Nikola Samardžić
Two centuries of the modern history have passed by in accomplishing the war
agendas that involved Serbia into the clashes both with the neighboring peoples
and the states, as well as the great powers. This is the simplest explanation why
the history of modern Belgrade consists of dramatic and shocking episodes
of destruction and reconstruction. That is also how the liberal agenda of the
legitimacy of the state authority limited by rule of law has been marginalized
by religious requests for final solution in periods of traditional nationalism,
communism and the most recent post-communist national agenda. The
nationalism and the communism have some common characteristics, like the
populism and the belief in the exclusivity and righteousness of decisions that
forced upon the society’s special role in the historic process. Any such final
solution could not take into account the state of the infrastructure, traffic,
environment, public health, sidewalks, pavements, bridges, facades, parks,
museums and galleries. The caring for urban development was almost a casual
incident in the pursuit of a sublime aim of the ideological, social or religious
mobilization.
The emancipation of Belgrade’s middle class has not contributed enough to the
urban development or, generally, to the social evolution. Each urban generation
was remaining deprived of the most intelligent and most sensitive members who
choose to emigrate. The social sciences, however, restrain from researching
the biological and, indirectly, social impact of the human heritage. Otherwise,
the middle class development was a historical response to the distrust of the
classic liberals, like John Stuart Mill, that the democracy and the equal political
participation are possible without education and private property. The citizenry
initiated the democracy development exactly because it was capable to bridge
the gap between the aristocracy or the republican oligarchy and the proletariat.
The underdevelopment of the democratic institutions and the absence of rule
of law enabled the oligarchy in the modern history of Belgrade to involve
occasionally into war adventures and social engineering. The evolutional “sin”
of Belgrade’s citizenry thereby was the complicity with the ruling elite, which
attempted to enforce “national” territorial policies, while promoting the social
egalitarianism.
The social egalitarianism was used by Marxism since the middle of the
19 th century in order to solve primarily the exclusion of the majority of the
European citizenry of the time from the political decision-making process. The
economic and technologic development that took place after WW II denied the
Marxist scenario of the proletarian dictatorship, since the unqualified industrial
workers have been gradually replaced by new professionals in the services and
the other post-industrial sectors.
The surpluses of manpower previously produced by the chaotic industrialization
and urbanization were, released Yugoslavia by opening the borders towards
Western Europe and the USA, so the economic emigration followed the
political one. The economic and political liberalization enabled new impulses