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Extreme-Right Ideology, Practice and

Supporters: Case Study of the Serbian
Radical Party
a
Jovo Bakić
a
University of Belgrade
Version of record first published: 03 Aug 2009.

To cite this article: Jovo Bakić (2009): Extreme-Right Ideology, Practice and Supporters: Case Study
of the Serbian Radical Party, Journal of Contemporary European Studies, 17:2, 193-207

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 Journal of Contemporary European Studies
Vol. 17, No. 2, 193–207, August 2009

Extreme-Right Ideology, Practice and

Supporters: Case Study of the Serbian
Radical Party
JOVO BAKIĆ*
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University of Belgrade

ABSTRACT This paper deals with the European extreme right in general, and the Serbian extreme
right in particular. One can find almost all the symptoms of the extreme right present in the ideology of
the Serbian Radical Party, as the leading extreme-right party in Serbia. In the unlikely case of a general
upsurge of the European extreme right, the Radicals might even join forces with more extremist neo-
Nazi groups and thus produce a frightening reincarnation of the SA formations. A more realistic danger
comes from the attractiveness of the Serbian Radical Party to the lower strata. The losers in the process
of social transformation, such as the numerous unemployed, unskilled and semi-skilled workers
represent a deep reservoir of support for the extreme right, especially given the profound lack of
credibility of the left in Serbia at the end of the 1990s. With so many losers produced by the post-
socialist economic reforms and with the bitterly disputed status of Kosovo and Republika Srpska, the
political potential of the extreme right in Serbia is ominously large. Nevertheless, the recent split will
certainly damage the SRP very signficantly, leaving it without able politicians in the leadership.
KEY WORDS: extreme right syndrome, Serbian Radical Party, ethnic threat, nationalism, lower
strata

Introduction
This paper deals with the European extreme right in general, and the Serbian extreme right
in particular. The extreme right is the ideological heir of the fascism and Nazism of the
first half of the twentieth century. The extreme right in Europe can be recognised by a
variety of symptoms: extreme racism and/or nationalism; authoritarianism; anti-Semitism,
antimasonry; Islamophobia; antiliberalism; antisocialism; anticommunism; antianar-
chism; xenophobia; antiglobalism; anti-Americanism; homophobia; sexism; and
admiration for fascist and right-authoritarian regimes. Most of these features can be
found in the ideology and political practice of the Serbian Radical Party. Even if the
Serbian Radical Party (SRP) does not express the last of the aforementioned symptoms, it
maintained connections with neo-Nazi groups in the past. In addition, the SRP has
maintained good relations with other extreme-right parties (for example National Front in
France, the Republican Party in Germany, the Republican Party in Czech Republic, the
Liberal-Democratic Party in Russia, etc.). Indeed, it has no relations with moderate

*Correspondence Address: Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade, Serbia. Email: jbakic@sbb.co.yu

1478-2804 Print/1478-2790 Online/09/020193-15 q 2009 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/14782800903108643
 194 J. Bakić

European parties at all. Some Radicals, supported by the party leadership, were involved
in the only two cases of ethnic cleansing in Serbia during the 1990s: in Hrtkovci1 (a town
in Srem, a region on the Croatian border) and in Kosovo. The paper will focus especially
on the social profile of the average supporter of extreme-right parties in general, and of the
SRP in particular. In both cases, most of them are below average educated males, either
unemployed or relying on routine manual labour, live in the suburbs of big cities or in
small towns, and perceive a strong ethnic threat.

The Extreme-Right Syndrome

Some of the aforementioned extreme-right symptoms are present in other ideologies as
well. Nevertheless, in these cases such symptoms are relatively isolated in relation to other
features of the ideology. Extreme-right movements and parties, on the other hand, usually
have a majority of the symptoms united in an extreme-right syndrome. If a party expresses
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three or four of these symptoms, for instance, authoritarianism, extreme nationalism,

sexism and homophobia, it still does not mean that it is extreme-right, though it is certain
that the party is significantly close to the right pole of the ideological spectrum.
Nevertheless, one can abstract from the broader complex of extreme-right symptoms
the four central ones: extreme nationalism (and/or racism, or religious fundamentalism, in
some cases), which certainly constitutes the core of extreme-right ideology, alongside the
imitation and justification of past fascist models of behaviour, authoritarianism and
anti-Semitism.2 When the four symptoms are united in one ideology, then one is dealing
with an extreme-right syndrome of the Nazi type. It may happen, however, that one of
these is not present, especially moulding one’s own behaviour on fascist models, for
example in the countries that were victims of the Nazi occupation during the War.
However, the more symptoms are present, the more extreme-right a party or movement is.

