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Slovenia in post‐modern Europe

a
Dimitrij Rupel
a
Professor of Sociology , Ljubljana University
Published online: 19 Oct 2007.

To cite this article: Dimitrij Rupel (1993) Slovenia in post‐modern Europe, Nationalities Papers: The Journal of Nationalism
and Ethnicity, 21:1, 51-59, DOI: 10.1080/00905999308408255

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 Nationalities Papers, Volume XXI, Number 1, Spring 1993

SLOVENIA IN POST-MODERN EUROPE

Dimitrij Rupel

My discussion of the position of the Slovenes in "Post-modern" Europe is

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based on certain premises. First, I perceive the present and the future
situation of Europe as one in which so-called post-modern phenomena and
values are being realized; secondly, I perceive the current developments in
Slovenia as processes of cooperation with and participation in European
processes; and thirdly, I view the state independence of Slovenia achieved
this year as a prerequisite of the above-mention cooperation and
participation. However, these premises require explanation and verification.
In providing the explanation and the proof, I would like to point to the
problems of a small state existing in the modern world, and outline the
challenges that await us, Slovenes.
"Problems" and "challenges" can also be political words of a different
character than political words like, for example, "self-determination,"
"democracy," "creation of a state" or "liberation." Over the last few years,
we in Slovenia have primarily been engaged in discussions related to self-
determination and statehood for Slovenia; these discussions should not be
underestimated, and neither—as I recall the now famous 57th issue of Nova
revija (1987)—can they be denied their academic character. Particularly
during the first phase which started under the "old regime," the Slovene
national problem needed to be explained as clearly and in as much detail as
possible. The entire history, anthropology and sociology of the Slovene
nation needed to be unveiled. Towards the end of the eighties, a group of
historians, sociologists and other intellectuals tried to apply their theories in
the form of concrete political action. The political and state-formational
achievements of Slovenia reflect the reality of these theories and predictions.
We are still in the midst of political activities and can anticipate yet new
problems and challenges. While formerly we needed to prove that the
independence of Slovenia was a necessity, now we need to justify Slovenia's
path into Europe as a necessity, and to record the differences and similarities
between the Slovene and modern European processes.

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 Nationalities Papers

I remember that at the beginning of my foreign political career, I used to

repeat the following sentence time and again: "Slovenia does not want its
independence in order to become an island in the heart of Europe, but in
order to take part equally in European processes, a path obstructed by
Yugoslavia." This sentence was also a reply to the refrain of many
integralists and federalists—"The entire world is being integrated, and you
want separation!"
The Americans were especially deaf to our arguments. I used to tell
them, "The USA is a nation of states: Yugoslavia (as the Soviet Union) is a
state of nations." It is easy to create a federal state of many parts of one and
the same nation; it is difficult to live in a federation of different nations, and
it is impossible to survive in a federal state in which its constituent "units"
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have different histories, religions, languages, scripts, economic

developments, and political and economic systems. This conclusion is based
on the Slovene experience in Yugoslavia, so it might have weak points, and
might meet with disapproval from European federalists. After all, the new
European community/federation, especially if it included Eastern Europe,
would consist of extremely varied ingredients. Two conclusions ensue from
this: that the future European community will need to find appropriate
instruments for solving the problems which were the concern of Yugoslavia
and the cause of its disintegration, or else close itself off from the disturbing
elements and place them under a special regime.
This is the core of the problem tackled by the Hague Conference on
Yugoslavia. In saying this, I am simultaneously saying that the Hague
Conference did not deal only with Yugoslavia, but with the essential
problems of European coexistence. It is clear that Europe or Yugoslavia
could not apply the recipes which had been successfully used in the case of
the USA; this is also the reason why the USA was and remains so reluctant
to accept the demands for self-determination and the creation of new states
from Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union.
In regard to Yugoslavia, it is believed, within the framework of the
Hague Conference, to be virtually impossible to find a model for the future
arrangement of relations among the Yugoslav nations/republics which would
suit all of them. In his proposal, Lord Carrington offered three solutions: a
unified state for a part of Yugoslavia, confederation for those who want it,
and independence for others. In the light of European integration, this
means two things. Firstly, that certain republics or states will be able to
choose whether to join Europe or not; and secondly, that they will be
associated with Europe in different ways. In principle, the following could
participate in international arrangements: a unified multi-national state (e.g.,

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 Dimitrij Rupel: Slovenia in Post-Modern Europe

