gender policies and nationalism

; • ' • •

Rada Ivekovic and Julie Mostov •

• - , .• INTRODUCTION-

FROM GENDER TO NATION* - - .

I • • • : • • • • • • • ; • • • •

f ••- - . • - • ; .

j The gender/sex difference, as the oldest known difference inscribed into lan-! guage, is.seen as basic, unquestionable and unproblematic-a condition of life. It

symbolically permeates all other dichotomies of thinking, all differences within thesphere of the historically consensual and, thus, permeates the historic legitimacy

; of hierarchies that thrive on binary differences'. The global patriarchal consensus\ about the submission of women to men, accordingly, justifies other subjugations

using the mechanism of symbolic "analogy". The depiction of this state ofaffairs2 as natural, which naturalizes and essentializes patriarchy, is itself historic.This history of the social relations of genders is often obscured by replacement ofsocial and historic relations with biological ones. Thus, when the "national differ-ence" surfaces historically, it appears in terms of gender difference, "justifying"hierarchies that are set by an assumed natural gender hierarchy.

Given our increasing awareness of this mechanism, any serious study of thenational "issue" must look at the gendering of political discourse and the sexual-izing of concepts related to the complex of nation and nationalism, state- andnation-building, citizenship and membership, and community and society.

Gender and nation are social and historic constructions, which intimately par-

1 Difference "in itself is historically and concretely determined as the hierarchy/domination/injustice/ social inequality that is "theoretically" based on it. ''Long live the difference", "Vive ladifference" is the slogan of both possible, but not necessary just social claims and possible, but notnecessary racist claims. As shown by Balibar (in E. Balibar and I. Wallerstein (eels.), Race, Nation,Class: Ambiguous Identities, London, Verso, 1996), new racism is "differeneialist".

2 That is, the domination of all w o m e n by all men Gui l laumin, Scxc, Race et Pratique dupouvoir. L'Ide'e de nature, Paris, Cote-Femmes, 1992.

16 Rada Ivekovic and Julie Mostov

ticipate in the formation of one anothennations are gendered; and the topogra-phy of the nation is mapped in gendered terms (feminized soil, landscapes, andboundaries and rriasculine movement-over these spaces). National mythologiesdraw on traditional gender roles and the^ationalistnarrative is filled with imagesof the nation as mother,- wife; arid maiden.- Practices of nation-building employsocial co'nstructions of 'masculinity'arid femininity'that support a division of laborin which women reproduce the nation physically and symbolically and men pro-tect,defend, and avenge the nation. • • : ' • • • • ' ' • • '•

1. Borders

Gender identities and women's bodies become symbolic and spatial bound-aries of the nation. Women's bodies serve as symbol.s.of the fecundity of thenation and vessels for its reproduction,, as.well-as.territorial markers. Mothers,wives, and daughters designate the space of the nation and are, at the same time,the property of the nation. As markers and as property, mothers, daughters, andwives require the defense and protection of patriotic sons..

Border fantasies develop with this gendering of boundaries and spaces (land-scapes, farmlands, and battlefields) and with the collectivizing of "our women"and "their women" (Mostov, 1995). Masculine actors invade (or fill) femininespaces. The nation is adored and adorned, made strong and bountiful or loathed,raped and defiled, its limbs torn apart, its womb invaded. The vulnerability andseduction of women/borders (space/nation) require the vigilance of border guards.

[Tjhe "essential women" [raced or not] becomes the national iconic signifier for thematerial, the passive, and the corporeal, to be worshipped, protected, and controlledby those with the power to remember, and to forget, to guard, to define, and redefine(Alcaron, Kaplan and Moallem, 1999, p. 10)3.

Variations of struggles for power by new or would-be guardians of the nationare played out over the feminine body: over the feminine space of the nation -battlefields, farmlands, and homes - and actual female bodies; in claims to terri-

3 This theme has been explored eloquently by a number of feminist theorists, including:Butalia, The Other Side of Silence. Voices from tlie Partition of India, New Delhi, Viking, 1998; Das,Critical Events. An Anthropological Perspective in Contemporary India, Delhi, Oxford UniversityPress, 1995; Hasan (ed.), Invented Boundaries: Gender, Politics and the Partition of India, Delhi,Oxford University Press, 2000; Kumar, Divide and Fall? Bosnia in the Annals of Partition, Lon-don, Verso, 1998; Menon, Interventions. International Journal of Post-Colonial Studies, SpecialTopic: The Partition of the Indian Sub-Continent, Vol. 1, No. 2, 1999; R. Menon and Kamla Bhasin,Borders and Boundaries. Women in India' Partition, New Brunswick, (N.J.), Rutgers UniversityPress, 1998; and Sangari and Vaid (eds.), Recasting Women: Essays in Indian Colonial History,New Brunswick (N.J.), Rutgers University Press, 1990.

Introduction - From Gender to Nation • 11'

tory and sovereignty based; on demographic and reproductive policies; and overthe nation as an idea - mother, lover, home, and collective (receptive) body.These variations parallel gender roles that reinforce, sexual imagery and stereo-types. The feminine is passive, and the masculine is active. The Motherlandprovides a passive, receptive,; and vulnerable image in contrast to the activeimage of the Fatherland, which is the force behind government and military ac-tion-invasion, conquest,-and defense. • • -• • • • : • . ; • • . • • ••

This imagery recognizes women as a symbolic collective. The nation as motherproduces an image of the allegorical mother whose offspring are the country'sguardians, heroes and martyrs. Individual mothers are celebrated as instances ofthis image: their pain and suffering, their sacrifices are recognized as part of thenation's sacrifice; their individual plights are relevant only to this extent. Womenas reproducers are recognized as belonging to the majority or minority nations,though, as we shall see, not as members of the collective in the same, way asmen. The rape and violation of individual women becomes symbolically signifi-cant in nationalist discourse and the politics of national identity as a violation ofthe nation and an act against the collective men of the enemy nation. It is theplight of "our" women that threatens or offends the nation;In the" acts of war/national ist/communa;lis't rape, women are. the instruments of .communicationbe-twee.n'two groups of men. And the subsequent discourse on these rapes follows/to a iarge extent, the same logic serving as a vehicle for hate speech and aweapon of war4. Women as mothers are reproducers of the nation; but they arealso thought of as potential enemies of the nation, traitors to it, and collaboratorsin its death. The "other's" women are enemies as reproducers, multiplying thenumber of outsiders, conspiring to dilute and destroy the nation with their numer-ous offspring. Thus, while "our" women are to be revered as mothers, all women'sbodies must be controlled. This is articulated in terms of "state fatherhood": thenation is defined as a family, motherhood and reproduction are supervised by the"father", or in terms of political jurisdiction: reproduction and sexual relations arepolitical acts and must be put firmly under the control of the state and its. moraland cultural institutions (church and family). This is the naturalized hierarchy ofpatriarchy. The instrumentalization of national body politics facilitates consolida-tion of the nation-state through regulatory practices rooted in the sexualization ofwomen and their vulnerability to sexual assault.

The sexuality of individual women presents a potential threat to the nation, asan "entry" point for invasion. Individual women are potential suspects in bordertransgressions. Elias Canetti. writes, in a slightly different context, that men who

's This sometimes includes some well-intended scholarly work. The ethnicization of research,whether by local or by foreign scholars, often follows after great political conflict, see Mamdani,When Victims Become Killers. Colonialism, Nativism and the Genocide in Rwanda, Princeton(N.J.), Princeton University Press, 2001.

12- Rada Ivekovic and Julie- Mostov

disdain a warning about danger are threatened only in their.personal capacity.•But, women who pay no heed to a warning or an interdiction about such dangerput.the whole community in peril (Canetti., 1966, p. 138). Sexual;fantasi.es follow,this threat to the community and, at the same time, collectivize the identity ofwomen: the enemy male wants to invade the national space and abduct "our"women, to steal our identity, to dilute our culture. Each side fantasizes about."invading the space ?of the other,.robbing the alien society and.installing its ownculture. The "Others's" men are collectively seen as.sexual aggressors,."our"women.are objects of their temptation.. "Their" women are forbidden prizes, andas such,..a potential site for warfare,, both .symbolically and literally. It is -the.collective'"our", women.that;represents the potential national tragedy;:it is as acollective, victim, .that "our" women.gain the;sympathy .of.the^eople and suffer.: ; Women's; bodies mark the vulnerability of borders and, .in another sense,-womenembody the borders: they are "signifiers of ethnic or national difference". (Menonand Bhasin, 1998, p. 252; Yuval-Davis and Anthias, 1989) and the boundaries ofthe State. Mass rapes in civil wars point to the same fact: according to thepatriarchal consensus, the community's women should be defended as borders,or the other's-women should be violated as the other's borders/territories. In a;way, coinmunal.violence against women, seen as violence against the male otheris part of the group-identity building.: The production of nations/states producesborders and, then, naturally, their violation... For borders separate as much asthey invite transgression and produce no (wo)man's land. Violence against womenis a constitutive part of these processes. Its softest aspect is the subjugation ofwomen to a men's (state, communal, social) hierarchy. Its extreme case is rape."In many villages —writes Urvashi Butalia —where negotiations had taken place,often women were traded for freedom" (Butalia, 1998, p. 159). Her researchclearly shows that women were considered belonging to the community asproperty, but not really constituting the community as autonomous subjects or asany essential part of it. For women cannot claim identity with(in) the nation, orwhen they do so, they risk disloyalty to the higher gender/national principle whichproscribes roles and hierarchies. Identity is claimed, group solidarity played-outand the identity principle maintained where power is at stake and in the functionof power. The woman/feminine signifier serves as such as an alibi in fraternalstruggles for control of the nation-state and national projects (Alarcon et al.,1999, p. 6). However, as we shall see in a number of texts in this volume, thefeminine signifier also serves as a figure of resistance in these struggles.

2. Community vs. Society

, In the study of gender/sex and nation, it is essential to keep in mind the dis-tinction between community and society. A community is a vertical patriarchalconstruction claiming a self-referential genealogy in identity and re-configurating

Introductidn: - From Gender to Nation •

one whenever needed..It is hierarchical and npnrdemocratic, arid does not r;ec-:

ognize tirne,,.It;is a transmission of commands; inthe immediate mode; In a eQmrnurnitjf;(and.thiis,. within thenatipn), the communication betweenindi-Yiduals is al-,ways indirect and goes through a higher office.or principle (hegemonic idea,, orcolonizing universal) with which some (the hegemonic group) can identify di-rectly, but to which the. others can only be subjected. Those who,are not identicalwith/similar to the ruling subject have only dispersion, diversity and discontinuityat their disposal (threatening to transform the community into a society). Theybring discontinuity into the picture by interrupting the established community self-identity, both of the individual genealogical line (father's name) and of the Na-tion/State. This discontinuity is itself forced to affirm, through a symbolic twist, asymbolic continuity within and for the natural discontinuity of the masculine ge-nealogy. The patriarchal system wants the masculine genealogy to be self-suffi-cient in reproducing the same, which of course it is not (because no exclusivegenealogy is), but which it can pretend to,be thanks toits. dominant position.Society, on the other hand, is made up of individuals, (who can also,; but need not,be members of.vari.ous communities) who.are.in direct.contact witbeach. otherand who recognize and accept each other's- differences. It is society,-not com-munity that ;can open a public and.politica! space.. :..:,.!;•••; '.- ;. • '••: , r :;•; '••••:;:;

Identity and "ethnic" or "national" identity, in particular,:produce differenceas inequality and are a result of inequality. States reproduce citizens and outsid-ers (Mostov, 1996a; Bose and Manchanda, 1997). Borders, meant to seal territo-ries and identities, produce refugees and trans-border migrations. The Nationproduces the borders (and vice versa), the non-nation and the marginal nation.Gender hierarchies among other things, as Ranabir Samaddar illustrates (1999),have an important role in the reconfiguration of the marginal nation in theseprocesses of change. In the case of the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia,gender hierarchies and deeply anchored patriarchies at different levels sustainedall of the post-socialist nationalisms. Gender and patriarchal hierarchies facili-tated the reshuffling of the social structure, communal order and the state. Thesehierarchies were particularly welcome, as the previously existing social and po-litical institutions collapsed along with the Yugoslav state. The patriarchal orderrepresented the only continuity between the old regime and the new one and themain framework for transition, facilitating a basic and unproblematic consensusbetween the old and the new elites (often the same groups under new names,and even less democratically inclined). This consensus and passation de pouvoirsseemed necessary since there was no state, no civil society, no framework, noth-ing to hold things together, and a state of war. The patriarchal social order (whichis far from concerning only women: it is the general social order) was readilyavailable as a mechanism for social/political "reconstruction" (Ivekovic, 1999).

A.common fate of .women as members .of the community, butnotequar politi-cal subjects in (ethno) national contexts is that while being held responsible for

16 . • • . . Radci Ivekovic and Julie Mostuv

viduajs into a maternal community (which can be a fraternity, group, secret soci-ety,'party, sect etc). The virile soldier desires revenge for injuries to the maternallb6dy (NationY territory, borders, etc.), but also for vengeance against the "mother"vulnerable to violation. This maternal metaphor discloses the "unquestioned hier-archy", expressed as the hierarchy of the fraternity or of the community..Thematernal body to which thefascist1 or simply the member of • some intolerantgroup surrenders (paramilitary unit, army, organization, even in some .instances asports club) is a' body/entity within which he is just 'apart as any other. Each ofthe members identifies with and interiorize's the vertical principle in order to beable to communicate with the others through that higher office (the leader; theidea; god etc.). He takes refuge in community (belonging) with others.

According to Theweleit, the nation brings these units together, that is, themembers find themselves yearning for union through the nation, as soldiers in thetrenches found each other in "the unique-the nation" (Theweleit, 1989, Vol. 2,p. 79). In this context,

the nation has in the first instance nothing to do with questions of national borders,forms of government, or so-called nationality. The concept refers to a quite specificform of male community, one that is "yearned for" for many a long year, that rises fromthe "call of the blood" like sexual characteristics, its essential features are incapableof being "learned" or "forgotten". The nation is a community of soldiers. (Theweleil,1989, Vol. 2, pp. 79-31).

This pattern of community is different for women, because they have a dif-ferent genealogy. Women are born from the same sex and are oriented towardsthe other for their socialization (given the hierarchy of social values which ismale - in patriarchy), while men are born of the other sex and are directedtoward their own. What counts here is the identity principle, i.e. the principle ofmaintenance and reproduction of the same by the same within a controlled con-figuration of power. The ideal would be to not have to pass through the other inorder to reproduce oneself. This is not yet feasible (short of cloning). Thus, asnoted above "our" women are not excluded, but seen as internal others. Asreproducers they cannot be excluded from the nation, but their birth-giving fac-ulty must be controlled.

