The Politics of Knowledge of Difference:
Thoughts and Contradictions in Feminist Politics in the Anti-war Movement in Belgrade from 1991 to 1999

Lepa Mladjenovic <lepa@EUnet.yu> writes and works for the Autonomous Women's Center Against Sexual Violence and Women in Black Against War in Belgrade, Serbia. This article has been abridged by Selma Sternlieb from a much longer essay about women in zones of conflict.

"Good Girls go to heaven, bad girls to LJUBLJANA" was the title of the Fourth Yugoslav Feminist Meeting which was held in May 1991 in Ljubljana, Slovenia. At that time, the organizers could not have imagined the pain that would devastate many women across the homeland in the next years of war and fascism.

In the beginning of the nineties, women's groups were in the first phase of actively organizing, and all these small steps were historic moves. Feminists of the Former Yugoslavia were planning to organize a meeting of the SOS Hotlines, to discuss for the first time matters of male violence with activists from Ljubljana (Slovenia), Zagreb (Croatia), and Belgrade--the first three feminist services for women survivors of violence. New initiatives were organized to support women in policy making. For the first time, a forum titled Women's Parliaments appeared in Belgrade and Zagreb. There was a Women's Party in Belgrade, and a Women's Lobby in Belgrade and Zagreb. Feminists across the former homeland were collaborating, copying ideas from each other, having fun together. There were discussions about laws to be changed, about women in parties to be supported, about launching women's studies. More theoretical work on 'women's questions' evolved. Feminist lesbian initiatives in Croatia and Slovenia were discussed. Connections among feminists across the continents were on the way. None of the groups had space or money of their own.

At the time, in the state now called the former Yugoslavia there were 22 million inhabitants, 21 language spoken, 25 ethnic groups, six republics and the Adriatic sea. Thirty-nine percent of the workforce was made up of women. Among feminists, neither nationalism nor abortion were issues. A 1976 law made abortion legal and free. More than 70% of families had washing machines. Kindergartens were free, although there were not enough of them. Education and medical care were also state-covered and free. Trade unions, instead of protecting worker's rights, made sure that workers and their families went on vacations. "Communism before '91," we used to say, "was paradise for children."

On June 27, 1991 the lesbian and gay group ARKADIA was holding its first public discussion in Belgrade on the Right to be Different, when the 7:30 pm state news announced that the first Slovenian soldier was killed by a Yugoslav Army soldier in Slovenia.

The Founding of Women in Black

In September '91 the Peace Caravan--four buses full of European pacifists--came to Belgrade from Zagreb and Ljubljana. The Caravan was an initiative launched by the Helsinki Citizens Assembly. Thousands of people joined hands in the streets of Sarajevo at the end. It was there we first heard that in Italy there are Women in Black groups who protest the Italian government's involvement in the Gulf War, and who support Women in Black initiatives in Israel, where, for three years, Women in Black had been protesting the Israeli government's occupation of Palestine.

The first vigil of Women in Black in Belgrade was held on October 9, 1991. In those months, as well, every evening, civil initiatives organized one-hour vigils with candles "for all victims of war" in front of the Serbian parliament. In the next two years there were many peace protests initiated by anti-war intellectuals; by '93, they had become demonstrations against the regime. Women in Black remained the only permanent anti-war public protest.

In the following years in Belgrade, the women's and peace movements were not really connected. But women were in the forefront of the peace initiatives. When the men came on stage they transformed peace initiatives into party demonstrations, and women slowly disappeared from the peace-opposition scene. Some decided that they did not want to be on the streets any more, but set up centers: The Humanitarian Law Fund, the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, and non-governmental organizations which register the state's violations of human rights. More than 25 small non-governmental organizations were founded in Belgrade alone.

Women in Black protested against the Serbian government's war policies, militarism, nationalism, and against male violence. It supported the solidarity of women across enemy lines, and it supported deserters. It held weekly vigils and peace protests, made public statements, published 11 books, and held women's peace workshops. It worked in refugee camps. Weekly meetings analyzed the theoretical position of women in war and militarism.

Women in Black supported national differences and differences due to class, age, social status, sexual preference, marital status, and ableness. We stood for nonviolence and a society free of militarism, male violence, and patriarchy.