Serbia-Montenegro), a confederation (Bosnia-Hercegovina, Croatia and

Macedonia) and an independent uninational state (Slovenia). Carrington is
aware of the problems related to coexistence and the internal organization of
such a federation (among other problems, there is the territorial
discontinuity, since Macedonia does not border with either Croatia or
Bosnia-Hercegovina), which is why he would like to talk the Serbs into a
confederal solution (while Montenegrins hesitate). The Serbs have problems
with this solution, both because their statehood would not be sufficiently
pronounced and because they depend on the Yugoslav Army which needs a
territory larger than Serbia alone; without the army, Serbia fails in the sphere
of internal politics and with it, it fails in the sphere of foreign politics.
From the point of view of Europe, it is important to test the different
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associations between European subjects. The question is: is it possible to

organize the new Europe asymmetrically—as a simultaneously federal and
confederal community? Will the border between the federation and the
confederation be at the same time the boundary between the richer and
poorer parts of Europe? Will some smaller regional confederations exist
within the European confederation? In addition to this "variety of
differences," will some islands of fully sovereign national states remain?
Will confederation, after all, mean elimination from the core of Europe?
Everything considered, what do the differences between the Yugoslav
republics, in fact, signify?
Numerous evaluations of these differences exist. It is difficult to
eliminate those which serve to justify the disadvantages or advantages of a
certain nation, to judge a priori its courage or criminality, or even military
adventures. As I have already mentioned, I am interested in considering so-
called post-modernism which could be set as the criterion of discrimination
on the territory of former Yugoslavia. When I speak of post-modernism, I
mean statements about and research into post-industrial phenomena, debates
about the "new paradigm," the rise of a "new class" of intellectuals and the
so-called tertiary sector (services, information, culture, etc.). The authors I
have in mind are D. Bell, Lyotard and Gouldner, and, of course, Slovene
researchers like Tine Hribar and Ales Debeljak.
The post-modern paradigm is the paradigm of the decline of so-called
grand illusions, the abandoning of various liberation, revolutionary and
nationalist preoccupations. Most authors agree that the break with modem
(as well as industrial) culture occurred in the eighties. The post-modem
attitude means abandoning the behavior designated by Peter Sloterdijk (in
his book Eurotaoismus, zur Kritik des politischen Kinetik, Suhrkamp 1989)
as "panic culture," illustrated by haste and vehemence in various fields, from

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traffic to politics.
Post-modern man has stopped to rest and look back on the "catastrophic"
journey he has undertaken. When he was "modern," he was restlessly on the
move; he scurried from one project to another, constantly dissatisfied,
progressive and imperialist in all respects, virtually merciless to the existent.
This trend probably started with the French Revolution, or perhaps even
earlier, and was fully developed in ruthless and anti-ecological Americanism,
finding its caricatured parallel in Marxist and Socialist activism. The trend
has undoubtedly failed. However, it is locally still alive, for example, in
Yugoslavia. The most revealing characteristic of our local modernism is that
of conquering adjacent territories by military force. Since Nazism and
Fascism, modernist arguments justifying such behavior have been in terms
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of the liberation of "enslaved" parts of a certain nation living outside the

national state, correction of injustices from the past, and protection of
national interests, if possible by reviving the bull and bombast of national
mythology, raising national self-esteem, etc. These words could describe the
actions of Serbian politicians over the last few years. While I must stress
that this policy originated during the confrontation with the Albanian
population of Kosovo and only later reappeared in the dispute with the
Croats, it ensues also from the Croatian-Serbian dispute between the two
wars (assassination of Radi6 in the Belgrade Parliament), and especially ihe
bitter confrontation during World War II. It is true that Croatia was attacked
by Serbia, but as soon as it was at war Croatia, too, took refuge in
nationalism and mythology.
A descent into the political underground of territorial pretensions,
military imperialism, national heroism, euphoria and similar modernist
phenomena is attractive and still topical, and was felt also in Slovenia.
Slovenia was lucky; it was exposed to the ravages of modernism only for a
brief period and it managed to escape at a relatively low price: the loss of
certain markets, the cost of building a new state, inflation and economic
crisis. However, Slovene resistance to nationalist panic and its dynamics is
debatable, and further elaboration is not needed for the purpose of
this article.
To simplify and generalize, one could suggest that the inhabitants of
Europe have, since World War II, settled down in their towns and there
realized their ambitions for well-being. Germans, Englishmen, Frenchmen
or Scandinavians of today have no aspirations to conquer new territories and
they have also left unsolved the problems of individual elements of their
nations living outside the national states. European nations have mostly
stopped moving "horizontally," and now move "vertically," exploiting

