"However, the difference between worlds
can be found in that all that belongs to the
one, does not belong to the other."

Nelson Goodman, Ways of Worldmaking

In this text I would like to suggest one of the possible interpretations of the history of the inception and activities of the NGO (Non-Governmental Organizations) scene in Belgrade¹. Parallel Worlds, the title I chose for this article, may perhaps seem confusing. Nevertheless, with it I wish to preempt any eventual misunderstanding in regard to the intentions of this text. Parallel Worlds carries with it the aspiration of announcing the central theme and the main direction in which the sociopolitical analysis of the alternative civic option in Serbia - founded during the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia - is heading. I begin with the assumption that the Belgrade NGO network is moving toward a new parainstitutionalized type of activity inside the civic scene of the FR Yugoslavia.

Three ideal types of strategy on that civic scene - Critical, Nomadic, and Parallel - can be (re)constructed. That is, there is no "natural" place which this work seeks to bring to light, no "substantial" space which needs to be revealed. On the contrary, it is with this text that I wish to "construct" and in some way promote this nearly invisible scene. The civic scene is outlined as a decentralized, diffused social model in which there is no privileged place, no center from which all the activities of the Belgrade NGO scene emanate.

Here I attempt to reconsider the social, political and legal consequences of the activities of that civic, at the same time real and virtual scene, which announces the possibility of being the constant corrective of the political society. This new scene did arise out of the context of undeveloped forms of civic society, which, just like any ecosystem, had to constantly cleanse itself of political pollution. On the other hand, a political decontamination of civic society presupposes constant correction of the administrative complex, which in turn must ensure political and legal systems that will protect the citizens from possible state oppression. According to its regulatory principles, a democratic state must function as the operational service of civic society. Only the states which respect the general will of the people are able to depend on the stable legality, and more or less consensual legitimacy.

To get right to the point, as a new social, political and cultural fact, the Belgrade NGO network (the one that is in question here), arose out of the direct opposition to the binary logic of political differentiation. This logic has (seemingly) split the whole society into two antagonistic camps. Even though the place for self-exposure, which I will call here the third option, was becoming narrower, the protagonists of the so-called "Other Serbia"² bravely tried to show that they have a different project of a civic society. They were unwilling to give in to the general practice of political differentiation, as they were led by the correct attitude that civic society cannot be imposed from above, because it simply (self)expresses from within³. The NGO network did not permit itself to be drawn into the binary political option that was imposed on Serbia by the "Socialist" government, as well as its mostly nationalist-oriented opposition. In contrast to the nationalist opposition in Belgrade, the NGO scene did not indicate any desire to become the officially simulated, manufactured opposition of the regime in Serbia. Faced with the problem of political legitimization, the government authority almost "legalized", in other words, institutionalized the opposition, and, in the process, the multi-party system. On the one hand, the opposition took upon itself the coerced and thankless task of feigning political pluralism in the Parliament, while on the other it acted out an open society at mass rallies. Perhaps this, hopefully temporary simulation will some day produce some real effect. In contrast to the nationalist-oriented opposition, the civic alternative stood cautiously on the sidelines, refusing to participate in the seductive announcement of redistribution of political power and distribution of administrative authority.

The NGO scene managed to maintain control over the displacing technique, which permitted it to avoid the parasitic symbiosis between the authorities and its nationalistic opposition. The public sphere in Serbia was colonized by those political formations which sought a privileged role in the redistribution of current power, as well as an exclusive primacy in the general circulation of authority. The society has been reduced to a specific political zone, which is based on profit of simple party polarity. Crossed-over, self-serving interests are reciprocally legitimized by a populist conception of democracy, that has totally steeped in nationalistic jargon. This pre-political concept of democracy in Serbia draws its energy from "the soul of the Serbian people", "the greatness of a nation awakened", and "the spirit of national community". The profound banality of such rhetorical figures inhabited the entire symbolic space in Serbia. Of course, such slogans of the day were intended to preserve the nationalistic fervor in Serbia. Public space for civic initiatives had been entirely endangered. In order to survive within the global political surrounding, the NGO's had to form local counter-alliances. The NGO network could only (self)constitute in a new, nearly invisible space, not controlled by the "Socialist" regime and its nationalist opposition. The energetic self-defense of the civic perspective could only be nurtured at a great distance from state "Socialism", and, of course, from socialized nationalism. Only under the conditions of a global withdrawal strategy could the NGO scene develop its own trans-political position, together with its profound moral sovereignty. Only those who did not expose themselves to the coercion of structural assimilation shall have the opportunity to construct an Other, Different, Parallel World.