\-

4. The Identity Principle

Following this identity principle, men who choose to be nationalists (of course,not all men are nationalists) and who thereby choose to separate their own fromother nations, claiming for it a special status, subordinate the other within. Thisinvolves the idea of rejecting one's own origin in difference (from the mother)and yearning, retrospectively, for self-made descent - the impossible self-birth,from the same sex/gender. Women, on the other hand, who choose the national-

Introduction -From Gender to Nation • ' 1 7

ist camp and reject other nations must, at the same time, be oriented .towards theother socially (that is, the other sex/gender). The natural difference between thesexes is not seen as symmetrical or one of equivalence and potential equality-in-difference, because this difference is informed by the historic dimension ofgendering. Social hierarchies are projected onto a biological .difference, which-isessentialized. This naturalization allows gender hierarchies to operate very effi-ciently on the imaginary, symbolic and social levels in the way of globalized "uni-versal".values, whereby the masculine is seen to be-both neutral and universal.This gender asymmetry marks patriarchal culture very strongly, and because ofits cross-cultural dimension and its antiquity, its historicity has been lost sight of.Like any human institution,.it is also constructed, historic, social; imagined - butr e a l . • • . : • , . ' . • • : • • • • • • . . . • :

: In the nation as. a community, women, subjugated within a hierarchy insuringpower to some (to those. who; manage to impose their interest .as •universal),- areparadoxically-invited :ljke anyone else to adhere to the pattern. For those menwho accept the hierarchy (the brothers), it is easy to adhere to it-because theycan identify, they find themselves naturally resembling'their ideal. For women(thoseAvhq choose;to:adhere, of course), this identification.is both necessary andimpossible. Women dp notresemble the ideal. However hard they-identify,; theywill never satisfy it, ;So-.they;h.ave to choose between being true ;to thenation(which amounts to being true to the father-figure) and being true to their ownsex/gender. The nation itself involves contradiction as its constitutive condition,in that it assigns it (the contradiction) to its subalterns in general ("minorities","ethnicities", etc.) and to women in particular- through the imposition of a doublebind obligation. The double-bind situation makes one necessarily a traitor to onehalf of her double identity, and thus untrue to the common and "universal" idealwithin the established hegemony. Men can never find themselves in this double-bind situation (in their capacity as men; though they can, as members of a minor-ity group); for men the national and the sexual/gender identities coincide, andnever appear as split. It is the masculine (patriarchal) "same" which is beingreproduced. In this sense, man is "complete" and identical to himself only in hisunity with the maternal body of the nation. Women cannot take part in the repro-duction of this (patriarchal) sameness, unless they erase their own presence androle as individual, sex and gender: they will therefore be treated as matter, sheerbody, or instrument, and will have to be silent in the way "Mother Nation" or "theVirgin" are: giving birth to nation-and-narration (i.e. to identity through language),or to logos - the word of God.

Women's attachment to this national mythology is therefore a denial of theirsexuality, alienation of pleasure (imagining herself as male or imagining the plea-sure of male guardians/warriors), or sublimation of pleasure in the acts of repro-ducing and nurturing the nation's sons, tending to its wounded, remaining faithfulto its protectors. While the "nation" or the "race" is the woman, its fantasized

• I S . ' '•••.'•'••• ' • : ' • - ' • • • ' • ' • R a d a I v e - k c

"cleanliness", (lineage) is guaranteed only by masculine control.•doon.qt be!png:to the.nation in. the same way .men ;do, becaactive bearers or representatives. Moreover, as noted above

. trust its women (andresents their vulnerability to sed.vaction/i•J.atory ]policieS;Of the national-state;define the terms.of belonsproper roles in the. national.hierarchy and the dynamic of pal

:the-conditions of exclusion.; Trapped; within the boundarie: insider, the '.'disloyal"; or questionable Qt:h;er.(woman/ethnicsider, and risks the normative and legal consequences of this st;attachment to the nation is based as much on penalties of e;national myths of inclusion.

• I n t r o d u c t i o n - F r o m G e n d e r t o N a t i o n ' ••' • : • ' • ' • • ' ' • 1 9

seek to empty the public space of political subjects, to reduce the categories ofpolitical subjectivity, and to limit access to institutions of social power. The ethnonational model of belonging (and exclusion) is based on acceptance of "natural"bonds and-roles (as:iii "natural'-' gender:-roles;in:sexuaI;reproduction) defined bytraditiortiand interpreted by national.elites..This model:cannot;countenance ties

• based oiimutual.recognitibn among participants as competent choosers' drpoliti-c a l s u b j e c t s , i . e . d e m o c r a t i c c i t i z e n s . . ;..••! : • ••••;• .•;• ;-.:•••; ; . : :• • ••..,•' '

On the otherhand, the historically, concurrent process of building "fortressEurope" on a "seciiritarian:corisensus"9presents another iteration.of this model:inclusion and^democratic. citizenship for member's.of the-European community;exclusion and forced belonging (to ethnic/refugee/racial communities of other-ness) for "extra-communitarians". Any border defining activity sets up a pro-cess of inclusion and exclusion. The very logic of the modern construction ofpolitical agents in the liberal state offers the opportunity fore'xclusion and distor-tion in.-the-hands, of -those! who'rejeet its democratic potential as too uncertain/'uncontrolled,- egalitarian,: and 'open.-The desire to exclude and to reconfigurepower as communal threatens to replace existing relationships of reciprocity andequality with ethnicized, hierarchical, sexualized relationships of belonging, in•which patriarchs/elites .define the right, to citizenship in ethnic/gendered terms.- Thus, the nationalisms in the former Yugoslavia and other post communist coun-tries parallel right wing movements in Europe and the U.S. and communalisms inSouth Asia.

5. Narration

The ethno-national story is a closed narrative. It is a story in which the con-tents of the identity in question are given through the official version of a uniqueand absolute truth/event. All of the multiple possibilities of the event (which couldhave happened) are discarded and reduced to one sole interpretation, whichfixes the official interpretation of the event into a "unique truth".

The hope for a democratic alternative to this story remains in recognizing ourhistories, that is, our origins in alterity. Opening the past to multiplicity offers achance for women to break the old patterns and create emancipatory practicesand institutions for both women and men. The papers in this volume are a movein this direction, away from history as fatality to history as possibility; from hier-archical (gender/sexed/ethncized) community to complex, diverse society. Theessays in this volume consider the significance of nation and gender in the con-text of post 1989 transitions in the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, and in

y Balibar, Nous, citoyens d'Eitrope?Lesfmntiercs. i'Etat, lepeuple, Paris, la Decouverle, 2001;Brossat, L'Animal dempcratiqite. Notes sur la post-politique, Paris, Farrago, 2000.

20 •Rada lvekovic and 'Julie- Mostov

,the context,of post partition India, ;The;tex.ts engage in various; critiques of:thenaturalization and essentialization of nation .and woman and explore the.uses ofsexualized/gendered imagery in.defining the space of the nation (e.g.. feminizedlandscapes and battlefields) and sexualized/gendered metaphors of state father-hood and motherhood in defining the distribution of power within that space. Theparticular histories of nationalism and partition are each different (Kumar, 2000-2001), but commonalities in narrative structures, state and nation-building strate-gies, patriarchal patterns of control, and mechanisms of inclusion and exclusionare striking, particularly,,with respect to the ways inwhich exclusive nationalidentities .are constituted through:gendered representations^hie.rarchies, and nar7

ratives. Indeed, all of the authors in.this anthology investigate, thepolitiealinstrumentalization of this gendering in the service of a particular appropriationof n a t i o n a l i d e n t i t y . ..• . . • • • • • - • : : • , , ' . . : -.. •

The essay.by Biljana Kasic explores the divergence between women's givenand inherited roles in the context of the* predominant nationalistic discourse inCroatia, afte.r'the. breakdown -of Yugoslavia.; 'She,: asothersin the1 Volume, linksrepresentations of wornenhood to the identification of nationhood with; manhood.Kasic, Vesna Kesic, and. Tea Skokic all. detail .ways.-in which; idealized mother-hood is involved.in,the;promotion:of national:herosi,mothers are.first celebratedfor protecting-.them sons from the Yugoslav Army, then,; for sending them off todefend the Croatian homeland, and finally, for sacrificing them to the nationalinterest. Urvashi Butalia, follows on this theme focusing on the Indian nationalistcontext, but tells us of a Kashmiri woman, Rajai Zameen, who unlike manyothers never accepted violence in the name of the Fatherland or of the Nation, tothe point of not mourning the memory of her son killed as an extremist andterrorist. This woman resists both violence and a history given as destiny.

Elena Gapova's essay on gender identities reinvented within the Belarusiannational project highlights the complexity of gender construction as it intersects andserves in ethno(national) identity formation. In Belarus during the Soviet era,Russians represented the highest authority and, accordingly, the standard of "man-hood". In comparison to this "true" manhood, Belarus manhood (the "weaker"manhood of a subaltern nation) was feminized. The new Belarus nationalist projectsought to (re)construct its own manhood against this old notion and through new/old gender stereotypes for the Belarus women. The national project, however, indefining itself in opposition to Russian domination has had to reconcile its recov-ery of traditional values with Western/European culture. Gender stereotypes haveproved critical in these negotiations. Kumkum Sangari clearly outlines the contrac-tions in affirming national identity through a mix of association and distancing fromthe Western ("modernizing projects") in her lucid study of reformulations of pa-triarchy in nationalist transactions around beauty contests and nuclear weapons.

Vesna Kesic, recognizes identitiesas processes and tries to locate them withinpost-communist transition, itself an ongoing process. She clearly distinguishes

Introduction - From Gender to Nation 21

between the disintegration of the (Yugoslav) identity and the construction of new,ones:(Croatian, in her example); She situates these processes in a comparison ofgender-constructions in Yugoslavia-considering the "flattening" of gender dif-ferences in the.ideology of "brotherhood and unity" and self-management andthe sharpening of gender differences, in the.Croatjan.transition tp ethnocracy/Inthe latter, we see again how nationalists.rely on reconstructed:national, myths;determinist.cultural projects, and demographic threats in the processes of iden-tity formation, Tatjana Pavlovic examines the cultural stereotypes in the creationof pew state/national literature,and explores acts of resistance to .constrictedcultural spaces, and dominant ethnicized/gendered constructions, of the national

, .In her .essay ;O,n Latvia, Irina Novikova writes aboutthe clash between a oncedominant .nationality (Russian) and the newly, emerging dominant nationality(Latvian) in the .process of "post-Soviet nationalization". Like. Gapova, she ex-amines how the.fprces of exclusion and marginalization,have shaped nationalidentities and. hpw tbe historical context (Soviet, and post:Soviet) has affectedthe modalities of women's subordination and identification as" members of thenew, majority or minority nationalities. In the.process of identifying with "their"collectivity, \y.qmen. are .identified as "other" by the dominant male discourse andpractice. Tea Skokic.looks at a similar scheme in her essay, through interviewswith women displaced by the "homeland" war in Croatia. In state and nation-building projects, women may be "liberated" from the Other, to be dominatedfrom within. Or, in displacement women may find some autonomy and then risknew exclusions in a newly configured community, at the hands of new nationalguardians.

Ritu Menon's paper goes to the heart of the question: do women have acountry? Women are included in the nation as subaltern. The Indian examplesare telling: after partition which included a wide range of atrocities, "ethnic" andreligious cleansing, large scale deportations, mass rapes, and abductions of women,India and Pakistan divided or shared their goods, and women were among thosegoods, as property of the nation. After the violence, the two countries agreedthat no one would be taken away against her/his will. Yet, at the same time thetwo countries came to another agreement that violated this fundamental rale:-,wpmen (and minors under 16) were to be forcefully returned to their families(even when they didn't want to be or when their relatives rejected them), that is,returned to their "proper" religious community. Thus, the category of "abducted"women was created, to include women who had ended up in the "wrong" com-munity even as a result of their own will. According to Menon,

"Belonging" for women is also - and uniquely - linked to sexuality, honor, chastity;family, community and country must agree on both their acceptability and legitimacy,and their membership within the fold.

22 Rada Ivekovic and Julie Mosto\

:The.JNation - the community - decides whether one of its parts belongs.; It isthe masculine nation, thought as nation.tout court.

Elisabeth List approaches these complex issues of subordinated inclusion froman analysis of the dominant theoretical paradigm of the modern nation-state. Shederives the inferior condition of women from the same conditions, which govern(modern) rationality and: links the individual self to'the collective identities(ethnicities/nationalities) within a historic framework.,It is this situation,in whicha dominant identity is built on the exclusion of the other (as in the subordination ofwomen to men) that produces cultures of violence: The way put of .this dilemma-is acceptance of .heterogeneity, :that is, acceptance of a civilizational choice dis-tinctly different.than the one, which has so far prevailed: in the world;., ; , , ,.i

. Dasa Duhacek takes a similar approach, applying it to the Serbian/Yugoslavcase. Duhacekrecognizes that "the very discourse of political subjectivity whichwomen and feminists'have adopted is unavoidably and necessarily a part-of theinstallation of the model they oppose - the model of the nation-state". Whilenational/political citizenship is a site of patriarchal regulatory policies, she notesthat it can also be a site of subversion. Recounting the activities of feministgroups and anti-war activities, she alert us to ways-in which "nation" and "state"can be contested through women's locaf networks and feminist interventions inthe dominant male discourse. Women can and do create social spaces for con-testations and resistance. In theorizing the interdependence of nation/gender/sexuality, each of the essays in this volume suggests - implicitly or explicitly -alternative emanicipatory paths for women in the context of nation and statebuilding, or the very transformation of these activities.

i t

6. Perspectives

We have tried in this book to analyze the relationship between two importantidentity constructions, which are obviously interlinked. The construction of gen-der has a much longer history, indeed, and is generally used as a pattern for allsocial hierarchies. It has a very special relationship with nation building becausethis is the identity, among others, to which gender has lent most explicitly anddirectly its terminology and its conceptual framework. Since the common termi-nology is so widely shared and highly sexuated and gendered (consider, for ex-ample, birth, origin, sex, woman, father, mother, brothers, sons, family, commu-,nity, body, sacrifice, virtue, honour, and love) it is difficult to separate the twoorders (nation and gender). Thus, they appear as naturally related. This volumeoffers specific cases of this historic relationship and, at the same time, suggestsa resolution of patriarchy in favor of full equality, liberation and emancipation forwomen. That would have, of course, an immediate bearing on the constructionof the nation and of the state, intolerable for patriarchy. If the nation and genderare historically interrelated, and if patriarchy is maintained through nation build-

Introduction - From'Gender to Nation

ing;: the prqbjejn of patriarchy cannot be splYedvyithoutundermining theco;nrstiri;i-tion of the nation. It.is,;aftenall, ;both jts.principal, instrument:and its buildingmaterial, and .$Q its junction and condition, -.;..: ,-i ..,:...•.:;.'• .]•.:]-.'. •,:' •:••;•;. That is, maintaining patriarchy is not only the: willful activity of (some) men,but also, and more fundamentally, the -fruit- of a larger system of hierarchies anddominance,.whichiiises the subordination of.women to mentis its cornerstone.Sexual analogies and gendered language serve to transform the consensuallyaccepted global subordination of women to men into other hierarchies (based onage, class, race, international relations, etc.). A gender sensitive analysis of themechanism of nation and state building is, thus, also an analysis of the mecha-nism of-patriarchy, Feminist critiques of the nation offer ;a. particularly critical andfar-reaching analysis of the relationships of power involved in the state and na-tion-building projects. The critique is, at the same time;:a"dismantling of thesepower relations. When; the nation can no longer rely upon the hierarchy of gen-der, its identity principle and claim for continuity will be shattered, and with it, apowerful form of domination. The two processes, however, are not identical andmove at different rates of speed. The transformation.of genderrelations is much

.:s!ower(or rnore:-s!*Qwly perceived because of patriarchal resistance and obfus-cation of symbolic values) than the transformation of nation, which is,: after ally amodern formation. This is one reason why the twoiprocesses.are not transparentto each other and why they may clash with one another. The recent events of1989 and also those of the end of the colonial era exemplify these conflicts. Theauthors of this volume confront these clashes and see the entanglement of theseprocesses not as a deadlock, but rather as a challenge for theory and practice.

