Understanding and explanation of current nationalistic movements and the war in Yugoslavia, although a big challenge both for those within, in the whirlpool and those outside, is obviously a very difficult and complicated task. The more so since the view is significantly moved from analysis of current situations to the analysis of the past. It is interesting that in this interpretational wave of obsession with the past, facts from the past are taken individually, extracted, and yet fit perfectly into the general view of historic injustice which has been experienced, it seems, by all peoples living in this space. Just as it is usually said that everything can be proved through statistics, so, in case of Yugoslavia, it seems that everything can be proved through history. Therefore, the overweighing factor in treating the problem of nationalism is precisely the "understanding" of it, or rather, quasi-understanding in relation to its 'explanation.'

As different from 'understanding,' explanation of nationalism and the war in Yugoslavia starts from some general theory on one hand and concrete facts on the other. Such an approach is reserved exclusively for sociologists and its ability to convince and be favorable to wider circles is extremely limited, bearing in mind its dominantly rationalistic apparatus.

In this work my intention is not to deal with the sociological 'explanation' of nationalism and the war in Yugoslavia. My initial assumption is that social science under existing circumstances is itself helpless to a large extent. Its helplessness however, does not come predominantly out of itself but out of the change of the world around it. It possesses structural helplessness to rule cognitively over a world which escapes it since it is founded on completely different principles from those which present basic assumptions of its existence. Constituted in the industrial world, sociology with the existing apparatus and reformational misconceptions, simply does not function in post-modern civilization. The powerlessness of science is, thus, actually the power of a different world in its attempt to resist control which would eventually be possible through science.

This is the reason why I wish r its outbreak, by a series of 'objective' facts. 'Objective' facts are in accord with sociological theory, with the rationalistic view of the world, with results of sociological research so far. Thus, on the basis of 'objective' facts, 'objective' explanations on the war in Yugoslavia are also given.

Whereby sociologists and other 'objective' scientists do not understand that they themselves have become part of the explanation. They do not understand that SUBSEQUENT explanations bring RATIONALITY into this occurrence which was not necessarily there initially. That subsequent explanation is a specific alibi, rationalization of madness. It is precisely nonexplanation and nonunderstanding that are the strongest resistance to war. Still, attempts and the naivetÈ of scientists in conflict with the shapeless social reality which less and less resembles a system and more and more chaos, are touching.

In searching for explanations for the war in Yugoslavia the implicit assumption that it is POSSIBLE to discover one, basic, dominant factor that has preconditioned the war, is most common. More sophisticated explanations which do not attempt to range certain factors according to priorities are more rare.

These explanations simply list them and bring them into interdependence. However, that which is missing in both cases is the consciousness that war itself is dynamic and that therefore the significance of certain factors changes during the war.

The first and most wide-spread explanation is connected to the economic, political, and social crisis of the eighties. This explanation insists on a series of economic and social factors such as: increase of social poverty, increase of unemployment, 'melting' of the middle class, concentration and strengthening of the power of the elite, the process of political transformation from communist to post-communist society. These factors are explained as the basic causes of nationalism. Under such unfavorable social circumstances, increase of authoritarianism, nationalism, and aggressiveness are an occurrence almost as a rule.

The second explanation is connected to political elites and their manipulation with the masses with the help of nationalistic programs. This explanation insists on the underdevelopment of the civil society and democracy, on authoritarian and patriarchal social consciousness, on skillful use of media with the aim of maintaining positions of power. The basic idea in this type of explanation is that a strong continuity between communism and postcommunism exists which ensures renewal of the political elite through new programs. Also, in the very structure of nationalistic ideas the ideological logic of communism is fully maintained according to which it is insisted upon the division into followers and 'enemies,' i.e. 'traitors' according to the nationalistic version. Nationalistic ideology, just as the communist one, offers simple answers to complex questions. It offers 'warmth' as well as the feeling of security to those of who are already accustomed to their anonymity within the collective.