The concept of the parallel world did not arise from theoretical curiosity, nor from discursive inquisitiveness. On the contrary, this concept came out of the burning questions of the moment, and it uses the language of necessity. That concept originated in the context of frightening explosion of negative signs and events which "madly" multiplied all over the former Yugoslavia. It followed many years of confrontation with the new, until then unknown, waves of hatred that appeared all around us. It focused a new experience, an experience of one's personal political and, above all, cultural milieu as an unfriendly territory! The Project of the Parallel Serbia originated in a brave attempt of the protagonists of the Belgrade NGO scene to protect and systematically differentiate themselves from the crude, primitive order, in which the worst forms of aggression, crime, xenophobia, racism, were intermixed. These are national and religious specters and fanaticisms with which we are all too well acquainted, although we did not recognize them in time, and did not think them through thoroughly. The frightening signs of brutal nationalism violently infiltrated the entire government machine, as well as all the mechanisms of authority and modes of power. That militant populism suddenly forced itself onto this anachronistic society, which, under the attack of official nationalism, completely imploded. Despite an unavoidable implosion, this worn-out system attempted in vain to revive itself through militaristic fascination, and sought rebirth through the "discourse of war". The "Socialist" government and the nationalistic opposition were immersed in this yearning for battle ("la nostalgie du front").

In both camps, war patriotism revived homeopathically the myth of the Greater Serbia, on whose behalf, literally, the most senseless words were uttered, and the most horrible crimes committed. War was imposed as a pathological form of transition, as a demonic appearance of transformation. The NGO scene in Serbia, including the representatives of the Belgrade Circle, refused to participate in "the conformist correction" of the old, perishing world which had to be hastily abandoned⁴. The attitude of firm denial of any arrangement with that "exotic" world in Serbia - a world which had not as yet succeeded in "defeating the plague or overcoming metaphysics" - was announced in the first issue of the official publication of the Belgrade Circle.

In the Introduction to the first issue of the international journal Belgrade Circle, a complete abandonment of the old, pre-modern world in Serbia was announced - an abandonment of a world in which the difference between the striving for heights and the plunging into the abyss are hardly noticeable. How could one understand an environment in which the most hideous crimes were committed in the name of the noblest ideals of the "Heavenly Serbia"? For every lucid citizen who had no difficulty in assigning a name to an awful Reality, the monsters of collective glee and traditional euphoria belonged to the system of radical evil. It was clearly evident to the members of the NGO scene in Belgrade that pragmatic rationalization of civic society belongs to a project of a future social system. A displaced, indirect strategy of public activity of the NGO scene in Serbia was announced in the aforementioned Introduction: "The critical energy mobilized 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 Belgrade 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 immature 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"⁵.

Why had The Belgrade Circle and the greater part of the NGO network in Belgrade chosen such an indirect and certainly long-range strategy of parallel action? Why had not a choice been made for other, more direct, certain and efficient ways of local exposure and self-establishing? Why this need for persistent distancing from the dangerous proximity of the government authorities and the opposition, this constant withdrawal from solidarity between militant socialism and nationalism?

