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Where there is no law, but every man does what is right in his own eyes, there is the least of real liberty
Henry M. Robert

Romania: from NATOmania To Serbomania

12 May, 1999 - 00:00

By Andre CORNEA, Professor of Philosophy, Bucharest University
The decision to open the air space of Romania to NATO's warplanes made
by the government last week has become the most important decision ever
taken by a non-Communist government of that country since the death of
Nicolae Ceausescu, for Romania was swept with Serbomania after the first
NATO strike on Serbia. What I call Serbomania may be defined as an absolutely
imbalanced, biased, nervous, emotional, pro-Serbian approach without any
serious rational arguments.

This outbreak of Serbomania makes still more interesting the fact that
only a few months before the same country saw a flourishing of NATOmania.
Indeed, before this war started, the idea of joining NATO was not only
Romania's official policy: it enjoyed tremendous popularity among the people
and was supported by the mass media. According to one public opinion poll,
almost 90% of Romanians welcomed admission to NATO. Most newspapers and
other media enthused over the prospects of NATO expansion in the hope that
Romania will also get a membership card. When in 1997, at the NATO summit
in Madrid, Romania's candidature was tabled, public enthusiasm abated a
little. But this is not yet a sufficient explanation of today's open hostility
toward NATO.

And the point is not that many Romanian journalists and commentators
have now launched an anti-NATO campaign or sided with the Serbs. What is
strange is the argument itself put forward in defense of Serbia. It is
generally dominated by the idea expressed by Harvard Professor Samuel Huntington
who foresaw that post-Cold War international politics would turn to a clash
of civilizations. Accordingly, many people regard the Balkan conflict as
struggle between the "Western" and the "Orthodox" civilizations, i.e.,
the one to which Serbia and Bosnia belong.

Nobody seems to be losing sleep over ethnic cleansing and the dire straits
of Kosovo refugees, Muslims by religion, as well as over the ruthlessness
of Slobodan Milosevic, who is not an Orthodox patriarch but a wily ex-Communist
apparatchik. Well-balanced arguments have vanished from the newspaper pages:
now the latter attack NATO for waging a war against "heroic" Serbia and
call upon the public to sympathize with "our Orthodox brothers."

Well-known Romanian journalist Cristian-Tudor Popescu, deputy editor-in-chief
of the newspaper Adevarul with the largest print-run in the country, has
gone even further, writing that "human rights are only an instrument the
West uses in its struggle for world supremacy. The United States... wants
to ruin independent countries throughout the world in order to extend its
economic and cultural hegemony. Serbia seems to be only one of the targets
in the influence campaign for control now underway."

"Thus," continues Mr. Popescu, "the Romanians must join forces with
the Serbs and Russians in an anti-Western crusade." People have forgotten,
for some reason, that Romania has always prided in itself as an "islet
of Latin culture surrounded by a Slav sea." What is more, the Romanians
always regarded Russia, unlike Serbia or Bulgaria, as an enemy. Especially
in the Communist period.

Most Romanians are Orthodox, as are the Greeks, Serbs, Bulgarians, and
Russians. However, this has not prevented them from fearing the Russians,
supporting the Bulgarians, and envying the Greeks over the last two centuries.
And if the Serbs really hold a special place in the Romanian national heart,
I suspect this has been associated not with the so-called "Slavic brotherhood,"
but rather with human reminiscences of the fact that both Tito and Ceausescu
treated Russia as a common threat to their attempts to pursue a more independent
political course.

Indeed, the weakest explanations of why peoples love or hate each other
are usually found in "history" or the concept of "civilization": cynics
and opportunists easily adjust both things to the "national interests"
of the current day. Serbomania and NATOmania rather express some deeper
local apprehensions. Many Romanians compare Kosovo with Transylvania where
Hungarians have local majorities. They believe that if Kosovo breaks away
from Serbia, Transylvania might also leave Romania one fine day.

But even if Serbia loses Kosovo after all, this will happen not because
the West wants it. It will happen because the Serb government has thwarted
all hopes for the peaceful coexistence of Kosovo Albanians and Serbs with
its cruelty and intolerance. Luckily, things in Romania are going differently,
and representatives of the Hungarian minority are full-fledged members
of the ruling government coalition. However, owing to terrible economic
conditions, many people are today deeply disappointed with this government,
and this is why they oppose everything it says or does.

Of course, not all public voices joined the chorus of Serbomania: in
mid-April, some prominent intellectuals published a manifesto defending
NATO policies and calling on the government not to turn back the clock.
But most people are likely to go on listening to sirens' songs about "Slavic
brotherhood" until the economic situation in the country improves. Hence,
Serbomania is only one more symptom of great uncertainty: it shows a deep
lack of confidence so many people in Eastern Europe feel about their countries,
their past, their future, and about themselves.

PS. The editor received this article from the Syndicate Project
International Organization as part of its media program. Answering our
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