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Artistic Activism, Public Debate and Temporal Complexities: Fighting for Transitional Justice in Serbia

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The Arts of Transitional Justice

Part of the book series: Springer Series in Transitional Justice ((SSTJ,volume 6))

Abstract

This chapter is a collaborative piece between a British academic and two artists in Serbia. We explore the role of art within public debate about transitional justice in Serbia. From the starting point that art is a critical intervention in our understanding of transitional justice, we explore how these debates about Serbia’s relationship to the past are not just about the past, or a social memory of the past, but also about the present and the future, how the past is recalled in the future and the future direction of Serbia. We call this temporal complexity. We argue that art can create a space for an understanding of the temporal complexity of transitional justice processes. This perception presents a challenge to the instrumental—and linear—vision of transitional justice as purely a legal process of dealing with the past. To investigate the temporal complexity of transitional justice, two Serbian artists (Jovana and Biliana) reflect upon their work through a personal narrative or poem to demonstrate the need for a broader vision of transitional justice via recognition of the importance of temporal complexity.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Discussion of attitudes about Serbia’s relationship to the wars is widespread. See Jelena Obradovic-Wochnik ‘Knowledge, Acknowledgement and Denial in Serbia’s Responses to the Srebrenica Massacre’ Journal of Contemporary European Studies, Vol. 17, No. 1 (2009): 61–74; Jelena Subotić Hijacked Justice: Dealing with the Past in the Balkans (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2009), 38–82 and Daša Duhaček ‘The Making of Political Responsibility: Hannah Arendt and/in the Case of Serbia’ in Women and Citizenship in Central and Eastern Europe ed. Jasmina Lukić et. al. (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), 205–221.

  2. 2.

    Christine Bell ‘Transitional Justice, Interdisciplinarity and the State of the ‘Field’ or ‘Non-Field’’ The International Journal of Transitional Justice, Vol. 3 (2009), 7.

  3. 3.

    Subotić, Hijacked Justice, 39–45, 47, 81.

  4. 4.

    Christine Bell and Catherine O’Rourke, ‘Does Feminism need a Theory of Transitional Justice? An Introductory Essay’ The International Journal of Transitional Justice, Vol. 1, No. 1 (2007), 42.

  5. 5.

    Vikki Bell ‘Contemporary Art and Transitional Justice in Northern Ireland: The Consolation of Form’ Journal of Visual Culture Vol. 10, no. 3 (2011), 325.

  6. 6.

    Laura J. Shepherd Gender, Violence and Security: Discourse as Practice (London: Zed Books, 2008), p. 172.

  7. 7.

    Nenad Dimitrijevic ‘Serbia After the Criminal Past: What Went Wrong and What Should Be Done’ The International Journal of Transitional Justice, Vol. 2, No. 1 (2008), 19.

  8. 8.

    Laura McLeod ‘Configurations of Post-conflict: Impacts of Representations of conflict and Post-Conflict upon the (Political) Translations of Gender Security within UNSCR 1325’ International Feminist Journal of Politics, Vol. 13, No. 4 (2011), 605–622.

  9. 9.

    Dimitrijevic ‘Serbia After the Criminal Past’, 6.

  10. 10.

    The most relevant ICTY decision to date about Srebrenica relates to Radislav Krstić. See http://www.icty.org/x/cases/krstic/cis/en/cis_krstic.pdf (accessed 10 July 2012).

  11. 11.

    Obradovic-Wochnik ‘Knowledge, Acknowledgement and Denial’ 62.

  12. 12.

    Dimitrijevic ‘Serbia After the Criminal Past’, 5–6 and Obradovic-Wochnik ‘Knowledge, Acknowledgement and Denial’.

  13. 13.

    ‘The Declaration of the National Parliament of the Republic of Serbia Condemning the Crimes in Srebrenica’ Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia (No. 20/10).

  14. 14.

    For instance, Milan Bačević, the chair of the executive of the Serbian Progressive Party, suggested that Srebrenica was not a genocide and was a forgery made by the Hague. B92 ‘SNS: U Srebrenici nije bilo genocida’ (retrieved www.b92.net on 17 October 2011). In contrast, Slobodan Vuksanović of the Democratic Party of Serbia described Srebrenica as a war crime, rather than genocide. B92 ‘DSS: Srebrenica—ratni zločin’ (retrieved www.b92.net on 17 October 2011).

  15. 15.

    Jelana Obradović-Wochnik, and Alexander Wochnik, ‘Europeanising the ‘Kosovo Question’: Serbia’s Policies in the context of EU Integration’ West European Politics Vol. 35, No. 5 (2012), 1176; Marlene Spoerri and Annette Freyberg-Inan, ‘From Prosecution to Persecution: Perceptions of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in Serbian Domestic Politics’ Journal of International Relations and Development Vol. 11, No. 4 (2008), 350–384.

  16. 16.

    Åse Berit Grǿdeland ‘Public Perceptions of non-governmental organisations in Serbia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, and Macedonia’ Communist and Post-Communist Studies Vol. 39 (2006), 232–236.

  17. 17.

    Jelena Obradovic-Wochnik ‘Serbian Civil Society as an Exclusionary Space: NGOs, the Public and ‘Coming to terms with the Past’’ in Civil Society and Transition in the Western Balkans ed. Vesna Bojcic-Dzelilovic, James Ker-Lindsay and Denisa Kostovicova (Basingstoke: Palgrave McMillan, forthcoming 2013).

  18. 18.

    See James Weaver and Jeanne Colleran, ‘Whose Memory? Whose Justice? Personal and Political trauma in Ariel Dorfman’s Death and the Maiden’ Performance Research: A Journal of the Performing Arts Vol. 16, No. 1 (2011), 32; Rosemarie Buikema‘Performing Dialogical Truth and Transitional Justice: The Role of Art in the Becoming Post-Apartheid of South Africa’ Memory Studies Vol. 5, No. 3 (2012): 283.

