ROUND TABLE

Mr Chairman, ladies and gentlemen. As the first of your British guests called to this rostrum, I would like to say something initially about the very harsh and strongly critical remarks made by Stephen Dedijer about British policy towards the former Yugoslavia and about the morals and practices of the British political class in general. My response to Mr Dedijer is this: nothing that he could say would be bad enough. And I think that it is important that one of your guests on this occasion should begin by saying so.

The various papers that have been delivered at this symposium present an analytical challenge. They cover some very specific, detailed issues. Frankly, I wondered, when I saw the proposed programme, whether you would be able to paint a general picture from all these individual parts. But I conclude, without reservation, that you have succeeded in doing just that.

The reflections I have to offer on what we have heard really come down to one theme. It is the relationship between history and politics. And more specifically, the difference between the analysis that has been offered in the course of this symposium and the way which we in the West - I mean Western Europe and the USA - generally think about history - and indeed about politics. In the West, the general view - one can call it a liberal view - of the historical process is that, although we can perceive general trends (social trends, economic trends, cultural trends, demographic trends, and so on) the real explanation of historical causation lies elsewhere - in chance, in individual decisions and in the unpredictable outcome of clashes between particular, usually quite small interests. In other words, we assume that there is no single explanation for large historical events. In politics too, we are inclined to believe that it is the same ad hoc process which leads things to happen.

For this reason, for example, we in the West do not as a rule nowadays believe in conspiracies. In this part of the world, by contrast, people do believe in conspiracies. And perhaps rightly. For perhaps in this part of the world there are indeed extremely important conspiracies. I would also add that in the West perhaps we do not take sufficient note of the possibility of conspiracies in our part of the world. Anyway, the general fact - and the point I am now arguing - either is that we do not believe that one single explanation or one single decision explains how events in history or politics occur.

Now, what the various experts at this symposium have - to my mind convincingly and coherently - demonstrated is that there is indeed one dominant idea which explains the history of South Eastern Europe over the last 150 years. And that is the idea of Greater Serbianism.

Let me remind you of how this picture has been built up. We have heard about the Nacertanija of Ilija Garasanin - the Greater Serbian blue-print. We have heard how the land reform of 1918 and 1919 in Bosnia shifted power from Muslims to Serbs. We have heard analysed the way in which the ethnic balance was turned in favour of the Serbs and against Croats, Hungarians, and Germans in Baranja. We have heard a description of how political and other pressures over several decades resulted in a disproportionate emigration by ethnic Croats from different communities in the former Yugoslavia, changing the nature of these communities and increasing the Serb preponderance. We have heard explained the linguistic imperialism of Vuk Karadzic which fitted into the ideological framework established by the Nacertanija. And subsequently, the projects that were put forward by the Chetniks for a Greater Serbia in the course of the Second World War were directly in that same line of continuity.

Then, of course, we come to the more recent tragic events, beginning in Kosovo, going on to Vojvodina, leading to the attacks on Slovenia and Croatia and the war in Croatia and Bosnia, which is the responsibility of Mr Milosevic and his creations. We see this continuity: and I do not think even the most sceptical of liberal-minded persons could very easily challenge the importance of that single directing idea of Greater Serbianism as the root explanation of all these developments and events.

Now, this, I may tell you, is a great shock. It is not, in fact, a great shock to me personally. But, after all, since 1991 I have been following what happened in this part of the world quite closely. But it is a great shock to what I can call a Western liberal mentality to believe that there can be one single explanation for all these events.

We all of us here today have to understand just how great that shock is. And therefore Croatians, explaining their history and politics, have to realise that there is a yawning gap of understanding to be filled. This understanding is important, not just for the study of history but for day-to-day politics - and for Croatia’s own security and other interests.

There are, of course, various reasons why the West has behaved so badly since 1991 in this part of the world. There is the moral cowardice of Western leaders. There is also a deep intellectual confusion which has dogged Western policy since the end of the Cold War. And there are no doubt other elements too.

But the lack of accurate historical insight in the West into the events of this area is also a very important factor. In particular, because there was no real understanding of the concept of Greater Serbianism, the West pursued - and to some extent still pursues - policies which are highly inappropriate.

Looking back on recent events, we can see that the Americans, British, French and others substantially overrated the material strength of the Serbs. They thought they were a far greater threat to well-armed Western powers than they were - as long as we employed our military technology properly. But what the West underrated was the importance and strength of this underlying drive for Greater Serbian objectives, which we have heard described over recent days at this symposium. Because they underrated it, they did not understand that Western military policy had also to have a psychological objective. A deeply rooted Serb mentality had to be changed .

The policy required to overcome the cause of the war which has raged in former Yugoslavia has to have three aspects. First of all you have to stop the achievement of Greater Serbia, and do so by crushing military force: that is the first thing, and there is no diplomatic way to avoid that. Until the first step is taken there is no possibility of peace. The second step, which must follow it, is that you have to discredit the idea of Greater Serbianism and those who have put it forward - and discredit them above all in the eyes of their own people. Third, - and this is the most difficult and lengthy process, but it still has to be done - you have to convert the Serb nation itself to a different view of its own identity and its own interests.

In order to do all these things, you have, of course, to have some of the moral virtues - like prudence, courage and justice - which we have certainly lacked. You also have to have a strong will. But you do also have to have an element of historical understanding of precisely what the enemy is and why he is as he is. This is something which you Croats in this room do have - it is something which, I hope by and large, we non-Croats in this room have too. But that understanding is still not general among the foreign ministers and Chancelleries of Europe and America.

I would like to finish these reflections simply with a question. It is a question about history; it is a question relating to what the French call the Histoire des mentalités. Accepting as I do this continuity of Greater Serbianism over 150 years, I am still intrigued and uncertain as to how this strange poison actually passes down from one generation of Serb rulers to another. After all, the apparent ideology changes. We have a tendency towards fascism at one time in Serbian history. We have the reality of Communism at another. We have the mask of Yugoslavia, which conflicts a host of other unpleasant tendencies, including great conflicts and rivalries between individuals and factions. And yet this directing thread of Greater Serbianism actually carries down relentlessly to the present day.

Take Slobodan Milosevic. Here is a man who was generally, I believe, regarded by the Western diplomats and bankers who dealt with him as a perfectly normal, agreeable, not very interesting or exciting bureaucrat, in the good old but rather more intelligent communist mould. Then suddenly this apparatchik seizes the opportunity, as he did in Kosovo - and he seizes it, I think, generally for cynical objectives - but he still has within himself something which allows him to draw on the language and the ideas of Greater Serbianism, as fresh and as primitive though they had come from Vuk Karadzic, Ilija Garasanin, or any other members of the weird pantheon of Greater Serbianism. He is able to do that. And how, I ask, is one generation able to pass this down to another - and another and another - in quite that way? This is a great question - perhaps the great question - which the historians of South Eastern Europe have still to address. Personally, I suspect that one crucial part of the explanation is the subtle, powerful role of the Serbian Orthodox Church. But that, ladies and gentlemen, is a question for another time and another place. Thank you.