The Serbian Radical Party as the Main Extreme-Right Actor in Serbia

The contemporary European extreme right appeared gradually after WWII. After the
Berlin Wall fell, the whole political spectrum has moved more to the right. Various sorts
of leftist movements (Maoism, Eurocommunism, Titoism, democratic socialism and
left-wing social democracy), which had blossomed in the 1960s, have since 1989 almost
utterly disappeared. However, the right has been revealing potential for proliferation.
The extreme right has kept some of the fascist ideological assumptions, albeit with some
modifications (instead of the corporatist economy, extreme rightists have pragmatically
either shown support for neo-liberal economics or have adopted economic protectionism
to ‘protect’ national industry/products from globalisation): the struggle against ideologies
based on Enlightenment ideals, for example liberalism and socialism, and partially against
Christianity3; the denial of the human rights basis of natural law; support for the notion of
organic community (Kuljić, 2002, pp. 126– 127). In this highly ambivalent relationship
with Christianity, the extreme right shows one of the most visible differences in
comparison with the moderate right because the latter unambiguously supports religion.
In the case of the SRP, its leader Vojislav Šešelj did not hesitate to designate the three, by
the way conservative, metropolitans of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Amfilohije Radović,
Atanasije Jevtić and Artemije Radosavljević, whose first names all start with ‘A’, as
‘the three treacherous “As” of the Serbian Orthodox Church.’ At the same time, however,
 Case Study of the Serbian Radical Party 195

the party continues to defend the privileged position of the Serbian Orthodox Church
because of the historical connection between Orthodox Christianity and Serbian
nationalism. In addition, enmity towards other churches, the Catholic and Islamic
communities as well as different sects, fits with the more general xenophobic attitudes
strongly supported by the SRP. Therefore, it expresses an ambivalent and pragmatic
attitude towards religion in general, and towards the Serbian Orthodox Church in particular.
In general, Serbian nationalism has related itself to Orthodox Christianity, and radical
nationalists want to continue such a tradition. Thus, Vojislav Šešelj writes in the preface to
the book Ideology of Serbian Nationalism by Lazo M. Kostić:

The St. Sava oath of a united faith in a united national state has for centuries been a
landmark for the future, but it has also been something which Serbia’s enemies have
sought to undermine. Attitudes towards the national state have always been the acid
test for distinguishing between honour and dishonour, patriotism and treason, faith and
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conversion [ . . . ] National unity has been grounded for more than a millennium in
religious unity, added to spontaneous tribal and clan solidarities, connected by
awareness of the common language and origin, even from prehistoric time. [my italics]
The Orthodox variant of the Christian faith with specific national content was the sole
powerful force for cohesion in the Serbian state idea, capable of resisting five centuries
of Turkish slavery and perfidious Roman Catholic proselytism. (Šešelj, 2002)

The citation clearly indicates how a religiously intolerant ideology of Serbian nationalism
excluded everyone who did not want to be Orthodox from the Serbian nation. This kind of
nationalism is supported today by the radical nationalists whose religiosity is questionable,
but whose religious intolerance is unquenchable. It is worth noting that Islamophobia is
directed against Islamic national minorities in Serbia, and especially against those
Muslims who use the same language as the Serbs. These Muslims have been identified as
traitors to both religion and nation. Similarly, anti-Catholicism plays a significant role in
the ideology of the Serbian extreme right; this too is conditioned not by religious
considerations but by the fact that Radicals consider the Croats as less worthy Catholic
Serbs whose conversion has betrayed the Serbian nation. In both cases, departure from
Orthodox Christianity means treason against Serbdom.
Indeed, the last Wars of the Yugoslav Succession were characterised in an article in the
Velika Srbija4 as ‘the war against our century-old enemies Ustaše and Muslims.’ It is worth
noticing that the term ‘Ustaše’ (Croatian fascist movement that appeared in the 1930s) is
applied to the whole Croat nation even when describing a period that pre-dates the Ustaše.
The SRP has always used social demagogy in order to persuade lower-strata voters to
vote for them rather than for parties of the left. Nevertheless, the main feature of the
extreme rightists is an extreme nationalistic demagogy. Ernest Gellner has defined
nationalism as a political principle that implies congruence between ethnic and political
borders (Gellner, 1997, 11). Extreme nationalism takes this principle to its extreme logical
and political consequences.5
Therefore, extreme rightists are in favour of the ethnic cleansing of an already existing
national state, the removal of ethnic minorities (and religious minorities as well when
ethnicity overlaps with religious loyalty) and the conquest of regions in neighbouring
countries inhabited by the same nationality. Naturally, during peaceful periods these
tendencies are just verbal, or expressed in sporadic violent acts by socially and personally
 Downloaded by [University of Stellenbosch] at 19:57 13 March 2013