A general abdication of the dominant schools of psychoanalysis and philoso-phy has accompanied attempts to come to terms with capitalist globalizationafter 1989 (starting an era of post-socialism and a new phase of revised post-colonialism) and renouncements of the dominant schools of political thought havefollowed the supposed triumph of the neo-liberal option and the obvious failure ofthe Welfare State, the Socialist State, and of the first (secular) Post-ColonialState (these three being parallel and linked). But such abdication or renounce-ment is not the affair of our authors.

' State-building theories, nationalist ideas, and hierarchical ideologies preoccu-pied with maintaining power have been proposed as replacements for these "fail-ures" of the 20"1 Century, offering up various "new traditional" proposals andtemporary ad hoc solutions which lead to ethnocracies, populist governments,and discard for any social concerns, regardless of the human price (just a warhere and there, at the peripheries).

The authors in this book; however, are not to be duped. It is clear to them thatthey can neither adhere to the abdication of one philosophy or another taking upno project at all, nor accept the seemingly single (re)emergent "project" - thenationalist project. Instead, they take an active attitude of resistance rejecting

24 Rada Ivekovic and Julie Mostov

the idea that we are condemned to the basically unjust situation imposed on us.They transcend the ethnic and nationalist view. Together with other authorsworking on these topics (many of whom for good reasons are women), theycontribute elements to a new conceptual framework for rethinking gender rela-tions within the process of reconfiguring and redefining the gender relationshipunderlying'other hierarchies.It is extremely difficult to think from within an on-going process, this is why the authors deserve credit for their daring, which'isheavily based in the field of women's and gender studies, as well as on the studyof transitions (post-colonial and post-socialist). Being able to think about theseprocesses will soon be one of the crucial instruments not merely of understand-ing our. times, but also of actively projecting a just and democratic future foreveryone.

REFERENCES

N. Alarcon, C. Kaplan and M. Moallem, introduction: Between Woman and Nation», in•• C, Kaplair, N. Alcaron and M. Moallem (eds.), Between.Wo.man and Nation: Natiqiialrism, Transnational Feminism, and the State, Durham (NC), Duke University Press, 1999. i>

E: Balibxirand I; Wal'lerstein (eds;), Race, Nation, Class: Ambiguous Identities, London,Verso, 1996. . ;

E. Balibar, Nous, citoyens d'Europe? Lesfrontieres, I'Etat, lepeuple, Paris, la Decouverte, s

2001. ' %[U

T. K. Bose and R. Manchanda (eds.), States, Citizens and Outsiders. The Uprooted ^People of South Asia, Kathmandu-Calcutta, SAFHR (South Asia Forum for HumanRights), J977. £

A. Brossat, L'Animal democratique. Notes sur la post-politique, Paris, Farrago, 2001. ' J

U. Butalia, The Other Side of Silence. Voices from the Partition of India, New Delhi, x'Viking, 1998. *".

iE. Canetti, Masse et puissance, (trans. R. Roving), Paris, Gallimard, 1966, p. 138. „"V. Das, Critical Events. An Anthropological Perspective in Contemporary India, Delhi, Jf?

Oxford University Press, 1995.

C. Guiliaumin, Sexe, Race et Pratique dupouvoir. L'Ide'e de nature, Paris, Cote-Femmes,1992.

M. Hasan (ed.), Invented Boundaries: Gender, Politics and the Partition of India, Delhi,Oxford University Press, 2000.

R. Ivekovic, Autopsia dei Balcani. Saggio di psico-politica, Milan, Raffaello .Cortina,1999. German edition Auwpsie des Balkans. Ein psycho-politischer Essay, (trans, fromFrench by liona Seidel), Graz, Literaturverlag Droschl, 2001 a.

Introduction - From Gender to Nation " 2 5

R: Ivekovic, «Geschleehterdifferenz und nationale-Differenz», in Chantal Mouffe andJiirgen Trinks (eds.), Fein'mistischeperspektiven, Wien, Turia-Kant, 2001b, pp. J40-58.

D. Kandiyoti (ed.), Nations and Nationalism, Vol. 6, Part 4, special issue on "Gender andN a t i o n a l i s m " , O c t o b e r 2 0 0 0 . ' • ' ' • •-:-.••••••••

R.Konstantinqvic, Filozofyapalanke, Belgrade, Nolit, 1981 (first ed. 1969).

R. Kumar, Divideand Fall?- Bosnia in the Annahof Partition, London, Verso, 1998.

:R. Kumar,. «Setrjing-Partition Hostilities:• Lessons Learnt,, -the. Options .-•Ahead»y-anTransEuropeennes, Nos. 19-20,2001; pp. 9-25..- ,•

:M::lylaxndimi, When Victims Become Killers, Colonialism, Nativism and the Genocide in•Rwanda, Princeton :(NJ.); Princeton University Press, 2001.

•R. Menpn (ed,), Interventions. International Journal of Post- Colonial Studies, SpecialTopic: The Partition of the Indian Sub-Continent, Vol. 1, No. 2, 1999.

R. Menon and Kamla Bhasin, Borders and Boundaries. Women in India' Partition, NewBrunswick, (N.J.), Rutgers University Press, 1998.

G. Mosse, Nationalism and Sexuality: Respectability and Abnormal Sexuality in Mod-ern Europe, New York, Howard Fertig, 1985.

J. Mostov, «"Our Woinen'V'Their Women": Symbolic Boundaries, Territorial Markersand Violence in the Balkans*, in Peace and Change, Vol. 20, No. 4, October 1995,

J. Mostov, «£ndangered Citizenship*, in M, Kraus and R. Liebowitz (eds.), Russia andEastern Europe After Communism, New York, Westview, 1996a.

J. Mostov, «La formation de i'ethnocratie*, in TransEuropeennes, No. 8, 1996b, pp. 35-44.

J. Mostov, «Sexing the nation/Desexing the body», in T. Mayer (ed.), Gender Ironies ofNationalism: Sexing the Nation, New York, Routledge, 2000.

R. Samaddar, The Marginal Nation. Transformer Migration from Bangladesh to WestBengal, New Delhi-London, Sage Publication, 1999.

K. Sangari and S. Vaid (eds.), Recasting Women: Essays in Indian Colonial History, NewBrunswick (N.J.), Rutgers University Press, 1990.

K. Theweleit, Male Fantasies, Vol. -2, (trans. Erica Carter and Chris Turner), Minneapolis(MN), Minnesota University Press, 1989.

N. Yuval-DavisandF. Anthias (eds.), Woman-Nation-State, London, Macmilian, 1989.

A )()! Tt,W.' Of PFJCH RBIMPt

CO-EXECUTIVE EDITORS

SCOTT L. BILLSStephen E Austin State University

SUDARSHAN KAPOORCalifornia Stale University, Fresno

MANAGING EDITOR

K. MICHELE SPARKSStephen F Austin Slate University

BOARD OF EDITORSChadwick AIg*er •' Ohio Slate University

Barton BernsteinStanford University

Donald BirnSUMY, Albany

Clise Boulding 'inlcrnalional Peace Research Association

Sandi CooperCity University of New York

Lloyd DumasUniversity of Texas, Dallas

Frances EarlyMount Saint Vincent University

Karl RollUniversity of Bremen

Herbert KelmanHarvard University

Louis KriesbergSyracuse University

Lester KurtzUniversity of Texas, AustinGeorge LopezUniversity of Noire DameNadine Lubekki-BemardFree University of Brussels ' .

David LukowitzHamline University , • •

Christopher MooreCDR Associates, Boulder, CO

' Meivin SmallWayne State Uniwrsity

E. Timothy SmithBarry University .-..'.Metla Spencer . . . . : . .University of TorontoCarolyn StephensonUniversity of Hawaii

Peter van d e n Dungren • •University of Bradford

Lawrence WittnerSUhK, Albany ' • . ' . . . ' • .

Beverly WoodwardInternational Nonviolent Initiatives Waltfiam, MA -

BOARD EXECUTIVE COMMITTEEMary Alice BudgeYmmgsloam State University •'

Heidi A. BurgessUniversity of Colorado •••-••

Je f f rey P. K i m b a l l ; : ' •;Miami University ..:•..-.

Robbie LiebermanSouthern Illinois Universtiy ::.:. . -

Cynthia Maude-GemblerSyracuse University ••;.:1: :

Ambassador John W. McDonald (Chair ) 'Institute for Multi-Trflck.Diplomacy i: :

James R. Scarritt '." 'University of Colorado

. Geoffrey S. SmithQueen's University, Ontario

• Michael TrueAssurnjHhtt College

For SAGE Periodicals Press: D. J. Peck, Mary Williams, and Palrick Harbula

Peace & Change

Volume 20 Number 4, October 1995

Contents

Peace and War Issues:Gender,.Race, and Ethnicity in Historical Perspective

Editors'Introduction: : . : HARRIETHYMANALONSO

;; JOHN WHITECLAY CHAMBERS II 403,

Feminist Inventions in the Art of Peacemaking:A Century Overview

. ELISE BOULDING . . 408

Foreshadowings: :

Jane Addariis, Emily Greene Balch, andthe EcQfeminJsm/Pacifist Feminism of the 1980s

ANNE MARIE POIS ...... 439

"Binding Themselves the Closer to Their Own Peculiar Duties":Gender and Women's Work for Peace, 1818-1860

!i WENDY E. CIIMIELEVSKI' :' .... 466

German Pacifist Womenrini Exile, 1933-1945, -KARLHOLL . 491

Trafficking in Women's Bodies, Then and Now:The Issue of Military "Comfort Women" >

.-.-: KAZUKO WATANABE 501

"pur Women"/"Their Women":Symbolic Boundaries, Territorial Markers,and Violence in'the Balkans

.:'JULIE MOSTOV . . . . . . ...515

Notes on Authors v ^0

Index 532

Sage Periodicals Press A Division of SAGE Publications, Inc.Thousand Oaks • London • New Delhi

514 PEACE & CHANGE / October 1995

8. Kim Yonja's speech was given at the Human Rights World Conference in Vienna in1992; see also Women's Human Rights Committee of Japan, ed., Joseino Jinken Ajia Hotei[Women's Human Rights Asian Tribunal] (Tokyo: Akashi Shoten, 1994), 123. ;

9. Many books on this subject are available in Japanese. This article is based mostly onSuzuki Yuko's books as well as herspeeches.SeeSuzukiYuko./tt^un/an/K/oA'awenXejtion[Military Comfort Women and Marriage between Japanese and Koreans] (Tokyo: Miraisha,1992); idem, Chosenjin Jugun lanfu; and Suzuki Yuko, "Jugun lanfu" Mondai to SeiBouryoku [ "Military Comfort Women " Issues and Sexual Violence] (Tokyo: Miraisha, 1994)..

10. "Women's Human Rights, Committee of Japan," ed., "Tokyo Declaration of:Women's Human Rights Asian Tribunal," in Women's Human Rights Asian Tribunal(Tokyo:;Akashishoten, 1994), 234-41.

11. Lisa Go's speech was given at the symposium on "Violence against Women andWomen's Human Rights" held at the Kyoto YWCA in March 1994. :,

12. Abe Yuko, "Struggle with Trafficking in Women: From Activities of 'Mizura'," in •:Josei/Bouryolai/Jinken [Women/Violence/Human Rights], ed. Kazuko Watanabe (Tokyo:; ;Gakuyo shobo, 1994), 156-66.

13. Asian Tribunal: International Public Hearing on Traffic in Women and War Crimes; /against Asian Women, proceedings compiled by the Women's Human Rights Committee of;Japan, March 1994. ' '

14. Ibid. ~

15. Fukushima Mizuho, interview with the author, April 1992.16. Yuko, "Struggle with Trafficking in Women."

17. Zainippon Chousenminshu Josei Dome! [People's Republic of Korea Resident inJapan Women's Association], ed., Chosenjin "lanfu" [Korean "Comfort Women"] (Tokyo:Zainippon Chousenminshu Josei Domei Chuqjonin Jinkai,1992).

18. Yun Chung-ok, "Chosenjin Jugun lanfu" ["Korean Military Comfort Women"], inChosenjin Jugun lanfu Mondai Shiryoshu [Collection of Papers on Korean Military ComfortWomen], vol. 3: 194-202 (Tokyo: Sanichi Shobo, 1992); 'Teishintai Shuzaiki" ["Survey ofTeishintai"], in Chosenjin Josei ga mita "lanfu Mondai" [Korean Women's View of "ComfortWomen" Issue] (Tokyo: Sanichi shobo, 1992), 11-94.

19. Shukan Post [The Weekly Post] survey, February 28, 1992. A well-known essayist,Kamisaka Fuyuko, wrote that the institution of comfort women was a necessary evil toprotect respectable women from sexual abuse by Japanese soldiers. ;

20. Kim Puja, "Korean Comfort Women Issues Seen from Women's Movement inKorea," in Chosenjin Josei ga mita "lanfu Mondai," 194-202.

