NOVI REPORTER, Banja Luka, No. 352, December 9, 2009.
Interview: Srdja Trifkovic
THE "SERBIAN LOBBY" IN THE UNITED STATES DOES NOT EXIST AT ALL
At a hearing before the Helsinki Committee of the House of Representatives last spring, at which Ivo Banac, Paddy Ashdown and others opened fire from all weapons on the Republika Srpska and [its prime minister Milorad] Dodik, demanding the abolition of the entities and the appointment of an American envoy to the Balkans, they were not countered by a single Congressman, or a representative of the [Serbian] Diaspora, or a lobbyist, or a visitor from the Republika Srpska, although they would not have been denied the platform had they asked for it.
For the past two decades the Bosnian Serbs and Serbia have been subjected to a hostile treatment by the Western power centers. In Serbia and the Republika Srpska alike, the attempts to correct or even reverse such trends in the U.S. and the European Union have often relied on the impact of the Serbian diaspora in the United States and in the leading countries of the EU. Such expectations and the reality are in a chronic discord, however.
Dr. Srdja Trifkovic debunks many flawed assumptions in the Old Country about the political potential of our kin in America... He points out the remarkable inertness of the official Belgrade and Banja Luka vis-a-vis the Serbian diaspora and also regarding attempts to convince the influential Western interlocutors of the validity of arguments advanced by Serbia and by the Republika Srpska in the ongoing Balkan unravellings:
"The Serbian diaspora has no influence on the formulation of the U.S. policy. It is the least well organized among all ethnic groups of comparable size. A concrete example: when an appeal went out, some ten years ago, for the survival of Serbian studies at the University of Illinois in Chicago, barely $30,000 was collected and the chair was extinguished. On the other hand, the Lithuanian community in Chicago - far smaller than the Serbian one - threw a benefit dinner for a similar purpose and collected a million dollars in a few hours. The Serbian community has no excuse for this state of affairs. The diaspora has neither the money nor the will to work for the defense and promotion of the Serbian-American community's interests - and money as the precondition of all activity. As Mark Twain pointed out 150 years ago, America has "the best Congress money can buy!" It is naive to assume that Bob Dole, Joe Biden, the late Tom Lantos, Joe Lieberman and other Serb-haters have acted for so many years in the manner well known to us out of purely moral principles and deepest conviction. Someone had to approach them, to present the specific views to them, to motivate them to accept those views - which means money - and to promt them to act accordingly - again money! Those four steps represent the essence of lobbying. The principle is the same, regardless of whether you are advocating a centralized Bosnia-Herzegovina or Federal subsidies to dairy farmers in Wisconsin.
Novi Reporter: How do you explain the fact that, nevertheless, encouraging news has reached Serbia and the Republika Srpska of certain successes of the lobbying in the US?
Trifkovic: There are people in the Diaspora who are sparing no effort to project, on the Serbian public scene, an image of themselves as very influential players closely connected with various Congressmen and Senators. Having paid a few hundred dollars to their journalist contacts to write suitably intoned fairytales in some Belgrade tabloids, they flaunt those cuttings back home to prove that they are influential in Serbia’s public and political life and that they should be taken into due account in some future combinations. This reflects the infantile vanity of some diaspora leaders with bombastic-sounding titles and negligible influence, and the syndrome is well known to the American Serbs. It is noteworthy, however, that the U.S. Administration is not interested in nurturing the ambitions of any potential Serbian B-Team, because the Americans find the present government in Belgrade perfectly suited to their interests.
To this very day there is no Serbian Lobby in the U.S. it simply does not exist. The Serbian Congressional Caucus is a Potemkin's Village, which is in any event in the state of deep hibernation. The members of the Caucus merely express some interest in the Balkans, but they do not necessarily support Serbian positions on The Hague, Kosovo, Dayton... To give you but one example, at a hearing before the Helsinki Committee of the House of Representatives last spring, at which Ivo Banac, Paddy Ashdown and others opened fire from all weapons on the Republika Srpska and [its prime minister Milorad] Dodik, demanding the abolition of [the Dayton-provided] entities and the appointment of an American envoy to the Balkans, they were not countered by a single Congressman, or a representative of the [Serbian] Diaspora, or a lobbyist, or a visitor from the Republika Srpska, although they would not have been denied the platform had they asked for it.
