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people instinctively clung to the things that they knew. And this is one of
the very important elements to remember, when you wonder how and
why all of this nationalism was resurrected. Then, of course, the gov–
ernments themselves perpetuated this kind of nationalism in order to stay
in power. It was quite clear in the case of Milosevic. And I don't think
that we have to have any doubts at this point about who started the war
and how was it started in ex-Yugoslavia; it's all very well known. What is
not known is that it was started at the very top.
Daniel Rose:
It's an American characteristic to think that for every ques–
tion there must be an answer; for every problem, there must be a solu–
tion, however theoretical. And when the American public considers the
events that are unfolding right before their eyes, they are disconcerted at
not being able to imagine some kind of rational future for this society.
That's one of the American problems; they just can't picture in which
direction rational people can head. And we'd appreciate your comments
on what you see as alternative futures, or as the prospects directly ahead.
Slavenka Drakulic:
Whenever I travel abroad, one of the questions I am
asked is, "What do you think the future is going to be?" Now, the
difficult part of it is that this is the hardest question that could be put to
us, because the word "future" has been erased from our life. Somehow
we don't think about the future. Somehow we don't even conceive, we
don't have imagination enough to imagine what kind of life we would
even wish. There are several reasons for that. One is the fact that we have
been living in a communist society, and in a communist society you have
this feeling that this society is eternal; nothing is ever going to change. Of
course it was an illusion, but you have been raised with the idea not to
question, not to think, and just to let things go, and so the future basically
doesn't exist as a concept.
The other fact is that with the war, you learn to live day by day, and
you don't invest in the future, not even in your imagination. Not even
our politicians are doing that. We all agree somehow deep down in our–
selves, subconsciously, that this war is going to go on for quite some time.
I was asked at the beginning, "How long do you think the war will go
on?" I would say, "Well, at least five years," and everybody was kind of
surprised. There is also political manipulation, because I think that the
government we have now, or the governments in ex-Yugoslavia, both
the Milosevic and Tudjman governments, are the type of governments
that can exist only under the conditions of war, because it suits them very
well. They don't even speak about the future . If they were to do so, for
example in Croatia, the first question would be, "What kind of govern–
ment do we want? What kind of democracy are we going to have?"
