The Unbearable Emptiness of Democracy

(originally posted on Сиви Соко, May 9. 2007)

The past few months of political intrigue around the new Serbian government are one of the best case studies for the vacuity of democracy in modern times.

What is democracy, really? The Greek compound that meant "rule of the people" in Athenian practice denoted a political system in which decisions were made by a simple majority of present citizens (excluding women, slaves, children and foreigners). Socrates and his disciples spent a long time debating human motivations, nature, truth, virtue and justice, because they had to. Democracy itself was blind to virtue or vice; the will of the majority at any given time was supreme, even though that same will could be completely different the following day. Athenian philosophers thus devoted their lives' work to figuring out a way to make the majority's decisions good and moral. They never found one. Socrates was democratically sentenced to death for "blasphemy and corrupting the youth."

What is democracy today? Is it just multi-party elections? Tolerance of political opposition? Freedom of the press, speech and thought? Everyone talks about democracy, but no one dares say what it means. When Serbian political magazine НСПМ reprinted one of my columns last year - in which I assailed the arbitrary definition of democracy by the Empire - I was criticized by another contributor for disputing "universal values.” What values?

How can something that's absolutely undefined can be some sort of universal value, or a moral and ethical category? Yet "democracy" is being presented as both.

For four days this month, Tomislav Nikolic was the Speaker of the Serbian assembly (Skupština). It's a largely administrative post, charged with presiding over the sessions and making sure the rules of order and conduct are followed. Now, it is true that under extreme circumstances, the Speaker could become the President of Serbia; this was used by the late Prime Minister Djindjic, who appointed his crony Natasa Micic to the spot just before arresting and extraditing President Milutinovic to the ICTY. However, given the atmosphere in the Serbian assembly, one would think only a hardcore masochist would want a job best described as "herding wildcats."

Nikolic's election was protested by EU commissars. A scheduled delegation from Brussels canceled its visit. The world media (otherwise known for their fair and impartial coverage of Serbs, right?) are spreading panic about Nikolic being an ”ultra-nationalist” etc. President Tadic, head of the Democratic Party, said Nikolic's election was ”harmful to state interests” and a ”democratic Serbia.” Or was that a Democratic Serbia?

Tadic's party has been negotiating (or not) for months with the old PM Kostunica about a new government, without results. They claim they got the most votes, so they can dictate the make-up of the government. One teeny little problem with that argument is that the Radicals actually got the most votes. But that's an inconvenient truth, and thus overlooked in "democratic" discussion. Because, you see, only the "democratic bloc" can act democratically and build democracy in a democratic state... At which point I'm getting flashbacks to an 1980s cartoon where every Smurf smurfs smurfingly the entire smurfing day!

The United States is (yes, singular, alas) the self-proclaimed pinnacle of democracy, a country that has arrogated itself the right to spread this concept of government throughout the world (by force if need be), and to judge everyone else's degree of democracy. So they are bothered by Nikolic, or Milosevic, or Lukasenko, or Putin - but not by a star like Saparmurat Niyazov. This recently deceased "president" of Turkmenistan, who declared himself a prophet, erected hundreds of golden statues to himself, abolished libraries and imposed his own book as the only literature Turkmens would ever need, etc. Turkey is considered a "democracy" even though the military has to stage a coup every couple of years to prevent Islamic radicals from getting into power via ballot-box. Boris Yeltsin, the recently deceased president of Russia, democratically sicced tanks on the parliament in 1993, with the roaring applause of Washington. Now that same Washington is jeering his successor Vladimir Putin for "autocracy" because he cracked down on NGOs receiving funding from abroad without adequate tax paperwork. I wish someone would try that sort of stunt in the "democratic" US of A, where no one messes with the IRS. In fact, the IRS is a favorite tool for cracking down on dissidents and undesirables, even though some years back there were those tanks and teargas in Waco...

Come to think of it, Bush the Lesser got fewer votes than Al Gore in November 2000, thus becoming Emperor - er, President - on account of some shady voting in Florida. Relative thing, this democracy. Once all is added up, it turns out democracy is whatever the government in Washington or the commissars in Brussels say it is. At least the autocrats in Washington are elected; who voted for Olli Rehn, Javier Solana, or their fellows? To be clear, I honestly don't think being elected gives anyone legitimacy, but one can't exactly pontificate about the be-all-and-end-all character of democracy without even bothering to at least respect its forms!