21. Watanabe, "Militarism, Colonialism and Trafficking of Women."22. Union Purple Fighting against Sexual Harassment, ed., "Totugeki Ichiban" wa

Ikiteita! Okamoto Kyudan ["Attack Champion" Alive! Protest against Okamoto Manufac-turer] (pamphlet, 1993). :

23. Takasato Suzuyo, "Military Bases: Violence against Women," in Josei/Bouryoku/Jinken, 178-93; Takasato SuzUyo, "Okinawa in the Military Base," in Joseino Jinken Ajia .Hotei, 95-103.

24. Ibid.; see also "Foreign News: Okinawa Forgotten Island," Time, November 28,1949,20-21.

25. Suzuyo, "Military Bases," 178. . ' •

26. United Nations, "Vienna Declaration and Program of Action," para. 9 (June 1993).

This essay explores the ways in which traditional gender roles and patriarchal culture playa part in the violent map-making of ethnonationalism. With special reference to the formerYugoslavia, it looks at how boundaries designed to protect can, at the same time, be barriersto peace and security and tools of exclusion and aggression as women's bodies themselvesbecome boundaries of the nation. Not only are women's bodies symbols cfthefecundicity cfthe nation and the vessels for its reproduction, but they are also territorial markers. Thefeminization of territorial and symbolic space, however, also suggests a subversive role forwomen in resisting the imposed boundaries of ethnonationalism and creating alternative ,identities and spaces.

"OUR WOMEN'V'THEIR WOMEN"Symbolic Boundaries, Territorial Markers,

and Violence in the Balkans

by Julie Mostov

Boundaries form indispensable protections against violation and ;,violence; but the divisions they sustain in doing so also carry crueltyand violence..... Boundaries both foster and inhibit freedom, they ;both protect and violate life.1

In the Balkans and, particularly, in the former Yugoslavia, activi-ties aimed at securing, contesting, or expanding existing territorialboundaries comprise an important part of ethnonational programs.Competing for political power, would-be national leaders embellish;the wrongs and bemoan the hardships suffered by "their" peopleagainst a historical backdrop of disputed borders and conflictingclaims to territories "won or lost" in past wars. They redrawcontested borders and promise to secure proper ones, by force ifnecessary. Or they point to the plight of co-nationals living outside,of the existing borders. They warn of possible losses of territory ortantalize with possible gains.

The redrawing of territorial boundaries to realize the congruenceof nation and state,2 particularly when the presumed boundaries ofthe nation are the myths and memories of the dominant ethnic

PEACE & CHANGE, Vol. 20 No. 4, October 1995 515-529© i 995 Peace History Society andConsortium on Peace Research, Education and Development

515


group,3 involves what Katherine Verdery calls a "homogenizing,differentiating, or classifying discourse."4 It involves a kind ofmap-making that draws boundaries among people, either separat-ing them from one another or pulling them together under one roof.It corrals people into newly constructed and constricting bounda-ries, inevitably stripping them of attachments and identities andimposing new ones.5

Thus boundaries designed to protect can, at the same time, bebarriers to peace and security. They can be tools of violent exclusionand aggression. This essay explores the ways in which traditionalgender roles and patriarchal culture play a part in the constructionof such barriers and the violent map-making of ethnonationalisms.References are primarily to the former Yugoslavia, but the argu-ments apply to other countries in the region as well.

Symbolically, religion, language, gender, and in particularproper gender roles become boundaries in the national iconography.Women's bodies themselves become boundaries of the nation. Notonly are women's bodies symbols of the fecundity of the nation andthe vessels for its reproduction, but they are also territorial markers.Mothers, wives, and daughters designate the space of the nation andare, at the same time, the property of the nation. As markers and asproperty, mothers, daughters, and wives require the defense and-protection of patriotic sons.

MYTH-MAKING AT BORDERS

The desire to make boundaries irreversible and to reiterate their"naturalness," which is part of the double process of state- andnation-building, makes recourse to the storehouse of national my-thologies particularly appealing. Images drawn from epic tales andfolklore, popularized in newly composed songs and in politicalspeeches, trace the primordial, eternal nature of the nation and itsbattle against enemies. These images transfer the conflicts with"others" from the sphere of mere politics, economics, and historyto the otherworldly sphere of myth. For example, Serbian warriorsare portrayed as epic heroes fighting for sacred national values. But

Mostov/VIOLENCE IN THE BALKANS 517

there is more to it. They are also waging a war for humanity againstthe "infidel." They are of epic proportion, and their adversaries areless than human, even monsters.6

. The role of boundaries in national mythology (in songs, poetry,and literature) has often served to demarcate differences and toextend them to the symbolic realm as well as to erase geographicborders separating members of the nation.7 The mythology ofborder areas in which members of the nation are constantly facedwith the threat of physical or rrioral(cultural) attacks by outsidershas figured significantly in the inflammatory politics of nationalistleaders in the borderlands (Krajina), populated by Serbs in Croatiaand Bosnia.8 According to one of the leading politicians amongBosnian Serb nationalists, Biljana Plavsic, the inhabitants of theseborderlands have "developed and sharpened a highly sensitizedability to perceive threats to the nation and to develop protectivemechanisms." Noting that it has always been said in her family thatSerbs in Bosnia were better Serbs than were those in Serbia, sheadded that, as with all living organisms, those species that live nearand are threatened by others are best able to adapt and survive.9

. Tales and songs about border spaces are filled with warnings ofexternal threats, bravery and bravado, and illicit crossings or trans-gressions. Popular among these tales are those that tell of theabduction of young girls—whisked away, seduced, or violently tornfrom their homelands. Such stories reveal the vulnerability orporousness of national boundaries. These stories highlight dangerand opportunities for heroism and appeal to fantasies about theenemy. The erotic image of the enemy is tied to the transgressionof borders: physical boundaries arid cultural boundaries. Crossingthe border, the "alien" bandit attempts to take something away orto invade the "national" space.10 At the same time, each sidefantasizes about invading the space of the other, stealing the identityof the alien society and installing its own culture.

Border fantasies develop with the gendering of boundaries" andspaces (landscapes, farmlands, and battlefields)12 and with thecollectivizing of "our women" and "their women." Femininespaces are invaded (or filled) by masculine actors. The nation isadored and adorned, made strong and bountiful or raped and


defiled, its limbs torn apart, its womb invaded. The vulnerahm*andseductxvenessofwomer^ordersrequirethevigiWoT^^guards they also entice combatants into battle. It if S ^ S

^ r r m e d c o n f l i c ^REPRODUCING THE NATION:PRESERVING ITS NUMBERS

Women are biological reproducers of group members, of theethnonation. They bear sons to fight and daughters to care for themotherland. Women who resist this role are deemed selfish, un-womanly, and unpatriotic; women who have abortions are, aboveall, traitors. Given the importance of demographic renewal in thestruggles among contending ethnonational groups in the region,abortion is presented as a serious threat to the nation. Warnings ofthe symbolic and demographic consequences of such action aboundin the rhetoric of national spokespersons (and are rarely publiclycontested by male members of civic opposition groups).13 Accord-ing to the Croatian ruling party, for example, "A fetus is alsoCroat"—an innocent member of Mother Croatia.14

Croatian President Franjo Tudjman blamed the tragedy of theCroatian nation on "women, pornography, and abortion." Womenwho have abortions are "mortal enemies of the nation," and theirgynecologists are "traitors." Their acts are appalling as they act tohinder "the birth of little Croats, that sacred thing which God hasgiven society and the homeland." Women who have not given birthto at least four children are scolded as "female exhibitionists" whohave not fulfilled their "unique sacred duty."15

The Serbian Orthodox Patriarch Pavle, in his widely broadcastChristmas message of 1995, warned that the low birthrate amongSerbs was a "plague" visited on the nation. He also declared thatwomen were too interested in enjoying themselves and not willingto bear and raise children because it might threaten their comfort-able lives. He went on to say that "many mothers who had notwanted to have more than one child were now pulling out their hair


and bitterly weeping over the loss of their only children in the war,often cursing God and others for that but forgetting to blamethemselves for not bearing more children who could remain tocomfort them. When they come before the final judgment, thosemothers who didn't allow their children to be born will meet thesechildren up above and they will then ask them: Why did you killus, why didn't you give birth to us?"16 He added that if the birthratedid not increase significantly in 10 years, Serbs would be a nationalminority in their own country and then would have nothing to sayabout their own fate.

Hungarian nationalists have also: tied abortion to the "death ofthe nation." Abortion is described as a "national catastrophe."According to one article, "Four million Hungarians . . . had beenkilled by abortion in the thirty-five years of the liberal abortionpolicies of the Communists," more than had been killed at thefamous battle of Mohacs against theTurks in 1526. Susan Gal, whocites this article, notes the choice of words: "not fetuses or evenpeople, but Hungarians."17-•--•' :: :;i :c n;

Women as mothers are reproducers of the nation, but they arealso potential enemies of and traitors to their nation, collaboratorsin its death. The other's women are enemies as reproducers, multi-plying the number of outsiders, conspiring to dilute and destroy thenation with their numerous offspring. (Both Croats and Serbs warnof the rapid increase inBirthrates of local Muslims and Albanians.)18

Thus, while "our" women are to be revered as mothers, all women'sbodies must be controlled. Because the ethnonational concept ofnation defines the community as a family*motherhood and repro-duction must be supervised by the guardians of thenation. Women'sbodies as incubators are instrumental to the maintenance of theexternal and internal boundaries of the nation.

NURTURING THE NATION:PRESERVING ITS DISTINCTTVENESS

Women serve as custodians of national values, as signifiers ofthe boundaries of group identity, marking its difference from alien

520 PEACE & CHANGE /October 1995

others." Women preserve traditions in the home, observe dietaryand other rituals, and, through their chastity and modesty, reflectthe virtue of the nation. Proper roles for women are dictated by thesituation: wife, mother, long-suffering victim; nurse and comforter;woman-warrior. Women are to be warm, tender, sensitive, sympa-thetic, and caring; yet, in the absence of males, they must be readyto protect the nation. A women's battalion that fought at the frontin Krajina is said to have been formed by women ashamed thatable-bodied men were resisting mobilization, dodging the war liketraitors (much like the legendary traitor of Serbian folklore, VukBrankbvic, who is said to have fled the battlefield and left SerbianKing Lazar to fight alone against the Turks in the battle of Kosovo,1389).20

Paired with epic heroes are brave mothers who sacrifice theirsons and husbands for the nation and tend the wounds of the fallenwarriors and faithful wives who keep the hearth burning and whobear the future generation of heroes. Women in mourning, peasantwomen forced out of their homes, women refugees packed intotrucks with crying children, on the other hand, are symbols of thenational tragedy and reasons for national revenge. Women profes-sionals and other modern urban residents are left out of the nati onalimagery of womanhood. The healthy outdoor girls, portrayed as theadmiring girlfriends of the patriotic soldiers or paramilitary forces,are not "feminists," or weak city girls, but rather are physically andmorally strong symbols of the purity and vitality of the nation".21

The "healthy" girls sitting in Pale (once a resort village on theoutskirts of Sarajevo, now Bosnian Serb headquarters), or peasantmothers tied to the hearth—rather than those women who once satin the offices, libraries, cafes, and clubs in Sarajevo—represent theprimordial roots and natural character of the nation.22 City life holdstoo many temptations and too many opportunities for boundarycrossings.

Women who fail to observe the borders, who transgress themthrough mixed marriages and other personal relationships or whoengage in activities that otherwise push them to the margins of thecommunity, are castigated. Women critical of ethnonational leadersor active in the peace movements in the former Yugoslavia and

Mostov / VIOLENCE IN THE BALKANS521

feminist organizations are good examples. They are dehumaniîn public discourse because they lack a national identity, whidyvthe essence of one's being. For example, an article in the ZagV*1S

daily, Globus, labeled as "witches" five women who dared tocritical of the policies of the ruling party in Croatia and publi,questioned its censorship policies. The headline stated, "Croatj? y

Feminists Rape Croatia!" The author of the article was carefulian

point out their "failures" to marry Croatians, to remain many to

or to have children. Clearly, they were women with idenj. 'problems.23 ; y

On the other hand, women become national heroines throhsuicide or martyrdom. A Belgrade magazine reported the story1^Dragana, a mother of two who "acted like a real hero at a torhchamber in Bbsanski Brod—she shot herself in the mouth."24 re

* WOMEN AS BATTLEGROUND

Since 1989; a common complaint of ethnonational leaders .Eastern Europe has been that communism Jmposed an artifi îdentity on members of the nation, degrading or denying the tfticular genius of their respective nations and encouraging a kin^ ^r"ethnic blending. In the former Yugoslavia, many have playecjthis theme, arguing that an artificial "Yugoslav" identity robl°n

many of them of their real identities, Serbs and Croats neearecover their links to their own cultures and revive the uni^qualities of their respective peoples. New Serbs or Croats or Rûe

niahs would have to learn to imagine themselves not as YugosJ os~but as members of a recovered nation. ^ a v s

This process of national recovery and "self-determinationûnderstood in such a way that it appears inevitably linked to arjconflict. Claims to territory and sovereignty tied to redefined'tional identities are successfully asserted only by joining in na~ancient battles of one's ancestors. Through warfare, members oj,nation reconstitute their identity by brutally drawing the bound^ v e

between themselves and others. Blood defines the boundarynes

each community and seals the borders..

isned


Confirming the naturalness of these new-old divisions and thecontinuity of the national struggle, contemporary warriors are saidto fight alongside their noble "ancestors." Thus today's soldiers aredescribed as "links" in a genetic chain, inheritors of battlegroundsand enemies. Serbian mythology, for example, stresses this notionof the intimate link between the living and the dead. This relation-ship is tied to the idea of sacred places where the blood of ancestorshas been spilled and their bodies have been laid to rest. Ancestralsoil—earth mixed with the bones of previous warriors—or thegraves and the remains of fallen heroes become symbolic as wellas territorial markers.

The ethnonational leader draws from this mythology and theritual reuniting of soil and bones. Thus, in 1989, the bones of KingLazar, a famous Serbian hero who died in the fourteenth-centurybattle of Kosovo against the Turks, were carried around to theOrthodox, monasteries and finally brought to rest in Kosovo, retrac-ing the territory of the Serbian national community and assertingthe " 'fact' that Kosovo has always been the cradle of 'that whichis Serbian.'"25

The "being" or essence of the nation is carried by male warriors,planted in the soil through their bones, and is passed to newgenerations through their semen. (Under the inspiration of a patri-otic program at a refugee camp, one author went so far as to saythat a feeling for the traditional metric verse of epic poems is"inborn" in the Serbian genetic code.26)

Nationalist ideology thus assigns active roles, "subject posi-tions," to men who will wage war, protecting and expanding theirterritory and possessions. It is over and through the feminine bodythat they pursue these goals. They forge their identities as males, asagents of the nation, over the symbolic and physical territory of thefeminine "homeland." The latter must be secured and protectedfrom transgression, for it holds the seeds and blood of past andfuture warriors. Over and through the actual bodies of women who

, reproduce the nation, men define its physical limits and preserveits sanctity. Over the battleground of women's bodies, borders aretransgressed and redrawn.