Perhaps it might be in order to offer here a warning with regard to this seemingly rhetorical question. Namely, this question could equally well be answered by those who, for whatever reason, decided to stay in Serbia, as well as by those who decided, either temporarily or permanently, to leave the country. The latter could cast a glance backward at their destroyed homeland, at that place of painful memories, the terrifying toponym of memory. However, those who decided to remain at the crime scene could testify to what transpired during the general incrimination of the society, especially in the period of nationalist mummification of "really existing Socialism".

In spite of the pressures of state nationalism, which for a while functioned as the official ideology in Serbia, the intellectuals in the Belgrade NGO scene did not fall for the political trick of nationalist selfinterpretation by the Serbian regime. The arrogant abrogation of the second Yugoslavia was interpreted in this scene as an expression of perverted particularization of small nations which dreamed of becoming great. The short-lived course of nationalism had to ensure a legitimizing alibi to those political regimes on the territory of former Yugoslavia who, together with their nationalistic oppositions, emerged out of the old, Communist nomenclature. The emphasized shift of the ideological center (the totalitarian Communist system was replaced by nationalist fundamentalism) did not yield a structural liberalization of the society. What was lacking was a total democratization of the administrative and political complex. The programmed attack on Western culture and civilization ("The New World Order") had as its goal the protection of an autocratic society and its governmentalized economy from the infiltration of polytheistic tendencies (popularly known as "privatization"). Instead of the economic dissemination of the capital- process, it was precisely through war - i.e. through bloodshed - that in Serbia a centralized monotheistic model of the economy, which appears as a poor parody of industrial accumulation, was imposed. What emerged instead was the singular monopolization of power in whose midst operated the competing egoisms of the government and the opposition. The entire political space had been petrified by their joint egotism and attempts to trick each other. From such a molten midst emerged a gigantic operation of irreversible monopolization at all levels of social power. The virus of twofold political coercion, occasionally neutralized within the struggle of principled egoisms, penetrated through all the zones of the social system and colonized the entire life-world. The "Socialist" regime and its nationalist opposition did not hide that their one-off competition in anti-Western propaganda had place in the civilizational surrounding which they rhetorically denied. Given that the naive abolition of Modernity forcibly unfolded on the ground of modernism itself, it was only a matter of time when the local chain of violence would settle scores with the international community. The series of "peace-keeping interventions" had placed the onus on the expansionist goals of a regime, which did not know how to protect itself from the international trauma of submission. Not even the monotonous rhetoric of the official pacifism ("Peace has no alternative"), which appeared in the post-Dayton phase, could remove the traces of such deadly politics. Those who willingly created this war, and who irresponsibly reduced tactical competition between the Republics to strategic antagonism between the States, could not expect to be showered with international respect. In spite of the real defeat of the project of the "Greater Serbia", symbolic insistence on a national identity did not loose significance. Such a nearly consensual identity became the dominant form of social reflection. For this reason, it is not surprising that the imagined superiority of the nationalists draws its strength from the resources of this provincial, local, populist culture. The collectivist euphoria undoubtedly revealed that the citizens of Serbia were still unprepared to accept the principles of a rational, personal responsibility. The self-conscious actions of the civic forms of living - their particular contribution to a society which requires structural innovation - will for a long time be a question of systematic undermining. In nationalist circles, civic forms of solidarity are really condemned to a life of diaspora, whose center is elsewhere.