The third explanation is linked to abuse of the media, which actually means that those who rule these media, i.e. the political elite are not placed in the foreground. Instead, the media, to a large extent, is experienced as an independent force which builds its rising power precisely on nationalism, and even on the war. In a society which had largely been used to strictly controlled information and where an informational 'hunger' existed, where 'reading between the lines,' was a more reliable way of reaching the truth than reading the lines themselves, medial cacophony which appears through the destruction of communism has opiating power. Besides, under the conditions of a drastically changing environment (high inflation, change of laws, danger of war, war, political changes) the media intrudes itself with full might as an inevitable source of information on which individual strategies of survival can be built. The influence of the media gains strength through the need of the people to establish law in their environment, to overcome chaos, and accordingly to behave rationally. However, paradoxically, in reality the media not only do not satisfy this need but actually bring in greater chaos in individual perceptions of the world, or, on the other hand, offer a rigid picture of the world which becomes the only acceptable one to people who are confused and scared.

The fourth type of explanation places the influence of the international community in the foreground. It has two varieties: first, that which insists on some kind of 'conspiracy' which has 'correction of history' as a goal, i.e. which, after the fall of the Berlin wall starts annulling negative consequences of the Second World War from countries which had been defeated in this war. The second variety insists on global prestructuring of the world as a consequence of changes in power within the center as well as on the periphery.

These sociological explanations present a counterpoise to a very widespread and widely accepted 'historical explanation' according to which peoples are simply personified collectivities who do not change. While only a fatalistic acceptance of fate can be drawn out from the 'historical explanations,' which means war as fate, sociological explanations consequently have 'solutions' of a completely different kind - protection of minority rights, economic cooperation, development of democracy, development of the civil society, and decrease of the range between the developed and underdeveloped. These other 'solutions' simply follow the principles and the logic of the 'civilized' world which can and have to be easily and painlessly transplanted into a different world.

Powerlessness of sociology is reflected both in the explanations it offers and in the solutions which result from these explanations. Powerlessness of sociology however, is not only expressed through the unconvincing explanations, through idealism of these solutions and their actual impossibility of application. Powerlessness of sociology reveals a much wider and deeper powerlessness of control, planning, direction and forecasts with which the contemporary world is faced. Powerlessness of sociology, also, expresses itself as DOUBT of the meaning, goals and usefulness of this control, planning and direction. It expresses itself as doubt of intervention as such, doubt of engagement, doubt of the ideal. However, as the same time it is in this aspect that its new power lies to reconstitute itself through its confusion, to free itself from schematisms of theory of modernization and the chance that, from the very bottom of civilization, from the whirlpool of crime and suffering it can start speaking HUMANELY.

All these explanations are offered by sociology so logically, convincingly and systematically. By mutually supplementing each other they can offer a satisfactory, consequential and logical answer to the question: 'What has led to the war in Yugoslavia?' All this is so clear to a sociologist whose senses have been cleared and who is objective. It is only unclear why all these explanations are not CONVINCING enough. It is as if some ominous and painful RESIDUE exists which actually presents the key, which evades. which pushes us either into the extremes of rationality of the extremes of irrationality. It seems as though sociology is on those fateful crossroads on which it has to face itself with its inhibiting rationality, when it has to rely upon understanding or perhaps upor art and philosophy. Dealing with social reality simply has to resemble that reality itself: to the extent to which it is produced irrationally and not rationally. And this dealing has to overcome the rational.

Therefore, the powerlessness of sociologists and sociology is actually structural powerlessness which is derived from resistance of the changing world to submit to scientific and rational intervention. This world is more and more a world in disintegration, a system which annuls itself and creates and illusion of a system. This world surpasses and outgrows those whom it has created.

In its manifesting form this postmodern world is not necessarily a world of the developed, the rich and the beautiful. Postmodernism of the war in Yugoslavia is not reflected in the fact that it occurred in a part of the world which had already been postmodern, but precisely because through this war this part of the world becomes postmodern. A postmodern war was possible precisely due to elements of premodernism in Yugoslavia.

By the war in Yugoslavia ideas and reality of modernism are also destroyed: ideals such as progress, equality and justice are destroyed. The industrial world is destroyed physically: from factory halls, roads, bridges, down to industrial workers who, it is almost certain, shall be the most numerous victims of war. On the other hand, premodernism is revitalized and post-modernism is established. In the future the range of several centuries shall exist on one small space.

