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Political Notes CHAPTER 3 Political Notes 19. South America is predominantly Catholic, North America is predominantly Protestant. We have the same division (south-north) in Europe, and what can be noted everywhere is the greater openness to progress in Protestant rather than in Catholic nations. In general, Protestantism is a more powerful impetus in history than the Catholic form of Christianity. 24. The request for the abolition of the death penalty is an integral part of the tendency in criminal law to take more care of the criminal than the victim of the crime. The arguments are problematic. Thus, for example, they describe to you the details of the execution of the death penalty and ask you if you are in favor of it. They could also describe the details of the execution of the crime and the horrible state it left on the side of the victim and family, and ask the same question. However, this is pushed aside, as if two murders do not exist, but only one-the death penalty that would be carried out against the murderer. 34. No doubt corporal punishment contradicts sense of honor and human dignity, as everyone would easily agree. However, seen from the other side, experience shows that, unfortunately, there is the existence of people without the smallest amount of honor and human dignity. The Qur'an says there are people who are like animals, "even worse than them." One who has spent some time in prison with petty criminals can easily be convinced of this. It is peculiar that people in office write criminal codes, people not usually familiar with this human "material." It is unimaginable to think of doctors who have never stepped into a hospital or interacted among patients. This is exactly what happens with criminologists. Most of them, in the best of cases, have met delinquents during a hearing or during a court trial, and what has to be taken into account is that criminals, unlike ordinary people, have a greater power of transformation. Criminals are never naive; there are, more or less, experienced people. Their accounts of life can be wrong, but not due to naiveté, rather due to a commitment to evil, which in most of them is final and incorrigible. In prison, I have seen a great number of people serving time for pickpocketing and street robberies. Not in a single one have I noticed a readiness to begin any type of honest work after leaving prison. On the contrary, they encouraged and instructed each other and exchanged experiences. I have noticed a bit of remorse only in murderers, but even among them the penitent ones were not in the majority. In one scene of a film I watched in the prison theater, a man was attacking a girl with the intent to rape her. While she struggled like captured prey, the majority of the viewers- prisoners-were noisily encouraging the attacker. Petty thieves and pickpockets are particularly unscrupulous types of criminals. They amuse themselves by telling each other how they, month after month, stole the entire earnings of miners. They mentioned a case of some miner who, after realizing he has lost his earnings, committed suicide. One of them, showing me his hands, told me: "Can't you notice that they are not for work, they were created for something else." And indeed, he had beautifully sculptured hands with long fingers. I told him that some claim that it is the type of work that creates the hands. He answered that it, work, surely did not create his. Then I thought he does not deserve such beautiful hands and that it would be completely just he did not have them, only to later remember that the sentence of the Shariah would be just that. Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 1 of 51 Political Notes Naturally, one should be very careful in sentencing, but if I were to write the criminal code in prison, and while taking into account all of my prison experiences, I think it would more and more look like the Shariat penal code. As I have before had certain reservations toward corporal punishment, it seems to me at times that God sent me here to compare His wisdom to mine. 48. While reading through the history of a nation or a period, it appears to us at times that some events, victories or defeats, the evil or just destinies of some nation, were a result of fortunate and unfortunate circumstances, that is, of coincidence. However, if we examine things a bit more closely, we usually arrive at a conclusion that the "coincidence" was not as coincidental as we were first inclined to think. 49. I do not know, or do not sufficiently know, the past of my nation. But I know the present, that is, the result. From this present I can conclude a lot about what preceded it. 50. To know a nation or a period, it is in no way enough to read written histories about it. Without Balzac's novels, not even a ten-volume history of France will offer a clear picture of the life of French society. Only with these can we say we know the life of French society of the nineteenth century. Histories inform us of events, while novels, poems, epics, stories, legends, and fables inform us of life of a man-individual, that is-of that which really existed. The one is external, the other internal history. External history is that much more insufficient, for it most often speaks of emperors and kings and events concerning a limited group of people at the court and around it. And I cannot say I know the history of a nation if I know the emperors it had, wars it waged, all the places where it was victorious or defeated. Furthermore, I cannot even say I know that nation even when I know its legislature and culture. I have to know how an individual lived in his home, how he related to his wife, children, servants, authorities. Only by combining both of these pictures, external and internal, I can say I know, in certain measure, that nation and its past- of course, only when taking into account all the limitations and reservations one should have concerning writers and their texts. 52. In history, as in nature, everything is diversity and continual change. I cannot ask for or expect a single situation or condition to become stabilized in history, for history to stop, just as I cannot ask for one of the four seasons to be forever fixed. In history, as in nature, there will always be forces which will cause change. And I, with my wants and actions, am only a minute participant in one of these continual changes. 53. Something over 100 years ago, the United States purchased a piece of land on the west coast of Africa and founded Liberia, the first free Negro state. It was an attempt by the United States, to an extent, redeem itself for the shameful "black cargo" (ill-famed trade in black slaves). A number of descendents of the Blacks who had been caught in the vicinity and forcibly taken across the ocean as slaves had been returned to Liberia. And what happened? These returned slaves became masters in Liberia and, in an unprecedented manner, subjugated the mainly black population from whom they were descended. This rule of the black caste was known as the "reign of terror of 100 families," lasting almost 100 years; it was ended only by a military putsch in 1980. After all this, we can conclude that life sometimes makes a crude joke of noble thoughts or that intentions, good or bad, have no particular significance in historic life. Thus will happen that positive consequences will result from selfish motives, and negative ones from the most noble of motives. On the other hand, the delineated case indicates how in slaves and those who suffer lurk veiled oppressors, and how Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 2 of 51 Political Notes much depends on circumstances. As people often say: God knows what he is doing. People, in actuality, can be only externally divided into masters and slaves, oppressors and victims. From the moral standpoint, in every man there exists both a master and a slave, and sometimes it is only a matter of circumstances what someone objectively will be, that is, which of these two possibilities can actualize in historic life. 68. While reading the chronicles about the developed phase of one society or civilization, we shall come across historians informing us of spiritual and moral decadence, stating resignedly that in the midst of plentitude and luxury, there is less and less of a man. Only moral dwarfs remain, waiting for the relentlessly approaching demise. Here and there appear great personages, but those are only the rare individuals powerless in the midst of general weakness. Their greatness appears even larger the more it is in contrast with the general state of spirit. 69. Nations enter history as morally affluent and materially poor. When they exit history, the situation is usually completely reversed. This is confirmed in the histories of almost all significant peoples: ancient Persians, Romans, Greeks, Arabs, even the modern Western nations. From this ensues a conclusion that a civilization (which is only objectified, materialized knowledge) can be explained through historical development, while morality cannot. It is precisely morality that is not a result but a prerequisite for a historical, external power, and one could say that people, fulfilling themselves historically, live at the expense of this moral supply, spending it, just as a prospective plant sprouts at the expense of the supply of food in the seed. At first, we always come across a man and with him examples of very pure and exalted religious awareness and morality. As the historical development proceeds, religion is either abandoned or it deteriorates, to finally have, on the eve of demise, godlessness and complete moral deterioration. Morality, therefore, is nowhere a product, we find it in the consciousness and life of people in its original form, most often without the ability to explain it. It can be found as an integral part of the "human material" that announces its entrance onto the historical stage. What has created this original morality? Nothing, if we take this word in its literal sense. That morality is not the result of life, but life itself, or a source of life that is only to begin. The debauchery and depravity that appear at the end are only the expression of the wasting and loss of ideals. They are the gray hairs of a life that is approaching its end. Debauchery is an expression of weakness, not strength. Why are all young races moral (puritan), while decadent ones are immoral? "Sexual revolution has its turn when any other positive revolution is impossible. It heralds the time when there is no strength nor will for any other ideal. It is a mark of the lack of true will and purpose. For everything that is good is a laborious 'ascent up the mountain'" (Qur'an 90/11). 88. Dictatorship is immoral even when it prohibits sin, democracy is moral even when it allows it. Morality is inseparable from freedom. Only free conduct is moral conduct. By negating freedom, and thus the possibility of choice, a dictatorship contains in its premises the negation of morality. To that extent, regardless of all historical apparitions, dictatorship and religion are mutually exclusive. For, just as in the body-spirit dilemma, religion always favors the spirit, so in the choice between wanting and behaving, intent and action, it will always favor wanting and intent, regardless of the result, that is, the consequence. In religion, an action is not valued without the intention, without "intent," that is, without an opportunity or freedom to act or not act. Just as coercive starvation is not a fast, so the coerced good is not good and is from the religious standpoint valueless. That is why the freedom of choice, that is, of action or lack of it, of abiding or transgressing, is the prerequisite at the basis of all prerequisites of all religions and all morality. And that is why the elimination of this choice either by physical Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 3 of 51 Political Notes force in dictatorship or obedience training in utopia signifies their negation From this the idea follows that every truly human society must be a community of free individuals It must limit the number of its laws and interventions (degree of external coercion) to that necessary extent in which the freedom of choice between good and evil is maintained, so that people would do good, not because they must, but because they want to. Without this intent for the good, we have a state of dictatorship or utopia. 94. When one world loses the ability of great politics, diplomatic hairsplitting "diplomatic state," as expressed by Hegel) begins. 100. People and a crowd (a crowd of people) are not the same. This difference is well known to demagogues, so they amply use it for their purposes. People are degraded into a crowd when they lose an internal principle of awareness, morals, ideals. People without awareness equals a mob (crowd). A mob is an amorphous crowd of people without ideals, a sum of individuals in which each lives for himself and has only one's own interests or desires without the awareness of something higher and communal, without even a name. People still have ideals, a mob only has wants. We find it at the end of the historical road, on the eve of demise. A typical example is the Roman lumpen-proletariat before the demise of the Roman Empire. 103. When social life loses its true meaning, or cannot find it, individuals, depending on their personal dispositions and character, escape into thought and mysticism, or give themselves to sensual pleasures. The situation in which there exist only two kinds of people-ascetics and practicing epicures-is a reliable sign that a society is diseased. 104. When ideas are concerned, there are two kinds of prohibitions. The first is the resistance of those in power toward advancing ideas, the time for which has come. The second is the prohibition of something that is receding, moribund, for example the edict of Emperor Theodosius against pagans. In actuality, paganism was already dead, and this prohibition was only a death certificate, the announcement of the natural death, which had already occurred. Both prohibitions are without purpose. The former is useless, since it cannot change anything, the latter unnecessary, since the change has already occurred. 110. When laws are concerned, it is very important that principles of some state system or order are based on the spirit of people, for these to live in people even in a form of vague notions that the system then only articulates, names, brings to full awareness, makes a reality. If some fundamental values are not known or felt by people, the noble lawmaker will be in a difficult position, since his laws may remain empty declarations. It is one situation if people believe in the equality of people, another if they have deep-rooted racial prejudices. In the latter case the constitution regarding equality will be "digested" with difficulty and will have little chance of being brought to life. 254. Democracy and stability are mutually conditioned. We need democracy because of stability and stability because of democracy. 271. What do we need: people who believe or people who think? Do these exclude each other? 274. If you read some publications between the wars-it was then fashionable to find so-called sociological explanations for all events-you would, for example, come across the assertion that the increase in the criminal act of rape is a result of sexual repression, conservative morality, etc. Expansion of this offence in the Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 4 of 51 Political Notes United States and Western countries, especially after the so-called sexual revolution, shows that the sociological explanation was not correct. 285. Henry LeFebvre claims that for twenty years the Communist Party of France has ignored the existence of Khrushchev's secret report of the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. 293. As in historical events, people are not only motivated by interests but also ideals, history is not predictable. To the contrary, that would be one causality that would differ from the natural one even if only in principle. As historical events are interfered with by the spirit (in the form of morality and ideals, or the motives of justice or injustice), in other words, because its actor-man- is motivated by pain and usefulness (interest) but is not its slave, history cannot be predicted. It continually makes its forecasters "lie." The last example is Marx's failure to predict history. I am thinking, of course, of the absence of world socialist revolution. 297. More than half of humanity today (end of 1984) lives in about twenty federal states. The organization differs from one country to another. Differences are mainly contained in the degree of independence of federal states with respect to the central bodies of government. 298. History has shown repeatedly that serious difficulties in every great undertaking appear only in the later phases of its implementation. This is indicated equivalently by the histories of Christianity, Islam and socialism. 301. In the preparations for the new post-industrial era, especially after the "oil crisis" in 1974, two million workers were fired in the countries of the European Economic Union, resulting in the number of unemployed rising to over 12 million people in 1984. The question, then, is in which way are we meeting the new era that is inevitably coming? Development, especially of the third (tertiary) activities, offers opportunities exclusively to small, dynamic companies. It is estimated that during the computable period since 1977, in the United States 600,000 companies are established and 40,000 companies go bankrupt annually. Currently there is a battle that relentlessly imposes the market, and in which rule the steel laws of Darwinian selection. Newly founded effective firms are usually small companies with fewer than 20 workers. 315. During the Congress in Bad Godesberg in 1959, the Social-Democratic party of West Germany abandoned Marxism as a "method of analysis of social events." This party preferred the "welfare state" to battle between classes. Swedish social democracy achieved this turn almost thirty years earlier. 317. Currently in effect is the process of constant decrease in purely industrial working posts in the economy of all highly developed countries. On this basis, Alen Turen alleges the gradual disappearance of the classic working class. The number of unionized workers is also on the decline. In France in 1984, for example, only 30 percent of workers were members of one of four large unions. 318. In America during the last century, a thief used to be hanged for stealing a horse. That was considered completely natural. 319. In 1984 in San Quentin Prison (California) alone, 155 convicts were waiting for execution. Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 5 of 51 Political Notes 329. When we speak of differences between the sexes, we think of men and women, not feminists. Unlike women, who are one principle or element of the world, feminists mean nothing. They are like plants pulled out by their roots, and thus outside of any sort of comparison and consideration. 331. It would be normal to expect large differences between old and new generations in our time. A child who has grown up with radio and television discovers from earliest childhood that there are people at the other end of the world who think, live, and feel differently. This should have as its result a greater degree of tolerance and less chauvinism of every kind. For a child sees people who believe in different things, but are equally good and evil, just like the environment to which he belongs. Greater tolerance would be a logical result of this experience. But, is life logical? 332. In spite of everything, in our century there has been a democratisation of relationships among people. The one who doubts that should read the obliging inscription of I. Kant (in the foreword to the Critique of Pure Reason) to some anonymous bureaucrat (or minister) in Konigsberg. Kant, "an obedient servant," dedicated to him "all the interests of his literary career." Meanwhile, the expression of subjugation, deep bows ("to the ground"), was something that was at that time encountered at every step. 333. Television keeps incessantly hammering into the consciousness of people the standardized messages and images that correspond to the official philosophy and ideology. That is why television is a powerful weapon in the hands of totalitarian regimes. However, new technological developments in this area (cable TV, more channels, satellite TV, private stations, videorecorders, videotapes, etc.) break this ideological and political monopoly. It will be amusing to see how totalitarian countries, which have rushed to introduce TV, will offer resistance to the introduction of these innovations. They are already doing this, since they either ignore or avoid these developments. It does not suit them. 334. A totalitarian society is inclined toward uniformity in the upbringing and education of people, as that makes manipulation easier. The behavior of uniform people can be more easily controlled, it is predictable, and it fits better with already existing forms. 339. Every fact of life and everything that is related to a man is complex and cannot be explained nor solved with a simplified theory. Still, this is a century in which people believed in theories. The Bolsheviks in the workers' power, Germans in the superior race, criminologists in the futility of the punishment (for the behavior of the offender is absolutely conditioned by biology and social circumstances). Further still they went in Italy when they abolished insane asylums and let the sick people out on the Street. They believed in the theory that illness is of a social origin and that insane asylums were purposeless. Although there is some truth in the assertion that a disease is socially conditioned, by abolishing insane asylums, a service was not done either to society or the patients. 343. As can be rather well seen, every technological advance is first the advance of espionage and the military, and then all else. It has always been so. Today that is only more apparent. 346. During the early 1950s of this century, the president of the International Court of Justice in the Hague, who was arbitrating a dispute between the British and Iran, was a Briton. In this dispute he voted against his country. British people were angry, but they have not declared him a traitor to his homeland. Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 6 of 51 Political Notes 350. High technology (high-tech), does not necessarily lead to unemployment, as is commonly thought. Toffler states that in the period between 1963 and 1973, Japan had the highest rate of investment in new technology and concurrently the greatest increase in employment. To the contrary, Britain, which had the smallest investment in machines, recorded the greatest decrease in workplaces. 