(Radical Party First Secretary)

Published 20 February 1990 in the Croatian daily "Vjesnik".

One thing is clear: nationalism today is the vehicle, not only in Yugoslavia but also in the countries of the ex-Soviet empire, for the affirmation of the legitimate incentive to full political democracy and the release from a central apparatus which is both oppressive and bureaucratic. Wherever in fact, a significant and satisfactory acceleration of the Federal State's democratization process has not been recorded, the demand for complete political autonomy and even secession has seemed the most natural and direct way to establish democratic and pluralist institutions. It is going on in the Baltic countries, it is going on in Yugoslavia. By these remarks, I do not want to underestimate or do away with legitimate aspirations to preserve the culture, the history, the traditions or the languages of the different nationalities. I merely want to point out that the preservation of these values is forced to be expressed through the request for state autonomy only when there are no other practicable ways.

A very bad mistake

Well, unafraid of swimming against the tide, I must affirm quite clearly that I think this incentive, nationalism, is a temptation and a very serious mistake. All democrats should try to oppose and correct this error, first and formost by proposing alternative ways which more effectively guarantee the preservation of the values which form the basis of this incentive.

It is our duty to realize that the national way to development and democracy is merely a tragic illusion; it is no longer worth proposing, not even for large countries like Germany or France. Altiero Spinelli, the anti-fascist federalist responsible for the most modern and scientific concept of the United States of Europe (and not merely on the economic level), wrote that today there is no great problem concerning the economy, currency, the link of solidarity of our development with that of the poorest countries in the world, defence, ecology, scientific and technological development, or the universality of culture, which can still be seriously solved by the use of national criteria and methods. With these words he rejected what he called "the hot air of nationalism".

What can our States still decide?

We must add that no great problem of democracy exists either, which can be solved by national methods.

Perhaps today the national parliaments of the EEC countries, those with the longest democratic tradition, can still autonomously decide on something? Does anyone think that these very solid parliamentary institutions are able today to legislate autonomously on anything more important than national feast days (this is not even certain!)? Already everything to do with agriculture, transport policies, the steel industry, the standards of industrial products, the circulation of property and capital and thus the monetary policy itself, is outside their range. Today, is it possible, without being ridiculous, to talk about national defence? Can any one pretend to resolve the ecological or unemployment problem on a strictly national level?

Passing to other geographical and political areas, it can perhaps be honestly said that Zaire or Mexico or other countries which produce raw materials in the south of the world decide autonomously on their economic and political future; but on the contrary, is it necessary to note that the price at which they can sell them and therefore the fate of their democracy is decided elsewhere?

Today, is there a single industry without a supra-national dimension which can remain on the market?

The reply to all these questions in unequivocally "NO!"

So the choice does not lie between the national or the supra-national dimension.

The first is merely forbidden by the political and economic reality of our planet. It is a decision of whether the centres of supra-national power, both political and economic, should be left without any control, whether the law of the jungle, the law of the strongest, should be allowed to prevail over justice or whether these immense multinationals should be governed, controlled and counterbalanced by a democratic supra-national political power which represents people's interests.

Can a national entity like Croatia or Slovenia hope to exist as an autonomous state in this situation? How could either of them presume to oppose the force of the great economic groups which will decide in its stead on the productive role it will play on the international market?

A Dangerous Temptation

The wish to associate national identity with a state structure is a dangerous temptation which leads not to greater autonomy but to greater dependance.

Certainly the nationalist short cut seems the easiest: with simple efficient passwords the population can be mobilized; playing on old and unappeased national or ethnic grudges it is easy to incite revolt against the centralist and oppressive State, but all this risks sowing the seeds of hatred and conflict which it will later be impossible to uproot. The means must suit the purpose. It is inconceivable to consider building real democracy through the provocation of ethnic and nationalist intolerance.

So what is the alternative solution?

To satisfy the reasons which are the incentive to riding on the crest of nationalism.

Membership, political rather than economic, of the European Community, is the irrevocable condition and not the final, distant objective, of the solution to problems of democracy and social justice in the countries which have emerged from "real socialism".

If we do not want nationalisms which have been too long repressed to one by one explode causing irreparable harm, even before we solve the problems of integration between such different economies, we should ensure that countries such as Yugoslavia, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia are full members of the European Community.

