Facing the Past - The Prerequisite for Creating a Modern Serbian State
Facing the Past - The Prerequisite for Creating a Modern Serbian State

Author(s): Vesna Pešić
Subject(s): Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, Political behavior, Politics and society, Transformation Period (1990 - 2010), Post-Communist Transformation, Sociology of Politics
Published by: CEDET Centar za demokratsku tranziciju
Keywords: facing the past; mass crimes; constitutional democracy; responsibility; political community; integration; identity; moral responsibility
Summary/Abstract: This paper discusses the role that the process of facing the past plays in the creation of a modern and rational Serbia within the context of transition, since the overthrowing of the authoritarian regime on October 5, 2000. Analyses of three types of responsibility in severe violation of human rights - criminal, political and moral - prove that modern Serbia has not severed its ties with that past because the authoritarian-nationalistic identity of the community has been preserved, precluding any critical attitude towards the past. Particular attention is devoted to analyzing the question of collective moral responsibility and its importance in the creation of a new identity of the state union, based on universal values of individual freedom and the rule of law. Breaking from tribal irrationality (nationalism) and moral-legal irresponsibility, which led Serbia into conflict with the international community and its own environment, and caused internal polarization regarding its future, is a precondition for establishing rational national interests of Serbia as an independent state.

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