Such very different events were in the center of attention of the world press last week, the world oil crisis and Yugoslavian elections. In fact, it would seem that there is little similarity between them, except that both touch primarily old Europe.
Once the oil panic seized world exchanges, and fuel price grew simultaneously in many countries, an avalanche of demonstrations spread across Europe. Oil refineries, major highways, and ports were blocked. Governments had to demonstrate a quick and appropriate response. Dissatisfied were all social strata. Public activity brought about a drop in the popularity of Prime Ministers Tony Blair of Great Britain and Lionel Jospin of France, a failure in policy coordination between the EU countries (some of them made concessions to the demonstrators, while others did not). The oil crisis has shown what the real ailment of the good old Europe is that one’s own shirt is closest to one’s body and the citizen will not sacrifice it for anything even if he knows perfectly well that 70% to 80% of the price of gasoline he has to pay are allocated to pay him a decent pension, maintain bridges, and handle social issues. All the same he will be convinced that he has hired the government, which one way or another must settle the problem that has arisen, and to settle it fast and effectively, for this is the government’s main job. This appears to be one of the characteristics of our much-vaunted civil society, which is not always convenient for the leadership of a given country. Here we should by no means forget that Western Europeans are in the habit of calculating everything down to the penny. Thus, no government can fool them blatantly. And the importance of concreteness for West Europeans was shown by the fact that the referendum actually designed to determine the future political system in France turned out less than a third of the nation’s registered voters.
In Yugoslavia, under the pressure of an atmosphere of intense pressure systematically created by the authorities, the people came to vote against the regime in power for the last thirteen years, which testifies to many things. The sentiments, a few years ago widespread only among intellectuals and youth, have at last reached the provinces. The people declared their readiness to go into the streets if the authorities show too much effrontery in counting the ballots cast for presidential candidates, although a great deal has been said about the possibility of the government using the military, which was put on alert, against its own people.
The Serbs, too, seem to have become infected with the virus of civil society, though not by revolutionary speeches but through elections, which is quite a democratic way of doing it. Of course, it will take a while for the wish to have changes to result in the emergence of real civil society. But as the September 24 elections show, the foundation has been laid.
It is clear that if a year and a half ago people in the West protested against the NATO campaign in Yugoslavia just as they do now against the increase in fuel prices, many things would now look quite different, and not only in the Balkans. But we all feel only our own aches and pains. Yugoslavia has demonstrated that in the era of the Internet no isolation can be effective — at any rate, in Europe — and that the people are not going to experiment there in search of some special way or messianic idea. Thus, there is a chance for them that with time their protests will be directed against what today seem petty difficulties.