Are there within the Serbian diaspora in the U.S. persons and institutions which do not act under the patronage of the well known organizations, but which nevertheless make a respectable contribution and are worthy of attention?
There are, but the less they act under the Serbian banner, the more effective they are. The ability to act independently is the precondition of success.
How would you define the key common objectives which could unite the Serbs in North America? What are the realistic, and what are the optimal potential results of their work?
The key objective is to articulate the interests of the Serbian community and to present it competently through the prism of American interests. The theme of the Balkans as the weak link in the war against terrorism is essential, as it may be related to American concerns. However, more than eight years after September 11, there is no “White Book” which would contain a consolidated dossier of the Sarajevan political establishments Jihadist connections. All kinds of terrorist attacks since that time, from Riyadh to Casablanca to Madrid or Bali, indicate that there is a Bosnian Connection. This remains an unused capital.
How do you see the relations of the Serbian diaspora in the U.S. with the political instances in Serbia and the Republika Srpska?
The biggest problem of the Serbian diaspora in the U.S. is the absence of legitimate authority and hierarchy. The split within the Serbian Orthodox Church in 1963 undermined its role of the moral pillar, and there is no leadership from the old country. On the other hand, it is unrealistic to expect the diaspora to achieve that which neither Belgrade nor Banja Luka are doing. Let us face the facts: official Serbian guests often come to Washington, not in order to make a serious impact on the political decision-making process relevant to the Serbian people and its interests, but to create back home a convincing illusion of the alleged results of their visit. A textbook example of this we have seen recently, in early November, with a frankly futile Republika Srpska mission to the capital of the United States. The visit was effectively a fiasco, yet it was presented in the Republika Srpska media as a success.
How do you evaluate the results of that visit?
Who are those people trying to hoodwink, or are they deluded themselves, and cherish ungrounded illusions about such visits? Who is enriching their scant itineraries with the meetings with political lightweights, or else with antagonists who only receive them in order to give them a stern dressing-down? Is the goal simply to fill in the slots, to justify expenses? Why do they deceive themselves, and others, talking of a successful mission crowned with a half-hours visit to the deputy under-secretarys aide in a windowless office? Or visits with those few members of Congress who are already known as friendly to the Serbs, but who have no influence on the formulation of policy? I am inclined to think that they are simply not up to the task, rather than mendacious. They do not defend Serbian national interests adequately, because they are not attuned to the Washingtonian discourse and therefore unable to articulate those interests in the manner that may have some operational value in the perception of their U.S. interlocutors.
With the current setup of the Serbian diplomacy and lobbying structure in Washington, things will not get any better. The same applies to Serbia’s foreign and every other policy. Almost two decades since the beginning of Yugoslavia’s disintegration nothing has been learned, things merely change in order to remain the same. There is an old Jewish proverb, to the effect that if you keep doing what you’ve been doing, you ll keep getting what you are currently getting. What the Serbs have got over all these years we know very well, and there should be no illusions that the slicing of the Serbian salami is by any means over. Quite the contrary!
What are the main causes for the lack of adequate response of the diaspora to the anti-Serb trend which is still largely present in the Western political, media, and academic elite?
There are three key elements of failure. The first is in the lack of strategy for defending the image and identity of the community, based on a clear methodology for the attainment of such goals. The second is the short-sighted focus of many Serbs on the reactive critique of the Western policy and its media presentation, without any strategic elaboration of alternative positions and constant advancement of new concrete solutions as an alternative to the current flawed policy.
And finally, the attempts to influence foreign media and political circles are characterized by complete amateurism of the leadership of organizations with impressive names which nevertheless lack true legitimacy within the Serbian diaspora community. This undermines their credibility among the policy makers and public opinion creators. The consequence is clear: the views and decisions detrimental to the Serbs could be advocated in the Western media, approved in legislative bodies, applied by governments, and verified by the academic and analytical institutions. There was a visible change of tone after October 5, 2000, but it was short lived.
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