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 Case Study of the Serbian Radical Party 197

frustrated individuals, who often are not even party members, for instance some are
members of racist and extremist organisations like Nacionalni stroj (National Formation),
Rasonalisti (Racenalists), Krv i čast (Blood and Honour) and Obraz (Cheek),6 and various
skinhead groups whose membership often overlaps with these previous organisations
(excepting Obraz).
However, in times of severe social crisis, and especially during war, extreme-right
parties try to accomplish the ideals of extreme nationalism in a systematic and practical
way. Thus, the SRP led by Vojislav Šešelj worked on its strategic aim, the so-called
Greater Serbia, on the western border of ‘Karlobag-Ogulin-Karlovac-Virovitica’ near the
Croatian capital Zagreb.7 Radicals systematically terrorised Vojvodina’s Croats during the
Wars of the Yugoslav Succession, and the climax of such activities was the ethnic
cleansing of the Croats from Hrtkovci.8
The same logic is at work in the political discourse and actions towards Albanians in
Kosovo. The most horrible example of the anti-Albanian attitude of the SRP is the
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Announcement of the Central Patriotic Administration of the SRP that appeared in the
party newspaper Velika Srbija (Greater Serbia). In the official announcement the party
explained how they would solve the Kosovo problem.
Obsession with demography led party activists to adopt inhuman policy methods. They
decided to expel as many Albanians as possible, and they decided to find quasi-legal means for
such a purpose. However, when quasi-legal means were not available, they were willing to
abandon the illusion of legality and to propose naked state violence: ‘One should prevent by
whatever means necessary the return of those Albanians who work abroad, and especially
those who left en masse in the 1990–1993 period (it is estimated that there are about 300,000
of these, the most active population). One should make it impossible for those with
cadre profiles to obtain new employment, and they will thus be compelled to go abroad’
(Serbian Radical Party, 1995a).
Obviously, the plan was to ‘cleanse’ the Albanian ethnic intelligentsia in the first phase,
and strictly to control and suppress lower strata in order gradually to expel as many
Albanians as possible from Kosovo. To this end, they proposed measures regarding property
rights: ‘All Serbian estates that were sold or in any other way belong now to Albanians, like
homes and flats, particularly in the 1966– 1987 period (the era of Balist and communist
power in Kosovo) as well as those estates that fascists conquered during WWII, should be
returned to the previous owners or their descendants’ (Serbian Radical Party, 1995a).
This ownership engineering, however, was only a function of an ethnic engineering
project proposed in order to change ethnic structure in Kosovo. Indeed, the most
monstrous measures were related to the proposed ethnic engineering:

Colonisation should be implemented in an organised manner by new settlements

(villages, colonies, towns, new parts of the existing cities) of the closed type (as
regards interior life-providing, primary medical care, fun, basic cultural
programmes etc.). By this measure the population would be ethnically separated,
and the effect would in particular be that the small number of Serbs living in cities
and mixed parts of cities will begin to move into the newly created enclaves. One
should not only make such a process easier, but give it impetus. There should be
about 10 – 15 per cent of Albanians (the most distinctive and the most influential
families and individuals) in the Serbian enclaves for the sake of protection.
Highways should be built (with lanes 1 km apart because of ‘terrain configuration’,
 198 J. Bakić

and with a broad belt cleared around the highway) through the most densely
inhabited Albanian rural regions. Other installations such as military barracks,
polygons, storehouses etc. should be built alongside estates and space for colonies.
Such measures would divide the Albanian ethnic space into small areas, thus
denying them that ‘deepness’ of territory that is a significant element in their sense
of security. The purpose of all these measures is to create an ethnic ‘leopard skin’
effect, gradually broadening the Serbian enclaves while the Albanian ones will
become smaller and eventually disappear . . . Power supply (frequent deliberate
power cuts and sabotage of the system providing the Albanian enclaves with power),
and especially water supply, an acute problem in Kosmet should be used in order
to make life unbearable (Serbian Radical Party, 1995a). [My italics]

Extreme nationalists perceive any kind of ethnic cooperation as impossible. They are
committed only to selfish ethnic aims. In addition, exclusively ethnically based goals,
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which neglect citizenship rights, engender intolerant discourse as a pretext for crime.
Indeed, such inhumanity produced by the ill-conceived national interests of the extreme
nationalists should worry any Serb. One can see that ethnic cleansing was a predictable
consequence of such aims, means and discourse.9
Furthermore, the leadership of the SRP predicted that such activities would
‘indispensably cause dissatisfaction and greater willingness among Albanians to engage
in various organisations, from the informal to the terrorist’:

