For many of these troubled hotspots, the potential windfall from political tourism could be a saving grace. The Balkans has a lot to offer. It’s perhaps only a matter of time before ethnic cleansing and detention camps inspire theme parks. Tourists could get their ethnic chips (Serb, Croat, Bosnian, Albanian, etc.) with their entry tickets and then chase each other around the park ethnically cleansing one another. Communism could be a starter too. Goli otok, the Yugoslav gulag, has a mild Mediterranean climate, and given its accessibility, incomparably better tourist potential than Siberian camps. In short, if there’s a growth market for anything in the states that have sprouted from the former Yugoslavia, it’s definitely for tourism. It would naturally be unfortunate if the industrious residents of these impoverished backwaters were to only participate in political tourism ventures as waiters and supporting actors.
I admit that there’s also a personal dimension to my interest in the human imagination in times of crisis. I’ve been mulling over how to earn a dime too. I once met an unusual old woman who asked me a sly question.
“And where do you fit in: among the vampires or the donors?”
“I’m with the donors,” I shot back in jest.
Today my off-the-cuff response turns out to have been the correct one. Because as the old woman explained it, people divide into two main groups: “vampires” and “donors.” Being a donor doesn’t automatically grant one the moral high ground, and neither does it relegate one to the loser category in advance. Maybe you’re just lazy, and exposing your bulging veins to exploitation is easier than baring your teeth and getting down to work.
As someone with a donor’s psychogram I’ve decided to try my hand as an entrepreneur. My idea is perhaps a little exclusive, but luckily for me it’s not original. Originality, say marketing experts, only increases the risk of bankruptcy anyway. I’ve decided to rent out my soul. I’m well aware that the soul’s value has fallen catastrophically, and that my business venture doesn’t have much hope of success. But you never know. I’m inspired by the bright example of the Croatian businessman who with his dog food really has made a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. My soul is flexible and displays strong regenerative properties. Its powers of absorption are as good as any old school blotter. Potential clients should provide a short biography. Perverts and smokers are out of the question. Payment in advance and in cash. Send contact details to the editor.
THE CODE
YOU NEED TO know how to talk to small nations. At the recent Bosnian and Croatian premieres of her film In the Land of Blood and Honey, Angelina Jolie gave a master class in how it’s done. As a film star Jolie could’ve done as she pleased, yet she acquitted herself with exceptional humility, declaring with complete sincerity that she’d fallen in love with Bosnia; that Bosnia had suffered terribly in a war started by the Serbs; yes of course, she added, the whole region had suffered too, in its own way. But she really got them when she said that she made the film (one not without cinematic merit) to showcase Bosnia’s suffering to the world. Her words cooled the still gaping Bosnian wound like a balm.
She was a hit with everyone, the men in particular, so much so that no one noticed her deferential manner was the kind you put on when talking to children. With an unfailing human instinct, Angelina Jolie unlocked the code. She kissed the finger slammed in the drawer, gave the naughty drawer a good smack, naughty, naughty drawer, and the evil spirits slunk away. The Croats and Serbs waited in line with outstretched pinkie fingers, and I’m pretty sure that at least in their heads, the Slovenes, Macedonians, Albanians, and Montenegrins were all lining up somewhere too. Angelina Jolie blew them an air kiss. The Serbs were pissed and beat their fists in the dung heap: They’d expected more than just air.
If the rules of political correctness prevent us from abusing ethnic, national, racial, gender, and other types of differences — all unreliable in any case — and we’re looking for something to fall back on, there’s always the code. Social groups, tribes, sects, gangs, religious communities, mafia structures, families, Internet fan clubs, they’re all characterized by codes of behavior — written and unwritten, conscious and unconscious, enduring and susceptible to change, respected and disrespected. If not by a code of social behavior, how might we explain why Americans — just for example now — almost never bellyache when meeting an acquaintance, but rather portray their lot in life as shiny and good, while Croats and other Yugozone1 residents can’t wait to start bitching the second they clap eyes on someone they know. If they’re not whining about their personal problems — a toothache, a bad haircut, the long line at the post office that morning, a neighbor who turns his TV up too loud, a relative who landed in hospital, their kid who got an F at school — then they’ll be bitching about rising prices. There’s an authenticity to the bitterness there, because prices seem to go up every day. The thing is, however, the bitcher-in-question gives you the impression that the price rises are directed at him personally. His bitching and our attendant commiserations work like morphine on him. It’s like Yugozone residents spend their lives wandering around with a little finger outstretched, just waiting for someone to blow on it and give it a kiss. And when someone does, presto, the pain disappears as if it’d never been there.
Yugozone residents, the men in particular, all behave in a similar manner toward their leaders. The genius of Slobodan Milošević wasn’t that he said c’mon, let’s go smash some Croats, Bosnians, and Albanians, but that with an unfailing fatherly impulse he put his finger on the code and promised Serbs: No one will dare beat you again. The genius of Franjo Tuđman was not that he created the Croatian state, but the way he delicately positioned himself among the Croats, the very same way Milošević positioned himself among the Serbs. And Tuđman could even boast the advantage of a doctoral title. Yugozone residents love “doctors” and “generals” (it’s in our ganglions is how my former countrymen like to put it, just because they like the word ganglions), because only “doctors” and “generals” can decree — sorry, I meant guarantee — that everything will be as it should. This explains a square in downtown Zagreb being called Dr. Franjo Tuđman Square, the doctoral honorific probably making the square a world first. Although a number of doctors and generals, beloved leaders of the Yugozone peoples, have met inglorious ends — one currently languishes in a jail in the Hague (Dr. Radovan Karadžić), another in a Zagreb jail (Dr. Ivo Sanader) — their political successors rely on the same code. Current Croatian President Dr. Ivo Josipović recently encouraged the almost half a million unemployed and disenfranchised Croats with the following: “Look after your health and fight for your rights.” While this sort of tripe would sink anyone else on earth into a deep despair, Croatian workers took solace and comfort.