The basic thesis which I wish to state in this work is that the whole war in Yugoslavia has 'surpassed' itself, that it has surpassed the initial conditions and causes of its outbreak, that it has established its own inner logic and generated a new state. It is not anachronistic, it is contemporary. It is 'even better that the real thing' which is actually a metaphor of its post-modernism, simulacrum, a metaphor of a world in which surrogates are better than the original, in which originals envy the surrogates on their authenticity, in which the unintentional is always stronger than the intentional, in which the rational strengthens the irrational, in which means are a goal in itself or in which goals serve the means. In which those who explain are part of explanation themselves, where the image is reality. A world where differences between the subject and object disappear, between the violator and the victim, between cause and consequence, a world where entropy grows irrepressibly. All this is not so because it is wished for it to be so, because some cursed tautology exists, or some ironhanded determinism, but because the nature of reality itself has been deeply changed, including the part of reality called society.

The war in Yugoslavia happened for the very reason that it did not have to happen and Yugoslavia fell apart for the very reason that it did not have to fall apart. For this very reason there were no defensive mechanisms which could have preserved it. For the very reason that nobody (of Yugoslavians) ever believed it could happen it did happen. Just because it is senseless, insane, contrary to reason, contrary to the interest of the large majority - it did happen. It can only be understood out of itself, as betrayal of oneself, as an adventure of 'Russian roulette,' as suicide in a mirror. For this very reason sociologists are incapable of understanding something that happened against itself. For this very reason sociology was speechless, it could not foresee and reason is still stupefied.

The war happened because it was impossible for it to happen. The war happened in the black hole of determinism, within entropy. There lies the new quality of the new reality. Determinism comes as a consequence of the system. Where there is no system there is no determinism. Where entropy rules reality is produced by imagery.

The war has thus become 'even better than the real thing,' its own parareality. The war itself has become a metaphor of inversion which rules our life and the world around us. This inversion cannot be understood rationally, it cannot be 'caught' in the network of scientific theories and terms since, at any given moment, it can itself become part of this network. This inversion presents the logic of the war itself. It makes this war postmodern.

Although it is almost certain that it is not possible to discover one universal, omnipotent principle of functioning of this new reality, in this text, I shall very intentionally and stubbornly try to show that a principle of inversion exists which enters every social tissue. It trifles with 'reality' and creates new reality, this time more real and convincing than the previous one. It is not possible, among other reasons, to find this new principle of the functioning of new reality because this new reality is mimicrally hidden in the shell of old reality, because the new reality is permeated with the old one, and because, through this old reality it sucks energy for its own subsistence. Therefore, it is only possible to 'catch' this new reality into a network of terms by connecting, as David Harvey did, the micro and macro reality, the individual and the collective, economy, sociology, philosophy, history of art, urbanism and who knows what else. Yet, even this should not be done in order to substantiate the modernistic illusion of control of reality through knowledge, but only in order to confront it with the advancing feeling of helplessness which overflows over more and more people.

My basic thesis is, therefore, that this new reality protrudes through inversion, penetrates through inversion, uses inversion to sneak into the old reality, to modify it almost inconceivably and painlessly. The falling apart of this old reality, of this modernistic world with all its ideals of freedom, democracy, equality, brotherhood, (and unity in the Yugoslavian version,) and of progress, becomes possible and is realized precisely by inversion. Inversion is the 'slyness of the mind' of this new reality.

I shall call this new reality postmodern. In order to be postmodern it is not necessary for it to pass through previous 'stages.' It can exist very comfortably parallel to all previous realities, subjugating them to itself, presenting first one, then the other face, cheating both the participants and the observers. In society, just as in architecture, the strangest unions of different elements are possible. Their permeation does not have to respect even the law of gravitation.

Inversion can be regarded through several different fields, on several levels of social reality. Inversion itself cannot be rationally perceived completely because it is inversion of the very rational, it is trifling with this rational, it denudes it. Still, it can be documented, suspected, revealed in a series of moments of the social segment.

Inversion reflects itself in the powerful exchange of the social and the ethnic. Whereas previous socialist societies were based on continuous reproduction of 'class enemy,' on continuous renewal of class consciousness, on continuous renewal of conflicts according to 'class status,' the post-modern society renews the division on ethnoses. That which had been logical, rational, threatening to become class conflict, conflict between the enormous deprived, poverty stricken, anemic mass majority of the population and the political elite, has been transformed into conflict of ethnos where masses destroy, and self-destruct themselves. Inversion, therefore lies in the complete replacement of goals, a replacement which has mass destruction as a final outcome.