That is why it is desirable to infiltrate individuals from the Security Service who would
initiate the formation of such organizations and afterwards influence or even control
their activities . . . Elimination of prominent (active and would-be active) individuals
who play or could play a key role in political life, by public exaggeration of their
affairs and ‘accidents’, such as traffic accidents, jealousy killings, AIDS infections of
individuals who may have had love affairs during their stay abroad, which would then
be revealed by custom control and would then be followed by isolation in quarantine.
One can create by the appropriate media campaign an atmosphere of suspicion
towards a population sample which appears, artificially, to include a prohibitively
high percentage of sick individuals, namely Albanians, thereby creating the public
image of Albanians as a contagious nation (Serbian Radical Party, 1995a).

The citation unambiguously reveals that the leadership of the SRP would stop at nothing in
order to disseminate negative stereotypes of Albanians among the already receptive
Serbian public. Indeed, they would try to make older ones more widespread than they were
before, and to create new stereotypes in a deliberate effort to make hatred even deeper.
These examples of inhuman discourse and practices have marked the SRP since its
foundation in 1991, and made cooperation with other parties in Serbia and, even more,
with moderate parties in other European countries, almost impossible.
Nevertheless, similis simili gaudet. In a globalising world such as ours, political parties
from different countries cooperate with each other more than ever, regardless of
geographical distance. Ideologically close political parties in particular cooperate, seeking
to achieve ideological convergence on a continental and even global scale. In that respect,
extreme rightists are not an exception: those parties cooperate, however, almost
exclusively with each other, because other parties tend to look on them as pariahs.
 Case Study of the Serbian Radical Party 199

Thus, it is no surprise that the SRP has cooperated with ideologically similar political
parties in both Western and Eastern Europe. However, more importantly, apart from these
other extreme rightists, the Radicals have not cooperated with anyone else in Europe.10
It is interesting that the party has inherited an exotic feature of classical fascism that it
shares with other contemporary extreme rightists—anti-Masonry. The feature is usually
related to anti-Semitism. Today, however, the extreme right uses it in combination with a
strong antiglobalism, anti-Americanism and Euroscepticism (the latter taking the form of
hostility not to Europe as such, but towards any kind of federalism within the EU that
could endanger the nations and nation-states of Europe). For instance, Vojislav Šešelj, in
Srpska slobodarska misao (The Serbian Freethinker) wrote:

Regarding us, the Serbs, we have to decide to what major power we shall ally
ourselves with in the process of integration. We have two options before us—to join
the powers whose main aims and interests are to destroy us or to join those powers
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that want us to survive and defend our state and nation . . . [These] are today Russia,
China . . . We exactly know which power want to destroy us. That is America. . . .
The US, which exploits the whole world, cannot finance its own domination any
more. Many in the US realize that, people of influence, people connected to various
Masonic lodges, various groups of semi-clandestine and clandestine character,
people who even publicly expose their dreams about the reduction of the world
population. And it is clear who would be encompassed by such a reduction:
Slavic peoples, China, India, the rest of Asia, Africa and Southern Africa.
(Šešelj, 2000, p. 32)

Thus, an anti-American attitude is clearly expressed11 and, in a somewhat milder form, an

anti-European political attitude as well. Everything rests on a conspiracy allegedly
engineered by ‘influential people,’ for example, masons. A war between continents is also
predicted: Northern America, Western Europe and (probably) Australia against Africa,
Asia, South America and Eastern Europe, for example Russia, Belorussia and Serbia.
The leader of the French extreme right, Jean-Marie Le Pen, organiser of the European
association of extreme rightists, the so-called Euronationalists, was a guest of the SRP
during the 1990s, when he delivered a speech in the Pinki sport centre.12 In addition, the
party used its theoretical journal Srpska Slobodarska Misao, which is aimed at a better-
educated public, to publish the French National Front’s programme, 300 Recommen-
dations for the Renaissance of France.13
Indeed, an individual member of the already mentioned neo-Nazi organisation National
Formation, calling himself Bad Skin, took part in the internet-forum of the international
racist Stormfront—White Nationalist Community on 13 May 2004:14 Le Pen Rallies
European Right Wing: The Vision of a United European Parliament, and, in very bad
English full of mistakes, informed his racist brothers on relations between SRP and NF:

NF and Le Pen have great cooperation with Serbian nationalist corps. We have great
contact and cooperation with dr.Vojislav Seselj and his Serbian radical party. Le Pen
was been several times in Serbia to visit Serbia like guest of Serbian radical party.
He speaks on one big demonstration make by Serbian radical party. I was been there.
Serbian radical party is No.1 nationalist party in Serbia. On last parliamentary
election about 40 per cent Serbian nation vote for them. I am sure that on president
 200 J. Bakić

election on 13.june will win candidate of Serbian radical party that is Tomislav
Nikolic. Last time about 1 200 000 Serbs vote for him. . . . Serbian radical party
have very good contact with Slovakian nationalist party lead by Jan Slota and with
Republican Party in Czech Republic lead by Miroslav Sladek. Also Serbian radical
party have cooperation and contact with another nationalist party in Europe. Leader
of Serbian radical party Dr.Vojislav Seselj is now in ZOG [Zionist Occupation
Government] gulag in Hag jail he is accused for war crimes against Albanians and
Bosnian Moslems. In any cause I hope that idea will work to unite all national
Europe forces like one fist in one from against ZOG.15 (Stormfront, 2004)

Vladimir Zhirinovsky, leader of the Russian extreme-right Liberal-Democratic Party, has

also visited the Serbian Radicals several times. Moreover, the SRP’s newspaper Velika
Srbija published his book Last Wagon for the North.16 They share, like other extreme
rightists in Europe, anti-Semitism, Euroscepticism, antiglobalism, anti-Americanism,
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Islamophobia and homophobia. As B92 television announced, the SRP municipal

authorities in Zemun awarded Le Pen and Zhirinovsky, as well as Schönhuber, the leader
of the German Republican Party and a former lieutenant of the SS, still proud of his
wartime role, honorary citizenship of the Zemun municipality.17 In addition, Radicals
published in May 1994 The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the bible of all anti-Semites.
The situation regarding homophobia is rather complicated. According to the police,
Radicals, together with other extreme rightists (especially Obraz and ‘supporters’ of the
football clubs Red Star [Crvema Zvezda ] and Labour [Rad ]), took part in physical attacks
on supporters of Gay Pride in 2001. Furthermore, the SRP announced that the late Åindić
government ‘tries to introduce unnatural debauchery in Serbia as something normal and
part of the democratic legacy’ (Queeria LGBT, 2001), and Vojislav Šešelj, in the preface of
the aforementioned book Ideology of Serbian Nationalism, (Šešelj, 2002, p. 12) claimed
that ‘instead of investments, jobs and bread’ what arrives from the West is ‘drug addiction
and homosexuality to destroy our national moral and family.’ However, the Serbian gay
activist, Boris Milićević, reminds us that ‘none of the parties openly support sexual and
gender minorities in Serbia’, and that ‘a large proportion of the gay population is
conservative and support the Serbian Radical Party and Democratic Party of Serbia (led by
V. Koštunica)’. Moreover, he adds that the Serbian Radical Party leadership is ‘especially
aware of the facts and that is why it is no longer homophobic, at least not in the last year’18
(Milićević, 2005).
Extreme authoritarianism is another feature that extreme rightists have inherited from
their ideological ancestors. One of many examples of Vojislav Šešelj’s authoritarianism is
to be found in his debate with the famous Praxis philosopher Mihailo Marković in the first
number of Srpska slobodarska misao mentioned earlier. They discussed who was the
better leader, Stalin or Tito. Šešelj was unambiguous: ‘I am not sure that Yugoslavia
would have that distinctively anti-Serbian orientation had Tito lost in 1948. Indeed, I am
convinced that Stalin would have done the opposite, concentrating on the majority nation
and enabling it to play the leading role in Yugoslavia’ (Šešelj, 2000, p. 129).
The connection between extreme nationalism and authoritarianism is completely clear.
Šešelj is not essentially interested in the quality of life in a political community; on the
contrary, he is exclusively interested in national interests, even at the expense of the above.
In addition, Šešelj assumes that Serbia’s national interest is to dominate other Yugoslav
nations.
 Case Study of the Serbian Radical Party 201

