Serbs and Their Enlightened National Interest: Report on the Symposium held at the Sixth Annual Convention of the Serbian Unity Congress on October 7, 1995 One of the highlights at this year's SUC convention at San Francisco was a panel discussion on the most pressing problems confronted by Serbs in the wake of the current civil and religious war in former Yugoslavia and the four-year economic and cultural embargo on Serbia. The panel consisted of four scholars and writers from Belgrade, all of them well-versed in the burning socio-economic, historical, and political questions of their country: The historian Dusan Batakovic, the political scientist Vladimir Grecic, the Academician and Professor of Science and Technology Vlastimir Matejic, and the literary scholar and parliamentarian Miodrag Perisic. Past president Miroslav Djordjevich introduced the four speakers with brief but poignant remarks on the currently disastrous situation of the Serbs. Since their institutions and value systems have been  and are still being  destroyed, the temptation to turn to a strong individual or adhere to an all embracing cult are greater than ever. But there can be no answers, and there can be no future, when a nation abandons its vision, because, as Djordjevich reminded the audience with a wise saying from the Proverbs, "Where there is no vision, the people perish." With his final remark, however, Djordjevich indicated "that there is a vision," both among the discussants at this session and the authors of the analytical working papers which appeared in the concomitant SUC publication Serbs and Their Enlightened National Interest. Limited to five-minute presentations, the speakers made, without exception, a series of pertinent and incisive comments in their fields of expertise. Examining the Kosovo problem, Batakovic dived straight into his subject by announcing it to be the "hottest" yet on the agenda of problems confronting Serbs. It will fuel all other problems in the sense that, since the newly forming states of former Yugoslavia have completed (or are about to complete), the process of ethnic cleansing, Serbia will be the only state left with the highest proportion of minorities. How critical the situation really is for the Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija became evident from the emphatic point the historian made not only about the constitutional situation in the provinces  namely, the Titoist legacy through which the Serbs find themselves in a minority position in their own state  but also about the rampant demographic and economic problems. Thus the 164-percent increase of ethnic Albanians is totally out of proportion with the economic potential of the provinces. For years, money has been poured into the area at the tune of 1 million dollars a day without getting any substantial results, particularly since the money was being lavished on the public buildings that become the outward symbols of the local nomenclature, while the Serbs, stigmatized by the Albanians as "unlawful intruders," continue to be terrorized or pushed out of Kosovo and Metohija. Batakovic sees the only solution to the problem, if the provinces are to be a politically and economically viable units, in their regionalization with equal political and civil rights for all inhabitants. For Matejic, the crucial problem is modernization, to which there have been many obstacles in the past two centuries such as the draining, albeit necessary, preoccupation of the Serbs with fighting for their freedom from Turkish, and later Austrian, control. The "mentality" of the people also appeared to the speaker as a hindrance to modernization. More importantly, the social and economic development of Serbia has been hampered by the continuously low prices of materials as well as labor in Serbia while neighboring states, such as Slovenia, were able to score high economic points by virtue of their technological competitiveness. Matejic listed six major modernization problems faced by the Serbian economy and society, of which three - high unemployment, under utilization of economic resources, and ineffective competitiveness for many products - stand out in particular. Serbia has reached a critical juncture, and the question is whether the country will continue on its previous path or make a turn onto a creative path. The speaker had only dire warnings for Serbia if it failed to pursue a "development paradigm" but rather continued in its old economic ways. The result of such a course would be a decrease in Serbia's competitive strength, an increase in real unemployment, negligible foreign investment, and a widening of the gap between Serbia and the industrially and technologically advanced societies of the west. Grecic attempted to deal with the complexities of the so-called brain drain and its devastating effects on the Serbian economy and society. Like all political and social scientists, the speaker faced the problem that from the time he penned his contribution to this symposium to the time of the delivery of his talk there had been so many political changes in war torn former Yugoslavia that they threatened to make some of his points or conclusions invalid. Nevertheless, as the speaker pointed out, the migration of professionals is an old problem dating back to the beginning of the 19th century. To illustrate this point, Gresic referred to the first Serbian, Djordje Sagic, who, reacting to the Turkish massacres of Greeks in 1822 with a series of pamphlets, gained the attention of Thomas Jefferson, and was eventually made honorary consul in San Francisco. Of greater importance, as the speaker showed, is the research done on the modern phenomena of emigration of professionals. It is estimated that those leaving Serbia for good in the last few years number in the thousands. The effect of such emigration is entirely negative, for as long as professionals go to already developed countries without being replaced in Serbia by new talent from abroad, the result would be the slowdown and eventual stagnation of the Serbian economy. The speaker concluded his presentation with several concrete suggestions as to what could or should be done for Serbia's unabated loss of talented and skilled professionals. The most important of these is the creation of incentives for the natural and social scientists to remain in or return to their country, as well as the building of scientific establishments that would attract new and old talent to Serbia. In the creation of new institutions, or even just the flow of scientific and technological information, Grecic sees the Serbian diaspora in the US playing an important role, not least because of the technologically advanced and often well equipped Serbian-American community. A positive and far-ranging role for the Serbian diaspora, both in the United States and in Europe, was also emphasized by the last speaker on the panel, Perisic. He launched into his talk with the devastating observation that after 200 years of intermittent fighting, the Serbs today find themselves in exactly the same situation as in 1914: the country is laid low, their nationhood destroyed. In this war, more than in the previous ones, the Serbs are completely alone, facing a hostile world that is bent upon their total destruction. This tragedy is compounded by the fact that Serbs are a nation that has undergone an immense amount of bloodletting in the past  for their western allies and in the name of freedom. An already desperate situation is further compounded by a bad internal and foreign policy of the current government. The question is, what can be done. Perisic introduced the second part of his talk with an appropriate quote from the philosopher Popper who believes "hard work" to be the first crucial prerequisite to solving even virtually insoluble problems. If it is important to tackle the problems, on one track, by reorganizing the state itself, it is even more important, as the speaker points out in a compelling appeal, to travel on the second track, namely, the building and strengthening of the organizational framework in the diaspora. Perisic sees the diaspora as a crucial factor in the reconstruction of devastated Serbia. All the tasks involved in this enterprise should devolve upon private, non-governmental institutions whose centers are located in Belgrade and which are run by paid experts in the diaspora. Perisic concluded his talk with a clarion call to the Serbian diaspora in the United States, and to the Serbian Unity Congress as this diaspora's most important association to have launched  with this symposium and the concomitant working papers  an actual program toward the realization of Serbia's enlightened national interests. With his conclusion, he may have also pointed the way toward breaking through the walls of what the spirited journalist Peter Brock  speaking at the session of the General Assembly that morning  called "the global Germany of the 1930s." One has good reason to hope that with such incisive contributions as were presented by the Serbian and American guest speakers and authors, and, above all, with the continued efforts on the part of the Serbs in Serbia and of the Serbs abroad, huge dents will soon occur in the policies and attitudes of the "global America of the 1990s."