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1994-05-02
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<text>
<title>
German Editorial Views Rise Of Nationalism In Russia
</title>
<article>
<hdr>
Foreign Broadcast Information Service, June 15, 1992
Germany: Editorial Views Rise of Nationalism in CSFR
</hdr>
<body>
<p>[Hansjakob Stehle editorial: "Flight Into Nationalism". Hamburg
DIE ZEIT in German 12 Jun 92 p 1]
</p>
<p> [Text] There is a great temptation not to want to see it
because it is unpleasant. That Fatherland Europe, however, where
the nation state would be "abolished"--that is, preserved and
overcome--is increasingly proving to be a chimera. The
nightmare of nationalism obviously frightens the politically
minded less than the allure of a historically embroidered, new
patriotic glory tempts them. With it many complexes can be
compensated for, both social and national--particularly in the
postcommunist East.
</p>
<p> Europe? One can try to steer toward it by contributing--like the Germans--the reunited nation state from Mecklenburg
to Upper Bavaria with all the skids that result from its
problems. One can turn one's back on this Europe in a civil and
gentle way, like the Danish; in a brutal way like the Serbs; or
in the way that the Slovaks are doing. In their parliamentary
elections the majority voted for those parties that are striving
for the fastest possible separation from the Czechs. The Czechs,
for their part, voted for parties and politicians who are not
quite so unhappy about that, because they hope that the Czech
Republic might reach "Europe" all the faster on its own because
it is economically stronger.
</p>
<p> Prague and Bratislava are not Belgrade and Sarajevo. The
"Balkanization" that threatens to plague the Europe of the
difficult fatherlands has many faces. The socialist "spring" in
the Czech Prague under the Slovak Dubcek had a human face--and
the anticommunist revolution was made completely "of velvet."
Even here, however, the "turn" toward the national aspect
strikes the democratic-idealist nerve of all renewal very
strongly.
</p>
<p> It was no coincidence that Vaclav Havel, the poet who sits in
Prague's presidential chair, put his official impartiality at
stake on the eve of the elections and on television "pleadingly"
asked the people to vote only for those politicians who advocate
"the just coexistence of Czechs and Slovaks"; this is the only
way in which the CSFR could become a "solid stone in the
European building."
</p>
<p> Against all expectations, more than 80 percent of those
eligible to vote went to the polls, despite widespread apathy.
They even resisted the temptation of hopelessly splitting their
votes among the 42 parties and small groups. More than was
expected, they supported the two main favorites, the Czech
conservative Civic Democratic Party (ODS) of liberal economic
reformer Vaclav Klaus and the Movement for a Democratic Slovakia
(HZDS) of Vladimir Meciar, the leftist liberal-nationalist
people's tribune. Each won more than one-third of the vote--enough so that both can now pretend to be the masters of the
political game, but not enough to put their foot down.
</p>
<p> Both Klaus and Meciar basically realize that it has now
become possible for each to achieve what he wants in his way:
They will agree to disagree without wasting one shot of powder,
first probably in a transition government (which will preside
over the downfall). Then, after a referendum--which will, if
possible, be held separately in the two republics--they will
separate. Even if some sort of commune results from the divorce,
the CSFR as a marriage of convenience will hardly continue to
exist--only in the heaven that is called Europe, some say
mockingly.
</p>
<p> Regardless of the close relationship between the two peoples,
their example shows how the burden of historical fate can
continue to hinder common paths in Europe and toward Europe even
today. In the 19th century the Czechs landed on the ground of
"Austroslavism" after a pan-Slav flight of fancy--in the same
Habsburg Empire in which Slovakia felt suppressed as "Upper
Hungary." Then, after World War I, Tomas Masaryk's
"Czechoslovakism" turned "two tribes into a nation": a state
that was finally dominated by the Czechs and where there were
more Germans than Slovaks.
</p>
<p> Until these Germans returned home to the Reich, thanks to
Hitler. Or were they Austrians? No, they are "the fourth
Bavarian ethnic group," the Munich government still says today.
It threw its "no" to the neighborhood treaty, which healed old
wounds, at the feet of the Czechs and Slovaks precisely for
election day.
</p>
<p> A European spirit? Only disguised as a ghost from the past,
if it exists at all. It frightens our neighbors, who are already
uncertain anyway. Old fears and new uncertainties have, however,
also promoted that tough, yes, radical realism which is
represented by a politician like Vaclav Klaus and which led him
to victory. His liberalism, his market economy without a social
adjective hardly take the weak into consideration but feed them
with hopes of tomorrow--in Europe.
</p>
<p> No wonder that Klaus is unaffected by the predictable end of
the unified Czechoslovak state. He does not want a loose
confederation--nor does he want any kind of third path. If the
Slovaks want to follow their own path, let them!
</p>
<p> The tanks and guns, which are built in Slovakia, can still be
used and, in particular, exported, Meciar, for his part,
emphasized in the election campaign. Perhaps he was as little
serious about that as in his tirades against the privatization
of the state economy, which ensured him applause from the
communists and the nationalism.
</p>
<p> In a serious moment one could consider this dishonest
scenario as an unavoidable phenomenon of democratic
Westernization. As such it could be watched calmly, if it were
not, at the same time, the symptom of a crisis that is seducing
everyone in the postcommunist societies to choose a popular but
fatal way out: the flight back into the old way of thinking in
terms of national states. Or is it not quite so old? Is it
contained--forever young--in the idea of the right to
self-determination, which threatens to deteriorate into a new
ideology?
</p>
<p> It is easy to rage against nationalist perversion when it
becomes obvious in such a bloody way as it does in the Balkans.
However, it should give us food for thought and alarm us if--as in the CSFR--it emerges in countries that are part of the
heart of Europe. The times are gone in which--as Masaryk once
said--one just had to stand on top of the trash heap and swing
one's whip in order to bring the people to "reason."
</p>
</body>
</article>
</text>