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Jasmin Mujanović Profile picture
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31 Oct, 5 tweets, 1 min read
The way that part of the American media are generically talking about the prospects for “post-elxn violence” evacuates all agency & responsibility from the architects of this climate of fear. It reminds me of the “ancient ethnic hatreds” myth from the Bosnian War.
No other elxn in U.S. history has had the cloud of large-scale civil strife hanging over it. And that’s bc no President or candidate has weaponized racial, sectarian grievance in the way Trump has. Nor has anyone associated himself w/ extremist paramilitaries like Trump has...
...or turned government into a vehicle for naked partisan pursuits. Trump has made Americans fear in the integrity of their democratic process & he has invited & encouraged them to use violence as a response. He has done this on purpose & he is responsible for this chaos.
Authoritarianism does not happen by accident. It is programmatic, even amid all the mayhem that often characterizes its tenure. They made the choice to put your family & community in this position, seeking to profit from your terror. Vote accordingly. /xxx 🗳
PS - I wasn’t able to fit “modern” in the above comment re: “no other U.S. elxn”. Obviously the period preceding the Civil War was characterized by large scale fear & anger. But that’s precisely the point: that this is the socio-political climate this admin has re-created. ☮️

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More from @JasminMuj

Jasmin Mujanović Profile picture
23 Sep
You know, most strongmen at least pretend that they will abide by the results of their (usually fraudulent) democratic elections. Even they know better than to openly say: yes, I’m thinking about clinging to power through the use of force - next question?!
Also how does a comment like that not immediately shut down whatever exchange was previously taking place? How is it not immediate breaking news on every channel? “President hints at use of violence to hang on to power” is kind of an existentially massive deal.
And taking the line that “he’s just trolling” isn’t rational, given the stakes. Maybe the pilot was kidding when he said he intends to fly us into that mountain. Or, maybe, he’s going to fly us into the mtn. The disparity in consequences means you take the mtn scenario seriously.
Read 5 tweets
Jasmin Mujanović Profile picture
19 Sep
As politics has become more volatile in both the EU & US I’ve observed an interesting cultural difference btw Americans & W. Europeans. On the whole, Americans are much more receptive to outside critique/analysis of their own politics. West Europeans remain remarkably insular...
...even xenophobic in how they respond to “foreigners” commenting on their politics. Americans & U.S. media (& the Brits, to some extent) are far more willing to platform outsiders than most in W. Europe. At the extreme, this also manifests in how W. Europeans talk about...
...foreign policy. In my exp, policy discussions on the Balkans, my area of expertise, are considerably more diverse in the U.S. than in the EU. In the U.S. local experts/analysts are given far greater space. In the EU, I’ve been to Balkans conferences where 3/4ths are of...
Read 4 tweets
Jasmin Mujanović Profile picture
19 Sep
True watershed moments in democratic polities are those for which there can be no redress; only fallout. These are usually instances when elites act so wantonly that they incinerate trust in the democratic process itself, calling into question the legitimacy of the whole regime.
Tho it was not a democratic regime, the end of the Yugoslav federation was sealed on Jan. 22 1990 when the Slovene delegation walked out of the 14th Congress of the League Communists. But the fighting in YUG didn’t start until June 1991. The die is cast ahead of the eruption.
In periods of genuine, existential political crisis you can count the number of off ramps on one hand. And they decrease sharply w/ time & increased polarization. Anyone not already completely consumed by sectarian vitriol can see what they are — and when they’ve been passed.
Read 4 tweets
Jasmin Mujanović Profile picture
16 Sep
Grateful to @JoinPersuasion & @Yascha_Mounk for publishing my short essay on the history & culture of historical revisionism among Western “anti-imperialists”. A timely intervention, I hope, on debates & discourses about true “international solidarity”. persuasion.community/p/a-sorry-excu…
“There is no shortage of prominent left-wing academics, journalists, artists and activists who have sought to twist the historical record concerning atrocities and the regimes that perpetrated them.” persuasion.community/p/a-sorry-excu…
“The far left vision of foreign affairs is fogged by conspiratorial accounts...all events embody a simple split: on one side, the American empire and its corrupt proxies; on the other side, noble adversaries, who by opposing the U.S. are progressive.” persuasion.community/p/a-sorry-excu…
Read 5 tweets
Jasmin Mujanović Profile picture
14 Sep
The mechanisms of oppression under illiberal & authoritarian regimes are not absolute. What makes them so pernicious is that terror is unevenly distributed across different segments of the population. While some groups are actively persecuted, others are at the mall.
This is important also for how we think about the *threat* of illiberalism/authoritarianism. Those w/ the least to fear from such regimes - the well-connected & the well-to-do - typically opt for silence, co-operation, or obfuscation bc it’s just easier. Opposition is dangerous.
In practical terms, it means that even thru dramatic political crises, an evident campaign against the rule of law, or amid an active state terror regime, a segment of the salon intelligentsia will find ways to characterize principled opposition as “alarmism”.
Read 5 tweets
Jasmin Mujanović Profile picture
11 Sep
On 9/11 my family had only been in Vancouver, BC a few yrs. We’d spent most of the 90s displaced by the Bosnian War. We understood the feeling of normalcy suddenly, ferociously shattered. Yet the outpouring of grief & support for the U.S, in Canada also renewed so much faith.
Watching the scenes of Operation Yellow Ribbon play out, in particular, had a lasting effect on me. I was a cynical, angry kid. But there was something so powerful about the collective effort of ordinary Canadians, & political leaders too, to support the U.S. in that dark hour.
Today, as a Bosnian-Canadian living in America, I teach the Canada-U.S. relationship as the encapsulation of the idea of a “liberal democratic peace” & the joint response to 9/11 as its distillation. My students are often puzzled by the urgency & emotion in my voice when I do.
Read 4 tweets

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