351. Changes in the economic life of a post-industrial nation: in 1980, in the United States, of the 85 million employed, only 20 million produced material goods for all of the 220 million inhabitants of the country. The remaining 65 million "manipulate symbols" as Toffler says, that is, work in non-material production. 352. Some leading American firms achieve greater profits-or have greater lossesthrough currency and financial manipulations, rather than through production itself. Therefore, in the majority of corporations, one often increasingly comes across the position of the "director for international cash transactions," actually, a man who participates in the world electronic gambling-houses. His task is to search for the lowest interest rates, the most propitious currency transactions and the quickest turnover. 369. Mercator's projection of the globe does not suit us well. It incites Eurocentrism. By distorting real relationships, it made the northern, developed parts of the world disproportionately large, and in such a way fuels the feeling of the greatness of the colonial powers with respect to the colonies (Scandinavia larger than Congo, although opposite in reality). 382. This persistent pressure for employment of women outside the home, her inclusion into production, also has its psychological form: it consists of not acknowledging all of the economic values a woman creates at home, by giving birth, raising children, and maintaining a family. The homemaker, that worker who puts in 10 to 12 hours daily, is represented by our statistics as unemployed and categorized under the heading "non-working element." All of us know how busy a woman is, and at the same time we pretend not to see it. This neglect of woman's work is yet another, this time moral, form of pressure on a woman to leave home and turn her back on the family. Islamic culture must head the other way. The beginning of this would be the acknowledgment of the work of the mother and homemaker. 383. Alvin Toffler predicts that alcoholism costs American industry $20 billion annually, while these numbers are even more adverse for Poland and the Soviet Union. Fyodor Uglov, a member of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union, suggests passing a law on the complete prohibition of alcohol in the Soviet Union. "Otherwise, the Soviet nation will disappear," says Uglov. There are over 40 million alcoholics in the Soviet Union. Each year over a million people die as a consequence of alcohol, and every sixth child is born handicapped because one of its parents was an alcoholic, claims Uglov (Osmica, March 14, 1985). 386. Even American Christianity was contaminated with racism. On many churches, even around the middle of this century, one could read a sign that that church was for whites only. 403. Even if power can be gained through promises, it can be only kept with results. 420. Alcoholism became a first-rate problem in the Soviet Union. It has been determined: in the twenty years between 1960 and 1980 the production and consumption of alcohol increased eightfold. In 1980-30 liters of alcohol per capita and 40 million alcoholics. According to one analysis of the Academy of Sciences in Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 7 of 51 Political Notes the Soviet Union, alcohol is a direct or indirect cause of death of more than -1.5 million people yearly-which equals the effect of 13 atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima. Alcohol is the cause of the 25 percent decline in birthrate, and of the 40 percent growth in death-rate. Some claim the benefits of alcohol. This too has been calculated. The gain (for the state budget) 49 billion rubles, a loss of over 150 billion rubles ("There is some good in it too, but the harm is greater than the good" (Qur'an, 2/2 19). Ninety percent of all resources intended for health are spent only on the treatment of alcoholics. Alcohol is the main culprit in 90 percent of the crimes registered annually in the country. Academic Fyodor Uglov even suggested the complete prohibition of alcohol in the country, for "otherwise, the nation will completely disappear," he claims (Politika, Belgrade, May 15 or 16, 1985). 421. Andre Breton claimed somewhere that he would like to live in a "glass house" in which there are no secrets, in which everything is transparent. I presume he was a socialist fanatic. 425. I believe that the world is made of individuals, that is, that the world consists of individual people and individual things. For everything that exists, exists individually: nothing general exists-it is construction of our logic, and not reality. 434. Erich Fromm defined the "socially structured defect"-which he considered an event whereby some clear depravity or inhumanity becomes not only normal, but even desirable in one equally depraved and inhumane society. A good example is an aggressive and unscrupulous individual in some markedly militaristic society (that individual is already "well adjusted" and will not become neurotic), or pornography and marital infidelity in a society following "sexual revolution" where marital fidelity is ridiculed, etc. That which is sick and hideous becomes normal. 435. In the nineteenth century, white traders used to send tons of opium to China. Around 1840, there were so many drug addicts among the Chinese that the Chinese government came to the decision to destroy 20,000 cases of opium, after which followed a declaration of war on China ("The First Opium War"). After the peace agreement in Nanking, China was forced to pay Britain for the destroyed opium, open its ports to British traders and surrender Hong Kong. Bound by contract, China had to decrease its import custom-duties, so that cheap British goods flooded the Chinese market and thereby almost completely halted the industrial development of China. 437. There is a conspicuous similarity between Soviet admonition of "decadent art" (conceptual detailing is ascribed to Plehanov) and the Fascist rejection of "degenerate art," under which Fascists implicitly included all of modern art. In any case, this almost equivalent relationship of communist and fascist theoreticians with modern art is not coincidental and points to deeper equivalence and similarity. 442. Statistics tell us that every living human today has about 20 million ancestors. This calculation has been done according to some presupposed age of humankind. 450. Historical time is always bounded by apocalypses-many little wars between two big wars. 451. One of the characteristics of social realism: pseudo-classic architecture, and enormous monuments, tastelessly pathetic and violently symbolic. Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 8 of 51 Political Notes 455. Finally, there exists this inhuman, but unavoidable and relentless fact of the power of the atomic bomb: Everything we consider must take into account this circumstance, must adjust to this relentless fact. 456. Huxley speaks of a population of slaves who can be made to love their slavery, and that task in today's totalitarian states is assigned to the ministries of propaganda, newspaper publishers and teachers. 462. Sexual freedoms in the so-called socialist countries become a replacement for political freedoms. Authorities are well aware of this connection. 467. When the Soviet Union introduced non-working Saturdays, the consumption of alcohol rapidly increased. 476. Social realism does not paint true life, but an imagined life in utopia. The picture is usually optimistic, but false. Realism, in spite of the dark sides which it presents (for example, Balzac), captures us with its truth. Social realism repulses us with its falsehood. This could be called the "unbearable lightness of utopia." 483. Some facts: In classical Greek art, the greatest development was experienced by sculpture and drama, while we do not find music. During the Renaissance, poetry experienced powerful revolution and, a bit later, music and architecture as well; during Romanticism, lyricism came to the forefront, and in the rationalist nineteenth century, the novel. Some nations seem to have certain arts particularly suited to them: music for the Germans, poetry for the French, artistic prose for the English and Russians, painting for the Italians. All this is not exclusive, but some rough divisions can indeed be noticed. 510. Between 1968 and 1980 there were 6,700 terrorist actions registered in the world, of which 2,206 occurred in Western Europe and only 62 in the countries of the Eastern bloc (Intervju, July 5, 1985). Terrorists evidently abuse freedom. 511. In the book How to Succeed: Messages from the Most Successful American Companies (Thomas Peters and Robert Waterman, 1984), there is a conclusion, based on analysis of the 62 most successful American firms, that the most significant factors of success were not inyestments or automation, but the worker himself. The book presents the assertion: "Good management is the one which is able to create a working atmosphere in which each individual gladly cares about the company and society in its entirety." This conclusion, in complete opposition to Marx's vision of development, even better confirms the case of Japanese firms and their economic expansion. 512. Here is the "famous" sentence of Max Rafael concerning the dependence of art and development: "A painter thinks he is completely free in his choice of material and forms, while in reality this choice is conditioned by the state of material and spiritual production, the artists' class, and especially by the history of the art of painting itself." Materialists have always been passionately proving to us that we are not free. Even where freedom is most obvious, as in this inauspiciously chosen example of Max Rafael, they are convincing us we are bound by three heavy chains: (1) state of spiritual and material production, (2) class membership and (3) the entire history. Nothing in the likes of freedom brings their vision of an enslaved world into question. 513. There are some characteristic symptoms regarding the newest developments in the world: (1) in the Scandinavian countries, a movement against feminism and pornography, (2) in the United States, alcohol-free disco clubs, and a new young generation that accepts work and discipline with pride, (3) the reawakening of an interest in religion in the youth, (4) the precipitous fall of the influence of Communist parties, in both the West and the East, (5) critical Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 9 of 51 Political Notes reexamination of Darwinism and especially Freudianism and (6) passing legal measures against alcoholism (in the Soviet Union, Scandinavian countries, England, West Germany, etc.). 531. In Norway the "Action Group Against Pornography and Prostitution" (the opposition immediately called it "The Coalition of Hypocrites") was established in 1981; judging by its support and influence, it represents some type of a national party. The movement gathered approximately 400,000 members (out of about 4 million inhabitants of Norway). Ideologists of this movement claim that "after the atomic bomb, pornography is the greatest danger to humanity." They demand the complete prohibition of prostitution. The most radical followers and advocates of the movement are precisely the feminists, who claim that pornography (and prostitution) is a direct attack at the human rights and dignity of women. Both the Conservative and Social-Democratic Parties compete in offering increasingly piercing paragraphs against pornography. It was the Social-Democratic Workers' Party that was the initiator of the introduction of changes in the Criminal Code that sanctioned the sale of pornographic publications, pictures, films, video stores, etc. (NIN, Belgrade, June 30, 1985). 574. Huxley taught us two things: (1) that utopias are possible and just because of that, dangerous, and (2) that not all people like freedom and that people should be called to or taught freedom, just like everything which is elevated and noble. Freedom is not a natural, but a cultivated state. The largest number of people would easily substitute it for security and enjoyment. The history of the twentieth century confirms this. 575. American judgments and opinions appear, at times, too naïve to Europeans. Americans have heard of Hitler, Nazism, war, gas chambers, Stalin's clean-ups, etc. from the newspapers, while for Europeans there were immediate and bloody events. This is where the certain idealism of Americans and certain cynicism and incredulity of Europeans come from. In question here is the enormous difference in the measure of that which we call historical experience. 595. When we speak of European civilization, if exaggerated enthusiasm sometimes carries us away, let us remember that Nazism and Bolshevism were also products of this civilization. That memory cannot be avoided. 597. In Ethiopia, when thousands of people, mostly children, died of hunger (between 1984 and 1986), the military spent over a billion dollars for weapons, and, of course, did not feel the dearth (Duga, No. 299/1985). 599. Ideology asks how and from what people live. Religion asks why and what the people who live so are like. That is where the continual misunderstanding between ideology and religion comes from. There where ideology finds progress, religion sees utter relapse, for it does not find any people, but beings who only function and consume. 606. Revolution is bounded by no laws-the attitude in the classics of Marxism. 608. Some sentences of the New Testament sound anti-Semitic. 618. Gorky thought that (the disappearing) religion would be replaced by art, and that "esthetics is ethics of future." An artist or a writer would occupy the place of a priest. And to the question of one party official as to what will replace churches, Lenin answered: theaters. 624. One of C. Milosz's psychological analyses (concerning the dream of Piotr): "It was-said he-a dream about complete protection.... When a man is given to a Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 10 of 51 Political Notes force which is stronger than him - said Piotr - he reaches a limit where that which he hates becomes the object of admiration. He does not want to admit this to himself. It is very unpleasant. But then, actually, there is no other salvation but being closer to the center of that force. That is where kindness and beatitude is" (C. Milosz, Conquest of Power). Actually, Milosz attempts to uncover individual factors that make people suitable for the acceptance of one totalitarian system. Milosz' s hero becomes partial to Stalinism under the decisive influence of terror, faced with a force stronger than himself, and in order to propitiate and tame that force, he accepts its totalitarian logic" (Nikola Milosevic in the foreword to the Captured Mind). 625. Passion of destruction-the dominant tendency of the radical left. 626. In 1984, Latin America paid an average of about 40 percent of export income toward the interest payment on its debts (some countries even more: Argentina 52 percent). It is thought that, without harming development, one can set aside a maximum of 10 percent of foreign-currency income. 628. With regard to the theory of reflection,, one can justifiably ask the question: If art and literature are truly a passive reflection of socioeconomic circumstances, why then is the engagement of writers and artists in socialist countries so energetically demanded? From this request, one could sooner conclude that ideas are creators of reality, and not the other way around. The contradiction is obvious. 630. "They have killed your father, and that is why they appear stronger to you," says Teresa, in Milosz' s novel Conquest of Power. Faced with relentless and blind force, Piotr attempted to turn the object of hate into an object of admiration. - In the foundations of the majority of primitive, pagan religions, exists a similar feeling as well. Primitive people did not revere their gods because of love or respect. Personified in those gods were the forces at the mercy of which they were left exposed. Wrestling with fear, a primitive man attempts to propitiate those forces; he offers his submission, admiration, reverence. The same is done today by some people before omnipotent authorities. People subjugate themselves, not because of respect or good will, but out of the feeling of utter powerlessness before its nature. C. Milosz has shown by his outstanding psychological analysis how one arrives at a paradoxical result: Not having a choice, man turns his hatred into admiration. The greatest good is to be "in the good books" of the people from whom one can expect only trouble. Does not Orwell's hero Winston end up loving Big Brother? 632. Herbert Marcuse, the greatest critic of capitalism outside the Soviet Union, admits that capitalist mass democracy is not based upon terror and indigence but on efficacy and wealth, and on the will of the majority of the governed population (H.M., End of Utopia). Having this as his starting point, Marcuse concludes that a capitalist regime can be overthrown only by out-of-parliament means, therefore, by the means of terror and violence. He advocates this route. 643. According to the study of economist Ruth Sivard (conducted in 1984- 1985), the amount of an unpaid woman's work, meaning domestic work, totals $4 trillion a year, which equals a third of the total world production. The majority of countries in the world today officially recognize the equality of men and women. Women account for one-third of the world workforce, and they realize only one-tenth of the total income. Working women, as a rule, have a double working day, one in the office and one at home. Some statistics show that working European women have less free working time than their husbands do, by half. A similar case is also with working women in other countries. Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 11 of 51 Political Notes 656. There is no defeat for which the defeated nation bears no responsibility. In the "dumpster of history" there are no innocent ones. For to be weak is a fault from the standpoint of history. To be weak is immoral in history. 660. Is it true that only "empty stomachs set history in motion?" 664. In times past, people killed in the name of religion, today, in the name of ideology. In this century millions of people were killed in the name of ideology. 673. Ordinary people hold the conviction that AIDS is a price that modern civilization pays for "sexual liberation." This conviction has been stimulated by the reminder that Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by fire from the sky as a punishment for unnatural lechery. 674. Investments into research and development (R&D) programs in the world. In 1985: In Milan a meeting was organized that was supposed to answer the question of how Europe and European industry would respond to the technological challenge given to the world by the United States and Japan. The question was in fact, how certain countries relate to technology and how ready they are for the upcoming technological game. Cohn Norman, one of the experts in this field, estimated that at the end of the 1970s, over $150 billion was spent on R&D worldwide. Of course, the main impetus of this race is the current confrontation. The main areas of investment are: electronics (especially microelectronics), the chemical and pharmaceutical industry and space. In the United States, these investments (R&D) amount to more than 2.4 percent of the Gross National Product (GNP), but together with resources invested in it by industry, this rate increases to 4 percent. Japan follows with 2.11 percent, or 6 percent of its GNP if the share by the economic sector is included. For space exploration in 1980, Japan spent about a billion dollars a year, and what has to be pointed out is that reliance on technology is the only chance Japan has, literally, the precondition for survival. West Germany sets aside about 2 percent of its GNP, Great Britain 2.2 percent. In the USSR this work is coordinated by the Gosplan, Committee for Inventions and Discovery and the Academy of Sciences (established in 1724, now having 800 members). It is estimated that there are about 1.5 million scientific workers in the USSR (in 1980, five times more than in 1958); in 1980, 23.8 billion rubles was spent on R&D. Among the countries of the Third World, only China and India have more developed scientific and developmental politics. It is estimated that there are about 2 million scientific workers in China and that about 1 percent of the GNP is set aside for R&D. India estimates: around 2.5 million scientific workers and engineers. Since 1947, a continual growth of funds for research and development has been recorded. 677. History is not mathematics, and in it there is no mathematical necessity. Engels has stated in many articles, interviews and letters between 1891 and 1895 that the impending conquest of power by the social democratic party is a "mathematical necessity." That did not happen, and when it did, it was no longer Engels' social-democracy but Bolshevism, in fact, the totalitarian power of former workers. 679. When Spain and Portugal become full members of European Union (1986), "The Twelve" will have 318 million inhabitants-significantly more than the United States (232 million) and the USSR (275 million). In addition to this there is a great cultural and scientific tradition, as well as resources for development. When one adds the investments into scientific research of only three countriesGermany, France and England-one gets an amount equal to that invested by the United States, and twice that of Japan. But the effect of these investments, due to the present fragmentation, is significantly smaller. These drawbacks should be eliminated by EURECA (European Research Cooperation Agency). Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 12 of 51 Political Notes 683. In manuscripts recently found and published, Marx said that he built his historical method precisely while reading Machiavelli's History of Florence, in which the history of class struggles in this city was presented. Machiavelli separated politics from ethics. He divides morality into individual and public and subjugates the former to the latter. Machiavelli also emphasizes "public interest" as the aim of the community, but his theory might have served to show how much the so-called public interest can be immoral or amoral. His The Prince is a cynical manual for all autocrats, and "Machiavellian" a synonym for that type of methodology of conquest and preservation of power. 