Mostov / VIOLENCE IN THE BALKANS 523

The genetic material of the nation is supplied by men whilewomen provide the vessel in which the nation and its treasure grow.This idea of women as containers and nurturers is linked with thespatial imagery of women as landscape over which soldiers march,as fields to harvest, as a natural resource, as territory to protect, asland that could be seized or invaded. The use of women in "sym-bolically marking the boundary of the group makes them particu-larly susceptible" to control strategies organized from within tomaintain and defend the boundaries and vulnerable to violencefrom without designed to invade and violate these lines of demar-cation.27 The combination of roles assigned to women and patriar-chal perceptions of women as susceptible ito seduction heightensthe sense of women's vulnerability and thus the vulnerability of"our" land, our possessions, our culture, and our values. At the sametime, the positioning of women as objects—containers, transmit-ters, and symbols of nationhood—enhances the temptation to con-test and degrade the othei'by violating "his" woman. ,

•:;::'-;"' -': ••-•-'"•• •••;..• ^ R A P E OF T H E N A T I O N

- The personification of nature as female translates easily to thatof nation as woman, that is, as a woman's body that is always indanger of violation by foreign males.28 According to V. SpikePeterson, "Natibh-as-woman expresses a spatial, embodied female-ness: the land's fecundity, upon which the people depend, must beprotected by defending the body/nation's boundaries against inva-sion and violation. But nation-as-woman is also a temporal meta-phor: The rape of the body/nation not only violates frontiers butdisrupts—-by planting alien seed or destroying reproductive viabilrity—the maintenance of the community through time." She addsthat in this "patriarchal metaphor is the tacit agreement that menwho cannot defend their woman/nation against rape have lost their'claim'to that body, that land."29

Actual women's bodies are important here as part of a collectivebody. The nationalist discourse denies the specificity of female

524 PEACE & CHANGE /October 1995

experience by giving larger symbolic meanings to the signifier ofrape; that is, Bosnia (Croatia, Serbia) is being violated by theSerbian (Muslim, Albanian) rapist.30 Because the nation itself is atstake, the crime of rape does not acquire meaning until it iscommitted by a foreign intruder.

Thus women are perceived as victims of oppression and brutal-ity, but only at the hands of other nationalities.31 Within the nation,women are seen as the property of fathers, husbands, or brothersand as national resources or, in Meredith Tax's words, as "fields tobe sown,"32 A woman who has been raped is devalued property, andshe signals defeat for the man who fails in his role as protector.

So, raping the other's women is a violation of territorial integrity,an act of war, a means of establishing jurisdiction and conquest.The territory/property of the "enemy males" is occupied throughthe "colonization" of female bodies. Rape is an invasion of theother's territory and a sign of his impotency. Men who cannotprevent the rape of "their" women are defeated as on the battlefield.They have failed to protect their borders.

The humiliation of men, whose women have been raped, is animportant motivating factor. For the ethnonational leaders boundon changing the territory of their nation, rape becomes an instru-ment for permanently changing the ethnic makeup of the land.Under the much-abused notion of national self-determination, thebrutality in "ethnic cleansing" is aimed at ensuring the irre-versibiliry of any population changes necessary to majority con-trol.33 Accepting the "tacit agreement" of the patriarchal metaphor,men would not return to the place where "their" women were rapedand humiliated.

Another way of putting this is that the terrain of women's bodiesis seen as a battlefield over which the identities of the other can bedestroyed. Rape at once pollutes and occupies the territory of thenation, transgresses its boundaries, defeats its protectors. Degrad-ing the nation's symbol of fertility and purity, it physically blocksits continuity and threatens its existence. Such rape thus promises

. to "cleanse" the territory of the other and make it ours. In a war inwhich major goals are articulated in terms of map-making, itfollows a frighteningly logical strategy.


The female body as a spoil of war becomes a territory whoseborders spread through the "birth of an enemy son." Given thetraditional notions expressed in warrior mythology of the male asthe bearer of the genetic "stuff' of the nation and the female asproperty and a vessel in which sons and daughters of the nationgrow, men become owners of the territory/womb as well as ownersof the children women carry. This is expressed in the words of arapist, reported by survivors in Bosnia: "You have an enemy childin your womb. One day my child will kill you ."w

In one act, a rapist can defeat the male enemy, invade andconquer the other's territory/nation, and advance his own nation.This does not suggest that the thousands of rapes committed in therecent wars in the former Yugoslavia were directly motivated bysuch elaborate analysis, but it places them in a context of imagesfamiliar to people in the region. The words of perpetrators reportedby witnesses and survivors and the public responses of leaders tothese accounts lead us to believe that these acts were, to a largeextent, undertaken, encouraged, and understood in such terms.35

NATIONAL ROMANCE WITH

As symbols of national tragedy and reasons for national revenge,women who weie brutally raped in the Bosnian war have continuedto suffer more abuse in the Service of nationhood. These women,whose suffering was so well documented by the press, becamepawns in the power struggles of national politicians and strategists,Collectivized as raped Croatian, Muslim, or Serbian women, theirindividual stories were merely offered as examples of damage tothe nation. Yet, the Croatian press publicized rapes of Muslimwomen much more than it did those of Croatian women, perhapsto keep the image of "their" women chaste or uncontaminated. Itwas necessary to portray Muslim women as violated to drawattention to the horror of Serbia's actions.36 After the individualwomen's tragedies were displayed and counted as part of thenation's, they were publicly ignored. During 1992 and 1993, local


political activists and journalists went looking for raped womenwho would tell their stories. Foreign journalists joined in as well.One of the jokes circulating among residents and volunteers inrefugee camps in Croatia and Serbia was as follows. "What does ajournalist ask when he comes to a camp?" Answer: "Is there anyonehere who was raped and speaks English?"37 The everyday emo-tional and existential struggles of the individual women survivors,while commented on intermittently by government officials, havebeen primarily the concern of feminist and other independenthuman rights groups.

WOMEN BREAKING THE BOUNDARIES

The. feminization of territorial and symbolic space in the na-tional-patriarchal metaphors discussed here also suggests a subver-sive role for women in redefining the notion of boundaries and .nation.;As creators of alternative "identities and spaces," womenactivists in peace movements and women's groups in the region areresisting the imposed boundaries of ethnonationalisms. (Examplesof such groups include Women in Black in Belgrade and the Centerfor Women Victims of War in Zagreb.38) Through their activitiesand efforts, they hope to affirm their agency as women, as politicalactors, and as participants in the economic life of their communities.At the same time, they hope to prevent the instrumentalization ofwomen's bodies in the service of the nation and stop the violencecommitted in their defense. They question the definition of nation-hood produced by ethnonational leaders, the roles assigned them insustaining and promoting the nation, and the criteria for member-ship in it. Moreover, they demonstrate that while recognizing the"reality" of international borders, they can reject the "hardness" ofthese lines. They can find ways to cross them, "soften" them,weaken their seductive enticement to war, and erase their signifi-cance as barriers between people. As symbols, actors, and objects,women fill important roles: in constructing borders, solidifying andsundering attachments, perpetuating identities and denying identi-


ties, and finally in breaking down boundaries and borders It is thislast role that holds the prospect for peace in the former Yugoslavia.

NOTES

. 1 . William Connolly, "Tocqueville, Territory, and Violence," Theory, Culture, andSociety U (1994): 23.

2. Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell, 1983).3. Anthony D. Smith, National Identity (London: Penguin Books, 1991), 9-13. Accord-.

ing to Smith, this "genealogical model" of national identity defines the national communityin terms of common culture, history, religion, myth, arid presumed descent. The nation is.understood as a kind of "super family." ••(•

4. Katherine Verdery, "Whither 'Nation' and 'Nati6nalisrn'?" Daedalus 122 (Summer,1993): 38. y! r '

5. Testimonies collected from Serbian refugees from Croatia, by the Fund for Humani-tarian Law, for example, indicate that in some cases villagers were encouraged for strategicreasons to leave (heir homes by their own national militias, who did so by spreading the wordof atrocities in neighboring towns. See, for example, J. Dulovic, "Papule, 1991" Vreme,February 14,1994, 27.

6. IvanColovic, "The Propaganda of War: Us Strategies," in Yugoslavia: Collapse, War,Crimes, ed. Sonja Biserko (Belgrade: Centre for Anti-War Action/Belgrade Circle, 1993),115-19. : : . • ;

7. Ivan Colovic, "Teme Granice u Politickoj Mitologiji," manuscript in Serbo-Croatian,Belgrade, 1994, copy in author's possession. .

8. The Krajina region of Croatia was an autonomous part of Hungary created as amilitary frontier region for the Austro-Hungarian armies. Predominantly Serbian, it suppliedthese armies, as well as later Yugoslav Partisan ones, with a disproportionately large numberof officers and soldiers. See Bogdan Denitch, Ethnic Nationalism: The Tragic Death ofYugoslavia (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994).

9. Translated from Biljana PlavSic, Borba, July 28, 1993; Ivan Colovic, "Politick!mitovi-vreme i prostor," in Pucanje od Zdravlja [Healthy as Hell] (Belgrade: BibliotekaKrug, 1994), 117. (All translations from Serbo-Croatian texts are mine.)

10. For a variation of this, see Renata Salecl, "Nationalism, Anti-Semitism, and Anti-Feminism in Eastern Europe," New German Critique 57 (Fall 1992): 52.

11. Verdery writes that this "makes boundaries like the skin of the female body, fixed yetviolable, in need of armed defense by inevitably masculine militaries"; see KatherineVerdery, "From Parent-State to Family Patriarchs: Gender and Nation in ContemporaryEastern Europe," East European Politics and Societies 8 (Spring 1994): 249.

12; I return to this theme later. For an excellent treatment of it with respect to Romania,see ibid., 225-55. ; .. ._• — : V : - ; ; , ; ^ . l ,

13. For an example in another country, see Ann Snitdw, 'The Church Wins, Women Lose:Poland's Abortion Law," Nation, April 26, 1993 556^557.

14. Salecl, "Nationalism, Anti-Semitism,and Anti-Feminism," 59.15. Ibid.


16. Vreme, January 16, 1995, 11.17. Susan Gal, "Gender in the Post-Socialist Transition: The Abortion Debate in

Hungary," East European Politics and Societies 8 (Spring 1994): 271. Verdery cites thisexample and others, such as "Abortion Is Genocide" and references to "seventeen millionfetal Polish citizens"; see Verdery, "From Parent-State to Family Patriarchs," 250. See alsoSnitow, "The Church Wins, Women Lose."

18. Andjelka Mili6, "Women and Nationalism in the Former Yugoslavia," in GenderPolitics and Post Communism: Reflections from Eastern Europe and the former SovietUnion, ed. Nanette Funk and Magda Mueller (New York: Routledge, 1993), 112-13.

19. Women are nurturers of cultural values, "custodians of cultural particularisms," andthe "symbolic repository of group identity"; see Deniz Kandiyoti, 'Identity and Its Discon-tents: Women and the Nation," Millennium 20 (1991): 434.

20. Pogledi, April 16-30,1993,21-25. .21. The comic strip adventures of Captain Dragan, leader of a Serbia elite paramilitary

unit, and his ninja-like warriors were extremely popular during the summer leading up to thewar in Croatia. Captain Dragan was a contemporary "hero" fighting for Serbian values andrecovering Serbian warrior or heroic traditions going back to the middle ages. He was virileand worshipped by his brave and loyal Serbian girlfriend, also prepared to fight to the deathfor her nation. See Ivan Colovi6, Bordel Ratnika, 2nd ed. (Belgrade: Biblioteka XX Vek,1994), 61-70, and idem, 'The Propaganda of War.".

22. In the eyes of some Serbian nationalists, Belgrade is an unfortunate example of theunhealthy, contaminated city, dangerous to the continued vitality of the nation. According toone, "Belgrade is an anti-Serbian [trash] bin" see "Pucanje od zdravlja," p. 39. SeeColovifc, "Politicki mitovi-vreme i prostor," 33-39.

23. Globus, December 11,1992,33-34. See Meredith Tax, "Five Women Who Won't BeSilenced," The Nation, May 10, 1993,624-25.

24. DUGA, translated by Julie Mostov, August 16-29, 1992. Indeed, women haveparticipated in the war in a number of roles, including that of soldier; but those rolescelebrated in the press are of victim, martyr, patriot, and mother. See Mili6, "Women andNationalism," 115, and Julie Menus, ".'Woman' in the Service of National Identity,"Hastings Women's Law Journal 5 (Winter 1994): 16-17.

25. Salecl, "Nationalism, Anti-Semitism, and Anti-Feminism," 55.26. Colovifc, "Politicki mitovi-vreme i prostor," 112.27. Jan Jindy Pettman, "Women, Nationalism and the State: Towards an International

Feminist Perspective" (Occasional Paper 4 in Gender and Development Studies, AsianInstitute of Technology, Bangkok), cited in V. Spike Peterson, "Gendered Nationalism:

•Reproducing 'Us' versus 'Them'," Peace Review 6 (March 1994): 5.28. Jean Bethke Elshtain, "Sovereignty, Identity, Sacrifice," in Gendered States, ed. V.

