the 1974 Constitution, especially on the stipulation that every decision
must be taken by consensus. The Memorandum stressed that the
process of democratization had been cut short in 1960 by “bureaucratic
decentralization” and called for democratization through a
multiparty system and multiple-candidate elections.
The part of the Memorandum dealing with the position of Serbia
and the Serbian people alleged that, in addition to the general
problems common to all, the Serbs faced three additional ones: “the
economic backwardness of Serbia, the unresolved legal status [of
Serbia] vis-à-vis Yugoslavia and the provinces, and the genocide in
Kosovo.” It further claimed that Serbia was in an inferior position
with regard to Croatia and Slovenia because Serbia had subordinated
its desires to Croatian and Slovene interests. The Memorandum
stated that the Serbian population in Kosovo was the “victim
of physical, political, legal, and cultural genocide” and that the Serbs
in Croatia were “exposed to assimilation.” 79 The main argument
was that the decentralization of Yugoslavia was the root of both the
Yugoslav crisis and the problems of the Serbian people—that the
“republicanization” of the economy had led to the disintegration of
the economy and the state.
The Memorandum activated two key myths of the Serbian people,
those of Kosovo and Jasnovac, thus mobilizing Serbs. In essence,
the Memorandum reiterated the Serbian national agenda from
the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, calling for “the
79 The Memorandum states that “The physical, political, legal, and cultural genocide against
the Serb population of Kosovo and Metohija is the gravest defeat in the liberation
struggles conducted by Serbia from Orašac in 1804 to the uprising in 1941 .” Of the Serbs
in Croatia, the Memorandum says, “Lika, Kordun, and Banija remain the least developed
regions in Croatia, which has given a strong impetus to the emigration of Serbs to Serbia,
as well as to [their] migrations to other parts of Croatia, where Serbs, as a minority and
socially inferior group of newcomers, are very susceptible to assimilation . In any case,
the Serb people in Croatia are exposed to a refined and effective assimilatory policy .”