In spite of the challenges of the present and the everyday coercion by events, which has not been without its dramatic overtones, the editors have chosen precisely this particular moment in time to bring to light and present to the public the journal of the Belgrade Circle. This "timing" is the editors way of saying that they will not yield to the temptation of the premature and unpremeditated public gesture. It is the intention of the editors to defend the increasingly threatened ethics of public discourse, to responsibly abstain from facile and one-sided declarations. This strategy is an attempt to rescue the already imperilled standing of the public word, which in the deafening media noise has degenerated into ritualised narration and naive transparency. It is our hope that this intellectual caution will not disappoint and discourage our contributors and friends, who have so selflessly helped us and given us unflagging support. It is precisely their solidarity which obliges us to set up the highest standards of self-responsibility, to formulate our own political attitude, and to defend our intellectual and discursive independence.

Already in the early phases of work on this journal, the editors realised that the project was being initiated under nearly impossible conditions. The journal has been born in the midst of a terrifying eruption of negative signs and events; all those national and religious fanaticisms which we knew too well, but never gave enough thought to - the worst kinds of violence, crime, xenophobia and racism - have so quickly multiplied throughout - now former - Yugoslavia, that they have been mixed beyond recognition. And it is these primary signs - violence, passion, hate, anger, intolerance, revenge, primitivism, insanity - which have been thoroughly impressed into all types of public discourse. A specific twilight zone of speech has been created, drawing its energy from the infinite power of myths, from the perverted source of the popular idiom, from the regressive practice of epic narration. The sobering rationality of European modernisation has been rejected here amid bloody havoc, it has been questioned in the general violence. It is our hope that the higher instance of a binding Ratio will ultimately single-out and revoke the naked and raw irrationality, the elementary cruelty which is the foundation of this type of public discourse. This type of arrogant, pretentious speech, which, in the name of some kind of "zoology of peoples" or "botany of ethnicity" disturbs the balance of civilisation and cynically neglects all rational compromise, will finally have to answer to "peace and order". We do not wish to participate in the tortuous process of the post-facto rationalisation of this hopelessly belated form of nationalist discourse. It was precisely this discourse of "origin and soil" which prepared the cover and the alibi for the collective practice of ethnic cleansing. It has aggressively infiltrated the whole apparatus of state, all the mechanisms of authority, all the modes of power; imposing itself on an anachronistic society, it has brought it perilously close to collapse under the onslaught of unbridled nationalism. Used up and useless, this society is in vain attempting to renew itself through a militarist frenzy, to revitalize itself through the "speech of war".

It is our impression that no critical wave can repair this ruined world in the name of which the most mindless words and the most brutal acts have really been said and carried out. The systematic mutual negation of opposed ethnic groups has resulted in the global affirmation of their nationalist pretensions. Direct opposition to traditionalism seems to homeopathically revive the old world, which should be forgotten as soon as possible.

The critical energy mobilised by The Other Serbia has no intention of being parasitically linked to the "one reality which should be saved at any price". On the contrary, the Belgade Circle articulates that alternative scene which readily constructs a different reality, which builds new, parallel worlds. As the public voice of the Belgrade Circle, the editors of this journal will attempt to draw clear distinctions and borders between themselves and the anachronistic and unmatured Serbia which is tired of its years, of its past, of its heritage. Our starting point will not be the old and spent Yugoslavia, even if it commands respect, it will be the idea of a new Europe which does not yet exist, but which we could all build together.

We have no intention of assuming the role of nostalgic guardians of the Old Continent, of nurturing a sentimental memory of the European past. On the contrary, we wish to cooperatively participate in the symbolic process of the creation of a new European spirit, one which will not apply only in the too narrow geopolitical field, from within that administrative entity known as the European Union. We are aware that it is only through the spirit of a new, different and distinct Europe that we can become part of the international community, and participate in the "planetary conversation of peoples". Should it turn out that the spirit of this new Europe eludes us, that we cannot succeed in interiorizing it, we shall not hesitate to herald it persistently.

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