‘(What's so funny ‘bout) peace, love & understanding’: rock culture and the rebuilding of civic identity in the post-conflict Balkans

Abstract

The article examines current rock culture in the Balkans as a potential vehicle for rebuilding the broken sociocultural bonds between the different post-Yugoslav societies and for creating a constructive cultural space for articulating new forms of civic and post-nationalist identities. The argument offered is that, after the sociocultural exile during the war years, rock culture in the post-conflict Balkans has considerable potential to establish itself as a popular-cultural force of ‘utopian transcendence’ of the current ethno-nationalist sociopolitical moment, and as a catalyst of the new post-Yugoslav spirit of openness, tolerance and peaceful coexistence.

Keywords:

• Yugoslavia
• the Balkans
• rock culture
• progressive urban spirit
• hip hop
• ethno-nationalism
• post-conflict identities
• moral imagination

Notes

1. In the context of ‘progressive urban spirit’, ‘urban’ is used to denote a particular ‘philosophy of living’, or mentalité, in terms of sociocultural and political-ideological specificities, rather than a particular living locale. The conceptual opposite would thus be ‘non-urban’ rather than ‘rural’. In the context of urban/non-urban dichotomy, therefore, one could be demonstrably non-urban despite living in an urban environment as much as one could be demonstrably urban within a non-urban milieu. To paraphrase the front man of Sarajevo's Zabranjeno pušenje, Nele Karajlić, the distinction here is one ‘of philosophy rather than of geography’.

2. As a counterpoint, Dragan Kremer (1985b) offers critical reflections regarding the inherently progressive/emancipatory potential of (Yugoslav) rock music. In his view, the latter is predicated on rock music's ability to exist as an alternative to cultural mainstream and engage in ‘sociocultural interventionism’ from the margins. The successful mass appeal – often because of the resonance of sociocultural interventionism – generally results in the shift away from the margins and towards the cultural centre. The key question to entertain, in this context, is: ‘can rock music, in moving closer to the cultural mainstream, maintain its progressive/emancipatory impulse, or does it become a cultural form in search of sociocultural conformity?’

3. Most broadly, ethno-nationalism can be defined as a desire to transform an ethnic community into a political community via the pursuit of statehood as a means of securing complete control over one's own collective affairs. Ethno-nationalism is rooted in the sentiment by a particular ethnic group that its interests are not being served under the current political arrangement, and that the best course of action to address this circumstance is to create an ethnically based state fully controlled by an ethnic nation. This is coupled with the perception that the hardships of one's own ethnic community are rooted in advantageous opportunities the current political arrangement provides to other ethnic communities, which leads to the sentiments of distrust towards all those perceived as a threat to one's own ethnic well-being. Hence, the basic claim of all ethno-nationalists is that their own ethnic community would be best off on its own, in full command of its sociocultural, political and economic destiny. At its most extreme, ethno-nationalism engenders a condition of existence where ethnic affiliation becomes a determinant of person's fate (for a detailed discussion of ethno-nationalism, see Connor 1994, Kecmanović 1996).

4. ‘Estradisation’ is derived from the word ‘estrada’, which in its original Russian usage refers to ‘Soviet popular or light entertainment, known to audiences in Moscow, Leningrad, and beyond as the “small stage” or éstrada, a wide-ranging term that includes pop music but also applies to modern dance, comedy, circus arts, and any other performance not on the “big,” classical stage’ (MacFadyen 2002, p. 3).

5. As Gordy (1999, p. 2) observes in reference to Serbia during Slobodan Milošević’s rule:

the regime's strategies of self-preservation can be found in everyday life – in the destruction of alternatives. Specifically, the regime maintains itself not by mobilizing opinion or feeling in its favour, but by making alternatives to its rule unavailable [i.e. by] attempting to close off avenues of information, expression, and sociability, while many outside the regime endeavour to keep those avenues open. Thus, it was precisely because rock culture (along with other progressive forms and expressions) was perceived as an avenue ‘of information, expression, and sociability’ outside the ethno-nationalist parameters, that it needed to be dealt with and neutralised as one of the alternatives to the dominant sociocultural and political order of the day.