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Geschreven door >maggie helwig op 13 Jan 95 17:35 GMT met als onderwerp: Demographic policy in Serbia

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Subject: Demographic policy in Serbia
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Date: 13 Jan 95 17:35 GMT
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BIRTH, NATIONALISM AND WAR
by Stasa Zajovic
Women in Black, Belgrade

In the late eighties, with the consolidation of nationalism as
the state ideology in Serbia, the propaganda directed
against women grew stronger. It is well-known that in
periods of acute crisis, economic depression or marked
repression, women are called to turn back to "home and
family"; they are referred to as "angels of the home
hearth", as idea mothers, as faithful wives ... Such
propaganda, among other things, aims at postponing or
preventing social tensions, outbursts of social discontent
caused by mass lay-offs of working men and women.
Women are the first to be fired; it is demanded that they
hand their jobs over to men. At the end of the eighties and
the beginning of the nineties, when over half the
businesses in Serbia were suffering severe economic losses,
preparations began for mass lay-offs, mostly of women.

Partly for that reason, in early 1990, demographers and
physicians, whole-heartedly supported by the regime-
sponsored mass media and institutions, offered some "very
interesting legal proposals concerning women". Some of
these projects must be singled out for their cynicism and
underestimation of women.

_Projects devoted to wives and mothers_
In February 1990, Ivan Knatjer, a physician and self-
proclaimed demographic expert, proposed "legal
innovations designed to help the reaffirmation of the
family". He suggested the imposition of taxes on unmarried
or divorced men and women over the age of thirty.
According to him, the tax should consist of 10 per cent of
the salaries of these unfit persons. The goal of the project
was to "prevent the disastrous decline in birth-rate in
Serbia"; it is not clear why it is so important whether
children are born within or outside marriage. This "expert"
also suggests that "persons who refuse to accept
matrimonial duties voluntarily should be forced to do so".

Knajter wished above all to win the favour of women. He
stated: "Once she is married, the wife would be considered
employed, with all social security benefits. The marriage
would be her work-place". He forgot to specify, however,
who would provide a salary. Social security, special state
funds, labour unions, the husband, or perhaps just the
collective "father of the nation" on the Stalin model? In the
end, he reveals another argument to justify the project,
apart from the "disastrous decline in birth-rate": "This
proposal would open many new jobs" -- for men, of course,
men who would only later be mobilised and sent to the
front to defend the mother-nation; while women, in the
meantime, would give birth to cannon-fodder.

_Maternal mobilisation: saving the nation from extinction_
The development of nationalist propaganda may be
divided into two phases, although they are constantly
intertwined. The first phase started as early as the middle
of the eighties. It consisted of the preparation of various
projects aimed at the "suppression of the white plague"
(i.e., the non-Serbian population, in particular the ethnic
Albanians). The second phase was of propaganda about
child-bearing for patriotic reasons, that is, for the
enhancement of national security.

At the beginning of the first phase, demographers asserted
that the birth rate in central and eastern Serbia, as well as
in Vojvodina, was dropping at an alarming rate, while in
Kosovo it was rising. At this time, demographers did not
explicitly use ethnic criteria but talked about the issue in
territorial terms. The imbalance was explained either by
economic factors or by changes in the system of values. As
a solution, mostly administrative measures were offered,
the "ideal family - three child" model was popularised, and
so on.

The demographic discourse -- in accordance with the
expansion of nationalist ideology -- soon acquired a
repressive, racist character. All bills proposed since
January 1990 h{ve resorted to the "ethnic principle". The
January 1990 Resolution on the Renewal of the Population,
as well as the May 1990 amendments, suggested a double
population policy -- pro-natality for Serbia and Vojvodina
and anti-natality for Kosovo. It was immediately clear that
the double policy was being used, first, in order to spread
nationalist hatred, and second, as another instrument of
patriarchal separation of, and discrimation against, women
on an ethnic basis. Feminists of Belgrade expressed their
protest and indignation in an open letter: "Coercive
measures of population policy are applied in countries
where human rights are violated daily, where the state
deliberately encourages ethnic and racial intolerance. The
introduction of coercive management in the already poor
network of gynaecological facilities in Kosovo is
impermissible, since the right to medical service is a
fundamental, not an ideological, issue. Such repressive
measures will not bring about the 'desired' results, nor can
they serve as a substitute for changes in the economic,
social and educational spheres. If women really enjoyed
the opportunity and the right to choose, the population
problem would not exist. Instead of administrative
measures of population policy, the differences in
demographic development should stimulate the creation of
conditions in which women will win their reproductive
rights".

Official documents started multiplying, among which "The
Warning", issued in 1992, should be singled out for its neo-
Malthusian, racist character. Nine "significant" national
institutions composed this document. The ruling party, the
Socialist Party of Serbia, adopted "The Warning" at its
congress as one of the three official documents.

"The Warning" openly points to the "threat" that minority
peoples pose to the majority; that is, since "Albanians,
Moslems and Gypsies, with their higher birth-rate, deviate
from rational, humane reproduction, they threaten the
rights of other peoples". That is to say, women of these
peoples (and not men, on this point) participate in the
"general conspiracy against the Serbian people"; they bear
children, it is claimed, for separatist, fundamentalist
reasons, and thus Serbian women should bear children for
patriotic and moral reasons. "The will to bear children
should be mobilised".

