22. 10. 2009.

Open Discussion on “Freedom of Identity”

The first of the open forum discussions within this year’s MESS was held yesterday at the Sana Conference Room of the Hotel Bosna at 14:00. The discussions have been organized for the first time by the MESS Festival, and will host as participants members of the Youth Initiative for Human Rights organizations from Montenegro, Croatia, Serbia, Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The topic of the first discussion was Freedom of Identity, featuring as the keynote speaker Enver Kazaz, Professor of Literature at Sarajevo’s Faculty of Philosophy. At the beginning of the session, the audience was addressed by MESS Festival Director Dino Mustafić, who pointed out that he was very pleased that the MESS Festival had made room for professional theatric debate. After an introduction by moderator Asja Krsmanović, Professor Enver Kazaz, PhD took the floor for the keynote speech.

In this first address to the discussants, Enver Kazaz emphasized the symbolic value of identity. Then, talking about the process of forming one’s identity, he recalled Alhusser’s thesis about managing one’s identity. He then focused specifically on the South Slavic region, mentioning two dominant practices in the formation of an identity: making existing identities archaically obsolete, and the ghettoization of identity. Analyzing contemporary particularistic South Slavic ethno-national collective identities in the post Yugoslav era, Professor Kazaz stated that “Traumatized, victimized collective subjects are the ones who create tradition-based notions of revenge.” The matrix of identities formed in this way has a Manichaeism-like meaning, within which the ideological subject creates his or her own interpretation of the past by conjuring mythological facts. We would only be able to use alternative versions of these interpretations if, as Professor Kazaz argues, we address the issue of alternatives.

The second part of the discussion began with a question posed by moderator Asja Krsmanović about the relation between history and art. Enver Kazaz then pointed out that all historiography is actually imagination, but that art can often falsify the collective memory. Then the concept of multiculturalism as a model of the national identity was addressed. Arguing that the term “multiculturalism” is ideologized today, Enver Kazaz confronted the concepts of multiculturalism and interculturalism, and pointed out that it was interculturalism that compels us to open dialogue in the sphere of our memories.

The next part of the discussion tackled the question of the local universities and higher education. Pointing out that clericalism was the scientific prism through which we look at these issues, professor Kazaz reminded us that the critical group that is ready for change does not have the sufficient power (sufficient voting power) with our universities to implement this change. As a conclusion to the question, Kazaz stated that it was the “The responsibility of the students to articulate their requests and establish contacts with other students from around the world.

The discussion went on to address the topic of the relationship between the internal and external identity, and the possibility of the emergence of a civil identity. Once again it was pointed out that the identity discussed here is, above all, symbolic. This entire region has never had a chance to develop a civil culture, being always imprisoned by set forms of the collective identity. Professor Kazaz concluded this issue by arguing: The ideal citizen will only develop from a state of morally not belonging.

The final part of the discussion was initiated by Asja Krsmanović, who asked to what extent a national ideology is defined by what is against it, and not in favour of it. The conversation was then directed to considering the ideological creation of an enemy, where ideologies are actually born. Professor Enver Kazaz then stated: It is ironic that we are slaves to an assumption of a demonic enemy, which was also the closing remark of the discussion.