For the past eight years I have been involved in anti-war activism in Belgrade, a town which is a symbol of the Serbian regime that manufactures fascist politics and nationalism, and is also filled with killers, war rapists, war profiteers, and nationalists. The war has formed many of us feminists in Belgrade. All of us activists agree that the dictatorship of the Serbian regime must be overturned.

War

In our group is a 17-year-old activist who says, "I was every day working in order to survive war, small things, supporting each other, food, cold, and then at nights I wished that someone would throw a huge bomb--anything--atomic, nuclear bomb, and kill all of us together so that all this horror would be over once and for all."

Another young woman lived through the terror of ethnic cleansing and NATO bombing in Pristina, Kosovo, in spring '99, locked in her own apartment with her family. They could barely see the street they live in through a small hole in the curtain. She said, "The distance between the town, my home, and my soul was immeasurable."

A Bosnian Serbian woman said about her Bosnian Muslim friend, "I remember my neighbor Taiba Hodzic. We used to sit for hours in front of the house and talk, talk, talk. And we laughed. Still now I wear the blue scarf that Taiba gave me before she escaped with her daughter to Munich. She has blue eyes like this scarf. Taiba, my best neighbor, like my sister. Even more. That is why I am silent now and I keep all the beautiful stories for us, so when she comes back we will have something to laugh about."

About five million people of the former Yugoslavia have had to leave their homes at least once. They were called refugees, displaced, exiles, immigrants, deserters. In Kosovo, 700,000 Albanian people were expelled in three months. After that, 200,000 Serbs were expelled. And fascism has not yet crumbled in Serbia.

To Shoot or Not

When a soldier comes to shoot at you or your daughter what should you do? Shoot back or not? This was the first question some of us posed to each other in '91. Yugoslavia had suppressed religion; Marxists used to say: "we shall defend our ideas even if it means blood." By '91 Marxism was no longer popular. But the notion of human rights was absent. Women's groups answered this question out of a political void, faced with their own internalized patriarchy and first steps in feminism.

If we shoot, then there is no end to shooting; we enter the cycle of revenge. If we don't shoot, maybe he will shoot me. Are feminists supposed to be pacifists? How can we be brave feminists if we let them shoot us? How do we redefine courage so that it does not include killing and violence? How do we deal with fear of violence if we do not shoot?

About 80% of the women in women's and peace groups have said YES to shooting at least once. That shows how deep the patriarchy and war is inside ourselves, and how much militarism and global capitalism are part of our daily lives. Feminist and peace movements still have a long way to go.

What is the Line Between National Feelings and Nationalism?

In the midst of war, when nationalism is used to stir up hatred and death, nationalism is more than a right to think differently. Everyone in the women's network is extremely sensitive to this issue. Not one activist calls herself a nationalist. But many have national feelings and defend their Nation. Some can't hear the Other. Where is the line between not hearing someone of different nationality and excluding her? How do our nationalist feelings distort what we hear from the Other? How do we listen if our nationalist feelings are already part of the listening process?

After one of the workshops on the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo in '99, one woman of Serbian nationality approached an Albanian woman from Kosovo and told her that she was the first Albanian woman she had ever seen in her life. She asked her if what they say about ethnic cleansing is true. The Albanian woman said she would tell the Serb what she knew. The Serbian woman looked at her and asked, "How can I believe you?"

In the Belgrade women's network, nationalism is the least-discussed issue. Some of us lack the courage or knowledge to face all the pain behind it. Nationalism is the issue that separates feminists.

In Serbia, the fascist system feeds on national feelings. The system produces the national feelings and then uses them to promote fear, control, and hatred of Others. It is difficult to have any national feelings and not be part of the nationalist discourse. It is almost impossible to have a national identity and not be nationalist. The force of fascism is so strong that the question here is what are feminist counterforces that enable us to survive, free of fascism?

Collective Guilt--Individual Responsibility

If we belong to a state or nation that creates terror, where is our collective responsibility?

In '96 I told a friend from Belgrade who was going to Sarajevo: "Before you talk to women, tell them who you are, what you were doing during the war in Bosnia, and how you feel about the fact that Serbian soldiers laid siege to the city for three and half years." She was furious. "I haven't done any of that shooting! Why should I excuse myself for the criminals who are oppressing me here in Belgrade as well?" she asked.