Finally, all extreme-right parties in Europe are similar according to the social profile of
their supporters. Empirical research shows that the typical extreme-right voter is a twenty-
five-year-old unemployed man, with below-average education, who lives in the suburbs of
big cities or in smaller towns and who perceives a strong ethnic threat19 (Lubbers &
Scheepers, 2001, p. 443; Scheepers et al., 2002, p. 25, 27, 29).
Indeed, in the structure of the SRP, supporters with no more than elementary school
qualifications represented over a third in the 1990s (35 per cent), followed by those who had
completed vocational and secondary school education who represented just over a quarter
(28 per cent).20 By the same token, the most numerous professional categories among
the Serbian Radical Party’s supporters were unskilled manual workers (19 per cent), the
lower-middle class, for example secondary school-educated clerks and technicians (16 per
cent), skilled workers (15 per cent) and unemployed (12 per cent) (Mihailović, 1996, p 83).
These features of the social profile of the SRP supporters remained the same after 5 October
2000 and the demise of the Milošević regime. A 2005 research survey showed that 50 per
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cent of the party supporters perceive themselves as losers in the 2000 –2005 social
transformation process. Data on the socio-occupational basis of political party support in
Serbia clearly reveal these differences.21
Obviously, unskilled workers, skilled workers and peasants represent almost two thirds
of the extreme right’s supporters. Members of the lower social strata are least equipped for
market competition and incline towards the extreme right not only in Serbia, but also in the
whole of Europe. The extreme right, with its combination of national and social demagogy
providing simple solutions for complicated issues, is seen by many of them as the only
political actor which can help them.
Empirical research in Western Europe generally shows that extreme-right support in the
host nation grows with the increase of immigrant numbers in some regions. (Lubbers &
Scheepers, 2002, p. 140; Scheepers et al., 2002, p. 17). There is a similar, though not
identical, trend in Serbia. Although there are not many (non-Serbian) immigrants in Serbia,
there are national minorities which feel endangered in the difficult social and political
post-war conditions, and which are themselves seen as an ethnic threat by traumatised
members of the Serbian majority, especially in the border regions (Stefanović, 2008,
p. 1210).22 The party preferences of refugees have yet to be researched, but they are
presumably oriented towards the Serbian Radical Party in above average numbers, because
for years they were targeted by members of the dominant nation in neighbouring countries
or in Kosovo, while members of these same nations live in Serbia as national minorities. Job
competition causes problems even among the Serbs themselves, let alone between refugees
and members of national minorities.
The border regions of Serbia with Croatia in western Vojvodina, that is, Srem, and with
Bosnia-Herzogovina, and that of southern Serbia with Kosovo, display above-average levels
of support for the SRP. Therefore, ethnic threat (either real or perceived) is seen as sufficient
reason to vote for a party that at least verbally supports the most radical form of nationalism.
Finally, the freedom-fighting political culture of the Serbs, and family socialisation,
means that the use of inflammatory language is the norm for the Radicals. Thus, one of the
most educated of party members23 justifies such methods of political struggle by claiming
that though Radicals accuse the opposition of treason ‘during NATO aggression and
complete isolation of the state’, they nonetheless ‘do not demand the arrest of opposition
members’ (Avramović, 2000, p. 366). However, during the proclaimed state of martial law
such statements are very dangerous.24
 Downloaded by [University of Stellenbosch] at 19:57 13 March 2013

202
J. Bakić

Table 1. Supporters of political parties by socio-occupational category.

Small Democratic Democratic Movement Socialist party Serbian Rad- Don’t know
parties Party Party of Serbia Force of Serbia of Serbia ical Party how to vote Average
Peasant 11 2 7 6 23 21 8 10
Unskilled or semi- 2 2 9 8 11 17 7 8
skilled workers
Skilled workers 35 18 21 41 29 28 22 24
Technician 17 23 12 13 10 9 15 15
Clerk 10 24 19 17 8 9 11 13
Expert 17 17 16 9 4 4 8 9
Housewife 5 2 11 2 15 11 19 13
Student 3 12 5 4 0 1 10 8
TOTAL 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100
Note: Ck ¼ 0,41.
Source: Mihailović et al. (2005, 9).
 Case Study of the Serbian Radical Party 203
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Figure 2. The map of Serbia with its border regions. (Source: United Nations Cartographic Section).

Conclusion
Obviously, one can find almost all of the extreme-right symptoms present in the ideology
of the Serbian Radical Party, as the leading extreme-right party in Serbia. In the unlikely
case of a general upsurge of the European extreme right, the Radicals might even join
forces with more extremist neo-Nazi groups and thus produce a frightening reincarnation
of the SA formations. A more realistic danger comes from the attractiveness of the Serbian
 204 J. Bakić