Spike Peterson (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1992).29. Peterson, "Gendered Nationalism," 4.30. Linda Liu, "The Female Body and Nationalist Discourse: The Field of Life and Death

Revisited," in Scattered Hegemonies: Postmodemity and Transnational Feminist Practices,ed. Inderpal Grewal and Caren Kaplan (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994),44. . , . . . - , . . • • . . - . . • . •

31. Cornelia Sorabji looks at this practice of recognizing rape as a serious crime onlywhen it is committed against the nation in recent Yugoslav history. "[T]he rapes in Bosniahave at least some roots in Kosovo in 1986 when the press began to carry allegations ofAlbanians raping Serbs and vice versa. . . . At the same time penalties for rape and otherforms of physical assault between members of different nationalities were increased. Rape


was presented not as an abuse of an individual woman but as one nation's abuse of another,and inter-national abuse as more grievous a crime than interpersonal violence. ContemporaryBosnia lives against this backdrop." See Cornelia Sorabji, "Crimes against Gender orNation?" War Report 18 (February/March 1993): 16. Stasa Zajovic of Women in Black inBelgrade notes that violence against women as individuals by co-nationals becomes invisibleand inconsequential as it is not an attack on the nation and is even understandable, given thepressures of warfare; see StaSa Zajovic, "About 'Cleansing'," in Women for Peace, ed: StaSaZajovifc (Belgrade: Women in Black, 1994), 64-67:

32. Meredith Tax, "Notes for a Letter to the State Department" (paper presented at theNetwork of East-West Women's conference on "Gender Nationalism and Democratization,"Washington, DC, October 26-27, 1993). : r -

33. In what I call a misappropriation of the notion of self-determination, the right topolitical and economic control of a territory has gone to the majority ethnonattonal groupliving there; that is, the right to define the nature of political institutions, interests, and wayof life belongs to the majority1 ethnonatidnal group as such. The way to secure this right isto make sure that its numerical superiority is riot contested. See Julie Mostov, "Democracyand the Politics of National Identity," Studies in East European Thought 46 (June 1994):9-31. ' ^ ^ F - : ; - v : : •-;;; • . / : - : - r . ; - : i :

34. Zajovic, "About'Cleansing,'"67. •'•'•'•35. See Mertus," 'Woman' in the Service," 19-20.36. Ibid. " : ^ :37. Stasa Zajovic, "The Abuse of Victims," in Women for Peace, 176; see also ibid. '38. The names and addresses of the growing number of women's centers and feminist

organizations throughout the former Yugoslavia can be obtained through the Network forEast-West Women, 395 Riverside Drive, Suite 2F, New York, NY 10025, e-mail:[email protected], or through the STAR Project, 1090 Vermont Avenue, N.W., 7th Floor,Washington, DC, e-mail: [email protected].

Russia and EasternEurope AfterCommunism

The Search for NewPolitical, Economic, and

Security Systems

EDITED BY

Michael Krausand Ronald D. Liebowitz

WestviewPressA Division ofHirperCaHinsPublisbers

)$4 Robert Sharlet

iwas then serving as former President Kravchuk's chief of staff for domestic:;affairs.

72. See "Law of Ukraine: Name, Structure and Composition of the Next Par-liament of Ukraine," Ukraine in Documents, No. 21 (10/21/93), p. 3.'•-. 73. See ITAR-TASS News Digest of January 20, 1994 in NEXIS, EuropeLibrary, AllEur file, 1/20/94. ; L

74. See David R. Marples, "Ukraine After the Presidential Election," RFE/RLResearch Report,Vo\. 3, No. 31 (August 12,1994), pp. 7-10. ..: ,.;-•;. 75. "Kravchuk Warns of Chaos If Ukraine Vote Goes Ahead," Reuters WorldService (4/28/94), in NEXIS, Europe Library, AllEur file. He said "Any way youlook at Ukraine's situation today... there is constitutional chaos...." -: • : •.."••;:-'•.:v

76. See Konstitutsiia Ukraini, a draft published October 26, 1993 mGolosilkrainy and translated in FBIS Report: Central Eurasia (11/22/93), pp:. 10-34. Inthe first draft Constitution of January 1992, the President was a memberof the (

cabinet—see Art. #187. £ > : - - - :77. Fifth Draft Constitution of 1993, Art.#144. V : ' v78. Ibid., Art.#139. ; r; :;: ;79. Cf. first draft Art.#141, sec. 8 and #230 to fifth draft Art. #196. '80. Fifth draft, Art;#121. ^81. ibid.;Art.#2oo. ' ::82. Cf. first draft Art#228 to fifth draft Art.#199. . "7. -:;

83. Ibid., Art.#230 to Art.#196.84. Robert Sharlet, "The New Russian Constitution and Its Political Impact,"

Problems of Post-Communism, Vol. 42, No.l, January-February 1995, pp. 3-7. For;

the impact of the Chechen crisis on constitutional implementation in Russia,both in its negative and positive aspects, see Sharlet, "Reinventing the RussianState," in a special issue of The John Marshall Law Review (forthcoming), ; '

85. Comment by Judge Bohdan A. Futey, U.S. Court oj Federal Claims, at aroundtable "Elections in Ukraine," Embassy of Ukraine, Washington, D.C., May5

17, 1994. For Judge Futey's analysis and critique of the fifth draft of Ukraine'sConstitution, see his "The Proposed Constitution of Ukraine" in Demo-kratizatsiya, Vol. II, No. 4, Fall 1994, pp. 642-50. . :: ".:-

2Endangered Citizenship

Julie Mostov

With the breakdown of Communist federations and the emergence ofnew ethnonational states, people are not only being faced with new eco-nomic and political realities, but with the prospect of losing their citizen-ship and having to accept new identities or defend old ones. Some havefound that they are no longer automatically eligible for citizenshipwhere they live. Others have discovered that they may be citizens of thatcountry, but have lost their equal standing with those of the majoritygroup. Some will have to accept that even though they still cling to theiridentity as, say Yugoslavs, they will have to seek citizenship from anoth-er slate on what may seem to them irrelevant or unacceptable grounds.As membership in the nation1 becomes a question of ethnicity and notjust shared territory, laws, and commitments or a common past andexpectations for the future; citizenship becomes increasingly vulnerableto exclusionary politics.

Criteria for citizenship are being reestablished by new constitutions andstatutes and are often being applied according to arbitrary policies andpractices that are legitimized by a politics of national identity. The terms ofcitizenship are subject to the interests of competing political movements andparries as well as to the prejudices and discretion of local authorities.2 Indi-viduals are forced through demeaning processes to "beg" for what mostonce took for granted.3 Members of old or new ethnonational minorities arefeeling increasingly insecure about the extent or worth of their citizenshiprights. In addition, other members of society, such as women who resist tra-ditional roles defined in reconstructed national identities, are feeling simi-larly uneasy about the value of their membership.

In this essay, I try to elucidate the threat today of being left outside ofor marginalized within political communities for an increasing number

r36 Julie Mostov

Understanding this threat is important not only because it is an obsta-cle to the development of democratic institutions, but also because indi-viduals who are left without or stripped of the rights and protections ofcitizenship are particularly vulnerable to the excesses of ethnocratic.leaders. Indeed, the politics of ethnocracy thrives on and (re)prpducesthis kind of vulnerability. ; : -

It is important to situate this argument in the current context of ethno-cratic politics in East-Central Europe and the former Soviet Union,4 of:

struggles to acquire and maintain power in the name of an ethnonation- -ally defined people, in which would-be leaders (ethnocrats) promotethemselves as uniquely qualified to define and defend the national inter- ;est and in which the ruled are collectivities defined by common culture, hhistory, religion, myths, and presumed descent. Ethnocracy involves theuse of modern institutions and technologies as well as history, mytholo-rgy, and cultural symbols. It calls for a political landscape that has beenemptied of independent social institutions and civic culture, and culti-vated for homogeneity. : : :r

These power struggles are set in a historical context marked by con-tested geographical boundaries, foreign domination, the experience of -being both occupier and occupied, unresolved and repressed conflicts,;;memories of brutal treatment by members of a different religion, ethnici- Ity, nation, or class, and patriarchal social structures. It is a past rich,inmythology and memories of greatness and full of bitterness about unrec-;ognized cultural achievements and economic backwardness. These his-torical references and resonances, treasured momertts and scars, together:with the legacies of Communist rule intertwine with a set of cbntempcf-?:rary circumstances defined by ongoing processes of global economic andpolitical integration, and local institutional fragmentation and collapse: :

Within the tradition of Western political thought, citizenship signalsmembership in a political community; it specifies rights and obligationsassociated with sovereignty and government and identifies the peoplewho enjoy these rights and obligations. It implies certain limits whichmark the boundaries for inclusion.5 Thus, we need to look at its bound-ary-setting practices in order to attempt to understand the ways inwhich citizenship is endangered. : : c : : : : :

Citizenship constructs external boundaries, separating members: from. nonmembers as well as internal boundaries within the political commu-

; nity. In the following analysis, I distinguish four tightly intertwined,dynamic, boundary-setting processes in which citizenship: (1) definesrights and obligations, and the terms of political participation; (2) sets

; boundaries in the distribution of social goods, benefits, burdens, andopportunities; (3) establishes models of conduct and avenues of social

Endangered Citizenship 37'

these processes there are ways in which full enjoyment of citizenship canbe threatened; in which boundaries can be drawn to diminish the worthof citizenship/ to reiterate its precariousness, or simply to revoke it.

Boundaries of Rights and Obligations

With the unraveling of federal relations and the creation of new statesin the former Yugoslavia and Soviet: Union, members of the old commu-nities have had to reestablish their citizenship. This would pose no par-ticular problem if citizenship were.defined in terms of locality, that is,residence within a territorially defined political community, or if'citizens-ship were of minimal significance, with respect to social and legalstatus.6 But many of the new political"entities identify themselves as thenational states of particular ethnonational groups. Because of this identi-fication, the ethnic composition of the.inhabitants of these countries sig-nificantly affects the criteria for citizenship. A now well-known exampleis Latvia, where ethnic Russians make up a large part of the populationand Latvians account for just over 50 percent of the inhabitants. Giventhe emphasis on the ethnonational character of this Baltic state and the^belief that its legitimacy and,sovereignty depend on this character, the :

citizenship, and therefore the well being, of ethnic Russians living thereis seriously in question.7 •; ; -.-;.::,: -.:',.•_):•. ir. : :

The stakes here are high, particularly with respect to the economic,social, and:pplitieal. processes of change in these regions, in which peo-ples' future standing in their communities and their ability to affect thatstanding are.being established. Citizenship in this context means morethan the right to vote; it could mean the right to remain in one's ownhome, to work, and to secure protection from physical or financialharm.8 While; this is a period of liberation and invention as well as fluxand uncertainty in these countries, it is the latter rather than the formerthat defines most peoples' lives: This makes it crucial to have as secure "apublic identity, that is, as secure a place in the community as possible. Itis not a time= to be a "foreigner" or a iperson whose membership andpublic identity are contested. As Michael Walzer puts it, nonmembers"have no guaranteed place in the collectivity and are always liable toexpulsion. Statelessness is a condition of infinite danger."9 Ethnic Rus-sians living in Estonia could claim Russian citizenship arid continue,under certain terms, to live in Estonia, However, to those ethnic Rus-sians who joined the Estonian struggle for independence and voted forthe break with Moscow, this option may not only seem insulting or :

humiliating; but given the historical context in which "Russians" (readrepresentatives of the former Soviet regime) are viewed as former occu-

tj Julie Mostov

The inclusion of individuals in or their exclusion from the rights andobligations of citizenship, moreover, is significant because of what peo-ple have come to understand as the foundations of minimally democrat-ic communities today. That is, the right to an equally weighted vote,related civil rights and duties, equal protection under the law,: and vary-ing degrees of social and economic entitlement are generally recognizedas norms governing the relationships of citizens in minimally democrat-ic communities. :,: •

In social contract theory, which expresses the equality and reciprocityassumed in contemporary notions of citizenship, citizens are sharers insovereign authority and enjoy a kind of equality: equal rights and oblig-ations. According to Rousseau, "the social compact sets up among citi-zens an equality of such a kind, that they all bind themselves to observethe same conditions and should therefore all enjoy the same rights."11

This idea, basic to civil or republican constitutionalism,12 provides abasis for respect for the law and acceptance of civic duties. It is the gen-erality of the terms of political association implied in this compact thatpreserves the equality and independence of citizens. Laws apply to noone in particular. They come from all and apply to all.13 It is this charac-ter of generality that preserves access to members14 of the community tothe complex of rights and duties that pertain to government and partici-pation in public life. It provides a basis for the rule of law and certainexpectations of reciprocity, that is/ mutual respect and fair play. Whenparticular interests define the contours of citizenship, the stage is set forrelationships of dependence and differentiated rights and duties.

When citizenship is closely linked to identification with a particularethnonational group and to the realization of its goals, political rights aredefined by the particular commitments, values, and interests of the elh-nonation. Citizenship loses its general legal character. The criteria forrecognition and exclusion become particular judgments. This is a dangerposed by the language introduced into the constitutions of many of thenew or reestablished countries in Eastern Europe and the former SovietUnion, language which registers these fundamental laws as the realiza-tion of a long-held national dream or goal and a national homeland.15

The insertion of ethnonatiohalist rhetoric into constitutional law isproblematic, not because it involves a rejection of liberal theory butbecause most of the countries in question are at present multi-ethnic.This boundary-setting device undermines an important basis for socialconsensus, the common status of equal citizens. States in which numbersof the population do not feel secure in their equal rights as citizens or donot enjoy the rights of citizenship are states that are likely candidates forinternal conflict and authoritarian government. Indeed, the presence of alarge number of people systematically disadvantaged by the terms of

Endangered Citizenship 39 :

association creates social conditions under which rulers may succeed injustifying the further curtailment of civil liberties and the institution of: apolice state.16 < ; ::

Theories of citizenship generally include assumptions about politicalcompetency. Citizenship registers the "present and future capacity forinfluencing politics." "It implies involvement in public life."17 A democ-ratic theory of citizenship typically presupposes that all citizens havecertain capacities and ought be treated as individuals who are "the bestjudges of their own interests" and "capable of showing better politicaland social judgment than they do at any present time."18 The rights andobligations of citizenship assume certain capacities for deliberation orjudgment, or "aptitudes."19 While democratic theories of citizenship:extend the ranks of these capable subjects as broadly as possible, argu-ments for excluding people from citizenship are concerned with con-:tracting the boundaries of competency. Proponents engage in claimsabout "innate aptitudes" for citizenship or culturally grounded reasonsfor diminished capacity. Individuals are excluded based on their defi-cient aptitude for citizenship, deficiencies of judgments or lack of feelingfor shared values and interests. Arguments of this kind are not new, norare their damaging effects.20 •'";:"'• ;• -;'.'"•'-' <::•-'•':•

Recognition of competency or capacity for judgment provides theinstitutional status from which individuals address government andother citizens and make claims about rights. Under the past Communistregimes in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet republics, the assump-tion of autonomous judgment implicit in the notion of citizenship wasmore or less absent. People enjoyed the status of citizen through mem-bership in a collective, in which sharing in an externally defined set ofinterests and enjoying certain social rights replaced the enjoyment ofcivil and political rights. These collective identities were symbolicallymaintained through increasingly meaningless slogans such as, for exam-:pie, "bratstvo i jedinstvo" (brotherhood and unity) in the former Yugo-slavia, and elaborate public celebrations of these slogans. ; : ' : • ;

In the aftermath of World War II, equal citizenship and solidaritycould possibly have been built in the former Yugoslavia under the col-lective identity expressed by the above slogan, if they had not been regu-larly imposed from above. Indeed, there were no institutions; throughwhich individuals could deliberate as citizens of Yugoslavia arid actuallyengage in the building of bonds.2 1 With the breakdown of these regimesand the construction of new ones, the notion of democratic citizenshiphas been voiced frequently, but the assumption that individuals have thecapacity to make choices and render independent judgments about pub-lic life has remained basically at the level of rhetoric. It has come up

• • # . - •

40 ]ulie Mostov

against the old model of citizenship,.or membership in a collective body,which itself is the object, rather than the subject of law.22

Development of the notion of citizens as competent decision makers iscomplicated by the use of both individual rights and collective rights indefining the enjoyment of citizenship. This is particularly so where theinclusion of collective rights is seen as a protection of cultural expressionfor peoples in minority positions within multi-ethnic communities. Thisambiguity is exploited in the power struggles of ethnocrats.