  19. 19.

    Ron Haviv ‘Blood and Honey’ can be viewed at http://photoarts.com/haviv/bloodandhoney/ (retrieved 6 December 2011).

  20. 20.

    Marija Gajicki ‘Case Study’ in Documents on Ron Haviv’s Exhibition ‘Blood and Honey’ in Novi Sad (Novi Sad: Vojvodjanka-Regional Women’s Initiative, 2003), 17.

  21. 21.

    Gajicki ‘Case Study’, 21.

  22. 22.

    Gajicki ‘Case Study’, 21–22.

  23. 23.

    Documents on Ron Haviv’s Exhibition ‘Blood and Honey’ in Novi Sad (Novi Sad: Vojvodjanka-Regional Women’s Initiative, 2003), 118.

  24. 24.

    Documents on Ron Haviv’s Exhibition, 119–122.

  25. 25.

    Documents on Ron Haviv’s Exhibition, 120.

  26. 26.

    Bell ‘Transitional Justice, Interdisciplinarity’, 7.

  27. 27.

    Elizabeth Porter Peacebuilding: Women in International Perspective (London: Routledge, 2007), 126.

  28. 28.

    Interview, Marija Gajicki coordinator of VIVISECT, Novi Sad: 13 May 2008.

  29. 29.

    Bell, ‘Transitional Justice, Interdisciplinarity’, 6.

  30. 30.

    Porter, Peacebuilding, 128.

  31. 31.

    We would like to thank Adam Hardie for transcription of the recordings.

  32. 32.

    Stašta Zajović Transitional Justice: A Feminist Approach (Belgrade: Women in Black, 2007), 61.

  33. 33.

    Zajović, Transitional Justice, 64–70.

  34. 34.

    Obraz is a Serbian far-right, nationalist, neo-nazi, clerofascist organization who swear allegiance to the Serbian nation and Serbian orthodox religion. In June 2012, the Serbian Constitutional Court ruled to ban the actives of Obraz.

  35. 35.

    Brandon Hamber, Liz Ševčenko and Ereshenee Naidu, ‘Utopian Dreams or Practical Possibilities? The Challenges of Evaluating the Impact of Memorialization in Societies in Transition’ The International Journal of Transitional Justice, Vol. 4, No. 4 (2010), 398.

  36. 36.

    Hamber et al. ‘Utopian Dreams or Practical Possibilities?’, 397–420.

  37. 37.

    Olivera Simic and Kathleen Daly ‘‘One Pair of Shoes, One Life’: Steps towards Accountability for Genocide in Srebrenica’ The International Journal of Transitional Justice, Vol. 5 (2011), 477–491.

  38. 38.

    See http://www.frontlinedefenders.org/Serbia for some discussion of the connections (accessed 10 September 2012).

  39. 39.

    Fionnuala Ni Aolain, ‘Advancing Feminist Positioning in the Field of Transitional Justice’ The International Journal of Transitional Justice, Vol. 6, No. 3 (2012), 207.

  40. 40.

    Berber Bevernage, ‘Time, Presence, and Historical Injustice’ History and Theory Vol. 47 (2008), 155.

  41. 41.

    Bevernage, ‘Time, Presence’.

  42. 42.

    Interview by Laura McLeod with Jovana Dimitrijević, Belgrade 19 September 2011. See Subotić Hijacked Justice for more discussion about the role of the EU in transitional justice in the Western Balkans.

  43. 43.

    Email correspondence with Biliana Rakočević 25 March 2012.

  44. 44.

    First quotation Porter, Peacebuilding, 126. Second quotation: email correspondence with Biliana Rakočević 27 March 2012.

  45. 45.

    Interview by Laura McLeod with Jovana Dimitrijević, Belgrade 19 September 2011.

  46. 46.

    Interview by Laura McLeod with Jovana Dimitrijević, Belgrade 19 September 2011.

  47. 47.

    See Brandon Hamber and Richard A.Wilson ‘Symbolic closure through memory, reparation and revenge in post-conflict societies’ Journal of Human Rights, Vol. 1, No. 1 (2002), 35–53.

  48. 48.

    Bell. ‘Transitional Justice, Interdisciplinarity’, 6.

  49. 49.

    Public proceedings will begin in 2013. See http://www.globalfundforwomen.org/impact/success-stories/top-10-wins-for-womens-movements and http://www.zenskisud.org/index.html (in Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian). Accessed 6 September 2012.

  50. 50.

    Jovana Dimitrijević email correspondence 27 March 2012.

  51. 51.

    Ibid.

  52. 52.

    Biliana Rakočević email correspondence 27 March 2012.

  53. 53.

    Ni Aolain, ‘Advancing Feminist Positioning’, 207.

  54. 54.

    Bell and O’Rourke ‘Does Feminism need a Theory of Transitional Justice?’, 34.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Social Sciences, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK

    Laura McLeod

  2. Belgrade, Serbia

    Jovana Dimitrijević & Biliana Rakočević

Authors
  1. Laura McLeod
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  2. Jovana Dimitrijević
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  3. Biliana Rakočević
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Laura McLeod .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Law, University of Melbourne, Carlton, VIC, Australia

    Peter D. Rush

  2. Griffith Law School Griffith University, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia

    Olivera Simić

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McLeod, L., Dimitrijević, J., Rakočević, B. (2014). Artistic Activism, Public Debate and Temporal Complexities: Fighting for Transitional Justice in Serbia. In: Rush, P., Simić, O. (eds) The Arts of Transitional Justice. Springer Series in Transitional Justice, vol 6. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-8385-4_2

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