Slavoj Zizek wrote an essay titled "Ein Plaedoyer fuer die Intoleranz" ("A Plea For Intolerance"). There is a chapter about middle class and the "abolishment of the phantom of a 'pure' fascism". Zizek headlined this chapter "Why are the ruling ideas not the ideas of the rulers?"

Very inspiring question. It is about ideology. Ideology got little servants: Stereotypes and cliches. They are usefull, I suppose, cause they help us to manage common life. (I am not able to check and judge everything every day.) On the other hand it is seductive to see the world as a sample of stereotypes without asking questions anymore.

To give an example, I was told, in former Jugoslavia travelers were advised not to dance in Serbia and not to sing in Bosnia, because the people there can do much better, but in Macedonia better not sing nor dance ... (Source: "next code: divan")

I found another example in the book of Norbert Mappes-Niediek: "Die Ethno-Falle" ("The Ethno-Trap" ... see the last note!). A conundrum about the question "When will we have the real socialism?"

The Answer: "If the Slovenian pays his own lunch, when Serbs and Croats join forces, if the Macedonian comes back from his gastarbeiter-job, if the Montenegrin starts working and if the Bosnian get's it all."

Stereotypes ... I don't remember, how Slavoj Zizek expressed it; and where. It was about the/our look at the victims. And the ROLE of both, their relationship. It was about the way to exploit victims. So I got to clarify my part in this prospective project. Me as a writer ... When it came to massacres, this profession was allways part of those processes in the 19th and 20th century.

I also mentioned Dzevad Karahasan: [link] In 1995 he said: "What happened at the Balkans, balkanian authors have written. Read all those authors, [...] a huge crowd of uneducated gusla-players, and you will read all, what is happening today. While they wrote this, I was joking and laughing about their weak writing." (Source: Christine Rigler "Das jugoslawische Labyrinth")

Dubravka Ugresic provides detailed descriptions of authors acting like that in her book "The Culture of Lies". Im am very interested in questions like that, cause thinking about Europe and the 20th century, I am convinced: Every massacre started with a "war of words".

I mean: It takes cultural ressources ("war of words") to initite massacres, to get people ready for doing things like that. If that is true, it must be possible to stop processes like that by using cultural ressources. (Massacres are not given by nature, they are a display of power.)

Siehe dazu auch meine Reflexionen ueber das "steirische Heiligtum" Peter Rossegger und seinen voellig unbegabten Kollegen Ottokar Kernstock in "Die Pflege der Barbaren" (2003) [Sorry! German only.] Beide Maenner werden immer noch mit Strassennamen und anderen Zuwedungen geehrt.

[the cartel] [sources]

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