686. What is the "Swedish model of welfare state," which has been being created by the Social-Democrats for almost 50 years? On the basis of mutual solidarity, society attempts to provide humane conditions of life for every member of society. Every child older than 18 months has a secured place in a child-care institution. When he goes to school, he will have free books and school supplies, as well as a meal. When he finishes school, he will get a job, and if there are no jobs, the state will create one for him through public work or subsidies to the employers who hire unemployed individuals. That is why in Sweden unemployment is less than 3 percent (1985). When he marries, he will get an apartment or will buy it, depending on his prospects. When his children are born, he gets privileges. If he becomes ill, he will get 90 percent of his pay from the first day of his illness. Even if he refuses to work, society will give him minimum support. When he grows old, he will get a pension, regardless of the number of years he worked. If he grows weak, he can get a place in a senior citizen's home. The downside of this system is that it is rather bureaucratised and therefore rather expensive. Health, education and social assistance are the greatest items in the state budget; as a result Swedish taxes are some of the highest in the world. As is known, during the 1985 elections, the Swedish Social-Democrats launched a program of "workers' funds." The idea is that workers pay in the excess of their pay into these funds, through which they buy shares and so become co-owners of the companies and factories (Danas, September 1985, and NJN, May 6, 1985). 687. Do we want to be governed by people or events, mind or coincidence? If people, which and what kind? 688. Separate ministry for science (or for research and development - R&D) - Why not? 692. The 1984-85 elections in Scandinavian countries (Sweden, Norway, Denmark) show the movement of the voting body toward social democracy. This tendency was registered somewhat sooner in Spain, France and Greece and finally very clearly in Portugal (fall 1985). There is definitely a difference between European socialists and social democrats. Explaining this difference, Leonid Zospen, the first secretary of the Socialist Party of France, said in one analysis (1985) that social democracies in essence only engage in "better and more just redistribution of social wealth (income). They, as a rule, do not engage with changing the type of ownership and reorganization of the production relations in society." "We, socialists, however, have in sight both of these components of the socialist transformation." My comment: all such concepts are in visible recession starting with the 1980s (I think, of course, of the latter-the socialist ones). 698. According to statistical data, during the 1970s and 1980s the number of women in high positions declined in Western countries. There are fewer women ministers, ambassadors and parliament members today than 30 or 40 years ago. The only exception is Sweden, where the number of women holders of higher functions increased. Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 13 of 51 Political Notes 717. There are occurrences (or events) that in themselves collect all the dispersed characteristics of one phenomenon, and thus become a symbol. 730. Freedom and anarchy-two concepts destined to be confused with each other. They are not the only example (damage-sin; useful-good; God-nature, etc.). 744. "The results of bourgeois emancipation must be preserved. Socialism without constitutional rights is utter nonsense."-Jurgen Habermas in one interview (NIN, November 24, 1985). Habermas is considered to be the most significant Marxist writer of the modern age. This was not a hindrance to his appointment in the 1970s to the post of director at the Max Planck Institute for Research of Life Conditions of the Scientific-Technological World (West Germany) (in this capacity he wrote the book The Problem of the Legitimacy of Late Capitalism). In a reversed situation (if he wrote in Communism against Communism) he would get, like myself, 14 years in prison. That is that "certain" difference. 754. The most important economic resource is good quality personnel whose knowledge and capabilities are created and objectified through scientific work and education One dollar invested into scientific research work is returned after ten years as twelve, and in the case of information technology, even double. In Japan, national income has increased in the period between 1970 and 1980 from $1,806 to $12,000 per inhabitant annually, but the expense for the development of information technology was $350 per inhabitant annually (Danas, Zagreb, November 26, 1985). 777. French sociologists claim that alcoholism is "the mass genocide of a less valuable and superfluous population," for the life expectancy of alcoholics is on average 20 years shorter than of people who do not drink. Alcohol is one of the evils that strictly conform to the "principle of equality," for it equally attacks intellectuals and workers, young and old, rich and poor, peasants and artists, men and women. Children of alcoholics become alcoholics themselves. In 1951, the World Health Organization conceded alcohol the status of a "virus"-a scarcely curable disease of society and family. Among treated alcoholics in Yugoslavia, there is the greatest percentage among workers, around 90 percent. In Yugoslavia, three million of people drink often and vast amounts, of whom one million are chronic alcoholics, while only ~ to 4 percent are abstinent. Out of 1,000 surveyed students, every third one started drinking between the ages of 11 and 15, and every tenth had wine before he was five, etc. (NIN, December 15, 1985). 778. "There where a man wants to be complete, the state will never be totalitarian" (Denis de Rougemont). 780. When Denis de Rougemont invited Europe to unite immediately after World War II, his appeal was greeted with ridicule. But 40 years later, this unity is becoming a reality to an increasingly greater extent, and that which is happening in this direction is undoubtedly one of the most significant facts of this century. 791. The true differences between people, societies and political systems are not in aims, but in methods. Therefore, do not ask much about the aims, for proclaimed aims will always be noble and good-ask about the methods or observe the methods. That never deceives. 814. Over 100 nations and ethnic groups live in the USSR, and they formally have their own national republics or autonomies. The Union contains 15 federal and 20 Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 14 of 51 Political Notes autonomic republics, eight autonomic districts and ten national regions (Danas, December 17, 1985). In spite of this, Russian hegemony is felt throughout. 815. During the last census in the United States, when asked about ethnic background, as many as 83 percent of Americans stated some ethnic identification, and only 6 percent stated they were Americans. In spite of the "melting pot" theory, it was shown that ethnic identity is extraordinarily stable, ethnic homogenization did not happen, and thus America has remained a pluralistic community in the ethnic sense. 828. Positivists are proving that differences in the role of a man and a woman in a society are not natural, but created by long practice and upbringing. Without those artificial conditions, it would be possible-they claim-to equalize these roles. Furthermore, it is claimed that even for the different choice of games and toys that boys and girls make, where boys imitate handymen and soldiers and make weapons and vehicles while girls make houses, dolls and pay social calls, it is societal pressure that limits the freedom of choice, activities and toys for children (ex. Vesna Janjevic, psychologist). The advocates of this theory claim that children do not make this choice spontaneously, but that parents, teachers and pedagogues habituate them to it, etc. This does not sound convincing. 831. French poet Louis Aragon wrote an ode to the Soviet secret police. His is the verse: "Long live the GPU, the dialectical expression of heroism." He is also an author of the "famous" sentence: "We put Stalin above Shakespeare, Rambois, Goethe, Pushkin." Later he changed his opinion. Historical distance is necessary to all, especially poets and writers! 836. Total population of Earth-estimates (NIN, December 29, 1985): 1985-4.8 2000-6 billion billion 2025-8 2050-11 billion billion The number of inhabitants of the white race is decreasing in relative terms. In 1985, white people constituted 34 percent of the world population, in 2000 they will constitute 25 percent, and in 2025, 18 percent. Does that signify the twilight of the race that dominated the world for centuries? The black population of the United States is growing twice as fast as the white. Today, 320 million people live in the European Community, but the rate of growth is only 0.5, so it is predicted that by the end of the century, the number of inhabitants of the European Economic Union will fall to 280 million. The USSR today (1985) has 276 million, but at the end of the century a number between 310 and 320 million is expected, with growth exclusively to the advantage of the non-Russian nations. In Algeria, every woman gives birth to an average of seven children. Of the 35 poorest countries, 23 are in Africa. In the white communities of Europe, the United States, and the USSR, fewer and fewer children are being born. Reasons: late marriages, egotism ("I want to live for myself and not for a child"), career, divorces, employment of both parents, decreased fertility, drugs, venereal diseases and mass abortions. The causes of demographic crises are in greatest part of a moral nature. 839. Racism has no scientific basis: 99 percent of the genes that represent the inheritance of the individual are common to all people. One percent of the genes Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 15 of 51 Political Notes conditions the physical appearance of a human being, that is, his racial identity. Modern genetics refuted the old explanation for the differences between races. 844. What are the driving forces of technological development: economic mechanisms, the people who are always searching for something new, the race for extra profit, military contention for dominance, state administration? In the Far East a series of little countries (Taiwan, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong) is powerfully advancing. This is an imitation of the Japanese model, but which forces were active in Japan itself? In some cases a desperate attempt with the aim of military domination was shown to be the most powerful driving force (the United States is a good example with Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative, SDI-known as "Star Wars"). Half of the amount spent for research and development by the United States is spent on defense. The case is similar for the USSR. However, in the United States the results of research in the military sector are quickly transferred to the civilian one, which is not the case in some other countries. Can one go faster? The example of these countries shows that one can, they have achieved a degree of development in half the time taken by Japan. The first phase in the development in each of those countries lasted less than five years. Its main characteristics were: reliance on the world market, private initiative, administrative deregulation, opening up for foreign investments, low custom duties, symbolic taxes and abolishment of different taxes and permits. In this way, Singapore became the largest world exporter of diskette units for computers in 1985, and Malaysia the largest exporter of diskette electronics. The Japanese model is founded on so-called soft government, that is, the incessant process of consultations between businesses and state administration. In India, as opposed to other countries, the driving force was politics. At the head of the Department of Electronics is the president of the government himself. In the world, it is otherwise not usual for bureaucracy to incite technological development. It is usually the force of the status quo. 845. From lack of understanding to aggressiveness is but one step. 851. For the first time in its history, humanity faced the possibility of its own annihilation, actually self-annihilation. This feeling has a sobering effect and will influence the behavior of all future generations. Let us hope! 868. Algerian poets are dissatisfied with the slow process of Arabization. They know what significance the act has of returning to their country a language that has been so cruelly taken away by French colonial politics. 913. Even since the seventeenth century, the school system in Japan was so developed that the percentage of illiterate was the smallest in the world. Japanese lettering is very complex. This does not depend on lettering, but on people. 915. "When Japan opened toward the West, it invested all of its efforts into the education of people, and in a much more liberal way. I was shocked that here in a village, about thirty kilometers away from Paris, where my son attends elementary school, there is no piano, no drawing lessons, and not even the natural sciences are being taught. All of that existed for a long time even in the smallest village school in Japan. And the French are surprised how the Japanese could rise so quickly" (Japanese painter Jase Tabuchi, NIN, January 19, 1986). 927. One society excludes itself from the civilized world if it falls behind in the area of knowledge (science) beyond a certain historically tolerable measure. What are we to conclude about our future in light of this fact? Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 16 of 51 Political Notes 931. In 1985, in the United States, four-member families with an annual income of less than $10,609 had been assigned to the category of "poor." This category constituted 14.4 percent of the population of the United States, or 33.7 million people. A great majority of this category consists of black people. 937. Culture is before all a sign or the evidence of the existence of one people. 939. When civilized societies retrogress, they do not return to the traditional forms of life (traditional society), but are de-civilized. That is the customary case when, because of insufficient material development, the trend of civilization cannot be followed. What happens is complete material and spiritual impoverishment. 941. One of the rules of bureaucracy: Better to do nothing, for one who does nothing makes no mistakes, and one cannot be accountable for inaction. That is why bureaucracy is the factor of the status quo and opposition against every innovation. 942. No freedom is possible, or is real, if from above (decreed). Freedom is not gained, it is taken. 947. The motto of all sailors (after all shipwrecks and damage): "One must sail." 949. Crime in the world increases yearly at the average rate of 2 percent. These numbers continually grow, despite the fact the efficacy of the police in the last decade has increased by 50 percent, and financial resources invested in the fight against crime nearly doubled. This can be concluded from the report of the General Secretary of the U.N. at the conference dedicated to the question of crime in the world (Delhi, 1985). During this gathering, it was determined that "Crime today is a phenomenon which exceeds national and international dimensions, leading to the slowing down of political, social, economic, and cultural development, and hindering the actualisation of both human rights and elementary freedoms." 950. Democracy, by its definition, contains as well the possibility of misuse of democracy. Who attempts to "cure" democracy from this danger kills with this cure democracy itself. Freedom should be accepted as such, with all of its risks. There is no choice here. 951. If a book, a record, a film, if all these are only merchandise, then uncultured consumers decisively affect cultural politics, for they have purchasing power at their disposal, which opens doors to trash and kitsch. 959. Newly composed music actually "newly composes" the consciousness of the people. 972. The Italian Mafia was created in the fight against the Bourbons who ruled the "Kingdom of Two Sicilys" (with headquarters in Palermo and Naples), which helped it gain from the people a certain patriotic or romantic halo. But later, a stratum of the rich separated within the Mafia (as happens with any power without control), and under the slogan of the fight against foreigners, increasingly concentrated power in its own hands. Since the beginning until today, the rules of the Mafia have remained the same. These are: animosity toward authorities, conspiring (omerba), clear social division of the powerful and obedient, and periodic redistribution of power among families-clans (cozahe), which leads to mutual merciless confrontations (faida). Otherwise, the Mob today is a typical criminal organization. In 1980, only from the sale of drugs abroad, it earned four times more than the entire public budget of Sicily. Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 17 of 51 Political Notes 975. Two opposite statements on freedom of thought: Richelieu: "Give me two sentences written by the hand of even the most honest man, I will find in them a cause to hang him" (writes Mrs. De Motwille in her Memories). Voltaire in a letter to Helvetius: "Dear Sir, I do not agree with your opinion, it is revolting to me, but I will defend your right to hold it until the end." 986. There are people who are good not out of goodness, but out of stupidity or weakness. They are, to say so, objectively good, not subjectively. However, as much as this goodness out of narrow-mindedness (or timidity) is without real moral value, one cannot ignore its objective value, that is, value for other people. Those people are at least not harmful. If they are not morally useful, they can be socially useful, so no single realistic politic will ignore them. There where the questions are asked about intentions and motives, and not results and consequences, their lives are of no value. Those are two different worlds: moral and social. 992. An odd paradox is in effect: while churches in the West are frequented less and less, they are increasingly filled in the socialist East. According to sociologists, in both cases this is due to the crises of the institutions: in the West of the religious, and in the East those of the state. 1023. The Chinese "Cultural Revolution" was the most radical and far-reaching attempt in human history to remove not only the influence of the diverse past from present and future generations, but also to erase from the consciousness of these generations even the memory of it itself. We do not know if anyone put before themselves a similar ambition. Perhaps Kemal in Turkey during the 1920s. 1024. Jonedij Masuda, one of the leading Japanese experts on computers, claims that our knowledge-rich future will direct us to replace the interest in material things with interest in spiritual values. Within this perspective he also sees a future world religious renaissance. As is known, Adam Smith developed a similar thought in his work Wealth of Nations, a hundred years before. For now we know that the optimistic predictions of Smith about man's turning toward the spiritual life in prosperity did not come true. 1028. The Qur'an, and its spirit of mercy and justice, has become people's feelings and the everyday philosophy of ordinary individuals. This source was alive and active, even when it seemed it had run dry. Even then-in the times of decadence-although it did not directly affect social-political life, it did affect the formation of people's feelings, which will be and which are (today or tomorrow) the source of laws. Those laws, if they express the spirit and feeling of people, will be laws of justice and equality. 1032. In April of 1986, Pope John Paul II visited a Roman synagogue. That was the first time in history that the head of the Catholic Church crossed the threshold of a Jewish temple. In the Vatican it was announced that this act represented extending a hand to a people that had, for the last twenty centuries, been accused of the murder of Jesus Christ. Somewhat earlier, in 1965 during the Second Vatican Council, via the declaration Nostra aetat, Jews had been officially released of this accusation. In 1985, Pope John Paul II visited Morocco and spoke before 80,000 young Muslims about "our common God of Abraham," which was an argument that could have equally been offered to Jews as well. (In Rome, in the sixteenth century, following the order of Pope Paul IV, the so-called Roman Ghetto for Jews was established. It was abolished over three hundred years later, in 1870.) Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 18 of 51 Political Notes 1039. It is important for a nation to always "want something." Let us take India: In the 1950s, Nehru emphasized the motto of industrialization, in the mid1960s the "green revolution" (the advancement of agriculture), in the early 1960s the motto "Garibi hatao" ("Root out poverty"), in the mid- 1980s the technology (computerization) of Rajiv Gandhi. You will never achieve everything you intend to. However, you especially will not if you do not intend anything, and that type of apathy and inertia we find, unfortunately, in a large number of countries. 1045. The German Kaiser Wilhelm, otherwise a very average man, wrote this comment under some painting, "reminder to peoples of Europe to take care of their 'holy goods' before the danger from the East." This was much before the revolution in Russia. Hesse writes about this in 1919 (in an essay on Dostoyevsky) and says that the Emperor felt some vague fear of the masses from the East, which could be set in motion against Europe. This "vague fear" came true many years later. 1052. According to data in the magazine Journal de Brazil, out of the $100 billion of foreign debt that Brazil had in 1985, one-third, or $35 billion, had been effectively used, while all the rest was "eaten-up" by the mechanism of "refinancing of original loans" (Vjesnik, April 14, 1986). 1107. There exist two terrors of the twentieth century: the Gulag and Nazism. 1113. That which we sometimes see as a disease of an individual, is in fact a disease of times or society. 1115. Even the most beautifully invented institutions grow old after a certain time, are petrified, lose their internal life, even their true and original meaning. 1127. Mind (or human spirit)-is it the ruler and lawgiver of life or only its interpreter? 