A woman who lived in Bosnia during the war, said, "I would stand in front of the window and watch the planes and the bombs falling and think 'It must be that I am guilty for this horror; these bombs have to kill me.'"

"During the war in Bosnia some of us from the peace groups felt so guilty, sitting here in Belgrade, not being bombed, that the only way to deal with our guilt would be to go to Sarajevo, put ourselves under the grenades, and be killed," said a peace activist in Belgrade in '96.

Guilt feelings are not the way to deal with our individual and collective responsibility. In '92, some of us in Women in Black said: Let's transform the guilt feelings into language and action. It was a very productive attitude, and during the war in Bosnia and Croatia, feminists from different groups worked with refugees, with survivors of war, in humanitarian aid, with women raped in war, sent packages to women in Sarajevo, and founded new women's groups.

Knowledge about ourselves and others helps us deal with our guilt and helps us understand what collective responsibility is. That means wanting to know the crimes done by one's own regime, as well as any government or military formation. It means searching the news and listening to different radio news long into the nights. This in itself is an anti-fascist act, because fascism does not want us to know. Fascism thrives on falsification.

In my 32-flat building, I believe that not more than four or five people know that there were concentration camps in Bosnia in '92 organized by Serbian militaries. Many feminists do not know either.

Knowing all is one way to accept collective responsibility. The politics of the knowledge of difference can inspire ten thousand acts, small and symbolic, empathic, linguistic, and passionate. And collective responsibility is important for communicating with each other, for projecting lives where the different will meet the different.

Relating to Women in Deprivileged Positions

How do you approach a woman who belongs to a national group that is in a diprivileged position? Do you put her in a victim position, do you treat her as an equal, or do you find the third way of relating to her, as an equal with the knowledge of difference?

The liberal approach says: We are all equal. This attitude excludes the whole dimension of painful difference between us. A woman in Pristina, locked in her flat, was put in a victim position. She is equal but different. This difference has to be part of this equality.

The charity approach sees those who have suffered as victims to be helped. This implies a difference in power between the two sides, leaving others in the position of victims to be soothed. This is not a feminist attitude to women, since equality is never reached.

How shall I be equal with the other, yet not erase her history of discrimination and vulnerability? How shall I act with understanding but not with victimization? How do I give her the space to talk and space for myself to hear her? I have my 77 days of NATO bombing, but I must not let my injury erase the possibility to hear her injury. We need to make space for our pain and hers, and not put ourselves in the victim position, even though we have the experience of being victims. It is all possible.

The War Crimes Tribunal and the International Criminal Court recognize the crimes done to people. But feminists hold small tribunals--workshops for women. Workshops promote the recognition process. Some women talk, others listen. Hearing the other is not only a process which educates, but also a process which recognizes the Other. The politics of the knowledge of difference is based on listening, hearing, and recognizing.

During the NATO bombing, the Serbian fascist ideology erased the fact that the cleansing in Kosovo was going on; therefore every act of taking care of the Albanians in Kosovo was an anti-fascist act. If we also know that the fascism of the Serbian regime brought NATO to the region in the first place, then every act of taking care of ourselves can be interpreted as an anti-fascist act as well.

After eight years of wars, nationalism, and fascism, it is clear that fascism relies on producing oblivion, forgetfulness, and the erasure of the Other, as well as on hatred and mistrust of the Other. Fascism relies on falsififying the reality I live in. I believe in the politics of getting to know the differences between us, between each woman individually and all women collectively, I believe that this politics of knowledge of difference is one way of ridding ourselves of fascism and approaching ourselves and others with joy.

May 24-27: International Women's Conference--Kozarac, Bosnia and Herzegovina

These annual conferences, held since 1994, build bridges of peace and trust to develop community in Bosnia. Request information from Emsuda Mujagic, Fax 011-387-79-81-981 or Dolores Gunter, Fellowship of Reconciliation, Box 271 (521 N. Broadway)  Nyack, NY 10960; 914/358-4601; fax 914/358-4924; <doloresg@forusa.org>