Ratko Mladic, or the works of an ordinary nationalism

What should shock us in the arrest of Ratko Mladic is not the fact that he escaped capture for 15 years – the last Nazis are still free to move around while others just peacefully died in their homes, nor should it be the fact that he was hidden and protected by the Serb military – there is a natural solidarity between kin (as the natural solidarity of the French with DSK proves). What should really shock us is that there are still people, 15 years after the fall of the Milosevic regime, to come and demonstrate and cheer him whatever his faults and crimes can be. Are this people sick? No, these are ordinary, honourable folks, from all social backgrounds, anchored in their nationalist feelings, to be precise in their Serbian national superiority feeling. These are just nationalists, as there are so many of in Europe.

I hear lots of objections coming my way, so I’ll rush unto my dictionary and check each word. Doing so I am reminded of the Richter magnitude scale of European tragedy: at the first level we find nationalism, this patriotic feeling gone astray which recognises no moderating principle, not to be confused of course with the mere and sincere love of your country which translates in a will to defend and promote it; at the second level, we find fascism, an exalted form of nationalism with suppresses democracy; at the third level is Nazism, a racist form of fascism. At the first level we get war; at the second one we add dictatorship and at the third the concentration camps.

Must we really put all these eggs in the same basket? Is the posture of those who demonstrate in support of Mladic in 15 cities of Serbia not different from the one of the leaders of Front National in France, Lega Nord in Italy or Vlaams Belang in Belgium? Are their ideas not different? The online documents and programs of these parties would unfortunately not disappoint a hot-headed anti-Muslim Serb nationalist:
Take Front National for instance: “Not long ago, four pillars used to support the nation: family, school, religion and the army. Since 1968 mostly, the silent revolution of anarchy and globalisation has ruined them.” (http://www.frontnational.com/?page_id=1116)
“Due to lack of money it has not only become impossible [for the French army] to recruit a sufficient number of soldiers, but it has also become impossible to recruit the right quality of soldiers. 20% of these recruits are now originally coming from the Muslim world.” (http://www.frontnational.com/?page_id=1153)
“France, the oldest country in the world after China, will embody for all people the principle of national sovereignty, thus the free choice of one’s own destiny. Far from opposing us with the rest of the world, as the professional liars would have us believe, this program cannot possibly alienate our real friends.” (http://www.frontnational.com/?page_id=1149)

In Italy, Lega Nord practises gross xenophobia without fear of alienating the rest of the world. In 2010, just before the regional elections, a group of party members, the EuroMP Mario Borghezio among them, demonstrated in front of the Moroccan consulate in Milano, shouting “This is Milano, not Marrakech” and unwinding security tape to mimic the closing down of the consulate and the end of the “invasion”. Mr Borghezio quipped that his party “wouldn’t accept any longer the filth and chaos brought about by the Moroccans.” Asked about the reason for all that hate, an activist just answered: “It is the party’s line.”

In Belgium, Vlaams Belang, new avatar of the sinister Vlaams Blok, introduces itself as “ a popular, radical, nationalist and republican party for Flanders”. Apart from the creation of a Flemish state in the framework of a European confederation, their program refers very mildly to “an active defence of the European values and identity.” The declarations of one of their leaders, Mr Filip de Man, shed a cruder light on what it exactly means: “We go back to basics, to the source: against massive immigration for the protection of our superior European culture.” (quoted in La Libre Belgique). “Who is not in agreement with our norms and values can book his flight ticket. One way,” he concludes.

But like in the Front National for a year, the cosmetic efforts of Vlaams Belang to appear acceptable to all are in full swing. The Flemish nationalists write it themselves: “We must charm the public and the media through a “Tiel Eulenspiegel” approach (the prankster Tiel Eulenspiegel being a folklore character who derides the powerful and pleases the humble) : a “parlez-vrai” style not exempt from humour nor irony. Ingenously they write in their (accessible on line) program that the Party needs:
- a cunning external communication strategy, supported by a well thought-through and coherent media strategy (media being tolls, not enemies)
- to break out of the media and political isolation
- to rejuvenate the Party
- to moderate speech and style, to modernise it and adapt it to circumstances
- to win the middle class (university, opinion leaders, the areas of culture and charities)
- to join in with everything that goes into the right direction for the party (for instance the increasingly influential critical ideas about Islam.) End of quote. (http://www.vlaamsbelang.org/files/visietekst.pdf)

Behind this effort to deceive public opinion, to charm it like Mischievous Tiel, there is absolutely no doubt that the narrowest nationalist ideology remains in place. When this ideology reaches power and takes over control of the armed forces, nationalism turns into fascism and results tragedies like Sarajevo, Srbrenica, the concentration camps and other tragedies.

Thank you, MrMladic, to have reminded us of that so forcefully. Let’s never forget.