Media & Democracy in Yugoslavia (was Re: Economic revolutions)

[Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1@xxxxxxx>]

> In a message dated 10/7/00 9:12:39 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
> furuhashi.1@xxxxxxx writes:
>
> << It's like Yeltsin's shelling of the Duma. >>
>
> I see, The present leaderships victory in a democratic election, despite
> Slobo's virtually total control of the media and ability to stuff ballot
> boxesa t will, and then defended by mass peaceful street demonstractions, is
> like Yeltsin's military attack on the old Russiab Parliament? What planet are
> you from? --jks

Masses of people can be held in illusion.  With Milosevic out, I
suppose that those Serbs who joined the demos & strikes -- who were
btw a minority of the Serbs, a relatively large minority as they were
-- were hoping that Serbia would be treated as a "normal" country by
the West & could reverse its economic decline.  I sympathize, but I
believe this hope is illusory, just as hopes of many Russians, East
Germans, and other peoples who either rejoiced in or were resigned to
the collapse of socialism were illusory.

As for the media and democracy, I don't think the Serbs were ever
held under the spell of the state media, NATO's belief in its power
(hence NATO bombings of it) notwithstanding; the state media in any
country is boring and citizens tend to think of its views as cynical
propaganda (it's harder to recognize propaganda from non-state
sources, however).  The Serbs have had access to CNN and other
Western media, the "independent" media funded by Western
philanthropists, etc.  Maybe, many of them have too easily bought
into the Western media magic.  So did many citizens in then socialist
countries.  One of the subjective reasons for the collapse of
socialism -- beside the elite's desire to restore capitalism and the
depoliticization of the masses I mentioned -- was that too many
citizens -- especially intellectuals -- of then socialist countries
bought the fantasy of consumerism offered by the West, which made
capitalism look much better than it was, is, & can ever be.

*****   ...In New York, I met my friend Evelina from Bulgaria.
'Imagine,' she told me, 'only six months ago I would never, but
never, have thought that I'd see New York.'  Apart from the
excitement of being out of the country for the first time, though,
she was depressed.  One day, when we were walking in the Village, she
said: 'Did you notice how many poor people there are?  I just can't
help looking at them.  And even if I don't live here and don't have
any personal connection with them, I feel guilty all the time.'  This
was it; we were seeing the same thing.  But why?  Why did we -- as it
seems -- notice only the poor people, the garbage cans full of food,
the litter, and the dirt?  Did someone promise us something else?
And if so, who?  'I think it comes from the movies and TV,' Evelina
said.  'This is how we first learned about the States, through
pictures.  But beautiful, clean pictures.  There was no dirt in them
and no real poverty without a happy ending.  We made the mistake of
taking them for real....

(Slavenka Drakulic, "A Communist Eye, or What Did I See in New York?"
_How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed_, p. 118)   *****

Drakulic is an anti-communist liberal writer, much overrated by
Western feminists.  However, I believe what she says here accurately
conveys the same illusion widely held by the middle strata in then
socialist nations.  (Intellectuals can be very naive & childish;
besides, they pay more attention to the media than those who don't
see themselves as intellectuals.)  While they were often
sophisticated when it came to criticisms of the state media, they
were nonetheless easy consumers of the vision of America and Europe
offered by the Western media (which probably was made more attractive
than otherwise by state censorship or ideological pooh-poohing).

Through my participation in the anti-war movement against NATO, I met
many Serbs in diaspora, and I always thought that they were, by and
large, very similar to ordinary Americans, with the only exceptions
that they were against the bombing and demonization of Serbia and
that many of them thought Europe was finer than America.  I believe
people who have remained in Serbia are not that different from
diasporic Serbs (many of whom are recent arrivals).

Democracy and the mass media as they exist are antithetical, as
Chomsky, etc. have noted.

As for elections, without "undue interference in the Yugoslavian
election by the Western powers, in particular by the United States,
which has seen fit to interfere to the tune of $77(US) million to
various opposition movements and organizations, including the
'independent' media" (noted in the press release by international
observers posted by Ken Hanly here), Yugoslavia would have had fairer
elections.  America, with its one party with two right wings, is in
no position to say that it holds fair elections in any case.

Yoshie