The right to schooling in one's own language for members of the"minority" community, for example, can be exploited by leaders of boththe majority and minority ethno-national groups. The former points tolanguage claims as signs of disloyalty and separatist goals; the lattercompetes for leadership within the group based on the militancy of hisdemands. Both leaders then rally "their" people around these demandsand the majority's rejection of them/leading potentially to demonstra-tions, arrests, and violence. The 1994 struggles in Tetovo, Macedonia,over the establishment of an Albanian language university are an exam-ple. At the same time, issues of concern to individuals based on profes-sional, economic, social or other ties fall off the agenda.

The ethnocrat who wants to empty the political spaces of political sub-jects needs to reduce the categories of political subjectivity and limit accessto institutions of social power. Using the notion of collective rights, whichought to serve as a guarantee of the enjoyment of distinct linguistic, liter-ary, religious, and other cultural traditions as well as to facilitate local self-government, power-seeking ethnocrats have instead Sought to removeindividual actors from the calculus of power by replacing the collectivityof class with that of nation. Individuals are identified as members of eithermajority or minority ethnonational groups and publicly recognized onlyas members of a collective. The rights they enjoy are rights held as mem-bers of a collective political subject. The politics of national identity playedout under the increasing authority of ethnonational leaders reiterates thepermanent minority or majority status of these subjects.23

The participatory aspect of citizenship on this account is impoverishedor pacified. The scope of political rights may appear to be extended, butonly deceptively so. Obligations are defined in terms of loyalty and identi-fication and not in terms of sound deliberation. The "active" citizen partic-ipates in reaffirming ethnonationally defined interests but does not exer-cise judgment. The kind of citizenship people enjoy, however, ultimatelyaffects their sense of self and their respect for fellow citizens and the law.Under the present conditions, and in the face of what Polish writer AdamMichnik calls the "new nihilism," citizenship that consists merely in' putting a ballot in a box is not enough for an effective resistance to alterna-

Endangered Citizenship 41

The worth of citizenship rights is diminished by devaluing the activityof public deliberation, constructing practical obstacles to participation,contracting the boundaries of the public sphere and the number of actorsby closing off avenues of political influence and by severely reducing theworth of rights. As a result of ethnonational criteria, the enjoyment ofthese rights is set practically or actually out of bounds for some.

Distributive BoundariesClearly one of the crucial issues threatening the citizenship of individ-

uals today stems from .understandings about the state's obligations toits citizens, particularly its allocation of public resources. Distribution ofscarce resources among citizens, puts the question of who counts as a .citizen at the forefront of political concerns. Citizens are not only entitledto certain resources (protections and opportunities, as well a& materialgoods), but in a democracy they also ought to be involved in how theseresources will be distributed.

Taking the notion of citizenship as membership in some human com-munity, Walzer argues [hat "what we do with regard to membershipstructures all, our other distributive choices: it determines with whom wemake those Choices, from whom we require obedience and collect taxes,to whom we allocate goods and services."25 Consider this in the light ofthe limited resources and new distributive patterns that are emerging in

. Eastern Europe. New concepts of public goods are emerging. Whodefines them and their distribution is a crucial if not central question ofany political system. It increases the importance of membership and thedangers of exclusion. The very definition of membership is an exercise ofpower and the ability to exclude or include is a political resource.

In post-Communist societies, with increasing competition overshrinking resources, women, in particular, are increasingly feeling thediminished worth of their citizenship. The dismantling of socialist eco-nomic and social systems has constrained reproductive rights andresources for family planning, social benefits, maternity leave, child-careprovisions, and job access. Women are disappearing from the publicspheres and from political offices26 and appearing as refugees, the poor,the unemployed, targets of elhnonational politics, and carriers of nation-al and: cultural symbolism, but not as definers of national interests.Women have been expected to take up the slack with the dismantling ofsocial welfare benefits and still make ends meet in an increasingly com-petitive labor market.

Privatization and reinstatement of property in Eastern Europe under-score the obstacles for women's full enjoyment of citizenship. In pre-

socialist KDHPHP<; lanri ar>r! nhVipr nrnnerhr wprp tViP niiruipw n'f

42 Julie Moslov Endangered Citizenship 43

\ males. Thus, the return of these properties has done little to enhance thevalue of women's rights.27 The most frequent response by political actorsto concerns expressed by women about the worth of their citizenshiprights is that given the enormous economic difficulties of unemploymentand inflation associated with transition to market economies and the deli-cate nature of political alliances, women's rights are a luxury that govern-ments or even civic opposition parties cannot afford to promote.28

Restatement of the private/public dichotomy has become very influ-ential in the current transformation. It links the need to decrease thelabor force with the search for a new identity untainted by associationwith state socialism. Thus, the private/public dichotomy gives womena rhetorically central role in the cultivation, nurturance, and transferenceof national,values in exchange for lost economic, social, and politicalrights. Women regain their "natural" mission and revered place in thehome as wife and mother and in the nation as the modest and: chastesymbol of religious/national values. •;:

Under the old regimes the social benefits of equal citizenship wereenjoyed by all, if at a minimal level. However, with the collapse of thesocialist economies, the state no longer has the resources to provideextensive benefits. All states in Europe are finding it increasingly" diffi-cult to provide the resources necessary for the enjoyment of social enti-tlements: health care, housing, employment, and welfare benefits: This isparticularly the case for those countries struggling in the transition to amarket economy. All have also become increasingly uncomfortableabout expanding the number of people eligible for -benefits and eligibleto make crucial decisions about distribution. In many countriesirt East-,ern Europe and the FSU economic insecurity, frustration over the lack ofbuying power, and disappointment with the results of capitalism/democracy have undermined public perceptions of the value of politicalrights and participation. :.;: :r

The boundaries, of citizenship set by distributive politics in EasternEurope are mainly internal, leaving large numbers of the populationoutside of the public sphere and marginalized in harsh economic condi-tions. Disputes over allocations of scarce resources, economic demandsimposed by large numbers of refugees and displaced persons, arid sig-nificant inequalities in the distribution of political and economicresources add to existing ethnic tensions.

An important example of this is the allocation of state resources forschooling, radio and television broadcasts, and public documents inone,'s own language (a language different from that of the majority-nation's). What must a state with minimal resources provide to enablepeople to express their cultural distinctness or not to feel systematicallydisadvantaged in exercising civil liberties? Does equal citizenship

require that the state provide funding for full cultural autonomy? Seri-ous disputes over the allocation of funds for these costly services add tothe tensions created by collective rights claims. American observers inEastern Europe are quick to push for cultural autonomy for ethnicminorities, which given the vulnerability of their status in the regionseems reasonable. Yet, given bur own rejection of collective rights as dis-criminatory and expensive (affirmative action barely survives this posi-tion), it is curious that we don't see the enormous difficulties this catego-ry of rights poses for the impoverished post-Communist states. Withoutsecure individual rights and some creative responses to this aspect ofidentity politics, this issue could undermine multi-ethnic coalitions ofdemocratically minded citizens, normally supportive of ethnic toleranceand expressions of difference.

Establishing Limits of Social Behavior and Social Control

While citizenship involves the presumption of independence and thedevelopment of decision-makihgcapaeities, loss of citizenship or fear oflosing the citizen's minimal rights (e.g., property ownership, free move-ment, public education, police protection) encourages conformity, thediminution of capacities for choice," and, potentially, violent conflict orflight. When people see that the fruits of citizenship are contingent ontheir expression of shared interests and values and that their minority sta-tus is permanent;, they may feel forced to leave their homes. That is, theymay try to leave'if there is a pTace:that will let them in (which, today, isincreasingly unlikely):: VK ;.- :" :a~ ; .;••-;•;

Successful ethriocrats use the criteria for citizenship and other legaland political mechanisms to reduce and stifle unwanted political discus-sion. The tension and fear of being left out is heightened for marginalmembers of the community, when they see the costs of second-class citi-zenship. Once people see the implications of being excluded/the incen-tives for conformity and assimilation or emigration are significant.Assimilation is offered by the dominant nation as a significant benefit,when the numbers are relatively small. When the numbers are moreequal, suddenly the cultural differences are insurmountable arid assimi-lation or coexistenceis not art option^9

In this politics of national identity, pressure to conform is also felt byindividuals who reject the social roles assigned to them as members ofthe community. The aggressive nationalism that has emerged throughthis politics, for example, in the former Yugoslavia, offers a kind ofautonomy and citizenship meant only for "real" men who are guardiansof the national interest and warriors on the battlefield of ethnonationalvalues and territorial claims. Others are "traitors" or "cosmopolitans"

ostov

unworthy of the full protections and benefits of citizenship.30

The politics of national identity curtails women's civic role and citi-zenship rights. Women are not viewed as mature political subjects, butas reproducers of the nation and national culture, keepers of the homeand hearth, property of the nation—as symbols of national tragedy or"fields to be sown."31 "Currently resurgent nationalist ideologies arebuilding a concept of citizenship in East Central Europe which is bothgendered and more generally exclusionary. Exclusion on grounds of sex,ethnic group, or language defines a national identity which is profound-ly undemocratic, and inherently dangerous."32 Women who reject tradi-tional roles assigned to them by ethnonational ideology and leaders areinternal "outsiders."

Bonds created by excluding those who are not "fit" or who do notbelong enervate rather than empower the citizenry. An enfeebled citizen-ry is then unable to resist authoritarian leaders. De Tocqueville fearedthat would be the fate of democracies without the independent institu-tions of American society to counter: the "dangers of despotism."33 Thenotion of citizenship which entails judgment and reciprocity in therecognition of rights and obligations creates a different set of socialbonds; bonds among citizens that empower them as actors and enablethem to check the activity of leaders. The bonds of this "civic patriotism"are based on allegiance to laws which bind everyone equally. They arebonds based on mutual recognition of each other's capacity for choice,34

strengthened by a kind of public life that rejects relationships of domina-tion and inequality. '•'.'••''.-•••.'•'-'

Ideally, political participation ought to provide the kind of civic iden-litywhich encourages citizens to take an interest in the communty, andthe allegiances necessary for political stability and limited political coer-cion. This civic identity is reinforced through individual engagement inpublic roles and fostered through the roles themselves.35 Not all publicroles, however, support this identity. Indeed, the "spontaneous" awak-ening of a people to national glory and roles defined by primordialmyths or long-held national dreams serve to reinforce a different senseof public self.

"The consciousness of common interest is citizenship."36 Without thesocial bonds of citizenship, according to Rousseau, the corporate spirit ofthe magistrates would continually assert itself. Thus, would-be nationalleaders wary of potential opposition must prevent the crowd frombecoming a body of citizens.37 They need to prevent the establishment ofcl6se social bonds and create boundaries between those with the "apti-tude" for citizenship and; those without this capacity. In the politics ofnational identity this means constructing boundaries based on claimsabout the "genetic" or cultural deficiencies of some peoples or groups

Endangered Citizenship ' A

and their inability or refusal to promote the shared understandings (the community. -

Identify and Difference

Within the changing landscapes of Eastern Europe and the fornv.Soviet republics new social identities and differences have been drawalong with new boundaries between people and groups. The emergencof new states and the radical restructuring of others has posed additional questions about the criteria for citizenship. If common ancestry tshared cultural, linguistic, and historical ties define the parameters cthe nation and membership in the nation is the primary criteria for citzenship, then birth or longtime residency in a particular country is n:longer sufficient to-secure enjoyment of citizenship rights for those whare not members of the dominant nation. At the same time, membershiin the nation may be a sufficient claim to citizenship. Accordingly, sorrargue that the state has an abiding interest in the well-being of peopbeyond its borders, citizens or potential citizens of other countries (cpotentially independent countries). Indeed, political leaders eager idemonstrate their commitment to the nation and their readiness to pr<mote the welfare of itsmembers address themselves to citizens beyorpresent state borders, claim to represent the interests of these membeof the diaspora, and even attempt to regain historically contestedterrit<ries currently within the boundaries of other states. The vow to unite ?members of the nation in one state or to protect their right to develcand express their national identity is an important part of a nationleader's program.38 .;•„•: ••••.;; i rr ; :- The role of boundaries in national mythology (in songs, poetry, ar?literature) has oftehserved to demarcate differences and to extend the?to the symbolic realm, as well as to erase geographic borders separatirmembers of the nation.3^ The mythology of border areas in which menbers of the nation are constantly faced with the threat of physical cmoral (cultural) attacks by outsiders has figured significantly in tKinflammatory politics of nationalist leaders in the borderlands (Krajin-populated by Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia.40 This concern fuels argiments about the,loyalty of citizens with ethnic ties to neighborirnational states: Serbs in Croatia, Hungarians in Serbia and Romania, anRussians in the Baltics. To which state do they, should they, or can theturn to enjoy the rights and protections of citizenship? '

The breakdown of former federations and the constitution of nenational states has also left some people without a "legitimate" identicfor other reasons. Many of those who identified themselves earlier, f<example, as Yugoslavs or Soviets, have had to find a new identity and

4fi )ulie Mostov

new place of citizenship. If taking citizenship did not also mean assum-ing a national identity that carries with it both a range of associationsand social consequences, this change might call for little more than gel-ting a new identity card and passport. However, for many having to(re)qualify for citizenship now on the basis of ethnic origins or loyalty tonationally defined interests involves something close to an act of conver-sion. Becoming a member means recognizing a kind of identity thai aperson might otherwise reject.

This dilemma is pervasive in those communities in which individualsare not recognized as political subjects, but only as members of collectiv-ities. The collectivities that count here are nationally or ethnicallydefined ones, and for the most part, the genealogical model offered byAnthony Smith prevails. In this model, in which emphasis is on one'sdescent or "presumed descent," individuals do not choose to belong tosome nation, they remain "ineluctably, organically a member of the com-munity of birth and are forever stamped by it."41

On the other hand, where citizens are recognized as equal politicalsubjects, they may take their citizenship for granted or not worry aboutbeing citizens of one country while living in another. In this case, criteriafor citizenship would leave no one "stateless"; competency would not bebased on ethnicity, religion, race, gender, class, political philosophy, orsexual orientation; and rights/protections, and opportunities would notbe contingent on "good behavior" or acceptance of dictated social rolesand national values.

