MICRONATIONS?

A NATION OF MICROBODIES OR A BODY OF SIMULATIONS OF NATIONS?

pop~Agent Marina Grzinic, Ljubljana, Slovenia, 12.2.97

The end of this millennium will be remembered because we lost the faith in civil society, or is it better to say, civil society showed an obscenity of growing of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO-s) which in the nineties function solely in the way to provide enough money for their reproduction, for their proper survival. Who cares why they were established a decade or two ago, anyway. Through this process, it is also possible to see the so called East European community which, in the eighties, ran some progressive processes (thanks to the civil society movements and institutions). So, what was progressive in the eighties became reactionary in the nineties. Now, NGO-s are a kind of parasitic body leaving and breathing only for themselves.

On the other part, another process is going on. I will call it the process of purification of the STATE and its institutions. The state --which was understood to be almost a terrorist concept in the seventies and the eighties was regarded in relation to the real terrorists /BRIGATE ROSSE, Italy, BAADER MEINHOFF Germany/ and the symbolic-cultural subvertionists (Laibach, ex-Yugoslavia)-- is going today through it's second birth. You can observe that some theorititians and critics justifiye the state's institutions and claim we want more state structures and less civil --or better to say less NGO-s. I agree with the latter, because this kind of "metastasis" of NGO-s in Slovenia and especially BiH is a perverse proliferation, one that's getting --day by day-- a tragic feature. Days ago in front of the parliament of Slovenia, people were demonstrating against the actual governmental crisis (that was a legitimate action) but what was striking was that these people called themselves CIVIL SOCIETY. God, preserve me of the civil society who must wear a name of it to convince us to be a civil society!

On the other part, the state organizations (not only the cultural and social ones) through the decade lost their "masks" and became new benefactors; in the so called East European context (it is not fashionable to use this distinction any more, but I am not a trend setter anyway) the state is asked to preserve us from the "mad civil society".

How and when did the "terrorist" state turn into a positive actor for the "cause" (also called society) a positive regulator of our minds, bodies and money? The evaluation of Micronations in the field of art must start also with answering these questions.

From: Margrz@zrc-sazu.si (Marina Grzinic)