1128. Are laws at variance with freedom? Do both morality and laws limit freedom? Will life, if it is freed from the laws, start acting against itself and selfdestructing? Do we have experience with this situation, and what does it say to us? 1146. The iconoclastic attitude of Islam has two meanings and both are relevant. The first is literal-fight against the concretion of God, against his degradation to a painting or statue. And the other: against many little Gods, infallible, all knowing, magnificent, "one head above the others," untouchable, sons of God and sons of the leaders, Fuhrers, the greatest ones, etc. This multitude of "little Gods" was abolished by Islam and it was proclaimed: La illahe Illallah - there is no other divinity but God1. These two iconoclastic meanings "Al-Akida" are in mutual relationship and complement each other. 1166. There are many parallels between Nazism and Stalinism, but one is both more conspicuous and more important than the others: In both systems the individual does not exist and means nothing. From this fundamental equivalence followed all others. 1 Note from editor an of the OCR-ed version of this book: A translation closer to the traditional translation of "La illahe Illallah" might be "Nothing is Holy, except for Allah (God)" or "Nothing is worth worshiping except Allah (God)". IH Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 19 of 51 Political Notes 1182a. Conflict and social dissatisfaction in the ten most developed countries of the world 1973-1982. Country Austria West Germany Japan Sweden France United States Great Britain Spain Italy Conflict Inflation Index 1 6.3 3 4.9 6 3 16 35 39 68 100 Unemployment 8.1 10.9 11.3 9.0 14.9 1 7.1 17.2 Social Dissatisfaction 2.0 8.3 4.2 9.1 2.0 1 .6 5.1 7.7 6.1 6.2 7.2 10.1 12.5 16.4 16.7 21.0 23.3 24.4 Notes: Conflict Index = relationship between days of strike and total employment (Italy = 100); Social Dissatisfaction sum of percentages of inflation and unemployment. Source: Table composed by the Italian economist Paolo Silos Labini-NIN, May 11, 1986. 1183. Paolo Siles Labini (see the table in the previous note), Italian economist, and author of the book The Social Classes in the Eighties, a bestseller in Italy in 1986. Main ideas: (1) Economic, social, and political inequalities have been progressively decreasing in the last two centuries; there is, therefore, no inescapable social polarization of the society, as announced by Marx. Impoverishment (proleteriatization) did not happen as well, just the opposite-class differences were reduced. (2) The class problem is a characteristic of European societies that had passed through feudalism. In the United States, which did not pass through feudalism ("in which not even blood was of the same color"), class divisions did not have the significance they had in Europe. In India and some Asian countries, class division follows from castes. (3) Development is characterized by drastic diminution of the agrarian class and the rise of the urban, as well as by the increase in the number of clerks and continual decrease of the number of workers. (4) There exists a permanent revolution-but a revolution in education. "A monopoly on the highest education was the first element of the domination of social groups," claims Labii. (5) What is noticed is a continual diminution of the difference between the average pay of clerks and workers: at the start of this century in Italy this relationship was 4:1, and in the United States 2.3:1; today (1986) it is 1.2:1 (Italy), and 1.3:1 (United States). Labii believes that prospects are that a worker's pay will surpass a clerk's pay; (6) There no longer exists the acute "peasant question" that for long preoccupied political parties before World War II. Reason: not that the conditions have noticeably improved, but that the peasantry has practically disappeared as a class. Thus, today in the United States, independent farmers account for only 1.5 percent of the population (in 1890: 22.7 percent), in Italy 7.6 percent, in France 6.2 percent, in Great Britain 1.3 percent, in Greece still 29 percent, in India 50 percent, in Egypt 34 percent. Will the same happen to the working class (and the "worker question")? (7) Class differences in highly developed and post-industrial societies are expressed as cultural differences. Even in general, holds Labini, class Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 20 of 51 Political Notes battle was politically relevant because it was intellectually relevant. Those who have insisted the most and worked in the direction of radicalization were intellectuals, not workers. (8) The working class is changing quantitatively and qualitatively-the latter especially under the influence of informatics and robotization. (9) In the United States, the main contrarieties are not class ones, but racial and ethnic. The ethnic picture of the United States in the 1980s: Anglo-Saxon group one-third, Hispanic group around one-quarter, Blacks about 12 percent, and one-third of different little groups from Slovaks to numerous Oriental peoples. Even the particular kinds of crime are ethnically determined. (10) Three ideals of the French revolution, equality, liberty and fraternity, are still topical today, the first two being in the foundation of all aspirations and topical political movements in the world, while the third-fraternity, "sounds pathetic, and as opposed to the first two, cannot be easily institutionalized." The coexistence of the first ideals is difficult but necessary since in egalitarian societies without freedom, different forms of privileges and inequalities soon take roots, and crude shows of economic inequality autocracy lead to autocracy. (11) Social picture of Russia before the revolution: 80 percent peasants (including kulaks), 14 percent workers and craftsmen, 6 percent bourgeoisie (traders, landowners, and imperial functionaries). In this situation equality, and not freedom, was the first ideal. However, repression of freedom in today's USSR is becoming a problem, not only politically but also economically: development is halted. "Weakness in technological innovation is the Achilles heel of the Soviet Union." There exists almost no technical innovation that the USSR has exported to the West. The reverse is the rule. During the last two decades, stagnation in the economic development of the USSR could be noticed. The main problem is the ruling class of the "nomenclature"-the ruling people in the state and party apparatus, directors of larger companies and academics. They, alongside the power, enjoy significant material privileges as well and show no readiness to renounce them. These privileges have outlived all other political and economic changes in the USSR (so-called reforms). It is thought there are around 700,000 members of the nomenclature. That is the strongest conservative force (force of the status quo) in the USSR. (12) A shocking fact: The average life expectancy in the USSR is on the decline. The death rate of newborns has increased as well in the period between 1965 and 1981 from 23 to 28 per thousand. (13) In the West, there is an increasing number of workers and union organizations among the owners of joint-stock companies. Additionally, the increasingly greater development of small companies, which show themselves to be very effective, takes away all allure from nationalization, which was so popular immediately after the war. 1189. Erich Fromm has shown (in "Escape from Freedom") that dictatorship, totalitarianism and a state of the lack of freedom in general do not have a base only in social and political institutions, but also in a man himself, in his character structure. Freedom is not something that is understood by itself or realized as a value. People need to be taken or called to freedom as true religion. For some people, freedom is an excessive burden. Therefore, escape from freedom. Fromm reminds us of Germany in the 1930s, when "millions were as eager to surrender their freedom as their fathers were to fight for it" (p. 19). 1203. At the foundation of all the progress and power of the West in the last five centuries is the cult of work, which appeared at the beginning of this historic period and remained a main value in the eyes of the greatest number of people Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 21 of 51 Political Notes until the present. Linked with it is a particular concept of time, as something valuable, that cannot be wasted. In Niirnberg, even since the sixteenth century, clocks sounded the quarters of hours, which reflected a new feeling for time, which is passing and needs to be economized. The first law of morality became industrious and honest work, and the first sin indolence and unproductiveness. The main objection to both clergy and monks was that they were not productive. What are the origins of this new spirit that suddenly reigned over millions of people? It is most often ascribed to Protestant ethics. However, regardless of its source, one thing is certain: it contains the main factor of superiority of Western civilization. 1214. Communists claimed that classical freedoms have only formal nature and no value. What is the value of freedom of religion, that is, the right to believe according to your own choice-they say-when an individual loses an internal ability to believe in anything that cannot be proven? Or, what is that so much praised freedom of speech for, when much of what man thinks and says is in actuality that which others think and say. Or, what is it worth to you that you are free from external authorities (kings, dictatorships, church) when anonymous authorities such as public opinion and the press have even more authority? These internal authorities have greater power over man than the external, etc. My response to this: Give us as many of those "formal" freedoms, and do not worry about our health. It has been shown, namely, that this objection to formalism of freedom is in fact justification for a totalitarian system of government. For, those who have talked of formal freedoms did not instead of those give real ones, but have abolished both the one and the others. This hypocritical game continues and repeats itself, surprisingly with success. 1216. The principle of true capitalism is not spending, and therefore not luxury or prodigality, but accumulation and, on the basis of it, new, increased production. 1221. In authoritarian systems that last, and where the prospects for resistance and change of conditions have been reduced to a minimum, resignation appears and, with time, acceptance of such a state of things. In Poland in 1985, a turning away from "Solidarity" was noticed, not because of the rejection of the movement as such, but because of the loss of hope that even after ten years of resistance anything could be changed and that every violent attempt would end up with further aggravation of the conditions (for example, direct Soviet occupation, such as in Czech lands.) Dictators are not usually satisfied with only the absence of resistance. They demand to be glorified and celebrated, and usually succeed. Psychoanalysis gives the following explanation: Suppressed feelings of hate turn into acceptance, and even into blind adoration. This reversed (sick) logic was shown by Orwell in his 1984, and E. Fromm in Escape from Freedom has very convincingly written about it as well. 1224. Hypnosis and similar techniques prove how - we can experience some suggested thoughts and feelings, which have no objective basis, as our own (for example, a hypnotist suggests to the subject that the potato he holds in his hand is a pineapple, and the latter eats it, enjoying it as if he were eating a pineapple). Television, with constant repetition, becomes something similar. Millions of viewers accept, as their own, opinions that sometimes have no real basis and are often completely foreign to them. This is mass hypnosis, which is achieved through persistent repetition of some opinions and attitudes. 1230. "The right to expression of opinions has meaning only if we are able to have our own opinion" (E. Fromm, Escape from Freedom). Beautiful thought, is it also true? Can the free expression of an "imposed" opinion in Western democracies be equated with the prohibition of expression of any different opinion in the countries Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 22 of 51 Political Notes of the socialist stock? Even if theoretically this seems very similar, the practical difference is large, especially since an imposed opinion is never imposed in its entirety. Even when accepting some opinion, an individual himself has had some contribution, has colored it, even to a certain degree, with his personality. It is hypocritical to equate the position of the citizen in a democratic society, where he is exposed to the influence of commercials, TV, partisan propaganda machinery, press, which "help" him accept (actually impose) some kind of thinking, with a citizen of some totalitarian state, where only a single opinion is served and all others are persecuted and rendered impossible. Pluralism itself, which is characteristic of democracy, and the freedom to think differently (as theoretical as it may be, and hindered with many real limitations) draw a boundary between these two different situations in which an individual can find himself. All culture and upbringing are in a certain sense limitation of spontaneity and freedom: a request to do something (because it is good and beautiful), or not to do it (because it is bad and ugly). Looked at from the outside, culture is repression and is in opposition to freedom. Does there exist an imposed behavior that is in accordance with freedom? Is every externally imposed opinion (or behavior) a limitation of freedom? Is a parent's insistence, for example, that a child brush his teeth or treat adults respectfully an attack on the child's freedom? Impeding expression of opinion for a long duration in the life of an individual or society leads to the disappearance of one's own opinion. People will avoid developing thoughts and feelings that they will not be able to express or that will, furthermore, represent a burden, even danger. Finally, it is possible to imagine human beings without opinions. How much they are still human beings is another question. 1237. Adjustment is the greatest negation of one's own "I." It is forcing one to want what one must want, or accept as good and beautiful that which one has to consider as such, or finally, to accept another's opinion and taste as one's own. As long as you express that opinion aware that it is another's and that it has been imposed on you, things are not hopeless. Manipulation is complete when you do not notice that those are others' opinions or tastes, or you start to deceive yourself that they are your own. 1266. I wrote somewhere: "Hamlet cannot be translated into scientific language, nor <text missing> But there have been attempts. Hegel attempted to make a philosophical analysis of Hamlet and Antigone, wanting to show through this interpretation how ideas in these poetic works are identical to those from his own philosophy. How successful this analysis was is another question. Besides, it is not difficult to prove that the reduction of a work of literature to an idea, to a rational concept, leads to the abolition of literature (and art in general) and, as a further consequence, to an absolutism of ratia. All this, in the end, is an integral part of the authoritarian spirit. 1269. Not all that a Marxist is writing is Marxism, nor is everyone who thinks he is a Marxist one. If we compare what individual Marxists in this century wrote and said about some important questions, we will find more differences among them than similarities. In general, we are often victims to a fallacy that subjective and objective attitudes match, and that is much more rare than we think. 1279. Reading novels confounded Don Quixote's mind. He stopped differentiating imagination from reality, truth from the story, dream and waking state, past and present, finally, that which is written in books and that which is real. But it was a fallacy of a noble kind. Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 23 of 51 Political Notes 1327. England-industrial revolution; France-political revolution; Germanyphilosophical revolution. That which the English and French have done in the field of economy and politics, the Germans did in the field of thought. 1382. Moliere, with his cutting satire of the vices of the ruling classes before the French Revolution, prepared the confrontation with them. It was not the revolution that created Moliere, but Moliere that created the revolution ("In the beginning there was a word"). 1422. Herman Hesse clearly expresses his own view of history when he puts words into Tegrearus's mouth, according to which history is "something so revolting, at the same time banal and devilish, at the same time horrible and boring, that it cannot be understood how can a serious thinker engage with it. Its content is only human selfishness and the eternally same fight for power, for material, brutal, animal power. . . . World history is a story without an end of violence of the stronger over the weaker. Race with time, race for profit, for power, for wealth. . . . Spiritual work, cultural work, artistic work, on the contrary, is completely opposite to that, it is always an escape of man from temporal slavery to another plane, into the eternal and timeless, divine, completely nonhistoric, and even against the historic" (Hesse, The Glass Bead Game). 1428. What is world history? Is it a continual shifting of the center of gravity? Are we not standing now before one such shift? 1434. "In the beginning there was a word"-it has always been so: the French Revolution (1789) was preceded by the "philosophical revolution." In 1776 David Hume died, and in 1778 J.J. Rousseau. The printing of the Encyclopedia (Diderot, D. Alambret, etc.) was completed in 1780. Kant's Critique of Pure Reason came out in 1781. Great political events that have changed the world and started with the French Revolution were preceded by human thought. 1451. The state in Italy (especially Florence) at the end of the thirteenth century: "Popes and Emperors have for long forgotten the great aims their predecessors were led by. Ambition, thirst for power and wealth, were the only motives of their actions. The Church stopped protecting the oppressed and had long since taken on the role of the oppressor. Bribery and the rights of the powerful ruled the courts, ministries were given to lechery and priests would go from night orgies to church to perform services" (Cohen, History of West-European Literature). 1461. Copernicus's discovery was a cultural-historical, as much as an astronomical fact. It was not only a turning-point in the field of astronomy, but in culture as well. Copernicus had shown to man that not Earth, and not even he himself, is the center of the universe. This realization affected his dignity, as well as his haughtiness. On that basis, a different feeling about the world was born, and thus also a different culture, which had to have different life and moral concepts and political views. 1465. Anti-Semitism in Germany is very old. Even at the beginning of the sixteenth century, renowned German humanists Reuchlin (1485-1522) and Urlich Kohn Guter (1488-1523) wrote piercing discussions and pamphlets against the Jews and advocated an imperial decree for the confiscation and destruction of all Jewish books. In this conflict, intellectual Germany was divided into two camps. The University of Cologne supported action against Jewish manuscripts, and the University of Erfurt put itself in defense of freedom and against any persecutions. This was more than 400 years before Hitler appeared. Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 24 of 51 Political Notes 1471. During the entire Middle Ages, Jews were the object of the cruel hatred of Christian society. They were deprived of the right to participate in public life and were left with nothing else but to dedicate all of their attention to earning an increasing amount of money. In that way trade and banking became the main occupations of Jews. 1474. In The Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare dealt with the centuries-old problem of the West-anti-Semitism. In the strong character of Shylock, Shakespeare paints a Jew as he sees him to be during that time: biblically wellread, a passion for wealth and money, vindictiveness, fickleness, formalistic respect for tradition, formal understanding of the law (the letter but not the spirit), but simultaneously: dedication, perseverance, diligence. Shylock sends word to the Christians: "The villainy you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction" (III, i). 1482. In Shakespeare's tragedy, Caesar is a worthless personality but is a carrier of the principle that triumphs. And vice versa, Brutus is a great man, "the most honorable Roman," but he represents a concept that has been historically destined to defeat. For in that moment, republican thought was already dead, people were ready for slavery, they could not imagine Rome without emperors, regardless of the name of that Caesar (people asked Brutus to be Caesar). 1489. Milton's celebrated tract on freedom of the press, which appeared in 1644, is equally topical even today. His was the idea that censorship presumes that the censor is smarter than the writer, which is preposterous. Censorship humiliates the writer and readers, as well as the censor himself. 1496. The English Revolution happened under the influence of two contradictory teachings, which is normal for England. It at the same time proved the sanctity of the principle of the monarchy and the sovereign power of the people, two, at first glance, inconsistent principles. The clearest explanation of the former can be found in Hobbes' s Leviathan, and the latter in Locke's discussions on knowledge and civil government. 1504. Read Moliere's comedies and you will get a picture of the spiritual and moral state of French society in the seventeenth century. Cohen, describing the state in France after the death of Louis XIV (the beginning of the seventeenth century), writes in his History of West-European Literature the following: "Searching for pleasure became the only impetus in life of the higher classes. Religion was ridiculed, the family did not exist, marital fidelity and love were considered lower virtues. And besides all this, the failed aristocracy kept using extraordinary privileges and rights. Their representatives were given high functions in the state. Both external and internal government of the country was in their hands. They kept looking disdainfully onto the rest of population, valuing above all their only advantage-heredity. Both legislature and state power served to support their privileged position. It is not necessary to point out that the aristocracy never even thought of using those advantages for state interests. Higher officers rarely went to their garrisons and had spent most of their time in Paris. Also reveling in Paris were aristocratic landowners, completely neglecting their estates in the provinces. Bishops were not far behind, spending a greater part of the year outside of their parishes. Thus the country was almost without its higher officials, as they enjoyed themselves in Paris, squandering and reveling." 