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 Dimitrij Rupel: Slovenia in Post-Modern Europe

intellectual strength and new technologies, primarily, computers. In contrast

with this trend, the Serbs (and obviously also Albanians) are still a nation
"on the march." The treaties and rules of the new Europe are only letters on
blank paper for them, proof being the behavior of Serbia in the Hague.
Post-modern behavior contains elements of traditionalism and
modernism; it means reconciliation with the past and with technological
progress. However, it is not, as is sometimes believed, hypermodernism.
The new European order shows indelible traces of conservatism. One of the
crucial principles of the CSCE is inviolability of borders. Borders, say the
Europeans, will be overcome in different ways and will be rendered
unimportant The new European economy perceives borders as barriers but
it is still a European economy, delimited by the non-European. The problem
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of Yugoslavia and Slovenia is the question of whether they will be within or

without the European border. A part of Yugoslavia has a good chance of
remaining outside Europe. Slovenia, which senses that it is Europe or
nothing, strives to escape from the Yugoslav bondage which keeps it apart.
It is clear that Europe has no desire to have on its border ruthless soldiers
who demolish Renaissance palaces and church towers and who have enough
ammunition to disturb the peace and undermine the newly achieved balance
on the continent.
What does the conservative-modern or post-modern Europe want? I
quote from the speech of the then German foreign minister, Hans Dietrich
Genscher, delivered in Lisbon on 12 July 1991:
...We have an opportunity to make the 21st century a real
"European century," no longer -with the help of war and
conquest, but with the new culture of national coexistence.
...However, in the new Paris Charter, Europe can and must
demand that a decision [of Yugoslav nations about the
organization of their future] be reached through a process
of dialogue and negotiation, without force and violence,
by observing and implementing human and minority
rights, democracy and the right to self-determination.
...The European Community is politically and economically
proceeding towards a European alliance, that is, towards a
United States of Europe. Our principle is a Europe with a
common constitution, common economy, common
currency, and common foreign, security and defence policy.

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...We advocate the concept of a federal Europe of

subsidiarity, a Europe of regions and a variety of national
and regional traditions. We would like to explore the
creativity provided by this European variety, since it has
been the pre-requisite of European vitality.
...The United States of Europe will spread from the North
Cape to Sicily, and from the Atlantic to the East of our
continent (emphasis mine).
...The present Community of the twelve will thus grow into a
federation of approximately twenty states, which will be
closely linked with the USA, have closer relations with the
Soviet Union, in voluntary cooperation...
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...The end of bipolar confrontation in Europe and the world,

and the rise of a new, multi-polar world order have
everywhere increased awareness of the global challenges
which we face today.

The point is therefore the creation of a world peace order... This new order
could become a reality if we consider the following five main challenges:
1) whether we are in favor of human rights and the right to
self-determination all over the world;
2) whether we are in favor of cooperative security in all
regions of the world;
3) whether we manage to achieve substantial progress on
achieving a strict policy against the distribution of
weapons of mass destruction and the control of export
qfweapons...;
4) whether we can overcome the economic border between
the North and the South;
5) whether we help to end mankind's war against nature.

The Paris meeting of the CSCE (in which the Slovenes participated as a
marginal and unresolved factor) clearly indicated the direction of European
and world progress: military "hardware" needs to be eliminated. Heavy
weapons should disappear together with the grand illusions of the modern
era. They have, according to Peter Mangold, confused the concept of
security with the concept of threat. Traditional notions introduced in the late
forties interpret security as a competitive field. The new notion is based on

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 Dimitrij Rupel: Slovenia in Post-Modern Europe

