Interview with Boris Malagurski

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Interview with Boris Malagurski (Director)

Why did you decide to do a documentary about the wars in former Yugoslavia?
The film I produced before The Weight of Chains dealt with human rights violations of minorities in Kosovo, and I felt that analyzing the causes of the Kosovo conflict would explain why there’s so much hatred among many people in that part of the world. The Kosovo crisis can’t be examined without going into the deeper reasons why the former Yugoslavia collapsed through war.

As someone who was born in Yugoslavia, my childhood was largely unburdened by issues of ethnic affiliations, though a certain level of intolerance between certain individuals of different ethnic groups was always present. I believe nationalism surfaced during times of economic turmoil that was caused by mismanaged reform, pressured by the West at the time. With various external interest groups pushing for their own agenda in the Balkans, the former Yugoslavia was pushed into several civil wars. Many mainstream news outlets presented the reasons behind the war as being purely based on nationalism, largely blaming the Serbs or Slobodan Milosevic for everything, although this makes little sense considering that so many different ethnic groups were able to live in peace within Yugoslavia for half a century. I wanted to tell the story of my country that no longer exists and what I believe to be the real reasons behind the breakup.

Can this documentary be seen as the view from the inside about the war?
Mostly, yes. I interviewed several people who were in Yugoslavia during the time of the breakup and who were involved with what was going on to a certain extent. For example, Ret. Maj. Gen. Lewis Mackenzie was in charge of UN Sector Sarajevo during the war and gave his view on how the United States was involved in military operations in the former Yugoslavia. Canadian journalist Scott Taylor detailed how Germany armed Croatian separatists, and he was able to do so because he was there, on the ground, as the events were unfolding.

Aside from the “internationals” who were present in the region, I interviewed many Yugoslavs whose stories were largely ignored by the Western media. At a time when it was more popular to publish stories of crimes and massacres, there were many brave individuals who put their lives on the line to try to find a peaceful solution to the conflict, or to expose those who have wronged many. The stories of self-sacrifice could’ve changed the way the different ethnic groups in Yugoslavia perceived each other at the time. Instead, nationalist propaganda was encouraged by all sides, and I also try to point out just how it works from the inside — how consent to the war is manufactured by the media.

Explain to us a bit of the thesis of the film that offers the view of a rather forced war by the Western world in favor of their interests in the region.
It’s important to note that Yugoslavia was collapsing at a time when the traditional split between the capitalist West and the communist East was fading away. The West lost it chief enemy that was embodied in the Soviet Union, and NATO was searching for a new enemy. When Ante Markovic, the last Yugoslav Prime Minister, visited Washington in search of aid for his program which sought to reform the economy from a market socialist to a free trade model, George H. Bush refused him and, instead, passed a law urging the republics within Yugoslavia to hold national elections instead of holding them at the federal level. The aid would go to the individual republics, which meant that the interest of the United States was for Yugoslavia to collapse.

After nationalist and separatist parties won in elections in the republics which had more than one constituent nation (in Croatia, they were Croats and Serbs; in Bosnia, they were Serbs, Croats and Bosnian Muslims), favoring one nation at the expense of the others and declaring unilateral independence were bound to result in a civil war. Instead of fostering dialogue, the West, led by Germany and Austria, decided to recognize the unilateral declarations of independence by Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia.

As war erupted, NATO was given a pretext to intervene so it could establish military bases in the region. Also, as what was left of Yugoslavia, Serbia and Montenegro, still refused to give in to NATO pressures, the West decided to support the separatist movement in Kosovo, an autonomous province legally a part of Serbia, which resulted in bloodshed and, eventually, the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. As NATO occupied Kosovo, and continues to do so to this day (the largest U.S. base outside of Germany is Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo), another type of takeover took place. A takeover of the economy. State industries and companies, mostly devastated due to sanctions and war, were privatized — sold off largely to foreign buyers at bargain prices. This was done to create a country that would not create further competition on the world market, but would rather provide a market for foreign goods and cheap labor.

How did the critics and public react to the film locally and internationally?
Most people who watched the film with an open mind liked it. The film received positive reviews from twice Palme D’Or winner, director Emir Kusturica, who decided to screen the film at his festival, Kustendorf. However, after pressure from the then Serbian Minister of Culture, Nebojsa Bradic, who was a member of the G-17 political party which I specifically mention in the film as pushing the interests of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in the region, the film was withdrawn from the program only a week before the premiere. Nevertheless, the film was shown at the Raindance festival in London, the Beldocs festival in Belgrade, the New Latin American Cinema festival in Havana, the Moving Images festival in Toronto, the Baneff festival in Oslo, and many others.

The public was largely intrigued by the thesis of the film because, up until now, they haven’t had a chance to see a film about Yugoslavia that differed from many that were produced on that topic. I recall several people in cinemas across Australia, Canada, the United States, and the UK approaching me after the premiere and telling me, “Thank you for finally explaining Yugoslavia to me.” I don’t think my film puts an end to the discussion on the topic; the goal is to actually open the dialogue. This is quite difficult at a time when many Yugoslav ethnic groups and outside spectators disregard any attempt to challenge the mainstream view and label it as “propaganda.” As it turns out, the biggest criticisms come from individuals who haven’t even seen the film.

What will people see in the sequel of the documentary?
The beauty of documentary films is that even the director doesn’t know how the film is going to look before the editing is complete. However, seeing as how the script is almost complete, I can say that it will discuss neoliberalism and the Washington Consensus that was imposed on the former Yugoslav republics after the breakup, and try to explain how it is possible that a decade of being a pariah state in the West was almost as damaging to the economy as a decade of being a friend of the West. Through interviews I already conducted with prominent intellectuals such as Noam Chomsky, Oliver Stone, Carla del Ponte, R. James Woolsey, Ivo Josipovic, Michael Parenti, Marcus Papadopoulos, Diana Johnstone, Soccoro Gomes, Vuk Jeremic, and many others, the film will document what happened to the region of the former Yugoslavia in the past decade in regard to the economy, military, media, education, medical care, and other spheres relevant to the standard of living, with an emphasis on where this fits in with other countries around the world where neoliberalism was imposed.

Aside from that, the film will offer some solutions to the situation — suggestions on where people, right after watching the film, can start freeing themselves from the weight of chains and joining those who have already done so. I expect the film to be finished by the end of the year.

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