1505. The results of our actions do not depend much on our intentions. Rousseau, for example, was explicitly against revolution and violence, but his Social Contract became the gospel of the revolutionary movement, and "revolutionary leaders brought his conclusions to a terrible end by themselves" (Graham Grey). Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 25 of 51 Political Notes 1506. Rousseau's abstract "state" religion based on his "social contract" had two main principles: belief in God, and belief in the afterlife, where the good are rewarded and the bad punished. His social science changed the world; his religion, because artificial, was quickly forgotten. 1517. The main characteristic of the capitalist system: free game of talent and personal abilities. From this follow all good and bad human sides of capitalism. Beaumarchais illustrates this nicely in the character of Figaro: "People disturb my work-says Figaro-and I take revenge by disturbing theirs. That's what everyone does. Well, could it be different. There is a mob before you. Everyone wants to catch up with another, they rush, push, choke, curse one another: those who can, succeed, others struggle. It has always been like that" (The Marriage of Figaro). 1518. The Thirty Years War set Germany back. Contemporaries spoke of the unruliness and general spiritual backwardness that marked the entire second half of the seventeenth century in this country. The recovery started at the beginning of the eighteenth century, with the awakening of people's awareness, revival of Germanic tradition and resistance to foreign influences. Every rebirth starts with the feeling of respect toward oneself. If it is true, it does not implicitly include fencing off the rest of the world, rejection of every form of communication. It is the choice of one's own path and two-way communication with the rest of the world. That is true rebirth. 1522. In the world mainly two models of the fight against drugs exist: rehabilitative and legal. According to the former, the offender (who can be one who grows, produces, distributes and uses drugs) is re-educated, according to the latter, punished (in some countries very severely). In theory and practice, the first model was for a long time predominant, but with very poor results. Recently, the course of punishment can be noticed everywhere in the world. One group of American authors who used to be known as liberals now advocate criminalizing even when only the use of drugs is in question. Some have experienced this change as society's admission of defeat in this fight. Taken generally, undeveloped countries are mostly the producers, and developed countries the users. There form the different aspects of the problem. 1532. Let us notice how much more convincing and more powerful are the words of Karl Mor (Schiller' s "Robbers") when he speaks about the overthrow of the old order than when he speaks of the building the new one. When he appears in the role of the preacher of positive ideals, the words of Karl Mor turn into undefined dreams. 1533. Let us pay attention to the following facts: the freethinking ideas of the Encyclopedists in France ended in revolution, and in Germany-with great philosophical and artistic works. In the former case with practice, in the latter with theory. 1535. Goethe was not an adherent to violent overthrows. He wrote somewhere that people should "drucken" (press), but not "uberdrucken" (oppress). 1537. The French Revolution and Encyclopedist ideas brought to the society of the early nineteenth century double disappointment: first, with the power of the human mind, and second, with the practical results of the social overthrow. People were convinced that neither the Revolution nor reason fulfilled their promises: reason did not open a path for the creation of the ideal society, and the revolution did not establish freedom, equality and fraternity in the world. The reaction to this was Romanticism. Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 26 of 51 Political Notes 1538. Completely unexpectedly, since it fought against dogmas, Rationalism established its own dogmatism, nothing short of the dogmatism of the Church. Someone humorously noticed that just as Louis XIV ordered the trees at Versailles to be trimmed, and thus subjected nature to rules and order, so the French Encyclopedists trimmed historical facts to fit into the framework and boundaries of their theories. 1540. Intentions and our personal feelings have no influence on the world of politics. Metternich, an absolutist, and other protagonists of the St. Alliance, known for their cruel politics, were Romanticists. Romanticists awoke the interest for the past and history, and thus inadvertently stimulated the development of Realism, that is, ensured the premises for the shift to Realism. 1542. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, as a consequence of the economic disturbances of the Napoleonic Wars, there was general impoverishment in England. One contemporary wrote that the majority of the population of Manchester lived in sod-houses. In order to get into a sod-house, one needed to descend a couple of steps into the ground. In those pits, there were often continuous puddles; through the muddy floor, dampness perpetually exuded; the air was teeming with stench. And still, entire families lived in those sad holes in the ground; they slept one next to the other, on the wet and dirty floor (Cohen, History of West-European Literature, p. 341). 1545. How poorly Romanticists see reality is well illustrated by the case of Lord Byron. He saw in the Greece of that period the "spiritual leader of the people." It was shown that this had nothing much to do with reality. A great poet, but no politician. Fantasy is necessary for poetry, but detrimental to po1-itics. 1546. Two different views of freedom: for Rationalists "freedom is a right to do that which laws permit" (Montesquieu), and for Romanticists, it is freedom from all laws and limitations (for example, the freedom that rules in a wild tribe or the freedom of some hermit under the wing of nature). The latter was described by Rousseau-who else?-in his New Heloise. 1549. A wolf lives in a pack, a lion is a loner. What can be said for man? 1557. Although industrial civilization was in close relationship with new rationalist and materialist philosophy and with the ascendance of science, it still affirmed human spirit and man as a spiritual being. The predominance of machines, which are the products of the mind, impressively symbolizes the predominance of human awareness over matter. 1558. Capitalism, thanks to the automation of production (or the continual technological revolution) creates enormous wealth, but at the same time also posits the problem of the distribution of that wealth. In its creation participate both capitalists and workers. How to divide this wealth among them? Originally, these two groups were in opposition to each other. The capitalist had to lean to the increase of profits, and according to Marx, he could do that only by decreasing wages, therefore, through exploitation. Only much later, it was seen that this relationship is much more complex, and that the impoverishment of the working class is neither inevitable nor the only route in the development of capitalism. 1563. Sometimes I have an impression that almost all new ideas for which the New Century is famous for were born in England. France accepted and translated them into a practical program, and then turned them over to Europe. Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 27 of 51 Political Notes 1566. In the first half of the nineteenth century, England was an example of economic exploitation and political oppression. English poetry of this time "registered" this state. The poet Ebensher Eliot paints horrible pictures: deterioration of the poor family, auctioning of its miserable property, intoxication of the father of the family who falls into despair, mother who while in a state of mental disorder kills her hungry child, daughter who due to destitution gives herself to prostitution. Those dark pictures end with a curse on the wealthy: "0 God, why is bread so expensive, and body and blood so cheap! ?"-a seamstress asks herself, ill with overwork and destitution in the Poem on the Shirt by Thomas Hood, written in 1844. "Work, work! Work, as soon you hear the first cocks, work even if your stars shine with blood! The one who wears this shirt will not know the price paid for it." This state was faithfully and universally represented in the realistic novels of England and Europe of the nineteenth century (Dickens and Thackeray in England, Balzac and Zola in France). 1578. For the indigent world whose income is constantly smaller than the necessities, especially for homemakers whose husbands do not earn enough, one's entire life turns into an "endless arithmetical task"-continuous calculation of how to make ends meet. 1580. The question is: should social institutions or human hearts be changed? The only true answer is: both. Still, where is one to start? The heart, of course, if that is possible, and if you know how. Political Notes 79 1589. North-South scientific key: Switzerland invests $361 "per capita" for research and development, Pakistan only $0.49. These facts say and explain all (source: Politika, Belgrade, July 22, 1986). 1593. French Utopian Fourier (1772-1837) is the author of the expression "negative production," under which he implies the production of goods or services that do not serve to the satisfaction of man's natural and justified needs. Not all production is useful. 1598. Competition among firms is a new form of "war of all against all," with all that war signifies. 1601. From whichever angle one observes work, it will not be able to be reduced to a single dimension. At the end of the analysis, one will always find two contradictory components, (1) work as means of survival and (2) work as a pure human function. In the former case, the purpose is external, in the results of work, and in the latter case, work serves its own purpose. The moral significance of work is no less than the material one. 1614. In nineteenth-century France, battles were not only waged between the adherents of republic and monarchy, proletariat and bourgeoisie, indigent and wealthy. An equally bitter battle was waged between the adherents of Classicism and Romanticism. When Hugo's play Ernani came out in theaters (around 1830), destroying all classical canons, two opposed camps were created, no less fanatical and bitterly at variance than were the Republicans and the Royalists. This spiritual conflict, actually a fervent interest of the public in one question of spirit and arts, indicated that great days were coming for France. 1617. Paradoxes: In contemporary (capitalist) civilization, the superhuman exertions and merciless competition of minds and talents leads to the unimagined development of science, technology and art but also simultaneously stimulates Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 28 of 51 Political Notes egotism, mutual annihilation and perishing of the weak, all this not as a byproduct, but as the condition or the inevitable consequence of the former. 1631. The true patriot is not the one who puts his homeland above others, but the one who acts so it would be worthy of that praise. More than glory, he cares about the dignity of his homeland. 1634. E. Zola (1840-1902) was a typical bourgeois both by descent and way of life-he earned significant wealth early on and filled rooms of his palace with the glaring luxury of the parvenu-but that did not stop him from becoming a very cutting critic of bourgeois society. He is not the only example of spiritual attitude not being very dependent on "class." 1647. One different opinion about democracy: "Democracy levels and vulgarizes humanity, makes it crude, and drowns it in economic interests. . . . Victory of democracy will bring the rule of metal craftsmen, tanners, and peasants who hate everything that is beautiful and that is above them" (Przybiszewski in Homo Sapiens). 1658. Democracy in society and realism in literature went side by side and supported each other. I think a similar parallel can be drawn between socialist ideas and naturalism in literature. Democracy to realism is as socialism is to naturalism. Socialism is naturalism in politics. These relationships are not abstract. For it is obvious that socialism is the child of democracy just as naturalism is the child of realism. 1677. Marx was Darwin's student more than he might have been aware of. - ,~ Darwin proclaimed the ruthless battle of species in the biological world. Marx, the ruthless battle of classes in social life. In both cases, ethical considerations have no part, neither in the battle nor its outcome: not the better but the stronger wins, moral values are proscribed by a winner. Socialism does not triumph because of some ethical considerations, but because it represents a more advanced form of social life, reasons Marx. Marx's reason is utterly Darwinian. 1686. A lie in personal life is immoral. However, it has been shown that in many cases the lie is an unavoidable actor in social life or the condition of stability and peace in society. Unfortunately. 1699. In the mid-80s of this century, the movement that aims to push the state from the area of economy and property is in full momentum. That process is present, in its own way, as well in the Socialist East, Hungary, China, even the USSR. This is a true renaissance of private entrepreneurship. The state is accused of being the main obstacle to swift technological development and innovation and the main cause of accumulation of budget expenses, that is, taxes. In Britain, they even want to privatize the national water-supply network, in America prisons. The "sell-out" of the state is talked about. Great Britain, which went furthest with it in the era of socialization, is now the quickest to move in the opposite direction. The government is preparing to hand over almost all state property to private auctioneers. Twenty giant companies found themselves in private hands, among them TELCOM (the complete system of telecommunications), as well as many giant automobile, gas, and airplane firms, docks, etc. The minister of finances stated that the initiated program would continue until all the industry in state ownership is returned to where it belongsthe private sector. A similar process is happening in several developed capitalistic countries. In Japan, privatization of the railway is being prepared, while the French government, since the elections of 1986, is preparing, as a first step, to privatize the 65 largest companies and banks, the value of which is estimated at $40 billion. (All situations pertain to the end of 1986.) In the United States, the Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 29 of 51 Political Notes increasing role of the state in American economy was characteristic for decades, and then Reagan won twice, promising to "take the state off the people's back." In Spain we have a paradox: conservative Franco nationalizes an entire line of companies that the socialist government is returning to the private sector. The practice in socialist countries has shown that alongside nationalization of the economy came "nationalization" of political and personal freedoms. 1749. "To be able to rule over them, one must be one of them," the king says resignedly in the Eternal Fable by Przybiszewski, after realizing the futility of his efforts to raise the people and warm them to noble causes. "The true victory is not to force slaves to obedience by force, for they will remain slaves anyway. The true victory is to escape from them into pure contemplation," ponders the king. 1753. In Czechoslovakia the number of divorces in the entire postwar period has been increasing. According to some data, every second marriage in Prague disintegrates. Having the same laws, more divorces happen in the Protestant Czech part of the country than in Catholic Slovakia. That is probably one of the causes of the significantly lower birthrate in the Czech part. As a result, the share of Czechs in the total population of the country is decreasing. Among other things, it is thought that the main reason for the disintegration of families is the economic independence of women. One-third of the children in Czechoslovakia are children of divorced parents (Politika, Belgrade, August 31, 1986). 1839. Socialism announced the withering away of the state. But what is actually happening? Instead of the state, the economy is withering away. The state, on the contrary, is growing fat and strong. 1842. Poland, one of the victorious countries in World War II, after the "victory" was left "smaller" by 79,000 km2. At the end of the war, the USSR annexed about 180,000 km2 of Poland's territory (in the east) with 12 million people, and as compensation gave Poland the "western provinces" with an area of 101,000 km2. It is thought that during and after World War 11(1939-1956), in the area of prewar and postwar Poland, 22 million people were moved from their homes (Arso Milatovic, Five Diplomatic Missions). 1858. There are people of continuity, but also those who are "break-through names" in the history of science, art, politics, and so on. 1862. Gunther Grass invited writers to deal with modem problems, not to seal themselves in ivory towers, to illuminate the background of events, their human dark side, and "catch politics before it camouflages itself as history" (from the exposition at the Congress of International PEN in Hamburg, 1986). Clearly, in politics "camouflaged as history," many important aspects of life are no longer visible-one cannot see living people, their habits, vices, fallacies, hesitations, enthusiasms, prejudices, etc. Only the surface is visible, events, phenomena and results. Perhaps Alexander the Great was not great at all, and Ivan the Terrible might have had some human feature. Perhaps many little, ordinary people (which history did not record at all for they were that nameless mass who fought and died) were true heroes, while heroes wreathed with glory, about whom children learn in schools, were cowards, etc. The latter can be revealed to us by literature, not history. 1878. To Dostoyevsky has been attributed the statement: "Save me, God, from fanatics!" 1883. Yes, although Bosnia is "both fasting and bare, cold and hungry, it is defiant from the dream" (Mak Dizdar). Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 30 of 51 Political Notes 1888. Anti-Semitism first consisted of religious antipathy toward Jews, later to gain the character of racial hatred. Ghettos appeared in the Middle Ages. Jews were called "Christian murderers," "ritual murderers," "devil's children," etc. Jews were banished from England in 1290, from France in 1306, and from Germany, Austria and Spanish cities during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. As is known, they lived freely in Muslim Spain, and after the Inquisition they suffered the same fate as the Arabs-exile. A large number of Jews then found haven in the Balkans, in parts under Turkish rule. Bloody Cossack pogroms over Jews were recorded in Poland in the seventeenth century. Where literal banishment was not in effect, all kinds of restrictions toward Jews were everyday occurrences. AntiSemitism appeared in a very cruel form in the twentieth century: the physical destruction of six million Jews under Hitler. Depending on the political needs of the persecutors, Jews were pronounced capitalists, a communist danger, or sometimes both (for example, in Nazi Germany). They were blamed for lost wars, stimulation of liberalism, for revolutions, intellectualism, moral decadence, for vulgar materialism, spiritual pacifism, and freemasonry, and what not. 1893. Europe is strange. It considered itself the cradle and teacher of democracy and has simultaneously shown an extraordinary "ability" for dictatorships and totalitarian ideas. 1894. The majority remained the highest, if not the only criterion in democracy. It is true, it is beautiful, it is moral-that which the majority says is true, beautiful, moral. The majority, though, does not have the reliable criteria of truth and goodness. It is governed by passion and desire. Democracy is the process that cannot be halted. What could the final result be with democracy itself? 1906. Analysis of the movements in the most developed countries of the world show that small businesses have 25 times more innovations than large ones, and through the introduction of modern information technology, they achieve a reduction of up to 80 percent of business expenses. That makes them much more competitive. In the United States, those little companies launch more than threequarters of new products on the market. 1908. J.S. Huxley wrote somewhere that a nation is based upon the fallacy of common descent and on the feeling of aversion toward neighbors, therefore two negative facts: fallacy and aversion. 1912. The truth and light of the idea are turned by people into the lie and darkness of ideology. 1914. Many followers of Sigmund Freud joined Marxism (Freudian Marxist groups of Wilhelm Reich and Otto Fenihil). 1940. In all schools in the Muslim East, I would introduce classes of "critical thinking." As opposed to the West, the East did not go through this cruel school, and that is the source of its many weaknesses. 1993. If Western Europe or the "welfare states" are observed, one comes to a paradoxical conclusion, that different socialist aims in health, education, leisure, culture, a standard in general, are achieved in capitalism. It seems that only the capitalist economy was productive enough to sustain these large expenditures and still remain capable of extended reproduction. Socialist economy could not answer to both of these demands. 1997. Anti-Semitism is a phenomenon of Christian countries. The current confrontation between Arabs and Jews is not of that kind. It is interesting how the Israeli writer Ephraim Kison explains this phenomenon: "Christians usually think Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 31 of 51 Political Notes that Jews are the people who killed Jesus, forgetting that he himself was a Jew. For two thousand years the Christian Church narrated this and I call it antiSemitism. When I was in Japan and talked about this, everyone was amazed, no one understood what I was talking about. They have no complexes about Jews, because they do not belong to the Christian Church" (from an interview with a Belgrade newspaper, October 1968). 