Inversion is also contained in the 'import' of European nationalism to Yugoslavia. Although Europe took the position of an alleged objective, independent observer, a demiurge, its own nationalism has to a large extent produced the situation in Yugoslavia. Therefore, an inversion of the victim and the judge has occurred. Europe, which has been lying for a long time on its own nationalism which it feeds, respects, gets used to, treats as something natural, good and vital, keeps its nationalism under control of the state. Yugoslavia, however, imports European nationalism and grafts them on its own in a situation when the state is falling apart, in a situation of high anomie. This leaves Yugoslavia with unmasked, destructive nationalism brought to the extremes through civil war. The paradox, established through inversion, is that Europe as 'objective' and 'pure' arbitrates in the conflict of 'barbarian' tribes from the Balkans. The paradox, or this new logic of inversion itself, is that the conflict of European nationalism on the Balkans is more severe and bloody that Europe had wished itself. It establishes the logic of passion contrary to the logic of reason which can be spread without control and whose destruction can endanger peace and order in Western Europe.

Inversion also exists in the relation of conquerors and the conquered. Although, the elementary humanistic principle is that everybody loses in every war, current history still declared the conqueror. In the war in Yugoslavia, and this, without doubt is one of the strong reasons for its duration, there are and shall be no winners, just as there are no and shall be no vivid culprits. Inversion, in other words, trifles with both the culprits and the victims, the aggressors and the judges, changes their sides and ridicules every attempt of unambiguous definition. Any attempt of such unambiguous definition in the reality of the war ended up in inversion where the persecutioners become the persecuted and the victims murderers. This inversion thus brings collective guilt to an absurd.

The next inversion is contained in so-called democratic elections. Although officially proclaimed as a 'higher' level of democracy in relation to the one-party regime, in reality they have contributed to narrowing the limits of democracy, i.e. to extensive strengthening of autocracy. 'Democratic regimes' have expressed total intolerance for accepting and recognizing the rights of minorities in places where minorities represented a very significant proportion of the population. Minorities are, thus in the name of this 'democracy' de facto excluded from power, and their rights were narrowed down and finally annulled. One of the basic inversions which this war has brought about is that the war had started in the name of protection of minority rights, and that, when it ends, minorities shall have less rights than before the war. Until the beginning of the eighties discrimination on ethnic grounds was relatively rare in the greater part of former Yugoslavia. However, when the war ends, ethnic affiliation shall be the basic line of division between people in this society. Once again, paradoxically, in the nondemocratic, totalitarian, communist regime, minorities had more rights, both on group and individual levels than after establishing 'democracy,' 'pluralism' and attempts of international guarantees for the protection of minorities.

A special inversion can be noticed in relationship to the 'other individual.' Although, in the previous period this 'other individual' was undifferentiated, he actually was not the 'other individual.' The modernistic idea of pluralism, brought to the limits, implied gradual disappearing of 'otherness,' its dilution in the amorphous world of consumer culture, gradual assimilation along with theatrical festive expression of symbolic differences. It was not possible to perceive and recognize 'otherness' from the perspective of 'brotherhood and unity' which severely homogenized all and wiped out differences between everybody. Therefore, once again paradoxically, otherness is established only in a bloody war. Only in this war that which had been unrecognized through love is recognized through hatred.

Inversion is visible also on the level of everyday life. That which ought to be everyday life, i.e. which should represent preoccupation with daily and simple things remains in the shadow of another plane, historicism, the supra-individual, the relentless and even the eternal. Every attempt of rational explanation of the absurdity of war from the viewpoint of ordinary-everyday-life is resisted by the new, dominant logic of supra-everyday-life. Rationality of this supra-everyday-life which pays attention exclusively to collectivities, which operates with gains and losses as supra-individual, which affirms myths of the state, the land, of heroism and history - this 'rationality' is totally opposite to the daily and cyclic routine of simple, 'plain' life which is endowed with loyalty to the neighbour instead of to myths. This new collective consciousness completely colonizes individual consciousness and transfers problems from the supra-everyday-life plane into the plane of the ordinary-everyday-life.