Radical Party to the lower strata. The losers in the process of social transformation, such as
the numerous unemployed, unskilled and semi-skilled workers, represent a deep reservoir
of support for the extreme right, especially given the profound lack of credibility of the left
in Serbia at the end of the 1990s. With so many losers produced by the post-socialist
economic reforms, and with the bitterly disputed status of Kosovo and Republika Srpska,
the political potential of the extreme right in Serbia is ominously large.25 A combination
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Figure 3. The map of Southern Serbia, border region with Kosovo. (Source: United Nations
Cartographic Section).
 Case Study of the Serbian Radical Party 205

of severe economic problems, such as large number of refugees, high unemployment and
low wages, with a sense of profound national humiliation due to Kosovo’s independence
and on-going pressures to improve cooperation with the Hague Tribunal, create a fertile
soil for the Radicals’ social and national demagogy.
The claims of some conservative intellectuals in Serbia that the Serbian Radical Party
has changed since V. Šešelj is at the Hague Tribunal are very doubtful. On the contrary, there
is no evidence of such a shift save in election campaigns. Nevertheless, Tomislav Nikolić
and Aleksandar Vučić, the Party’s second- and third-in-command, faced a serious conflict
with Šešelj after the 2008 elections, and they have definitely left the party and formed a
new one— the Serbian Progressive Party (Srpska napredna stranka). By the same token, Maja
Gojković, former Mayor of Novi Sad, left the party even before them. This split will certainly
damage the SRP very significantly, leaving it without able politicians in the leadership.
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Notes
1
On 6 May 1992, during the Wars of Yugoslav Succession, the SRP used the presence of Serbian
refugees from Croatia to inspire ethnic cleansing of Croats in Hrtkovci (the most drastic case) and
several other places in Srem.
2
Thus the Israeli extreme right rarely imitates fascist models of behaviour (in spite of some recent
individual examples), but it can nurture religious exclusiveness, xenophobia, racism, authoritarianism
and militarism, as well as some other symptoms of the extreme right.
3
However, in some countries extreme rightists are pro-Christian, if not Christian fundamentalists, and
Christianity is seen as a symbol of Tradition and traditional values (for example, family).
4
Velika Srbija (Greater Serbia) is the name of the SRP journal. Like the newspaper, the publishing house
owned by the party is also named Velika Srbija.
5
Like other European extreme rightists, the SRP started as a racist organisation. For instance, the
second-in-command, Tomislav Nikolić, called people from African countries ‘non-aligned monkeys’
(Svetlost, 4 December 1990). More recently, however, disappointed in the United States (Šešelj had
previously offered volunteers from the SRP for the USA’s Desert Storm campaign) and in the EU,
Nikolić appologised to non-aligned countries and wanted to establish strong relations with them (B92,
17 October 2006). Available online at: http://www.b92.net/info/vesti/index.php?yyyy¼ 2006&mm¼
10&dd¼ 17&nav_id¼215771 (accessed 17 October 2006).
6
National Formation had some, though sporadic, organisational links with the SRP. Rasonalisti support
neo-Nazi ideology, as does National Formation. Obraz is characterised by an archaic clerical fascist
ideology which resembles the ideology of the equally marginal Serbian fascist movement Zbor, led by
Dimitrije Ljotić before and during WWII.
7
However, one should stress the fact that extreme Croatian nationalists desire to annex Srem, the
western part of Vojvodina (northern province of Serbia), including Zemun, a municipality of Belgrade,
as well as the whole Montenegrin coast. All these territories, save the last one, were held by the fascist
Independent State of Croatia (1941–1945). Some of the officials of the Croatian Democratic
Community (Hrvatska Demokratska Zajednica), led by the late Franjo Tudman, supported such ideas.
8
Today’s Croats from Hrtkovci came into Vojvodina as Catholic Albanians from Kosovo in the Second
Migration of the Serbs from Kosovo in 1740 (the First Great Migration was in 1690). They fought
together with Serbs against the Ottomans. After the Habsburg defeat, they moved with the Kosovo
Serbs to the North. Over the centuries, they were assimilated into Croat national identity by the means
of the Catholic Church in the Habsburg Monarchy (Corović, 2006, pp. 4, 142).
9
This eliminationist ideology can certainly be noticed in a number of other places and times, such as
during the ‘exchange of population’ between Greece and Turkey in the early 1920s; the extermination
of Indians after the ‘discovery’ of the Americas; the extermination of the Muslims and Jews in fifteeth-
century Spain, the Holocaust, etc. (Mann, 2005).
10
Otherwise, the party cooperated with the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq.
11
It is interesting to note the discursive strategy that connects the familiar features of established
stereotypes to some relatively unfamiliar features. Below the Clinton photo within a text in Velika
 206 J. Bakić