2015. Even socialist societies have, somewhere openly and somewhere curtailed, offered unlimited sexual freedoms as a compensation for denied political freedoms. It is interesting how some traditional societies under socialism have quickly traversed the gap between sexual strictness to abolishment of all limitations. It has been shown that these latter "freedoms"~ are not dangerous for the ruling classes, but on the contrary serve as a good vent for emptying social and political tensions. Only the government that believes in itself and in its path can take the risk of denying the "social sedatives" such as drugs, alcohol, sexual freedoms and other tranquilizers. 2017. The one who does not understand the value of individuality and freedom should read Huxley's Brave New World. However, there are some who will be thrilled by the delineation of Collectivity, Sameness, and Stability. There is no help for those. It is futile to speak of the beauty of a rainbow or a sunset to one who was born blind. Do not respond to one asking what is wrong with the "brave new world." His question reveals that your every effort is futile. 2021. Propaganda, indoctrination, is based upon the psychology of conditioned reflexes, thus, on animal psychology. It aspires to the creation of the "associative pairs" in consciousness. Thus, for example, in atheistic propaganda, the concept of religion is persistently linked with the concept of backwardness and superstition. This is done since day one in school and continued. For someone who has been "processed" like this, even the mention of the word "religion" inevitably (therefore, automatically) invokes as its twin one of the mentioned associations, of course always negative. Prejudices of that kind are so deeply rooted in the consciousness that they are maintained even in spite of sometimes utterly evident inaccuracy. I had an acquaintance who had been brainwashed that religion is nonsense, and he believed it. However, he at the same time loved Leo Tolstoy very much, claimed he was his favorite writer. It has never become clear to me how he reconciled these two obviously contradictory things, and it seems to me he did not even notice this contradiction. In fact, he was a victim of "conditioned reflex," that is, an associative pair: religion-superstition. 2033. Reject idols, keep ideals! 2057. For the simple reproduction of population, it is necessary that every woman who lives through her reproductive years gives birth to a little over two children (precisely 2.15 children). 2058. It is time to stop speaking badly of Germans. There are Goethe's Germans as well. These better Germans are in exceptional prevalence. 2077. In economy, one phenomenon was manifested: the stronger (harder) the state, the weaker the currency, finally, they both perish. 2081. Development sometimes strays into a blind street, from which there is no further path. Examples are socialist states. One can feel the absence of spirit and meaning, and some monstrous enormity. Are these not a historical error in the development of society, like dinosaurs in biology or the zeppelin in technology? The main trouble with these "mistakes" is that this is where further development Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 32 of 51 Political Notes is stopped, that one must return to the crossroad from which the deviation originated. 2117. The integration of the EEU is advancing. In 1992 the internal borders of 12 countries that were in the past at war with each other will be open. 2118. For some, pornography is one form of freedom and democratization of society. Pornography is underestimating the moral integrity of another person, especially woman, etc. There are two international agreements on combating pornography; it is characteristic that they are both from early in this century: 1910 in Paris, and 1923 in Geneva. After that, as far as I know, there are none. "Democratization" does not tolerate them. 2125. One Indian economist calculated that in his country, more is spent on astrologers and fortune-tellers than on schools. Some are convincing us that the situation is no better in other countries as well, including some developed ones. Sounds incredible. 2129. I do not want democratization, I want democracy. 2140. What has overthrown feudalism? Many things, but before all-gunpowder. 2141. I think that the time of armed revolutions, at least in the developed part of the world, has forever gone. Due to the complexity of the weapons the modern state has at its disposal, chances are on the side of the authorities, and almost none on the side of the insurrected people. During the American and French Revolutions, there were very small differences in the weapons that were at the disposal (or could have been at the disposal) of the people and the weapons with which the groups in power defended their positions. Let us compare that to today's state: tanks, rockets, airplanes, helicopters. What revolution can take that into account? Tactics and methods of future overthrows will have to be completely different: passive resistance, general strikes, civil disobedience of mass proportions, etc., simply everything that is not in the form of weapons. Armed rebellion suits power-holders since it gives them a 100 percent chance. 2142. On the frontispiece of Gandhi's autobiography is a picture of all the things Gandhi owned at the moment of his death. It is estimated that all of it together was worth about 5 pounds (G. Orwell in his essay on M. Gandhi). 2145. Regarding the word "Satyagraha," usually translated as "passive resistance" in the West, Gandhi opposed this translation. In the Gujarati language that word means "perseverance in truth." 2158. History is mainly a just judge. There are no undeserved defeats. People come down from the historical stage with fate they deserved. The same thing with civilizations. They do not live through violent death. They die of their own diseases. The raid by barbarians is only the coup de grace for a civilization that has lost the ability to live and to protect and defend itself. 2162. Men are (as a sex) more often than women unsuccessful, frustrated and maladjusted. One of the interpretations is that a man is a "more complicated machine" and that his social role is more complex and difficult. 2182. Why is the EEU so important? It is not only a significant political integration but also a strong epicenter of concentration of economic and intellectual (technological) forces. Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 33 of 51 Political Notes 2236. In the confidential report that a Moscow administrator delivered to the authorities of that day, he wrote, among other things, "Count Tolstoy is scribbling something." For the authorities of that period, War and Peace and Resurrection were "scribbling." 2244. Only in the Russian Soviet Socialist Republic are there about half a million illegitimate children born annually. The Russian family is in crisis mainly because of the changed position of women. In a family, a woman dominates, and in some fields even in society: There are six university-educated men for every ten university-educated women. Divorces are on the agenda. A new very widespread problem: the loneliness of a woman. The motto of a young woman: I want to be a mother, I don't want to be a wife. After youth passes, this wish changes (Politika, Belgrade, January 4, 1987). 2263. The excessive emphasis on the social character of man as a social being leads to the negation of individuality, and from there to dehumanization. From the claim that we are "social animals," that we are members of the herd, to the "logic of the herd" is only one step. The true preparation of man for life in society leads via the opposite path: the development of his individuality. The social animal never becomes a social human. All human experience confirms this. 2266. In 1952 Japan had $162 and in 1986 $12,000 of national income per inhabitant (Danas, January 13, 1987, p. 53). It is thought that Japan can thank, above all, the high level of education and two traditional characteristics of the Japanese, diligence and thriftiness, for this "miracle." Even today, the Japanese have the largest number of working days in their calendar and the greatest savings per inhabitant. In addition to this, during the entire postwar period, military expenses were extremely low (only 1 percent of national income). 2281. In the book Farewell to the Proletariat, Andre Gorz (Marxist or postMarxist) claims that the working class in the West is integrated in the system of reproduction of capital, that is, that it participates in the "game of the development of capitalistic production forces." Revolutionism cannot be expected from such a working class. According to Gorz, this is not some subjective fault of the working class but is about technological development, especially automation and robotization, which change the content of the concept of "working class" itself. Work in the classic sense is increasingly disappearing. 2304. The economy of Sweden according to the concept of a "welfare state": around 85 percent of the economy is in private hands. When compared to other Western countries, unemployment is low (around 2.5 percent) but inflation and working expenses are greater, which reduces the competitive ability of the economy on the world market. Pol-Martin Meyerson in the book Eurosclerosis: The Case of Sweden analyzes the Swedish model and points to its deficiencies. He recommends "re-modeling" the Swedish model, transforming an unwieldy state apparatus and abolishing some forms of pre-dimensioned social care that is expensive and de-stimulating. In Sweden, around 85 percent of the workers are organized within the Union, which is not the opposition, but an equal partner in the triangle: capital-work-state (employer-Union-state). Will transforming actually mean "dismantling of the welfare state?" Since the Napoleonic Wars, Sweden has not been at war. The gross national income per capita is $11,400 (1986). In some companies and banks, employees participate in the profit, but they get it in the form of stocks that they cannot cash until after retirement. It has been shown that the worker-co-owner works and saves better. 2308. The word "holocaust" is originally from the Bible, and was derived from the Greek words "holos" = "whole, entire" and "kaustol" = "burnt." Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 34 of 51 Political Notes 2323. Social salvation is always communal, morality is by its nature personal, individual. That is because moral salvation depends on the man himself, because only he, and no one instead of him, can deserve it, not even actualize it. Social salvation as well as social ruin often does not depend on the man who is caught in it. They happen without merit and without fault. 2371. Many analysts consider the phenomenon of the disappearance of the classical worker as related to a rapid decline in the authority of the Communist Party (CP) of France. As opposed to the Italian and Spanish CPs, the French CP held itself closer to dogma and continued to emphasize its "worker" character, while the workers this party had in mind and was referring to decreased in number as the days progressed (more on this: Vjesnik, February 8, 1987). 2393. In France, after the victory of the right, denationalization of state companies followed. Among other things, the Saint Gobain Company, a glass giant, one of the ten largest companies in France, employing 150,000 people in 16 countries, changed to private hands as well. Privatization was accomplished by the sale of 30 million shares, which were bought off by 1.5 million Frenchmen, mostly young depositors, and the demand for shares was 14 times greater than the number of shares put on the market. A similar thing happened with shares of the French bank, Paribas, which were acquired by over three million people. "I think the French are now promoting a new system of popular people's capitalism," stated then general director of Saint Gobain on this occasion. The price of a single Gobain share was 310 francs. 2404. Strictness and clarity of thought are the products of Western civilization and the standard of thinking that it established. Therein lies one of the sources of power of the West. 2423. Lawrence Durrell called the Mediterranean basin "the womb of civilization because of the large number of cultures and spiritual revolutions that had their cradle exactly here or in the near vicinity. 2428. International PEN held a symposium, "Writers for Peace," on March 3, 1987 (PEN day). The topic of this symposium was: "Falsification and misuse of historysource of conflicts and crises." Writers of the world should fight for truth in history, for the veritable representation of the past. 2431. Modern society feels increasingly less classed. Classes from societal poles are disappearing in favor of something that could be called the middle class. 2434. To the question of one journalist whether the revolution will soon inflame Switzerland, Lenin, who resided in this country as a refugee, answered: "In a country with 3.5 million inhabitants and 3,800,000 saving accounts, this can be hardly expected." 2437. Marvin Minsky, mathematician and psychologist, one of today's best experts on artificial intelligence, considers psychology and artificial intelligence as "the same thing." Obsessed with an idea of constructing a robot who thinks, speaks, and sees, he once presented a thesis that hundreds of little machines and mechanisms without some center operate in our head. "The individual is," says Minsky, "actually a cooperation of all those mechanisms, all those machines" (from In Mind's Company). My comment: the same positivistic position that too easily slights some questions, for example, how does a machine "learn"? A machine can be unusually complex, but its essence is that it does not learn. Regardless of its sophistication, it remains incapable of learning. 2445. Non-sovereign people will atrophy politically. Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 35 of 51 Political Notes 2447. Two coefficients, employment and fertility of women, stand in a reciprocal relationship. Some nations could pay a high price in the race for the increase of social wealth. Perhaps the ominous prediction that everything will be there except people will come true. The question can be posed: How much material wealthsteel, automobiles, rockets-is a happy childhood worth? Does a happy childhood with a mother have a price, and can it be compensated for by something else? 2453. Totalitarian regimes quickly understand that stupid, incapable and cowardly people pose no threat, so they support and encourage them. 2480. For, what else is this much-vaunted "state cause" in our times but the expression of the same will or self-will of the power, expressed in the ancient era by "Quidquid principi placuit habet legis vigorem" (Everything the ruler orders has the force of the law). The essence of authoritarian power, named differently in different times. 2489. The way in which Marsilili (1280-1342), a legal theoretician from Padua, saw "people" of that time: he divides them into popolo grasso (fat people) and popolo minuto (thin people). The former is the aristocracy, and all the rest-the poor. 2492. When it has weapons and power, stupidity does not appear that stupid. Then we see it as strictness or danger. When it loses that power, stupidity becomes what it has been-stupidity. 2512. The origin of the names "right" and "left" is linked to the debate about the Constitution in the French Assembly in 1789. The advocates of large empowerment of the king sat to the right of the president, while the advocates of the large empowerment of parliament sat to his left. That division later acquired a general meaning, with those on the left being those asking for changes, and those on the right for the status quo. The left-right division has other meanings, this being only one of them. 2517. The position of the ruler, or authority, is almost an unmistakable measure of the civilization of one people. Tyranny over truly civilized people is not possible. Such people traversed all those complex degrees of internal and external development that are necessary for government to be put under the control of law. With primitive peoples, the government is always above the law. According to this criterion, all so-called socialist countries are still at the level of barbarism. 2526. Before the end of the Empire, the Roman military consisted only of cavalry. "They conquered the world as an infantry, lost it as a cavalry." 2533. Hugo Grotius (1583-1645), the greatest jurist of the Western world, did not consider slavery neither unnatural nor unlawful. For him freedom was alienable good. 2553. As opposed to materialists, for us a man is always the cause of things, and not the consequence. For Marx, "It is not the consciousness of people that determines their being but vice versa, their being determines their consciousness"-man is a product, a consequence. In the world in which the first postulate of philosophy is that man is a consequence, "clean-ups" and "Gulags" are an unavoidable (law-abiding) result. 2559. Hegel yet discovered the role of wars in consolidating the state, the fact that was known to conquerors from before. "Happy wars, opposite from the wonderful time of peace, prevent internal unrest and help in consolidating the Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 36 of 51 Political Notes power of the state, although they put its existence at stake" (Hegel, Foundations of Philosophy of Law). 2560. "World history is the world court"-Hegel's renowned saying according to which the power of ideas, states and movements is only evaluated according to their destiny in world history, that is, practice. 2573. Exponential growth is characteristic of human knowledge. It is thought that all knowledge produced up until 1900 was doubled by 1950, then this knowledge was doubled by 1960. The same now happens every 7-8 years. Through qualitative change of the educational system, in a short time, decades and even centuries of normal development can be leaped. The example of Japan and South Korea confirms this. At the end of the last century in Japan, after the famous Meiji Revolution, there was sudden expansion in education. The Constitution of Japan at that time had only five articles (!), and the last ended with the sentence "knowledge should be acquired wherever it can be found." This sentence played a crucial role in what is known as the Japanese economic miracle. 2710. In politics it is not important what really is, what exists-it is important what people believe is, believe exists. 2711. The British believe that sometimes not only unsuccessful, but also successful governments should be changed-for they will either become ineffective or become oppressive. Not a single government that stays too long is goodaccording to British thought. 2732. In the Far East a miracle is happening, and some are beginning to remember a few ancient prophecies. The Far East is today the most productive industrial area of the world. It seems that inhabitants of those countries can produce everything we can-only cheaper and better-says American economist George Goodman. They called them yellow-colored Americans. These countries are Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and. Hong Kong. One of the explanations: the specific quality of the culture of the Far East, which is 2.5 thousand years old and which to these people is an inheritance of a tradition of work, education, modesty, thriftiness, and natural loyalty. In monetary terms there is the expression "Confucian capitalism," which synthesizes all these characteristics. 2737. Galbraith' s prediction that we are approaching the exclusive power of large corporations did not come true. On the contrary, small elastic firms adapted better and faster to the demands of new technologies and are winning a battle in the competition with large corporations. 2842. When Margaret Thatcher was appointed the Prime Minister of Great Britain in 1979, it was expected that more women would be in significant political positions. But this did not happen. Only one woman came to the position of assistant Minister. 2848. In the 1987 election campaign, Margaret Thatcher promoted the slogan of so-called people or mass capitalism. She said that capitalism is a superior system because it creates possibility for an increasingly larger number of people to create goods available previously only to some, and that, by continuing down this path, a day of general ownership will arrive. Nationalized companies were sold to small shareholders, which today number 10 million in Britain. 2858. I have heard that in America even a piano concerto by Tchaikovsky on TV is interrupted by commercials. Still, you can choose between 30 and 40 channels, so my objection does not stand in the American case. Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 37 of 51 Political Notes 2860. The number of computers in use is doubled every three years, the cost of their production is cut by half. The third medium-term plan by UNESCO (19901995) speaks of developed countries establishing general control over less developed ones through education. The global social relations will first depend on the strength of individual countries in the area of education, science and communication. This is global promotion of intellect as power. At stake are not only the massive participation but also the quality of education. Fast "informatization" of education by introduction of microelectronics is being done. The emphasis is on natural sciences and foreign languages. Current trends in production, actually constant introduction of progressively newer technologies, forces people to adapt during their working lifespan or even change their specialty, always with increasingly stricter criteria of knowledge. Even Americans are dissatisfied with their system of education. In 1983, a report with the panicky title "Nation at Risk" appeared, prepared by the National Commission for Education. A series of radical changes in education was suggested, with an aim to prepare the American nation for the expected global "economic war." Massive reforms are currently in effect in the USSR, West Germany, Japan and England. The "brain drain" from undeveloped to developed countries continues, which further intensifies the already existing gap. Where are we? 2870. The amount of coercion in a state is in an inverse relationship with its true authority. 2871. One of the declared aims of the feminist movement is "fight against the glorification of motherhood." 