Ann Price, N222@TRUMAN.EDU
Truman State University
Joseph Stalin once said that one death is a tragedy--one million is a statistic. Perhaps it is a testament to the flawed nature of the human mind that we cannot comprehend one million deaths in any tangible way, or maybe that feature is our most profound asset. At least, it can be. Focusing on the tragic value of only one death--and the life that preceded it--enables us to see more clearly how the individual exists in society, and yet how his or her death sets the individual apart. Being able to relate the individual to his or her social context, and thus identify the "social component of his personality" as Talcott Parsons said, is what makes contemplating one death more significant than comprehending a million deaths. With regard to the war in Yugoslavia, the numbing effect that reports of thousands killed had on most people outside the situation can only be counteracted with the accounts of singular individuals whose lives and tragic endings made a difference; Josip Reihl-Kir, a Croat regional Police Chief who was murdered by extreme Croat nationalists for his rejection of immoral violence, was such a man. Like Martin Luther King, Jr. before him, Kir's brief life was defined in relation to the violence all around him.
To grasp the meaning of Kir's actions and what brought about his death, it is necessary to explain the social environment in Yugoslavia surrounding those events. In the prelude to war between Croatia and Serbia, nationalists of both origins increasingly supported violence as a means to achieving their ends, which were primarily concerned with creating homogenous nation-states. Events like the ambush of a Croatian police bus and the subsequent shelling of Serbian Borovo Selo galvanized the seperate ethnic factions which already existed in Croatian society and pushed them closer to fulfilling the extreme nationalists' objectives. Violence, however minor, advanced their plan to seperate and demonize the other faction. Every act of aggression--whether symbolic (the replacing of the Yugoslav flag with the Croat flag in Borovo Selo) or actual/physical (the assault on the Coatian policemen the following day)--was met with yet another display of deadly force. Provocation and retaliation were equally justified by the Serb and Croat nationalists: the social norm governing these destructive actions was that violence must be countered with more violence--tit for tat. The result was what Martin Luther King, Jr. predicted in his book Stride Toward Freedom, "A mass movement of a militant quality that is not at the same time committed to nonviolence tends to generate conflict, which in turn breeds anarchy" (375). For extreme nationalists on both sides, the question of sovereignty for each republic within Yugoslavia could not be settled without the brutal coercion or expulsion of minority members: in Croatia this meant terrorizing and murdering Serbs so that they would leave Croatia to the Croats. Anarchy was the logical byproduct. Public opinion in Croatia after the bus slaughter was overwhelmingly in favor of the Croatian extremists' viewpoint. Kir, who opposed them, didn't stand a chance.
As an officer of the law, Kir's normative orientation was toward promoting peace and insuring justice for all citizens through the enforcement of Croatia's laws. There is no irony, then, in his decision to mediate a path between the extremist factions. As Martin Luther King, Jr. so eloquently expressed: "The enforcement of the law is itself a form of peaceful persuasion" (376). Though he was himself half Croat, Kir did not allow his own identity to influence his behavior as a policeman of ethnically-mixed areas. In fact, he tried desperately to avoid entrapping himself in nationalistic battles: he worked to ease tensions between Croats and the Serb minority, mainly by persuading them--unarmed, as a sign of good faith--to take down roadblocks wherever and whenever they popped up. His attempts to negotiate peaceful resolutions to potentially violent conflicts reflected the principles of non-violence which King practiced decades earlier. Kir did not want to see anarchy erupt, and he risked everything to prevent it. As the public tide in Croatia moved toward embracing the Croatian nationalists and Serbs in the region turned toward Belgrade for protection, Kir feared he would be the target of both sides' hostility. He had advocated tolerance among the Serbs and Croats precisely because he knew what the nationalists would not admit: that the choice was "no longer between violence and nonviolence" but rather "nonviolence or nonexistence" (King 378). He chose nonviolence in the hope that it would allow Serbs and Croats to coexist peacefully. The alternative to nonviolence was death--not merely his own, but also thousands of others who would become victims of Serb and Croat nationalists' war games. In the end, Kir's nonviolent means were eclipsed by the violent hatred that he so feared in the Croatian nationalists; Kir was lured out and shot sixteen times by a member of the HDZ.
The value of Kir's life and death amidst the chaos of nationalist factions can only be evaluated by juxtaposing Croatian society and Kir's individual actions. In this sense, Kir acted again and again to protect his fellow man; he susion within the society in which he lived, as did King, by the way, in his final public speech. Kir pleaded with Police Minister Boljkovac, "Please, save me. I know the situation here very well. I am going to lose my life" (Silber 144). Yet both men confronted death as the ultimate act of faith; Kir predicted his death and still trusted in the people enough to be lured to a roadblock where he was ironically shot with a weapon that he had dispensed. If anything can bring redemption to the people of Croatia who conspired to bring violence on themselves, it is a death like that of Joseph Reihl-Kir. In the words of King, "if physical death is the price that a man must pay to free his children and his...brethren from a permanent death of the spirit, then nothing could be more redemptive" (376). Kir died knowing that he did not morally succumb to the immoral violence of his opponents. He will be remembered, as King is, for attempting all that he could to create peace where there was so much hatred.
In the end, the non-violent means Kir used to combat both Serbian and Croatian nationalism were not enough to prevent those forces from waging all out war. His death at hands of a Croat nationalist was only one consequence of the choice between "nonviolence or nonexistence" (378). Many more would die because of the political and social forces that willingly adopted violent means. Though Croatian president Franjo Tudjman at first called on his people to "be patient and not to answer the calls of those (extremist Croats) who want spontaneous resistance," his promise to resort to violence to "defend the freedom and sovereignty of the Republic of Croatia" undercut all rhetoric to the contrary (Silber 143). Without a true committment from their leaders to nonviolent means, individuals like Josip Reihl-Kir stood alone to defend their pacifist convictions. The redemptive effect of his death and that of Martin Luther King, Jr. overshadows all; they emerge beyond the limitations of their social environment to show us how one individual death truly is a tragedy of heroic proportions.
Ann Price, N222@TRUMAN.EDU
Truman State University
Ann Price is sociology/anthropology major at Truman State University in
Kirksville, Missouri. She wrote this paper for a course titled "History of
Social Thought" with Professor Keith Doubt (KDOUBT@TRUMAN.EDU).
Keith Doubt
Division of Social Science
Truman State University
Kirksville, MO 63501
Email address -- kdoubt@truman.edu
Office number with voicemail -- #816-785-4322
Fax number -- #816-785-4181
EXTRA!
Croatia frees Reihl-Kir's killer! See the whole text by clicking here!