Alternatives posed by some visions of the integrative processes inEurope today call for such conditions under which citizenship in a par-ticular country would make little difference, in which all boundarieswould be soft. That is, boundaries would serve as cultural markers andadministrative divisions rather than barriers; legal protections, economicopportunities, and cultural activities could be enjoyed across borders

. regulated by international conventions and basic social norms; and mul-tiple attachments and identities could coexist with local political andmaterial rights and obligations. This alternative, however, is not likely inthe near future.- Some democrats would suggest that the above alternative is neither

likely nor desirable. Rather, they might advocate a more substantive def-inition of citizenship as based on shared community understandings,which would strengthen the confidence of citizens, improve the qualitypi public participation, and ensure checks on government, political sta-

, .bility^ and economic security. This approach, however, would most cer-^ "tainly involve a series of exclusions.42 Given the potential for restrictivei'r rather than inclusive criteria, it would appear that notions of citizenship."ought to be constructed as openly and "thinly" as possible, promoting a


civic identity based on allegiance to a republican constitution.This "Western" notion is understandably attacked by ethnonational

leaders (or would-be elhnocrats), questioned by Western theorists whoreject ils universalism and liberal bias, and desired by opponents ofnationalist regimes throughout the region. The desire expressed by thelatter is not without scepticism about the possibilities for promotingcivic identity and notions of republican citizenship. At present, thisremains a starting point from which to press for reforms, to highlight thedangers of a politics of national identity, and to frame political and socialcriticism.

Notes

1. The term nation in this historical context does not signify the people, rathera people linked by culture, history, and (presumed) descent, e.g., the Croatian orSerbian people.

2. On arbitrariness in the implementation of citizenship law, see Philip Han-son, "Estonia's Narva Problem, Narva's Estonian Problem," RFE/RL ResearchReport, Vol. 2, No. 18 (April 30, 1993); Lowell W. Barrington, "An Explanation ofthe Citizenship Policies of. Estonia arid Lithuania," paper prepared for deliveryat the 1994 annual'meeting of the APSA, New York Hilton, September 1-4, 1994;also, en. 42, below, r :.;:.; :: ; •;•;

3. For example, jobs,; property rights, civil liberties, and even residence inCroatia depend upon the highly coveted "domovnica," which is a preconditionfor citizenship. The criteria for citizenship in both Croatia and Slovenia includeknowledge of the respective languages, national culture, and history. Knowledgeis determined by tests administered by commissions with significant discre-tionary powers. Vreme, July 1992, Aleksahdar Ciric, "Nebeski pasos," Vreme 3August 1992. See also, interview with Zarko Puhovski "Borba za granice," byJelena Lovric, Vreme 27 July 1992.' '

4. Julie Moslov, "Constituting Ethnocracy," paper presented at Tulane Univer-sity New Orleans, March 26,1994. v r

5. According to Morah and Vogel, different models of citizenship approachthese "frontiers" in different ways: a minimalist account identifies citizens bytheir "engagement in a given language of civil discourse," and the frontiers of

;citizenship as historically contingent; a human rights model, according to whichcitizenship is "derived from a universal human entitlement to tlic conditions ofmoral agency;" a communitarian model premised upon the "self-consciousacceptance of frontiers;" and a mutual aid society model, "a model of citizenshipwith open frontiers..." Ursula yogeland Michael Moran, eds. Vie Frontiers of Citi-zenship (New York: St Martin's Press, 1991), pp. xix-xx.

6. In most nominally democratic states, citizenship is more or less automatic• for "native-born adults." Securing the rights of citizenship involves ensuring the

equal application of law and the conditions that support this political equality inpractice. The criteria for

48 Julie Mostov

excluding millions of immigrants (long-time residents and taxpayers), and leav-ing increasing numbers of people without citizenship. See, Maxim Silverman,"Citizenship and the Nation-State in France," Ethnic and Racial Studies, Vol. 14,No. 3 (July 1991): 333-349; J. H. Carens, "Aliens and Citizens: The Case for OpenBorders," Review of Politics, Vol. 49 (1987): 258.

7. See, for example, Vojin Dimitrijevic, Neizvesnost Ljudskih Prava (SremskiKarolovci/Novi Sad: Izdavacka Knjizarnica Zorana Stojanovic'a, 1993), pp. 29-72,95. According to Ian Bremmer, the demise of the Soviet empire has left a"predicament of 25 million Russians...stranded...in ethnically distinct and oftenhostile successor states" and "nations without states—ethnic groups for whomthe Soviet collapse has not meant self-determination but, in many cases, subjuga-tion to a different authority." RFE/RL Research Report, Vol. 2, No. 18, April 3-9,1993, p. 24. See also, Bremmer, "State-Building and Ethnic Relations in Kaza-khstan: Nazerbaev and the North," in Ethnic and Racial Studies, 17, 4 October1994. - ; .

8. See, for example, Robert M. Hayden, "Nationalism in the FormerlyYugoslav Republics," Slavic Review, 51,4 (Winter, 1992), pp. 666-668,670-671.

9. Michael Walzer, Spheres of Justice (New York: Basic Books, 1983), p. 3210. Dimitrijevic, Neizvesnost Ljudskih Prava, pp. 69-72. ; ,11. Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract and Discourses (London: Dent,

1973),p.l88.

12. Ibid.; also for example, see Kant, "External (rightful) equality in a" nation...is that relation among citizens whereby no citizen can be bound by a law/unlessall are subject to it simultaneously and in the very same way." Immanuel KahtPerpetual Peace and Other Essays, Ted Humphrey, trans. (Indianapolis: Hackett, .1992), p. 112. For a contemporary version, see, John Rawls, A Theory of Justice(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971). t

>v

13. Rousseau, Book 2, Chap. IV. See also Julie Mostov, Power, Process, and Pop-ular Sovereignty (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992). pp. 27-51 %''.,

14. The question of who is a full member is no small issue. The extension offull membership to all subjects of the law is not a given in the history of Westernpolitical thought. Note, for example, John Locke, The Second Treatise on Govern-ment, ed. C.B. Macpherson (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1980), pars. 119, 122; or Kant,"On the Proverb: That May be true in Theory, But is of no Practical Use," p. 73-76. For democrats the concern has traditionally been to extend membership as

. broadly as possible.15. Dimitrijevic, p. 91; Robert M. Hayden, "Nationalism in the Formerly

Yugoslav Republics," Slavic Review 51, No. 4 (Winter 1992): 663; Mostov,"Democracy and the Politics of National Identity," Studies in East EuropeanThought, No. 1-2,June 1994.

16. Kosovo, in which 90 percent of the population is ethnic Albanian, is agood example. See, Milan Podunavac, "Potrosnja gotovih politickih formula,"Republika, no. 95/96, July 31,1994, pp. 15-18.

17. Dennis F. Thompson, The Democratic Citizen: Social Science and DemocraticTheory in the 20th Century (Cambridge University Press, 1970), p. 2.

18. Ibid., p. 10

J ,'-


19. Stephen Howe,-"Citizenship in the New Europe: A Last Chance for IITEnlightenment?" in Geoff Andrews/ed. Citizenship (London:Lawrence f-Wishart, 1991), p. 130 ;; • : ;

20. Exclusions that are written into founding acts, such as constitutions crealcobstacles to later inclusions, that is, to later democratization. Note Derrick Belr

on the ways in which the recognition.of slavery in the U.S. Constitution, despilcamendments which subsequently nullify this status and provide for equal citi-zenship, continue to plague the civic culture in the United States and inhibit thefull enjoyment of citizenship for all. Derrick Bell, And We Are Not Sai'ed (New

J •;.'".. York: Basic Books, 1987),; ; — •::\y •::•;•:.:, ;-\v'.vu:r:.-

'. ; 21. At the same time, a "quota" system was established along republican and,_ ; . thus, to a large extent/iethnonafional linesfor federal positions, including diplo-

matic posts> international scholarships, and other opportunities. There were nofederal elections, rather, federal institutions were filled with delegates fromrepublican bodies. This later proved fatal to attempts at peaceful resolution of

_'.:'_' the breakdown of the federation: See Mostov, "Democracy and Decisionmak-V ing," in Dennison Rusinow, ed. Yugoslavia-A Fractured Federalism (Washington,

D.C.: Wilson Center, 3988): pp. 105-119.

22. See, NebojSa Popoy, Republikanac {Zfenjanin: Gradjanska citaonica-Banat,1994), pp.9-59!

23. Mostov, "Democracy and the Politics of National Identity," op. cit.^ 24. "Fear in the face of inew nihilism is slowly occupying Europe. This

nihilism attacks democratic institutions', destroys civic and national communi-\ . ties, and leads to the breakdown of cultural ties. It wears the face of fundamen-

talism: ethnic, social, and religious! This fundamentalism leads down the path tochaos and totalitarian dictatorships of a new type." Adam Michnik/'Zirinovski,moja ljubav/'yrCTneSrjanuary 19.94: 43, (my translation from Serbo-Croatian)

'.'."., 25. Walzer, p, 31; also, "It is-only as-members somewhere that men andwomen can hopei to share in all the othefsocial goods—security, wealth, honor,

' office, and power—that communal life makes possible." p. 63

26. "Women's citizenship rights are certainly hot simply co-terminus withincreased representation in the formal politicaliristirutions of the state. Never-theless, the current low Jevels of female representation in the parliaments andgovernments of East Central Europe make" theirdefence, or indeed the articula-tion of alternatives, objectively difficult." Barbara Einhorn, Cinderella Goes to

Market (London: Verso, 1993), p.: 162; pp. 156-57,r — /:.;.•. 27.Ibid.,p.l5Q:-. ,.; ;-. ":;•-- '.-'-): ^!7; k"--?^.v.

28. Ann Snitow, "The Church Wins, Women Ebse: Poland's Abortion Law,"Nation (April 26,1993).

29, Assimilation is problematic: Under certain circumstances, it may be desir-able both for the individuals taking on a new language or culture and for thesociety that benefits from their added contributions. On the other hand, assimila-tion often carries with it a social or moral stigma and a psychological burden ofestrangement. See, Will Kymlicka Liberalism, Community, and Culture (Oxford:Oxford University Press, 1987). Moreover, assimilation most often includes someelement of coercion and exclusion. Some people, in fact, are exrlnHoW ~- "-•--

W"

50 Julie Mostov

qimilable," (Roma or Gypsies, for example). While, unfortunately, not touchedon in this paper, full citizenship for Roma is a serious issue in the regions underdiscussion.

30. While national identity and ethnic origins are often readily acknowledgedby individuals, individuals may reject the majority interpretation of that identity.Persons of Serbian "descent" who reject the national identity crafted by the lead-ers of the Serbian community are not viewed as presenting an alternative Ser-bian identity. They are merely traitors to the nation, characterized in the mediaas self-haters or collaborators with the enemy. Members of the peace movementin Serbia are good examples. Imposed identities are not new to this part of theworld. Under the various existing communist regimes there was repression ofethnic identities or expression of religious affiliation as well as corporate organi-zation of ethnic communities and the use of ethnonational quotas.

31. Thus, the rape of women in war such as in Bosnia and Herczegovina is anattack on the men of the other nation, an invasion of their territory, and a sign oftheir impotency. See Julie Mostov, '"Our Women'/'Their Women': SymbolicBoundaries, Territorial Markers, and Violence in the Balkans," Peace and Change,October 1995, . •

32. Einhorn, p. 257.33. Alexis de Tocqueville, De/rocracy in America, ed. Richard D. Heffner (New

York: Mentor, 1956), p. 304, and passim.34. Rousseau, Book 2; Mostov, Power, Process and Popular Sovereignty.35. Judith N. Shklar, Men and Citizens: A Study of Rousseau's Social Theory

(Cambridge Universi ty Press, 1969), p. 19.36. Ibid, p. 175.37. The mass meetings engineered by Slobodan Milosevic and his followers in

1988, were crucial in stirring up ethnic passions and support for his regime. See,Predrag Tasic, Kako jeUbijena Druga Jugoslaxrija (Skopje, 1994), pp. 120-127. A recentquote by a Bosnian Serb leader notes the "subversive" character of the notion'ofcitizenship. For him, being a Serb and a "citizen"(gradjanin) is not possible.

38. See, Mostov, "Democracy and the Politics of National Identity."39. Ivan Colovic, "Tema Granice u Politigkoj Mitologiji."40. Biljana Plavgic,Borba, 28 July 1993; Colovic, Ibid.41. A: D. Smith, National Identity, pp. 11-12.42. The discretionary power of commissions authorized to apply criteria such

as knowledge of history or culture is considerable. Both in Croatia and Slovenia,securing citizenship may require weeks of "begging" at a series of counters in along and demeaning bureaucratic process. Tanja Topic, "Izmeducekica i nakovn-ja," Vreme 3 August 1992, pp. 15-16; Aleksandar Ciric, "Nebeski pasos," Ibid., pp.16-18. •

3Prospects for Democracy in Russia

Robert V. Daniels

Since the collapse of the Communist Party and the dissolution of theSoviet Union in 1991, commentators on Russian politics have rangedfrom naive optimism to dark pessimism about the prospects for democ-ratic political life in that troubled country. Inevitably, judgments havefluctuated with the unfolding of events and the rise and decline of par-ticular personalities. Many observers, hopeful about the prospects fordemocracy when President Boris Yeltsin dominated the scene in 1992and 1993, turned pessimistic about Russian politics after Yeltsin dis-solved and; shelled the Parliament in the fall of 1993 and went on toimpose a constitution with authoritarian presidential prerogatives* Thefollowing months suggested a more optimistic alternative from thedemocratic standpoint, until the Chechnya crisis of late 1994 and early1995 drove ai hew wedge between the Russian government on the onehand and Russian public opinion together with foreign well-wishers onthe other. •

Predicting the FutureAnticipating the political future anywhere is chancy, even under the

most stable conditions, and,Russia: hardly meets that criterion. Somemethodological distinctions are in order among the various modes ofprediction that can be utilized in gauging any country's prospects. Thereare basically three such approaches, which might be used alone or incombination: (1) the projection of current trends; (2) identifying analo-gous situations in the country's own past; and (3) finding comparable :processes in the history of other countries. Each method has a certainusefulness as well as definite limitations.

Projection of current trends is naturally the easiest and most commonmethod of DrprlirHnn WmA7o-.ro- n,; .1 > •

gender policies and nationalism

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