The newly-formed parties joined the appeals of
demographers, physicians and state institutions. Almost all
the parties failed the democracy test with relation to
women; their statements are imbued with military
language. The program of the Association of All Serbs of
the World, published a proclamation before the first multi-
party elections in which they stated that "in these difficult
times for our state, not bearing children ... will be
considered treason". In the same vein, the leader of the
Serbian Popular Renewal insisted that "to equalise children
born out of marriage with those born in it constitutues a
form of special war against the Serbian people".
Nationalists are fond of speaking about honesty, going back
to roots, mediaeval idylls; thus the 1990 program of the
Serbian Renewal Movement states that one of the goals of
its policy is "the restoration of the family, the return to
tradition, ensuring conditions for an honest living. The
Serbian Renewal Movement will place its capabilities at the
service of the renewal of the Serbian character, striving for
the flourishing of those virtues of the Serbian man that will
soon become part of the Serbian moral code".

Feminist replied to these Serbian politicians worried about
the extinction of the nation by suggesting that "they
examine the model of parthenogenetic procreation
(conception without sin) and clone themselves into
innumerable Serbian copies. It may be assumed the young
Serbian foetuses will be immediately christened, then
incited and trained for hatred and war against the
numerous enemies of the Serbian people".

_Moral condemnation_
Generally, this propaganda is filled with moral
condemnations and hatred of women. "The Warning"
accuses women of not having children$k{ut of "conformism
and selfishness". Marko Mladenovic, an official
demographer, in one of his famous operatic statements
about the "biological death, the gangrene, the tragedy",
reveals the age-old desire to usurp women's procreative
power: "Our man does not have children because happiness
for him means having fun, a car, or a summer cottage. This
is egoism". Then this enraged militarist joins cradles and
guns together: "How to save Serbia! In 15 or 20 years there
will be nobody to work, give birth and wage wars!"

The Church enthusiastically joined in the chorus, with the
Orthodox Bishop of Zvornik and Tuzla proclaiming that
"today many Serbian women kill their children by
abortion. Feminists are in favour of killing unborn children.
Fortunately, they have nothing to do with the being of the
Serbian people".

The Church also envisages natural punishments for women
who do not bear children: "Women who bear children,"
claims Bishop Nikolai in a widely-distributed street poster,
"seldom get cancer. And the more children they have, the
more they are immune to this horrible disease. Spinsters
and women who prevent childbirth are by more than 40
per cent more often afflicted by cancer, particularly breast
cancer, than women who have children".

_Patriotic mobilisation_
The father of the nation, this time embodied in the
president of the republic Slobodan Milosevic, in his
"historical speech" at Kosovo Polje in 1989 declared, "If we
are not very good at working, we are excellent at fighting".
This was the beginning of the actual preparations for war.
He had chosen a place that is both the legendary "cradle of
the Serbian people" and the site of a great collective defeat,
to proclaim that the offended honour of the fatherland
would be revenged by military raids. "We must not forget
that once we used to be an army -- large, brave and proud.
Now, six centuries later, we are once again fighting and
more battles are ahead". At Kosovo Polje as well, the cult of
the heroic Mother Jugovic, the mother who offered all of
her sons to death, was born. The cult revived as the war
got underway, with nationalists demanding that maternity
hospitals become recruitment centres: "For each Serbian
soldier who fell in Slovenia, Serbian mothers must give
birth to a hundred new soldiers".

It was no longer enough to bear children in order to prevent
the extinction of the nation. Now, sons were needed for the
defense of the fatherland and the struggle with "enemy
peoples". Marko Mladenovic calculated precisely the
"enemy's" advance, concluding that if childbearing
continues at its present rate "the last Serbs will defend
themselves from the Kalemegdan fortress in the year 2091.
But this last battle may also happen earlier, having in mind
pessimistic prognoses". He later made another calculation,
with an unmistakable admixture of racism, that "in the
Balkans there are nations multiplying at the pace of
rabbits, with ten or 15 children per family. In fifty years
they will reach Belgrade".

Propaganda is not restricted to mass media. Institutions,
lavishly supported by the state, with names like the Fund
for the Protection of Mothers and Offspring and nothing to
offer but repressive measures, keep springing up every
day. The misogynism of the demographers and physicians
can even make them forget the official line that "unjust
sanctions are to blame for everything", leading them to
state that "poverty and sanctions are not to blame. We
used to be even poorer than we are, and still our
predecessors had seven or eight children" ... "Sanctions and
war cannot be an excuse ... During our 35th Gynaecological
Week we ascertained that the reasons why women do not
have children are 85 per cent egoistic, 26 per cent masked
egoism, and only 8 per cent economic" (which appears to
add up to 119 per cent).

This was too much for the president of the republic, who
had to remind them that "sanctions are killing our unborn
babies". This is one more example of the way in which, in
militarist societies where it is assumed that "maternity is
the counterpart of war, or war is the symmetrical
complement of maternity", the language and rituals must
be the same.

Since June 1993, the Church in Serbia has given the Mother
Jugovic medal to mothers with four or more children. In
1993 they awarded 16 gold and 14 silver medals.
Unsatisfied with the performance, they admonished, "In
earlier times, mothers were able to send as many as nine
sons to the emperor's army, so that they could fight for the
freedom of the country and of their Orthodox faith. We
have such mother today, too, but very few".

Serbian women bear increasingly few children, and Serbian
men are increasingly unwilling to go to war.

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