Deprived of the understandings and sympathy of their political surroundings, the representatives of the NGO scene reverted again to their original summons with their initial plea for caution. With that strength of new repulsion, they laid ground for a permanent (self)identification of civic forms of society. They definitely lost every illusion in connection with the productive rationalization of the old system. There was no readiness for the application of critical energy to a destroyed model. In any case, the activists in the NGO scene in Belgrade took on an Enlightened theoretical and, of course, political culture within which it became evident that the global project of the critical tradition had suffered a collapse. Nobody believed any longer in the productive effects of persistent engagement in a critical strategy. It became widely believed that every critical challenge to the existing system in Serbia is immediately integrated and transformed into its opposite. It also appeared that every negation upon its recurrence is changed into an affirmation. Paradoxically, critical gestures almost parasitically revived the subject which they wished to abolish. It is precisely this unproductive critical urge that appears as the central motive of political action of the Serbian opposition. Right from its dissident beginnings, the opposition was obsessed with its proximity to power. In the flaring conflicts on many political fronts (party coalitions) where exhausting battles were waged for the increase of power and government, the civic option cautiously stood on the sidelines. It quietly took a depoliticized position from which it did not wish to offer attractive programs or engaging solutions. Such a practice of the normative project of society can function only within the (post)traditional social complex. Who may be ready to expose oneself in an incurable vulgarity, in order to publicly express what is the allegedly unspoken truth for everyone? It is only those aggressive appropriators of the (political) convictions of others who permit themselves such an outrage, to represent the conscience of the people, nation, class and party. Inside this "spider's web of power and authority", a fierce battle for prestige was waged for the empty place of the leader, or the father of a nation. In this, even good intentions were articulated in a manner of false superiority. The structural rationality of an acephalous society, freed from charismatic personalities, still has no place here! The skeptical distance - that amplified caution of the NGO scene - thus appears exceptionally significant, especially if we take into account the latent possibility of a general amalgamation of heterogeneous social formations into a unified national front. Because of this front, the bullying rhetoric and aggressive propaganda of the government and the opposition could equally well adapt to every political option and to every political program. It is because of this that one finds the painless shifts in the voting patterns in Serbia. In truth, Serbia is ruled by a hybrid virus whose trade mark is "muddling". The political history of this "muddling" has yet to be written, a history in which the intellectuals close to the government and the opposition are particularly caught up. The transversals of power and the overlapping of authority are equally adopted by both sides. The marginalized NGO scene had understandably suggested to party-affiliated intellectuals that the question does not only concern the ascent to power, but also the undermining of one's own authority. In the Serbian political space, as with any other place of public activity, nobody is "innocent"; everyone can at the same time be both the object and the instrument of power. By contrast with perverted political manners which systematically reproduce the chains of power, the civic initiatives are actively struggling against those forms of authority in which they could participate. The NGO scene withdrew from the political space, from the dense appearances of power which systematically influence other, peripheral techniques of social discipline. Whoever wishes to escape from the risk of totalizing political unification must radically step out of this enchanted, global & local circulation of power. Such a proposition, even when led by profound political passions, cannot be fulfilled by the critical mind. Its germinal formulas, its all too quickly spent undermining resources, are irreparably reintegrated in the overpopulated space of a political sense⁶.

It appears that this figure of spent and concluded critical meaning is destined to remain in this space. Under the force of further transmission, the critical tradition warns us that "politics must be like Fate - to have history as a career, sovereignty as an emblem, and sacrifice as an approach". Is there a need to expose ourselves to this, in our case, impressive history of the political nationalist sacrifice? Do civic forms of society have a reason to associate with and critically fix themselves to a particular model of political authority which is getting too isolated and justly renounced?

In spite of the daily compulsion of dramatic events on the territory of the former Yugoslavia, representatives of the Belgrade NGO scene did not wish to allow for any sort of premature or inadequately thought-out concession to the Serbian authorities. Furthermore, it never succumbed to immediate effects of the criticisms of the regime by the opposition, criticisms which daily dithered between naiveté and cynicism. The NGO scene did not wish to assume a parasitic role over the political effects which the opposition occasionally, or permanently, seized from the authorities. On the contrary, it reasonably pointed out the paradox of irresponsible and undifferentiated criticism of the ruling system. Let us remember the infantile populist slogan "All, all, all!" (so dear to the Serbian nationalist opposition), which always evoked fear. By contrast with this populist call with which the collectivist movement was staged, the NGO scene patiently announced the spirit of a new hope, a rational wish that the future be obtained by the culture of small steps. In that culture there is no room for a perverted, hyperdimentionalized political banality. Today, only those who lack style on the Serbian political scene can be assimilated and absorbed by the nationalist orgies.

