BELGRADE, SERBIA-MONTENEGRO – Anger and incredulity erupted from the crowds gathered around TV screens in Belgrade’s outdoor cafes Monday night, as they realized their national team was going to lose to China by just one point. For the once-proud winners of the world championship in Indianapolis (02), the Olympic tournament has been one colossal embarrassment after another, and now they can only hope to avoid the last place by somehow defeating Angola.
This abysmal performance is in many ways a symptom of what Serbia is going through today. There is enormous potential, but its exploitation is slow, sloppy, and plagued by bad leadership.
Sweet Meddling
Serbia has been known for producing more beet sugar than it could use domestically; for a while, the EU even imported Serbian sugar at subsidized prices, which led to the “sugar scam affair” as government-connected Mafiosi sold imported and repackaged sugar at a premium. Then, as now, the government’s economic policy was largely in the hands of G-17 Plus, a neo-Keynesian cabal of consultants passing as a political party. Following the announcement last week by deputy PM Miroljub Labus, head of G-17 Plus, the Serbian government decided Monday to release part of its sugar reserves (!) on the open market, hoping to bring the price of sugar down. It also threatened to lower subsidies to milk producers, as the price of milk was “unacceptably high.”
Then there are raspberries: a major Serbian export, greater in percentage of total yield than in Russia (the greatest net exporter). News came recently that the U.S. raspberry yield was especially low this year, opening the possibilities of greater demand and better profits. But the berry industry in Serbia is still operating on the state-socialist model, with the government buying out the yield from farmers at a fixed price. Just three weeks ago, raspberry growers demonstrated against the government’s buyout policies – arguing not the model itself, but that the buying price was too low.
It’s not that the “reform economists” running the Serbian economy by force have never heard of the free market; the release of government sugar indicates they’ve at least heard of the law of supply and demand. However, they seem unable to comprehend that high prices are just as easily remedied by reduced demand (i.e., lower sugar consumption) as by increased supply (of government sugar). It is tempting to predict that as a result of this sugar shock some government “expert” will complain of the “growing obesity problem” down the line, even though by the looks of them, people in Belgrade (which accounts for a quarter of Serbia) are rather fit.
Protecting Road Relics
While it is true that people in Belgrade walk a lot more than their American counterparts, automobile ownership is widespread, with traffic and parking jams commonplace. Unlike Bosnia, which had most of its car pool devastated by the war and had to import replacements, cars in Serbia range from the latest Western imports to socialist relics such as the Trabant or the Yugo, often parked side by side.
Tariffs and taxes on imports are already at around 40%, and the only Serbian carmaker is now lobbying to have them increased. Management of the Zastava Auto Works from Kragujevac, makers of the Yugo, are complaining that Serbia is becoming a “graveyard of European used cars,” and that imports are causing a “trade deficit.” (Politika, August 22)
Zastava employs 40,000 workers to make 7,300 cars a year (so far, out of the hopelessly optimistic projection of 18,000), all of them at least 20 years obsolete. Obviously, the reason Serbians imported 80,000 cars last year and almost 40,000 this year is that Zastava’s supply is inadequate in both quantity and quality. Some people can’t afford anything more than a 1950s Fiat clone with the size and power of a golf cart, but anyone who can goes foreign, despite the cost. Tariffs and taxes may help the government line its pockets, but it won’t help Zastava make cars that people would actually want to buy. It would definitely not help the Serbian consumer drive something safe, or affordable. Gasoline costs roughly $4 a gallon (59 dinars a liter) in Serbia, and socialist old-timers aren’t renowned for fuel efficiency.
A Crown Without a King
In addition to economic bungling, it seems even the basic political issues, such as the choice of a flag and anthem, cannot go by without contention.
Compared to the fiasco earlier this month over the flag and anthem of Serbia-Montenegro in the union parliament, the Serbian parliament’s provisional adoption of new symbols was far less controversial. It also left everyone somewhat dissatisfied. According to the new provisional rules (the symbols have to be put to a referendum before official adoption), the Serbian anthem would be “Boze Pravde” (God of Justice), while the flags and coats-of-arms would feature a double-headed white eagle carrying a red shield with the “Serbian cross” (photo). However, the designs all feature a royal crown, since they were first made for the 1880s Obrenovic monarchy, even as the verse from the anthem that mentions the king was omitted. Serbia thus has a non-monarchist anthem, a monarchist flag, and is very much a republic!
However muddled the symbolism of all this, one thing became clear: there is no “Milosevic bloc” in Serbian politics, no matter how much the Western press promotes a thesis that Socialists and Radicals are working together. They bitterly argued over the new symbols, with the Socialists objecting to “monarchism” on the flag, and the Radicals to the absence of monarchism in the anthem.
For and Against the Empire
This week, Serbia is commemorating the 90th anniversary of the Battle of Cer, the first Entente victory in World War One. In August 1914, Austro-Hungarian forces invaded Serbia, only to retreat in panic after bitter fighting and a strong Serbian counterattack.
In essence, the Battle of Cer is about defending Serbia from a foreign invader, and a major regional empire at that. But at the commemoration Sunday, representatives of the current Serbian government argued for submission to the current Empire, and loss of what little Serbian sovereignty is left to the European Union. Deputy PM Miroljub Labus said in his speech that “no one has the right to second thoughts” about Serbia joining the EU (Politika, 23 August, p.1).
However, on the editorial page of the same paper – a flagship Serbian daily, in print since 1904 and always close to the government – a guest editorial criticized pragmatism as the highest political virtue, as practiced by the majority of Europhiles. Writes professor Miodrag Rankovic:
“Our neighbors … have supported every Balkans adventure of the great powers in the last [20th] century, and some have even occupied Serbia; they have also supported every embargo, from Comintern’s [1948] to that of the Euro-Atlantic community [1992]. And now we are supposed to value pragmatism and follow their example? […] A great power does not need the truth; … for its purposes, power is truth enough. But for the weak, untruth is injustice, and lies are a form of oppression and humiliation.”
Growing Bitterness
Years of lies and humiliation, both domestic and foreign, have created a sort of nihilism in Serbia (and Montenegro, to some extent) that has filtered down from politics into most aspects of everyday life. One gets the impression that the only reason the people are willing to tolerate the abuses and indignities of the post-Milosevic governments is a hope that they would at least result in some semblance of prosperity as obedient subjects of the Empire. Few people in Serbia really believe things would improve dramatically with entry into the EU, but it’s the only remaining dream they are allowed to have.
Yet under this hopeless resignation to a seemingly inevitable fate, there is an undercurrent of bitterness at all the lies, plunder and violence perpetrated in the name of democracy, human rights, justice and prosperity, whether by the Empire, Milosevic or his Dossie successors. Every time they wonder whether the government should have any business regulating the prices of sugar, milk, raspberries or cars; every time they object to lies and hypocrisy as the highest values of postmodern politics; every time they cheer the defeat of American Olympians who alienated the world by their arrogance (in addition to their government’s) and rightly jeer their own athletes’ incompetence, Serbians are taking a step away from despair. History isn’t over out here, not by a long shot.