the belief that security could be "distributed," and that each country receives
its share. This is the so-called "collective security" which has its precedent
in the Vienna Congress of 1815, now an option only after the fall of
Communism and the end of the bipolar, competitive order.
In its polemics with Yugoslavia, Slovenia dared to create its own
national state. I agree with those who say that it is possible to transcend
national borders and the state only once they actually exist. This was the
idea of the Yugoslav Communists who wanted to leap over, or rather,
repress, the bourgeois order, market economy, capitalism, and individual and
national rights. In post-modern Europe, the concept of a national state is
giving way to inter-national and super-state combinations while, in line with
its conservatism, it retains the content of national states, content which could
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not, in the past, exist without a state framework. The Slovene national state
will be a temporary solution in European progress, and it will persist as long
as other European national states. The core of the Slovene confrontation
with the Yugoslav state was that, at the moment of European integration,
Yugoslavs wanted to lead us to such a solution as would set Yugoslavia, and
not Slovenia, side by side with European nation states. I have frequently
stated that Slovenia is willing to "renounce" its sovereignty to Brussels and
Strasbourg, but not to Belgrade. A European official, Sigmund Tyszkiewicz,
said in 1987, "The need for the establishment of a market comparable to the
American one is evident. Europe exploits only a part of the domestic market
with 320 million consumers. Our current structure of national states costs a
great deal of money and enables our competitors to divide and control us."
Let us, for a moment, linger on the link between the Slovene state in
formation and the democratic movement and post-modernism. Slovene
statehood has cultural roots. Slovene national awareness is—as with many
other nations (years ago, Milan Kundera wrote about the Czech case)—
largely a product of cultural and literary efforts which started in the
eighteenth century. I myself have written forcefully about this, and in 1976,
dedicated my doctoral thesis to it: Slovene Literature as a Herald and
Instigator of National Liberation (Svobodne besede, Koper 1976). It
proposes that, in a certain period, Slovene culture was compensation, or a
substitute, for a Slovene state, which had serious consequences both for its
civil structure and its aesthetic values. Culture instead of a state!
It is characteristic of Slovene cultural processes that they have relatively
accurately and clearly reflected Slovene national, or rather, state,
consciousness. The poet, France Preseren (1800-1849), assisted national
liberation mostly because he used the Slovene language, thus proving that it
had literary dignity, and the Slovene (consequently, anti-German) spirit was

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a literary theme for Levstik, JurCiC, Kersnik, Stritar and Tavcar. Their
literary heroes were the heroes of the Slovene nation and, in the end, they
were always victorious—unlike European parallel models.
A later writer, Ivan Cankar (1876-1918), renounced nationalism for
socialism, which later became a new compensation for the lack of a Slovene
state. After 1918, many Slovene intellectuals believed that a Slavic, or even
Yugoslav, community was an appropriate solution for Slovene national
problems. This is particularly true of Marxists. Josip Vidmar, in 1932,
placed this issue in the context of a cultural vision. According to Vidmar,
other nations achieved their fulfillment in the political and military spheres,
while Slovenes built their state with art and culture. It has become evident
that it was impossible to create a Slovene state without politics and the army;
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so the Slovene state has been created by anti-socialist politics and an anti-
socialist army. To be fair to socialist and communists, it must be said that
despite their mistakes and sins, they bequeathed the foundations for a state in
the national liberation war between 1941 and 1945. But for the revolu-
tionaries and Marxists, a state was not important since they aspired to an
international communist community and this was actually realized in the
Yugoslav mini-empire. In order for Slovenia to become a democratic and
European country, this empire needed to be ruthlessly destroyed.
As becomes Slovene tradition, the Slovene cultural intelligentsia was at
the center of political events which helped to establish parliamentary
democracy. This took part in the formulation of the new Slovene
Constitution and in the realization of many political drives which led to the
declaration of Slovene independence on 26 June 1991.
Two questions are now raised: Is the Slovene culture which helped
create the state becoming lost together with Slovene statehood—along with
nationalism and socialism? Is Slovene statehood retaining or acquiring a
cultural character due to such cultural bases? The answer to the second
question is relevant in the context of this article.
Despite its out-of-time and eternal character, culture is an integral
component of the post-modern paradigm. It could be claimed that the new
Slovene state enjoys good conditions for its integration in the new European
framework, thanks to its built-in critical and suspicious attitude towards
weapons and modem industrial "hardware" (as opposed to culture, which is
"software")- In order to become a post-modern European state and a part of
the European Community, Slovenia must meet certain conditions:
1. Culture (software, design, research, education,...) cannot be (together with
the army) a means of political struggle and national assertion ("culture
instead of a state"), but must become a clear aim.

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2. Culture in the new state must be properly funded and it must show (long-
term) economic results.
3. It should eschew nationalism and any form of national hatred, exclusivity
and populism; consequently, the Slovene political structure needs to be
rearranged.
4. Instead of the bipolar (anti-Yugoslav, anti-socialist...) political structure
which was needed during the creation of the Slovene state, a multi-polar
political structure should be encouraged.
All this is, in a sense, already happening. Slovene politicians and people
of culture have the task of thoroughly considering the consequences of the
new European context in which they work. They/we will succeed in this
only by encouraging international contacts and obstructing the retrograde
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processes which arc destroying a fair part of former Yugoslavia and might
even threaten the young Slovene state.

(November 1991)

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