The representatives of the NGO scene reacted with a gesture of sovereign indifference to the violent, almost euphoric stress on national politics. They refused to participate in the significant process of ethnic and national legitimization of a regime which once again is assuming the primacy of politics over all other spheres of public life.

The general nationalist exultation caused the representatives of the NGO network to withdraw from the public scene in Serbia. Evil was radicalized to such an extent that no rational motivation existed for refined corrections of authority and unintrusive social reform. This withdrawal and this marginalization were unavoidable.

Invisible positioning through the fragmented NGO network became a question of basic moral and political conviction. The obtaining of a new, marginal, or, if you like, nomadic style of activity - that subtle art of sudden disappearance and surprising re-appearance - imposed itself as the primary civic task. Caught in the middle of an expanding social "desert", the representatives of the NGO scene strove to conquer the nomadic strategy, which will not transform itself into a static space that can be easily appropriated. In the worst case scenario, there could have been a void, a gap in which others could break-in undisturbed. In other words, such a nomadic strategy requires constant mobility and persistent maneuvering. Of course, this exterritorial game of hide-and-seek, this trembling of the nomadic form, could not harm the ruling regime in Serbia. To put it simply, this changing form permitted the citizens not to fall into the shifting sands of nationalistic euphoria.

In this regard, the project of "The Flying Classroom/Workshop"⁷ (FCB) represents an exemplary model of the efficient use of nomadic practice. Caught in the middle of the "nationalist desert", the members of this project, the so-called FCB's (intellectuals from the territory of the former Yugoslavia), bravely practiced the spirit of nomadic solidarity. They acted with their influence across strange shores and hidden coves of the then already war-torn Yugoslavia. Of course, MCB's did not wander the boastful highways of local politics and media. Quite on the contrary, these adventurers of the marginal always hovered around the edges of periphery. Such a situationalistic crossing of dangerous grounds, such a contingent fleeting across unfriendly territory, was almost unbearable. It appears that the nomadic strategy, like an endlessly moving spiral, necessarily appropriates from its actors any firm foundation. The nomadic strategy is a particularly wasteful and exhausting form of action, since at the very moment of its realization, it demands movement and disappearance. Loyalty to such an ecstatic form of action threatens self-entrapment of the protagonists of the NGO scene, especially when it denies them any, even the smallest degree of certainty. It is practically impossible to extend out to the limits of such an invisible motion, such rhythms of sudden appearance and disappearance, in which things could really happen. The absence of momentary effects and the lack of short-term consequences are included in the logic of the nomadic gesture! Such a gesture relies on the postponed and invisible results of its action. Despite an impressive persistence, the NGO scene still could not be effectively realized through the practice of nomadic influence. This strategy became its delayed fascination and perhaps its complete anti-destiny.

The unusual rivalry of the critical and the nomadic model could not ensure a stable consensus on the question of (non)political practice of non-government organizations in Belgrade. Under the pressure of a specifically Serbian situation, this new form of civic engagement sloppily involved itself in daily political events. Numerous motifs, which effected the transformation of the non-governmental institutions into the anti-governmental ones, could be listed: the social, the legal, the political and cultural motifs. In the forced conditions of war, nationalism, the shortage of legal procedures, and constant postponement of democracy, non-government organizations were exposed to the danger of becoming a party workshop for the politically affiliated marketplace. Despite the occasional stepping out into "global politics", the activists of the Belgrade NGO scene did not betray their principal criterion, the basic demand of a civic society. They disassociated themselves from the primary and secondary effects of the national homogenization in Serbia. Moreover, the NGO scene took upon itself a big risk of suggesting, with great foresight, the new culture of singularization.