2873. The participation of women in the parliaments of some Western countries: Italy 7 percent, West Germany 15 percent, Ireland 8 percent, Norway 30 percent, West-European Parliament 20 percent (in 1986-1987). In Italy, there are 52 percent women and 48 percent men in the general population, and there are more women at universities and higher-education institutions. Still this is not the case for the decision-making positions. One of the reasons: when women vote, they do not vote for female candidates, but for men. 2875. In the nineteenth century, books over 20 (double) pages in length were excepted from censorship, it was assumed that only a few people read them, so they could not be dangerous. 2898. One interesting explanation for the stagnation of Oriental societies: the absence of the so-called middle class. It is interesting that the same reasonabsence of a middle class-explains still another phenomenon: eruption of the "social revolutions" in Russia, China, Ethiopia, Cuba, etc. 2899. Progress is a contradictory process. The idea of social equality is as old as man, it had a large impelling force, although it is in a literal sense pure illusion. Every progression is expressed through differentiation in which the more able and strong win. 2921. Medieval folk culture-it is a mixture of folk tradition and official church doctrine. 2133. In Carter's time, the Law on Ethics was passed in the United States, concerning the behavior of the government. The purpose of this law was to return the shaken belief of the public in the holders of responsible functions after Watergate. Still, during the first four years of Reagan's government, more than 100 officials were faced with investigation due to warranted suspicion that they transgressed the norms of ethical law. Government either dangerously corrupts people or offers an opportunity to corrupted people. Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 38 of 51 Political Notes 2135. First we had military-political colonialism, then economic, and now finally, so-called technological colonialism, that is, the almost complete technological dependence of less developed countries on the most technologically developed ones. The gap is incessantly widening. The progress is so fast that particular technological solutions become antiquated in three to five years. Where are we? 2203. Impersonal, collective humanism does not exist, and neither does impersonal, collective freedom. Every type of humanism and every freedom is before all freedom and humanism of a free individual, a free person. 2237. The conservatism of workers and radicalism of the so-called middle classes are now being mentioned, while the Marxist Habermas states that the "utopia of work lost the power of persuasiveness." 2238. It is beginning to be understood that the position of the woman in the socalled civilized countries has changed but not improved. On the long list of imperiled categories, alongside the inhabitants of regions with no perspective and youth with poor qualifications, in first place are women, because their emancipation was followed by the disproportional increase in professional and social responsibilities and obligations. 2239. The origination and development of new social necessities is linked to the great oil crisis of 1972-1974. This was undoubtedly the turning point for the accelerated movement toward new technologies. 3059. I have read somewhere that in Cleveland, Ohio (United States) as many as eighty different nationalities live, each of which is proud of its symbols, it cherishes them, and respects those that are different. No one is cramped for space in Cleveland. 3060. When water comes up to the throat, it is not advisable to undulate. 3070. What is the difference between a statesman and a politician? Answering this question Churchill said: "A statesman thinks of the state, and a politician of the following elections." 3076. Law and justice are not always in accord. If that is not the case, for a true man, the former is the latter. 3095. Legend says that it took 40 years for Moses to lead his people out of Egypt. Why so much time for something that could have been done in a week or month? Because the legendary "departure" was not mere travel, but a rebirth of one people. Egypt here is not a country but a metaphor for slavery, just as the "Promised Land" is metaphor for freedom. The path from Egypt to Palestine is the path from slavery to freedom. One people started from Egypt, and after wandering and suffering, another arrived into the "Promised Land." 3096. High Yugoslav official Draza Markovic writes at one point in his memoirs: "One comes to the old question if Yugoslavia is the state of Yugoslav people, or is it a state of Slovenians, Macedonians, Montenegrins, as well as a state of Albanians, Italians, Bulgarian, Hungarian, Slovaks, etc." (Diary Notes, Belgrade, published in NIN, September 6, 1987). Where are the Muslims here? Draza mentions Italians and Slovaks, but is "blind" to a people of over 2 million individuals. Why? 3102. Why is the destiny of utopias to produce tyrannies? The link is indubitable, but what are the real reasons. Maybe in an answer to the question: can an Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 39 of 51 Political Notes "earthly kingdom" be conceived without God and against God? Every utopia implicitly or explicitly advocates just that: kingdom without God. 3105. In Stalinism, the Marxist, anti-individual philosophy and the imperial, autocratic, despotic tradition of imperial Russia "happily" met. Stalinism is a synthesis of European doctrine and Russian notions of relationship manpower. Or more simply: Stalinism = Marxism + Russia. Stalinism is a product of these two factors. 3107. It is estimated that since the end of World War II, in the period between 1945 and 1987, more than 100 local wars have been waged, mostly among less developed countries and on their territories. In these wars, about 22 million people lost their lives. 3109. In the book The Control of Foreign Politics, Dr. Smilja Avramov emphasizes that the brutality of the two world wars and barbarian methods of totalitarian systems instigated the odium of common people toward the state, whereby the state was identified with violence and trampling of elementary human rights and freedoms. 3114. Tourism, following the oil and automobile industry, is becoming the third most powerful economic branch in the world. However, many analysts point also to its negative consequences for the host countries. The opinion is being expressed that "tourism devours lands, nature, cultural goods as a new colonizer and destroyer of environment" (Josta Krippendrof, Traveling Mankind). 3133. Adam Smith noticed as far as 200 years ago that the man who cannot acquire property has no other interest but to eat as much as possible, and work as little as possible. 3145. On the 1977 world map, deserts make up 2 percent of European land, 19 percent of American, 31 percent of Asian, 34 percent African and 75 percent of Australian land. About ten countries in the world are exposed to a high risk of desertification, among which are Iraq, Pakistan and Turkey. Through comparison of satellite pictures of Sudan from 1958 and 1975, it was determined that the edge of the desert extended an entire 100 km. This expansion of the desert is not a natural process. It is mostly due to the human factor (excessive grazing, irrational wood clearing, lowering the level of subterranean waters by intensive drilling though underground currents, etc.). 3147. In Animal Farm Orwell has shown what happens with equality when pigs are the ones deciding on it. 3149. Wars destroy, but also create. Peter Kalvokrezi and Guy Vint in the book The Total War (Rad, Belgrade, 1987) showed how the unprecedented competition of the warring sides in World War II accelerated the development of technology and achieved new breakthroughs, in the areas of aviation and shipbuilding. These efforts led also to creation of new industrial branches and revival of economic development of many undeveloped fields. In the concluding chapters, the writers gave an account of the deep changes the war instigated in the area of technology, demography, international relations, the way of life and political philosophy of people. 3151. Prof. Rasi Batra in the book "Great Depression 1990" announced that in three years the world would undergo a much larger crisis than the one in 1929. We shall see how realistic (unrealistic) the prognoses are. The writer is of Hindu descent, and is an assistant professor at Southern Methodist University in the United States. Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 40 of 51 Political Notes 3154. "It was our turn, getting onto bus, taking our seats. Behind us two young men who were, while waiting in line, completely unnaturally and unpleasantly raving about, and now they sat, put on earphones from their walk-mans, and disappeared. Listen, my friend said,. . . in this country, only Blacks know how to enjoy life, only they know how to be happy, to truly rave about, to express happiness they are alive. This is one human desert in which New York is somehow like a miracle, like a mirage, like a giant saguaro cactus in the Sonoran desert.... And this here is not a way of life but a strained, frantic attempt to live, to be alive. Black people try, through crime, through their money, through their religiousness, to prove to themselves they are alive, and every such demonstration is realized in exaggeration" (from the travelogue of New York by Tvrtko Kulenovic). My comment: there surely is truth in this description, but it is not all truth. I do not know why all foreigners see America through New York. Who are, and how do they live, the millions of people in the little cities outside New York, Chicago, and Detroit? I think that, mostly, they live a normal life. The strength of America rests on them. 3155. Why can one's country not be abandoned? It cannot be done, since tombs cannot be taken with us, and the tombs of our fathers and grandfathers are our roots. The plant pulled by the roots cannot live. We have to, therefore, stay. 3157. Traditions correct the negative influence of civilization. That is why one must treasure them. According to some information, for four decades in a row, crime in Japan has not increased. In 1986, almost the same number of offenses was recorded as thirty years before. Pickpocketing is almost unknown. The institution of the type in Japan is unknown. If there is a robbery or theft of a wallet, the perpetrators of the crime are regularly foreigners. In Japan, there is 270 times less stealing than in the United States. However, not even the Japanese are immune to some types of crime such as tax evasion, bribery, business fraud and machinations (information from the article "Japan: The Safest Country in the World," Novosti 8, November 12, 1987). 3158. According to some information, 50,000 rapes are reported yearly in West Germany, in the United States almost 250,000. It is interesting that the so-called countries of sexual freedom are at the same time at the top of the list for the number of rapes. The actual number of these offences is most likely larger, for many attacked women, especially from conservative environments, do not report the attack. The data show that rapes are about one hundred times more common in countries of sexual freedom than in those which we call conservative. 3187. The status of the so-called continual neutrality of Switzerland had been determined at the Congress of Vienna in 1815 on the basis of the decision -by the Swiss Confederation and the international agreement, signatories of which were the great powers of that time. After World War II, a similar status was gained by Austria, also through international agreement, in 1955. 3190. For the inanities you sometimes hear from the mouths of politicians, you cannot always blame just them. Often their public is "more deserving" than that. A politician sometimes, against his own convictions, says things that are expected to be heard from him. True and intelligent messages are often unwanted and the public would not accept them. That is how the wisdom of people having leaders they deserve is realized. But that is why we have the appearance of intelligent but hypocritical politicians, on one hand, and the refusal of intelligent and honorable people to be involved in this work at all, on the other. In authoritative regimes there is less political hypocrisy, but it is not about the honesty or morality at all. In question here is ignoring the public. We do not pretend before those whose opinions we do not care about. Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 41 of 51 Political Notes 3192. Hannah Arendt wrote somewhere that totalitarianism - both leftist and rightist - is based, among all else, on pedocracy, the mobilization of the youth, which is always invited to overthrow the "old world." 3212. They elect themselves (self-elect) and bestow honors upon themselves. 3214. You and I would have difficulty in convincing people that communism leads nowhere. Only communists could have convinced them of that, with total and complete success. 3237. Technology produces forces, both productive and destructive ones. The latter with even more success. For, today's technology cannot create, but is able to destroy the world. When the destructive force of today's resources is in question, we usually have in mind the sight of deadly weapons of mass destruction. We forget the more subtle ones-television, for example, which steadily destroys the traditional way of life and which brings crime and violence into our homes, bringing up our children. 3256. It is normal that in every dogmatist, mental activity weakens. What can I think, when everything is already thought of? Thinking, in that case, is necessarily experienced as retrogression, as an inevitable introduction of confusion into something that is clear and certain. 3269. According to the definition finally adopted by the General Assembly of the UN in 1946, genocide is "an action which has as its aim the complete or partial destruction of some social group (national, religious, or racial)"; this action can be carried out directly or indirectly, therefore not only by physical destruction, but also indirectly by "placing a group in such living conditions which lead to the disappearance of its political, social, and cultural institutions." Genocide is considered an international crime against humanity. 3271. While we would hope that disturbing facts about stories are the products of a sick imagination or horror story, it is not always the case. For instance, prostitution in Brazil. In a report from the "International Federation for Human Rights," prepared by a group of researchers for the OUN, it is reported that in Brazil there are about 7 million underage girls (age 8-12) who make their living from prostitution. In the region of Dorado (Mato Groso), there are over 1,200 brothels, of which police recently closed down 400 only because there were underage girls, under ten years old, employed in them. It is estimated that in the city Recife (around 2 million inhabitants), there are over 90,000 prostitutes (official information; it is believed that the real number is larger). Almost all suffer from venereal diseases. According to a report from the Brazilian Ministry of Health, about 6 million Brazilians suffer from sexually transmitted diseases, of whom 200,000 have chronic syphilis. Now the disease is expanding with a geometrical progression. Film director Glauber Roca writes: "Girls from poor families quickly enter the world of prostitution. Parents sell them, masters rape them, and pimps use them to amass money. After that, they die very young from tuberculosis, hunger, knife wounds, gun shot wounds, venereal diseases. They give birth to their first children when they are 11-12, which they then leave on the doorsteps of churches or orphanages, on the streets or garbage dumps. Others kill their children, claiming they died, as the result of an unfortunate accident, to accumulate some change which, according to folk custom, is doled out at the funeral" (Duga, Belgrade, January 9, 1988). Can there be any horror story to equal this one from reality? 3273. While destroying the Weimar Republic in 1933, the Nazis claimed that the Weimar Parliament was a mere prattle-house (parliament-prattle-house), and discussions in it empty babble. Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 42 of 51 Political Notes 3276. During the last years of Cromwell's power, the wisest Englishmen were invited to take over power. This "cabinet of the saints" or "cabinet of the sages," as it was called by the English, soon disintegrated and was compromised, showing that perhaps the sages are not the most suitable people for solving the entangled problems introduced by life. 3278. Plagiarists of the great artists always lived better than the artists themselves. That is the rule. 3282. About a hundred years ago, the main raw material for energy was coal, 50 years ago that place was taken by oil, and now that important place has been taken over by gas. The country with the greatest reserves of gas (according to present information) is the Soviet Union, followed by Iran, the United States, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Canada, Mexico, Holland, Qatar and Norway, but the reserves of the first two countries (U.S.S.R. and Iran) make up 60 percent of world reserves. In the future, gas will be used more as a petrol-chemical, rather than energy producing raw material (Vjesnik, Zagreb, January 16, 1988). 3287. A certain immaturity or naïveté of America that is mentioned here could be a consequence of the fact that America did not have a Middle Ages. It did not go through this cruel school that was traversed by Europe and that can be felt in the views and style of America. It does not even have the almost two thousand years of Christianity that Europe possesses. That is probably why its religiousness is slightly strange and perplexing to Europeans. German writer Martin Walser noted in one interview (1987): "The worst thing I have seen in America is their relation to religion. Their television preachers are something much worse than can be possibly imagined. In spite of that, their influence is enormous. For me it is one special disease of the capitalistic entrepreneurs, which are treated as religious entrepreneurs, large religious companies which literally sell religion, in a way unimaginable to Europeans." 3288. The five "w's" -five laws- the five golden rules of the press: who, what, when, where, why. Actually five rules of truthful, timely and complete information. As in other cases, laws are there to be broken. 3316. From the report of the EEU, which illuminates the current situation in Yugoslavia: "The agreement signed in Belgrade in 1980 [reference to the agreement between Yugoslavia and the EEU, my comment] is defined as an agreement sui generis, in the sense that political motivations prevailed over the economic ones, firstly due to growing tensions in the country, then due to the increasing role of the SEV zone in the Yugoslav external trade, and due to the delicate political moment which followed the death of president Tito. Based on motivations of political nature is almost a complete lack of obligations of Yugoslavia in the reciprocity of concessions" (written in Article 2, point 17, of the report by Giorgio Rosetti, an ambassador in the European Parliament, submitted on behalf of the Commission for Foreign Relations). The report was accepted at the session of the European Parliament, in January 1988 (Integral text of the report in Star, February 6, 1988, pp. 6 1-63). A clear example of a pragmatic approach in lieu of one that is principled. Europe has stopped fighting for the idea long ago. Everything has turned into a calculation. 3336. According to Ortega Y Gasset, the leading minority of one people can be neither too small nor too large. If it is too small, it is powerless to direct the majority in the desired direction. If it is too large, it will be divided, and start dealing with itself, becoming exhausted with mutual rivalry and conflicts. 3342. The quality of the laws and the respect for them are often in inverse relationship with their number and long-windedness. These facts comment on Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 43 of 51 Political Notes this: The Decalogue (God's Ten Commandments) that changed the world contains fewer than a hundred words. The longest constitution in the world is that of Yugoslavia (406 Articles), and the shortest is the American with only seven Articles (with 36 amendments added during the 200 years of the existence of this Constitution). The country that is taken as an example of a legal state- Englanddoes not even have a constitution in the formal sense of the word. Nicaragua has a voluminous Constitution-336 Articles. I presume that legality is not proportional. The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Montenegro, a federal unit of Yugoslavia, which has half a million inhabitants, is larger than the Constitution of India, which has 700 million inhabitants, around 30 federal units and a large number of different ethnic and religious groups. A short constitution is most often a sign of the continuity and stability of the system. 3343. Goebbels called radio the "spiritual weapon of the state," of course a totalitarian one. There is no reason not to believe him (in this respect). Still in 1925 he proposed that every house in Germany should have radio. 3344. For ancient Greeks, barbarians are the ones who still cannot even speak, which can be seen from the etymology of the word "barbarian." one who stutters. 3359. According to predictions of Igor Bestuzhev, a director of the Institute for Social Prognostics and Social Design of the USSR, the population of the Asian parts of the USSR, inhabited mainly by Muslim peoples, increased by more than three-fold from the end of the war (in the last 40 years), and will double in respect to the present number in the next 15 years. In the remainder of the USSR, the opposite process exists: depopulation, single-child families, a large number of single people, unstable and easily disrupted marriages. In his opinion, about 60 percent of marriages are destroyed due to the alcoholism of one of the partners (Danas, Zagreb, March 15, 1988, pp. 74-75). 3366. "Pornography-theory, rape-practice," words from one women's manifesto against pornography. 