November 1999
Thoughts of a lesbian feminist from Belgrade
Editor's note: This is excerpted from a text written by Lepa Mladjenovic
for the conference on women in war held in South Africa during June 20-22,
1999.
I am a feminist of the region of ex-Yugoslavia where war started in 1991. I
live in a state, Serbia, whose government has caused four wars in this one
region (Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and last year, Kosovo). I
want to formulate a few short notes on my last nine years of anti-war
activism as a member of Women in Black Against War in Belgrade, and as a
feminist counselor of women who have survived war and male violence.
The war in ex-Yugoslavia is not due to the hatred that each person has for
the other, but to a hate constructed by the state. The notions of
nationalism and of racism are constructions. It is racism that constructs
the race, just as hatred against women fabricates the inferiority of women,
and hatred against ethnic difference forms nationalism.
In my case this means that 20 years ago, in the time of ex-Yugoslavia, I
had chosen to declare my nationality as Yugoslavian. About 8% of us had
then opted for this political and artificial national identity. It was said
at that time that ex-Yugoslavia comprised 22 ethnic communities and
"Yugoslavian" was not one of them, that it was the name of the state in
which the 22 ethnic communities lived. After the army declared war in 1991,
under order of the Serbs, and Yugoslavia was broken into six states, I was
forced to take the Serbian national identity. "Your name is Serbian,
therefore so is your nationality," that is what I was told. I refuse this
argument at a political level. I AM A LESBIAN AND FEMINIST FROM BELGRADE.
Some of us survived 77 days of NATO bombardment. At the same time, martial
law was declared and a state project of ethnic cleansing of Kosovar
Albanians was set in motion, inside the same state and during the
bombardments. I asked myself the following questions: How to resist the
role of victim when fear is a constant feeling, daily, coming from other
women, from the noise of the bombs, the news put out by the state, the
darkness of the streets...How to overcome this fear which pushes me to
erase the Other from my mind, who nonetheless suffers also? ...Wasn't the
Serbian state using the bombardments in a way to make me think that I am
even more a victim than others? Why? To continue its projects of ethnic
cleansing and killing? Am I victim or accomplice?
Only some among us, feminists of Belgrade, ask ourselves how to resist this
feeling of guilt, knowing that the Serbian regime, in the name of the
citizens of Serbia and therefore in my name, are pursuing certain of our
fellow citizens whose names sound different (they are Albanian).
Women constantly bring me testimonies of how horrible were the NATO
bombings, which is undeniable, but these women never speak of the privilege
they have of not being objects of ethnic cleansing since 1991.
In the Autonomous Women's Center against sexual violence, where I work as a
counselor, we try therefore to develop a feminist politics which would
permit us to take care of ourselves as well as of others. During these 77
days, we did not stop calling women, asking them, "Are you all right?",
women with Serbian names, women with Albanian names. After these 77 days of
bombardments, activists from our center went out to visit Albanian and
Serbian refugees. At this moment we are collecting all these testimonies
from women of different social, ethnic and warring milieux, which we will
publish as a book. For some of us, working to bring equal rights to
everyone, trying as a consequence to overcome concepts of minority and of
Other, signifies taking as much care of ourselves as of others.
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