A culture which insists on operating in the first person singular is forced into staging a strong crisis of collectivist representation. The undermining of representative culture (the global practice of speaking and acting for someone else!) became the minimal guarantee for the correct exposure of a civic option. In the programmatized concern for the individual, such molecular structures of civic society had to be intertwined, so as to achieve the traffic density which is beyond the scope of any administrative control. The protagonists of the Second Serbia did not wish to overcome, or to, on a higher level, keep the conflicting elements of the old, populist Serbia. The particular interest of the authorities and the narrow-minded ambitions of the opposition, both still depended on the "mass loyalty" of the privileged ones. The structural coercion which is connected with the machines of daily obedience - the traditional mechanism of a political monopoly - could not (re)integrate itself into these, as I would call them, "Imaginary Institutions". In this network of "independent instances" the principle of state loyalty did not dominate; the one that did, was the principle of civic solidarity. The Belgrade NGO scene persistently insisted on the creation of a new theoretical and practical outline, inside which it could build a different sort of civic complexity.

A great wave of delegitimization of power tended in this direction here, in Serbia, where the authorities could no longer possibly count on an "intimate agreement with the laws" that were otherwise voted for behind the back of the public. The representatives of some opposition coalitions and blocs occasionally took part in the Parliamentary conspiracies against the citizens. The energetic invoking of human rights paradigmatically showed that the NGO scene did not accept the rule of power, but the rule of law; it refused to accept political games, and accepted legal norms.

In any case, the problem of the rule of law became the central theme of the entire NGO network in Serbia. The constant effort to remove the concept of human rights from the academic frame, and raise it to the basic level of the legal and social system, marks the key moment in the development of the civic consciousness on the Belgrade NGO scene. The legal obligation of sparing the citizen from a dependence, a dependence whose sole objective could not be the citizen, became the primary legal, political and social obligation. In truth, the unavoidable turnover in the order of business of solving civic problems occurred in favor of human rights. The sole responsibility for this, without question, goes to the NGO scene, which did everything to educate, on the basis of the logic of Peace and Reason, the new, different, Parallel Serbia. The objective acknowledgment of formal universality can pacify uncontrolled spontaneity, and it can bridle the cheap expression of passions and feelings, that in Serbia, as a rule, had always resulted in hatred, aggression and war. Of course, a diffused nationalism stubbornly tries to survive outside the sphere of influence of the universal idea of human rights. Under the old regime, the international concept of law and justice will never become the political law of the peoples.

The delicate work on the legal reform of a society, the lawful arrangement of the life-world, presents the most significant intention of the Belgrade NGO scene. The conviction that the legal sector and its infrastructure need to create a formal outline for further rationalization of the remaining segments of an as yet incompletely differentiated society, is taking root. Legal procedures temporarily took over the risk of evolving the political subsystem, the legal system, public administration, market economy, free media, culture, etc. Of course, legal rationality cannot efficiently establish norms for all the other (competing) subsystems inside a society. Molecular forms of this scene consensually congregate and network with solidarity, so as to permit the potential basis of civic self-regulation. In the absence of permanent social, political, union and professional movements in Serbia, the NGO scene took upon itself the responsibility of generating new, socially integrated forms of civic life. Here we find the political, moral, legal and cultural resources of the NGO scene in Belgrade. The NGO scene is not ready to easily give them away to the government-party complex, or to voluntarily permit them to be tampered with by the political formations of the opposition. The NGO scene never participated in the opposition's fight for joint acceptance, in their fight for a new redistribution, in their struggle for social respect. Moreover, its practice and production were forced by the establishment into the darkness of a nearly private preserve. Expelled from public life and obscured, today the NGO scene does not wish to fit into their world-view, to fill in their voids, to be their ideal absence. However the repertoire of civic culture may differ from the stereotypical nationalist narrations⁸, it will always be represented as the latest, most representative icon of the national culture. In this charming fraud - the one that suggests that a great harmony will not come from the negation and loss of all traditions, but through creative blending of different spiritual traditions, each one heading toward the same (national) aim - one ought not to participate! This staunch refusal is the elementary ethos of an emancipated citizens, who should not fall for the anachronistic courting by the nationalist opposition, nor accept the seductive offers made by the "Socialist" government.

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