Srbija, one can read: ‘A Deserter from Vietnam—Clinton Efendi.’ Though Clinton is not a Muslim and
the USA is not an Islamic empire, they should be treated as such. At the same time, the heroic freedom-
fighting political culture nurtures contempt for deserters. The function of this choice of words is to
discredit Clinton’s moral character and to encourage the Serbs to fight bravely against a state led by a
mere deserter. The same function of encouragement is visible in the word ‘efendi’ because the
Ottomans eventually had to leave Serbia.
12
Le Pen used the opportunity to mildly rebuke the SRP for its uncivilised rightist behaviour. Recently
the tactics of Le Pen have been to avoid extreme racist and nationalistic discourse and brutality so as
not to frighten electorate. T. Nikolić applied the same tactic successfully at the 2008 elections.
13
SRP (2001b).
14
Nacionalni stroj is the Serbian branch of the racist organisation White Storm. With its international
comrades, it shares admiration for Adolf Hitler and all Nazi symbols. In Serbian history it admires
General Milan Nedić, German puppet during WWII (see http://www.stormfront.org/forum/
showthread.php?t¼ 60825) and the Serbian fascist Dimitrije Ljotić (http://www.stormfront.org/
forum/showthread.php?t¼242994). It shows a negative attitude towards Draža Mihailović, the
Chetnik commander and ally of the USA and UK during WWII, and towards the communists (http://
www.stormfront.org/forum/showthread.php?t¼ 286486).
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15
The same Bad Skin, however, on 26 January 2005 in a forum of domestic racists, described the SRP as
‘the lesser evil’ on the Serbian political scene. Thus, it is not so unambiguously positive as it was in the
international forum of racists. This is likely to be, on the one hand, a diplomatic manoeuvre, and on the
other hand, a form of racist and neo-Nazi didactics. It is all about who will use whom for his own aims,
that is, who will play a leading role among Serbian extreme rightists. As another neo-Nazi from
Nacionalni stroj, Trijumf volje (Triumph of the Will), put it: ‘Tell me, do you agree that it is easier to
make a National Socialist from a Serbian nationalist than from some shitty democrat . . . Let them [the
Radicals] go through the phase of healthy nationalism in order to reach the even healthier option of
national socialism!’ (http://www.stormfront.org/forum/showthread.php?t¼180556&page¼ 4)
16
SRP. (1995b).
17
One of the Belgrade municipalities where the SRP is in power.
18
‘Srbija: Osnovana Gej-strejt alijansa’ (Serbia: The Gay-Straight Alliance Has Been Formed), an
interview with lesbian activist Vesna Zorić and gay activist Boris Milićević in the Croatian on-line
journal, gay.hr, 27 December 2005,
19
In theoretical terms, it is particularly significant that readiness to vote for an extreme-right party is
governed more by the perception of a group threat, rather than an individual threat. That is, even if the
voter does not feel individually endangered, but believes that other ethnic group members are threatened,
ethnic solidarity leads him or her to feel a sense of a collective threat (Scheepers et al., 2002, p. 27).
20
The educational structure of Milošević’s Socialist Party of Serbia during the 1990s was even more
modest than this one. It may be seen as an alliance between the political elite and the lowest social strata.
It was a continuation of the socialist self-management alliance: the elite guaranteed security of jobs and
income, albeit poor quality jobs and low wages, while the lowest strata in return offered obedience to the
elite and electoral support for the Milošević regime (Ilić, 1995, p. 95; Mihailović, 1996, p. 83).
21
In general, these features are confirmed in surveys that sociologists and political scientists have
conducted in other societies in the last decade. Therefore, unskilled workers with minimal job security
are most vulnerable in a globalised economy, and because of the aggravated conditions of living and
work it is most likely that they will vote for the extreme right (Norris, 2005).
22
While approximately 25 per cent of the working-age population in Serbia is unemployed, there are also
numerous refugees: 276,000 are Serbian refugees from Croatia (186,000) and Bosnia-Herzogovina
(90,000), alongside a further 230,000 displaced persons from Kosovo. In sum, about 560,000 refugees
and displaced persons look for a better life in Serbia. Such a high number, together with the percentage
of unemployed, creates a social and ethnic bomb (International Aid Network, 2004).
23
Avramović was the deputy minister of Education in 1998–2000. The period was characterised by the
largest purge of university professors in the history of the University of Belgrade.
24
The notion is that anyone can shoot an ostensible traitor without any legal procedure. The journalist
Slavko Ćuruvija was killed during the bombardment in such a way. Those responsible have not yet
been found.
25
As confirmed by the 47.9 per cent support for Tomislav Nikolić in the recent 2008 elections.
 Case Study of the Serbian Radical Party 207

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