I think the method adopted by the two Germany's was something like this: before facing the problems which derive from the enormous economic imbalance between them, a political authority capable of governing them must have been created. The problems and difficulties deriving from the integration of the two so very different economic sructures came rightly second, but precisely to resolve this it was necessary to creat an accomplished political fact.

This is why in Yugoslavia, the positions of those who are talking about European integration as the final objective of a long modification process of society and the economy, are just as Utopian as those who theorize about the possibility of the existence of micro-state realities which are autonomous and self-sufficient. To the latter we must answer that only the Albanian example and no longer Rumania, can guarantee the implementation and the existance of similar state realities.

To the former on the contrary, we can reply that it is an illusion to think that Yugoslavia's dramatic problems can be positively solved outside the European Market and close political integration with the European institutions. A sick economy will certainly not be cured by the external "assistance" of the EEC or the draconian measures of the International Monetary Fund. The policy of the great multi-national producers is clear: to exploit the East European countries in the same way as the countries of South-West Asia have been exploited, to supply forced labour at a low cost. Computer or car components are no longer "made in Taiwan" only, but also "made in Yugoslavia" and "made in Poland". It is precisely these interests which serve as an incentive to create national entities which are small, and thus exposed to blackmail and financial conditioning.

Not a passive membership of the European Community

But this must not be a passive membership of the European Community. I believe that countries like Yugoslavia, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia, have the right to ask more. The European Community in fact risks not having a true democratic government. All the decisions that, as we have seen, deeply affect national autonomy, are taken by political structures in Brussels, and are quite the opposite of democratic. In spite of being elected on universal suffrage, the European Parliament, the true representative of the interests of European peoples, continues to lack power. Thus there is no need to think or rather delude oneself, that it is enough to join the great European market and eliminate any obstacle to the export of one's own products in order to solve all the problems. The powerful European financial and industrial groups will behave as boss, both in Yugoslavia as in the rest of Europe, without real supra-national democratic political power.

A constitutive phase

Thus it is not only a question of joining what exists already but of immediately embarking upon a real constitutive phase of the new United States of Europe where countries like Yugoslavia, with the wealth of its different cultures can have as much influence as the old western democracies. But how can these choices be made? In Yugoslavia as in other East European countries, the prevalent trend seems to be towards a multi-party system, a proportionalist electoral system. People are asking how, after years of a single party system, can we prevent all the new requirements of society from being represented at the elections?

Which electoral system?

This is not the issue, but we only want to ensure that the elector can effectively decide on the future of his country. Voting for ten or fifteen parties means not deciding anything but leaving final decisions up to playing on coalitions between parties. A single system effectively permits the people to excercise its sovereignty through elections: the uninominal electoral system by majority vote. Two positions are juxtaposed, two proposals on how to run the future of Yugoslavia, a single one wins because the majority vote for it. This does not mean that the formation of ten or fifteen parties should be prevented: It only means that they should stand clearly in the elections under an intelligible flag. The essential feature of democracy, as opposed to totalitarianism, is not only that it allows "free elections" but that it permits the people through "free elections" to change the government without having to fall back on an armed rising. The electoral system and proportionalistic democracy leave this

decision to the parties; on the other hand, the uninominal, majoritarian decision is entrusted to the sovreign people.

For the future of Yugoslavia, I thus identify two options and two possible ranks: on the one hand, those who wish to continue to cultivate the illusion of the so-called policy of non-alignment, which cheats people by selling them "the hot air" of nationalism. On the other, whoever wants to be fully in line with democracy, the state of rights, which implies the preservation of all the Yugoslav nationalities in a single European community. The Yugoslav parties should form two electoral ranks to allow the people to decide on this and other options. But today I don't think there is even a trace of this frame of mind in the political debate which is developing in Yugoslavia. The old national bitterness seems to be prevaling over reason, and over the interests of the national cultures themselves.

To reinforce the Radical Party.

Thus it is urgent and indispensable for Yugoslavia to gain these positions of democratic theory and confrontation through the growth and reinforcement of the transnational and transpartite Radical Party. It is urgent and indispensable for the Radical Party to become a political and not an electoral, reference point in Yugoslavia. This will enable a debate to open on these themes and positions to which I have referred.

It is urgent and necessary for thousands of Yugoslav citizens, from the various Yugoslav states, without discrimination, to join this new federalist, nonviolent international association for democracy and justice.

It is urgent and necessary for Yugoslav citizens to know that this political position exists too and in this way they can judge it.

Whoever likewise feels this urgency and this necessity knows what he must do: come and join the Radical Party.