Roma: The Other in the Other

Abstract

The chain of othering in the post-Yugoslav territories, according to Zizek (2000), is heading from the east and south to the west and north. Zizek begins this ironic chain with the Serbs. Their other(s) are Muslims from Kosovo and Bosnia. Thus, the Serbs are defenders of the ‘Christian civilisation against this Europe’s Other’ (Zizek 2000, p. 3). The Croats, continues Zizek, safeguard Western democratic values from the ‘despotic and Byzantine Serbia’ (p. 3). Slovenes, however, watch Croats carefully as they are considered a threat for ‘peaceful Mitteleuropa’ (Zizek 2000, p. 4). For the Austrians, nevertheless, the people from the Western Balkans, all together, are the ‘Slavic hordes’ (Zizek 2000, p. 4). In this chapter, however, I intend to argue that the Roma¹ people are the Other for all post-Yugoslavs, including Slavic Muslims from Bosnia and Albanians from Kosovo; two of the lowest ranking Others in Zizek’s sequence.