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INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
Shock to the system
BY RICH BYRNE

In the wake of his assassination last week in Belgrade, Serbian prime minister Zoran Djindjic was lionized both in his own country and in the West as that country’s best political leader — and a symbol of reform. Both sentiments are indisputably true. Yet it is important to note that the public adulation for Serbia’s fallen leader is a product of aggressive and instantaneous revisionism.

As recently as last autumn, when I traveled to Belgrade to cover Serbia’s failed presidential elections, Zoran Djindjic was among the most hated men in the land. Djindjic was not running for the office of president, but the entire campaign seemed to revolve around him. His government was charged with hobbling reforms, and the resulting popular anger and political apathy were palpable. Accusations that Djindjic was in bed with gangsters were rife. As I stood in a chilly rain one day, watching a political rally for Djindjic’s main rival (and partner in the October 2000 revolution) Vojislav Kostunica, it was hard to tell that the event was intended to show support for Kostunica’s presidential bid. Nearly every speaker attacked Djindjic — many without voicing more than perfunctory support for Kostunica.

The stalling of reforms in Serbia was not entirely Djindjic’s fault. Erstwhile reformers such as Kostunica helped foil some plans. And former Milosevic security officials and organized-crime figures have maintained a death grip on vital state institutions. Still, most of my acquaintances in Serbia harbored nothing but ill will toward Djindjic.

Such hostility was shattered by Djindjic's death. Many of the dozens of e-mails I’ve received since his assassination have come from those who spoke most harshly about Djindjic in the autumn. One friend says, " I hated some of his political moves.... However, I deeply respected him as an intelligent, educated and energetic person who was too far in front of this archaic and primitive society. " Another writes: " You know my opinion on Djindjic’s politics: I disagreed with a great deal of it. But only now, from this point of view I can say, he had real good aims. And I am feeling like someone shot a member of my family, even. "

As the massive turnout for Djindjic’s funeral on Saturday proves, the assassination came as a shock to Serbia’s system. It would be silly to say — after more than a decade of war and turbulence — that Serbia has " lost its innocence. " It is not in any respect an innocent society. But what Serbia did lose was not only its most popular politician, but also its sense of " exceptionalism. " The assassination brought home something that NATO’s bombs and a long string of thug-killing in Belgrade hotels and cafés did not: Serbia has problems that it alone can solve, yet it need not solve them alone. The most important statements in the wake of Djindjic’s death were its reformers' vows to carry on and intensify Djindjic’s fight — and statements from European capitals urging Serbia to become a partner in Europe.

The death of Djindjic means an end to apathy in Serbia, but it also raises the stakes for reformers within the country and for their European supporters. They must remake Serbian society, confront the country's recent bloody past, and push forward toward Europe, or watch as Serbia becomes a failed and thoroughly isolated state.

Issue Date: March 20 - 27, 2003
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