3367. The creation of the so-called people's capitalism in Western countries is done in accordance with the continual expansion of the number of small shareowners. The system created by this has been shown to be economically very effective. The number of shareholders in Great Britain in the last couple of years (1980-1988) rose from 2 to 9 million. In 1982, the British government sold the state transportation company, National Freight Corporation, exclusively to the workers employed with the company. The shares of that firm, which had previously been working at a barely profitable level, are today worth 50 times more, thanks to the direct interest of the employee-owner. Excellent economic effects have also been recorded in 16 other large state firms that the British government sold to private individuals (among the other renowned firms Jaguar, British Airways, PTT, airports, etc.). The main characteristic of this process was that the shares were bought by millions of small investors. In France, a similar process was put into action after Chirac' s arrival to power. In three years the number of French shareholders increased from 1 million to 5.5 million. It is interesting that neither the Labour government in Great Britain nor the socialist opposition in other European states claims that it will, if elected, again nationalize that which the governments of the right put into private hands. The idea of nationalization and state ownership, sometimes very popular and "revolutionary," seems to have completely lost its attraction after an evidently bad experience. 3369. Democracy (and freedom) is not in that we do everything we want, but to want everything we do (according to Tolstoy). Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 44 of 51 Political Notes 3370. Why does the so-called sixty-eight, which blew over the world like some fever, remain only as a memory? It had to remain so. It once again attempted that which was not to be achieved, that which history had already surpassed. It attempted to bring to life ideals of the past, and those ideals were no longer realistic. Everything that occurred later-the conservative movement in the West and religious renewal around the world-shows that the ideals of 1968 were out of its time and the general historical trend. The ideals of the generation were not as innocent as they were at the start of the twentieth century, for they were already weighted down with the sins of their application. 3384. Hegel thought we lived in the time of the twilight of art and that perception about art is becoming more important than art itself, as intellectual reflection replaces spontaneous creation. Hegel stated this over 150 years ago. Once again the prognoses failed. Events did not confirm this claim of Hegel's. History cannot be predicted. 3386. There was someone who said "we only have differences in common." 3388. A man cannot be a resource. Every use of man is misuse. 3392. The French Revolution called to Reason, and in name of Reason guillotined thousands of reasonable ones. 3404. Whoever goes to the people to teach, but does not to learn from them as well, is a conceited fool. That meeting will not bring him or the people any good. 3409. I have just read that the centers for the posture, movement, and balance of the body are in the cerebellum, and for human creativity in the cerebrum. Some people obviously have a more developed cerebellum than cerebrum. 3440. True democracy is not only a government of the majority. Just as every right is the protection of the weaker, so is democracy the protection of the minority. Without the latter, the government of the majority would be a tyranny like any other. 3446. In the Western world, work gained its dignity for the first time in one of Luther's 95 celebrated theses. That thesis runs: "Ora et labora" (pray and work). This is the basis of the renowned Protestant work ethic. Formerly, work was until then equated with suffering and slavery, and physical work unworthy of the free man. With "ora et labora," Luther placed work in the same line with prayer as also one of the ways to serve God, and thus established the practical foundations of Protestant ethics, and even the power of the people who accepted it. 3447. Genghis Khan-the "atomic bomb of his time" (as called by one historian)destroyed Afghanistan's state and the civilization brought to it by Islam in the thirteenth century. He burned the cities, destroyed beautiful edifices, dams and irrigation systems, turning prosperous lands into desert. Even today, Afghanistan still has not recovered from this misfortune: Great parts are today still deserts due to this unprecedented devastation. 3449. Bosnia and its "dark beauty" (Andric's expression)-"land of historicalcivilizational discontinuities." 3456. In the period starting from 1961, around 7,000 Afghanis finished military schools in the USSR and countries of the Eastern bloc, which practically amounts to the entire staff of Afghanistan's army. If it is worth mentioning at all, political indoctrination accompanied military training. The result is known. Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 45 of 51 Political Notes 3463. Developed countries earmark significant resources for different programs of social protection of the poor and underprivileged classes of the population. In 1987, in the United States, $491 billion was provided for these purposes, $511 billion is predicted for 1988, which amounts to 11% of the gross national product. These resources will be spent for health protection of the poor and unemployed, subsidies for rents, vocational training, additional education, as well as for direct help in terms of food by granting "food stamps" and the gratuitous distribution of agricultural excesses that the state bought from farmers. The greatest part of this sum still goes to social, health and pension insurance. In the United States the poverty limit for a four-member family is an income of $11,000 a year. It is thought that one-fifth of Italians have a standard of living that necessitates help from the state. Statistical data for France states that 15 percent of the population lives in poverty or on the border of it (according to their standards). According to EU standards, those who have less than 50 francs at their disposal daily are considered poor. It is thought that in West Germany there are about three million poor people, with the same amount surviving exclusively on social aid. An additional 2~2 million receive help to cover rent, food, or clothing. The most important institution for this kind is the obligatory contribution of 2.3 percent of income from all employees and employers, which provides 50 billion DEM yearly, the initial purpose of which was to help the unemployed. Out of 56 million Britons, more than 8 million receive some kind of assistance or have some social privileges, for which $90 billion a year is set aside ("New Poverty," Danas, May 3, 1988, p. 8). 3466. (Anti-Semitism-some historical facts that concern the territory of present Yugoslavia): Between the fifth and eighth centuries, Byzantium passed laws that forcibly converted many Jews in Macedonia to Christianity. In Dubrovnik, in 1502, 11 Jews were accused of "ritual killing." As a result of the trial, one was strangled in prison, four were burned alive, three died from torture, and the rest were exiled. In 1797, the "Council of the Entreated" passed a law that prohibited Jews from entering cafés. In Split, in 1553, all Jewish holy books were burned and Jews were ordered to wear a yellow sign, first introduced in Venice in 1314. In the area of Slovenia, all Jews from Koruska, Stajerska and Ljubljana were exiled by the decree of Emperor Maximilian. In Vojvodina, they were not allowed to inhabit cities, in Serbia the opposite: Milos' s son, Mihajlo, prohibited Jews from leaving cities and going inland. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, Turkey prohibited them from dressing like Muslims-wearing a turban and dressing in green; they were also not allowed to ride a horse in the city and wear weapons. At the Congress of Berlin, Jews were formally granted all civil rights. 3483. In the book Macedonian Muslims, Then and Now, author Jakim Sinadinovski, professor of sociology at the University of Skopje, opposes the thesis on Macedonians converted to Islam that claims that Muslims in Macedonia are a separate ethnic group that significantly developed under the influence of the religious factor. Muslims differ from Macedonians in linguistic expression, dress, custom/moral norms, culture of residence and food, and even the type of economic life-which gives this group a separate identity. The book caused a strong reaction in those who claim that Muslims in Macedonia are Macedonians of Islamic faith, that is, Macedonians converted to Islam and as such, a part of the Macedonian people. The book was issued in early 1988 in Skopje. 3486. Some want to literally equate a man and a woman, not in rights and human dignity, but in the way of life, type of work, dress, behavior, thus in everything in which these two sexes differ by their natures. On the other hand, even psychologists claim there is even a "masculine" and a "feminine" way of writing, masculine and feminine literature, even a "masculine" and a "feminine" way of reading. Milorad Pavic wrote two versions of his Hazar Dictionary- one "masculine" and the other "feminine." When you travel by train through the Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 46 of 51 Political Notes Soviet Union, along the track during a winter storm at minus 20 degrees Celsius, you see track-workers, women, not as an exception, but hundreds of them. That is that "equality." 3501a. A program and people are often in disagreement. Often quality people advocate a completely unrealistic and retrogressive program, and vice versa: good program, bad people. 3504. "Let us build trade, and a historian of the world will see that trade was the principle of freedom, that it colonized America and destroyed feudalism, that it made peace and that it maintains peace and that it will abolish slavery" (Emerson, Diary). Compare the Qur'an: "God allowed trade and prohibited interest" (2/275). 3505. "The harvest will be better kept and will last longer if it is in private storage, in the shed of every farmer and basket of every woman, than if kept in state granaries. In the same way, the same amount of money will last longer and be better used if every man and woman use it for their own needs, feeling that the money is theirs, than if it is spent by a powerful Governor or state representative of the Minister of Finances. If you take away the feeling that I have to depend upon myself, if you give me even the slightest indication that in reserve I have good friends and assistants who will support everything readily, I will immediately loosen my diligence,. . . and certain slackening will expand to the conduct of all of my work. Here is a $100 bill. If it comes into the hands of a profligate, who did not earn his estate and who knows how to spend. you will see how little change this will cause in his affairs. At the end of the year he will be as far behind as ever. But if it goes into the hands of a poor, sensible woman, every little part of it will be used to reduce debt, or add to present or permanent comfort, fix a window, buy a blanket or fur coat, or get a stove instead of an old hearth." This was written by Emerson in his Diary in December of 1842. I give this long quotation for it took 150 years and the wandering of 100 million people, the loss of trillions in national income, to understand this simple truth. 3506. Weak people are the advocates and support of authoritarian government. They lack the feeling of self-worth, from which the desire for freedom and independence stems. A weak man runs from freedom and responsibility. An authoritarian government is a refuge from this burden, without which one can comfortably live. The precondition for this is known, why repeat it? 3515. Strong and spontaneous aspiration for knowledge, as in the case of American lyceums in the mid-nineteenth century, most eloquently speaks of the great future of one nation. A lyceum, one type of a public university, is a specific American movement that flourished between 1830 and 1860. A group of citizens would associate, collect money and invite lecturers to be guests in their homes during winter. When this movement was at its height, there were over 2,000 lyceums in America. 3516. They like to speak of independence of state, but reluctantly speak of independence of citizens. That independence, without which there is no freedom, can be hindered (destroyed, taken away, reduced) equally with intimidation, as well as with persistent persuasion and "brainwashing." Regardless of what method is used, the result is the same: a dependent, un-free man who is everything, but not a citizen. 3517. Napoleon had predicted the great future of America as far back as the early nineteenth century ("in 25 years, the United States will dictate the political order of the world"). Clearly, he was not only a great soldier. He had an undeniable sense for history. He is known to have made a similar prophecy before the Battle Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 47 of 51 Political Notes at Valme: "A new period in human history is beginning, and you can say you were present" (cited by Goethe). 3520. What is the meaning of the story of the creation of the first man in the Qur'an (Qur'an 2/30-34)? It contains at least two critically important things: (1) All people are, if not brothers, then some far cousins, and as such, equal, and (2) First there was a man and woman, and then persons and people. Ensuing from this is that "human rights" are older (and more important) than peoples, tribes, communal and state ones. Human rights are primary, the rest are deduced. 3523. In her book The Real World, Marguerite Duras dedicates the largest chapter to the home as a woman's universe. 3524. From the General Declaration on Human Rights: "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression. This right includes the freedom of keeping one's own view and accepting information and ideas from all media regardless of borders" (Article 19 of the Declaration). 3525. The most widespread form of violence in the world is the one happening in the family. However, this violence in the greatest number of cases remains undiscovered and unpunished, for it happens within the walls of the "inviolable" home and private life. 3526. It is interesting how, in one study, the inhabitants of the future United States of Europe (the present EU) made a list of the ten values they find worthy of their personal engagement. In first place they place the equality of sexes, then in declining order: protection of the environment, peace in the world, battle against poverty, national defense, religious freedom, unification of Europe, personal freedom, human rights and (in tenth place) revolution. The study was done in early 1988 (Vjesnik, Zagreb, May 28, 1988, p. 5). 3568. Politics (after all, like life itself) is full of paradoxes. For example, only certified anti-Communists, Nixon and Reagan, could agree with the Soviets and even make certain concessions. Anyone else would be accused of selling out to the Communists or being politically naïve. 3572. Americans gave $93 billion to different charities in 1987 (Oslobodjenje, June 29, 1988). Giving to others, mutual help, is a natural thing among people. It appears everywhere in the world as an integral part of civilized life. 3577. Marie Ebner-Eschenbach said that the greatest enemies of freedom, alongside tyrants and bureaucrats, are happy slaves. Danko Plevnik commented on this thought: "These are those plain little people who add to the pyre of bureaucratic short-sightedness their dry twigs of blind faith in their inanities." 3624. A man of self-realization and original spirit is either a hermit or an apostle, says Leo Beck. A hermit relates passively (introverted), an apostle actively, dynamically toward the world. The former changes only himself, the latter attempts to change the world, that is, the people around him. This latter, dynamic type can predominate in one group or people. According to Beck, Jewish people are a specific example-perhaps most pronounced-of such dynamic personality. Furthermore, such spirit can exist only in a small community or small people. 3627. (Factor of time): An American asked an Englishman how he manages to grow such wonderful grass. "Nothing simpler," said the Englishman. "We water it regularly and cut it every morning and evening." "That is the same thing I do," Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 48 of 51 Political Notes said the American, "but my grass is pitiful." "Yes," said the Englishman, "but we have been doing it for 400 years." Today my little granddaughter Jasmina turned five. She was born on August 11, 1983, during my trial. My dear Jasmina. 3641. Japanese industry developed quickly. Thus, for example, the motor vehicle industry was started in 1930. That year only 458 trucks and buses were produced. In 1965, around 1.9 million vehicles were produced, and in 1986, 12.3 million. Japan today (1988) is the largest producer of automobiles in the world (followed by the United States and West Germany). 3648. Human communion is specific. Some animals, for example, hunt together, but eat the catch by themselves. While all animals provide food only for themselves and their young, group distribution of food is characteristic only of humankind. Anthropologist Glina Issac says: "If a chimpanzee could describe the characteristics of human behavior, he would first point out that that being shares food with other members of the group." 3654. American psychologist Carl Rogers, in the book How to Become a Person presents an "efficacious rule for discussion," which is, according to Rogers, this: One can speak for oneself only after one correctly repeats the ideas of one's collocutor, and in a way that satisfies the one who spoke before. "But if you attempt to do that, you will discover that it is one of the most difficult things you have ever tried to do. However, when once you are able to understand another person's point of view, your own judgments will be drastically changed. You will also find that emotions are disappearing from discussions, that differences are reduced, and those which remain are rational and comprehensible," writes Rogers. To be a person, therefore, means, among other things, to be able to understand one another in the best way possible, that is, to be able to put yourself in another's position, live for a moment in someone else's skin. That is one of the reliable signs of a mature person. 3656. West Germany paid 9,000 DEM to Romania annually for every member of the German minority who was allowed to leave the country. In this way, West Germany, as reported by the BBC, "bought back" around 100,000 fugitives. When this was discovered, many reacted with bitterness, especially Hungarian intellectuals whose compatriots were also endangered in Romania. In the statement by the Democratic Forum of Hungary in August 1988, it is said: "We are filled with apprehension, for people are turning into worthless goods. The price is not only a cash amount, but moral and political support to one of the least humane dictatorships of this century" (Vjesnik, August 25, 1988). In relation to this, one could cite a statement by Prof. Ivo Banac, an American historian of Yugoslav origin, author of the book The National Question in Yugoslavia, who speaks of an unexpected paradox of the unsolved national question in almost all socialist countries. He said: "I will be ironic: today one can speak of 'proletarian nationalism' and 'bourgeois internationalism.' Just observe what is happening in the Soviet Union, what are the relations between Hungarians and Romanians, not to mention Kosovo" (Danas, August 25, 1988). 3658. "Culture demands slaves, and if there are no slaves to do the ugly, difficult, and boring jobs, culture becomes impossible. Human slavery is wrong and demoralizing. The future of the world will depend on mechanical slavery- the slavery of machines" (Oscar Wilde). Currently, there are about 180,000 robots in the world. This, which Wilde stated, might perhaps explain the persistence of the institution of slavery, which was abolished only in the nineteenth century (slavery and culture). Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 49 of 51 Political Notes 3662. The development of criminal law and the related sciences (penology, criminology, process) was marked with what it usually called "humanization" in the last one hundred years: the mitigation of punishment and conditions of its execution, abolishment of corporal punishment, especially the death penalty. But what have theoreticians of criminal law who advocated these ideas known about the people who were perpetrators of criminal acts? The greatest number of those theoreticians, even prosecutors and judges, most often did not know the life and the kind of people about whom they spoke. They wrote books without ever getting to know the offenders, who those people are, what they are in fact like, what kind of "human material" they are made of. That is one side of the problem. Due to this, humanization on the side of the perpetrator most often meant complete indifference or complete oblivion toward the victim. The abolishment of the death penalty clearly represented a great relief for a murderer, but has surely also meant diminishing the security of innocent people, potential victims of the crimes. Humanism toward the perpetrator meant inhumanity toward an innocent man-a potential victim. As a reaction to this, a separate discipline was recently developed-victimology, which attempts to establish a balance and observe the crime from the position of the victim as well. One should expect that this new discipline will introduce more justice in criminal law and act as a redress to the continual tendency to give understanding and mercy in circumstances where there is little cause for consideration and mercy. 3663. We are not only divided into good and bad people, but into good and evil within ourselves. The division does not go between people, but through them. There is also a division into good and bad people, but it is a secondary one, derived according to some balance of good and evil in a man. The primary division is on the good and evil which resides in people. That conflict is thus imminent, internal, dramatic and not externally social. True conflict is in the soul. 3667. To the spirit, and even culture, the principle of hierarchy is imminent. It is foreign to democracy. The question, then, should state: What is the relationship between culture and democracy? 3671. In the book Nations and Nationalism, Ernest Gellner expressed an opinion that nationalist activity is not a permanent characteristic of people, but that it becomes topical in the time of crisis. Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 50 of 51 Political Notes Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 51 of 51