Thus, it is not sufficient to say simply that people still behave 'rationally' even under circumstances of war. War profiteering, gray economy or crime are 'rational' individual answers to war of only a minor part of the population. With the majority however, 'rationality' of the ordinary-everyday-life is blocked by 'rationality' of the supra-everyday-life. This transfer to a 'higher' level, this breaking down of the everyday life, its degrading and destruction is deep and long lasting. The ordinary-everyday-life is re-established, of course under impossible war conditions as well. However, under such conditions it simply serves the strengthening of the supra-everyday-life and not its annulment. Eventfullness has enslaved dailiness, history = everyday life, and abstract collectives have enslaved the personal.

A specific form of inversion is the inversion of time. The present is not experienced as reality, separated from the past and the future on the level of collective consciousness. It is not self-contained and relatively independent, but exclusively a consequence of the past. Inversion of time is so deep that the war presents conquest of time and history to the same extent as conquest of territory. The conquerors (i.e. those who shall pronounce themselves as conquerors) shall have the right to their history as well as the right to pronounce themselves the embodiment of the Absolute Spirit. Finally, they shall have the right to deprive others of their right to their own history, their past, their time and even identity. Destruction of cities, urbancide, is not only the murder of the dominantly city idea of multi-culturalism and return to rural exclusiveness. Murder of cities is murder of MEMORY, materialization of that memory, i.e. annulment of proofs about the past.

The media made profit out of inversion. There is nothing that makes the war in Yugoslavia postmodern as much as the so-called media war. From being attendants of the previous system, the media have, during the 'transition from communism to post-communism' turned into rulers. From good slaves to evil rulers. The unprecedented media boom before the war was a consequence of hunger for information from the previous period, but also of a totally new tyranny of the media. War in Yugoslavia, just as the scandals in tabloids exists not only because of territories, not only because it brings profit to war industries, not only because of the transition from communism to 'postcommunism.' This war exists also because media around the world need it. They even constructed numerous war events in order to produce media effects. They even sacrificed their 'own people' in order to move the 'international public.'

The seething of media produced inversion of sane reason. Sane reason has been replaced by 'being informed.' There is no opinion, there is 'information.' An absolute cacophony exists. Arguments in a discussion are individual, 'broken' 'facts.' Speech has become like a discharge and not communication. Informational boom has annulled the truth, it has annulled reality.

It is also paradoxical that the war in Yugoslavia is a return, although temporary, to reality. It is a reminder of reality in a world where reality has been destroyed, ridiculed and worm-eaten. Destruction, death and violence are real but only for those who are victims. War is thus a desperate call to reality not to be annulled.

And so forth...

* * *

We who live in the world of supra-reality are incapable of communicating our experience to those whose world is still arranged according to rational principles. All that we can do now is EAT our own absurdities. We are the only ones who can digest them. Exactly as that loaf of bread, the longest in the world, baked at the eve of orthodox Christmas in 1994 with the intention to break a Guinness record. The longest bread in the world was shared in the center of Belgrade at a time when thousands of people were hungry. The longest bread in the world has thus become a symbol of hunger, through inversion, to deal with nationalism and the war in Yugoslavia somewhere on the territory which lies between understanding and explanation. On a territory which has intuitively just as much dignity as does the rational, and on which basic humanistic postulates re-establish themselves as the only possible answer to terrifying and all-involving destruction. In this sense my intention is not to be 'scientific.' My intention is not even to be consequential, systematic and noncontradictory. My intention is simply to think of that which, seems to me, has been left insufficiently reflected upon, that which persistently evades. In other words, to try and observe this present tragedy from a different angle - that of THE MIRROR OF THE WORLD SHATTERED ON THE BALKANS.

My need to deal with the war on these uncertain and foggy grounds is actually an outcome from the insight on the insufficiency of current sociological interpretations of the war. In other words, sociologists attempt to explain the war in Yugoslavia subsequently, afteand not that of affluence.

Inversion is all around us. The only thing left for us to do is to try and catch it at a certain moment and look at it in the eye. But, we shall see ourselves.

By writing this text, I myself serve inversion. And so do you who is reading it...

(Nobody is innocent anymore, and even if he is, it is no excuse.)

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