SLAVENKA DRAKULIC
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These questions are not welcomed at the moment, because every
question about the future is met with the answer: "We have a war. So
let's not talk about democracy now, let's first solve this problem." So in
short, the answer is, yes, I like the American way of assuming that for
every problem there is a solution. However, if there is a solution it's a
long-term one, and it's very difficult to foresee the light at the end of the
tunnel. For quite some time we'll have to deal with the problems we
haven't solved. We haven't even solved the problem of the minority in
Croatia, much less the Bosnian problem, which is a very burning
question.
William Phillips:
I gather that some intellectuals and writers behaved
very badly in this situation. I wonder whether we're tallcing about a small
number of writers and intellectuals, or most of them? How many behaved
badly? I don't mean an actual count.
Slavenka Dravenka:
I would say it's a very curious phenomenon. You
will remember that at our conference Hans Magnus Enzensberger talked
about intellectuals as bad people ["Intellectuals as Leaders,"
PR
Fall 1992],
and I quite agree with him. We concluded that intellectuals are not
people of higher moral standards, and that it's rather dangerous to at–
tribute higher moral standards to them. This is especially so when we are
talking about intellectuals in Croatia and Serbia. In Serbia intellectuals
actually elaborated the idea of "Greater Serbia" and helped the whole
nationalist movement. It is a sad fact that its best writers actually went for
all
this. But Croatia is no better just because it's in a different position.
Croatia is in a defensive war, so every single intellectual there is
nationalist, but they believe they are nationalist for good reasons. So there
are good and bad motivations. In general, before the war and during
communist times we always had state writers; ninety-nine per cent of
intellectuals and writers always went along with whatever politics there
were or whoever ruled the country. There were very few independent
individuals. It's the same now. So the intellectuals in both countries are
"bad guys."
Elizabeth Dalton:
Your point about malcing people "other" is a very
good one, but one has to recognize also that there is survival value in not
getting totally sucked into the disaster next door. Yet I think you're
mistaken if you think that in this country there is a feeling of indifference
to the problem. The paradoxical side is that the more outraged people
feel by the images on television, the more enthusiastic they are for
military intervention, which you and many other people feel might well