Did the Radicals get the most votes in the January election? Yes. Was it shocking that their leader became Speaker of the assembly? Yes, but it should not be. Was Nikolic's election democratic? Absolutely. That this bothers people whose mouths spew democracy daily is just proof of their hypocrisy. Either that, or that they don't know what democracy means. I'm not sure what's worse.

Now, it's a whole different story that the Radicals refuse to propose a government of their own, because it's easier to criticize the "democrats" from the sidelines. It's as if politics were a reality-show contest rather than the very serious business of running a country in crisis. That's why I cringe at the popular expression in Serbia, the "political elite." If this is "elite," then no wonder Serbia is in trouble.

American Founders, back in 1791, didn't put a word about democracy in their Constitution (which had seven articles and ten amendments). It is said that Benjamin Franklin, asked about what the Convention had produced, replied, "A republic, if you can keep it." Ask an American today if his country is a republic or a democracy, he'll say "A democracy, of course." Poor Franklin was right about the "if" part.

It was no accident that Orwell attempted to describe totalitarianism through the abuse of language. Every time I hear modern political discourse I get a feeling I'm listening to exercises in blackwhite doublethink of doubleplusgood duckspeakers.

Democracy isn't half the things the "democrats" of all stripes claim it is. Nor is it intrinsically good or moral. It is simply a decision-making process in a political system that assumes the will of the majority is the best way to reach a solution. As to the validity of that assumption, I suggest you talk to Socrates.

Overlooked Consistency

A colleague wonders about the obvious paradox: the Empire is imposing unification in Bosnia while supporting separatism in Kosovo.

This has been obvious to anyone with eyes and ears for quite some time. But in the realm of Imperial "logic" it is entirely possible for people to believe in paradoxes. There is "absolutely no connection" between Bosnia and Kosovo, the chorus of Imperial officials droned (but then they said Kosovo was the "last chapter in the breakup of Yugoslavia; go figure). Bosnia is a "sovereign state," with inviolable borders (and Serbia is not?!). Kosovo is a "unique case" (no, it really isn't). And so on. Consider this:

What seems to govern events in the Balkans under Imperial rule is something that, for lack of a better term, could be termed the "Abramowitz doctrine": a complete absence of any principle that would be valid for all. Indeed, a complete absence of any principle at all, except power.

Completely different rules are in force for Serbs and for Albanians, or Bosnian Muslims; certainly, no external rules whatsoever apply to the Empire, in any of its manifestations. What "rules" that exist are made by Imperial viceroys, commanders, envoys, commissioners, and advisors, on the spot and without any need (or regard) for internal consistency. The ends – ultimately elusive, but hiding under the platitudes of "justice" and "Euro-Atlantic integration" – justify any and all means, while any resistance to them is a priori considered criminal.

Law is non-binding upon the Self-Righteous. Treaties are of no consequence. Neither is logic, for that matter. Understanding is not required, only obedience.

I wrote that in December 2004. The only thing that has changed since is that the Empire has long stopped pretending to care about even the forms of civilized conduct. After all, it is the master of facts, and the rest of us live in the delusional "reality-based community" that only examines the reflections of their glorious deeds, right?

As a matter of fact, there is a logic to Imperial behavior in the Balkans; a sort of macabre consistency: the Serbs are always wrong. Once this "axiom" is accepted, everything the Empire does makes perfect sense. Without it, nothing does.

Before you dismiss this as a "rant of a paranoid Serb" (thus proving the point, actually), I'll explain that this deduction was made by Doug Bandow.

Morton Abramowitz famously quipped that Serbs "seek perfect reasoning" where there isn't any. As Bandow's deduction shows, only the first half of that statement is true. There is reasoning, but it is so corrupt, so twisted, so absurd, it's dismissed as impossible by Serbs. "Surely they wouldn't... Surely it can't be..."

Newsflash: Yes, they would, and have. Yes, it can be, and is.

If the bombs of 1999 didn't teach this lesson... what will?

Constitution vs. Freedom

By way of a friend in faraway New Zealand, I received this afternoon an opinion piece from the New Zealand Herald, in which the author argues for a Constitution. Apparently, the only three democracies in the world without one are the UK, New Zealand and Israel, and now Gordon Brown (Blair's heir-designate as PM) is talking about changing that in Britain.

If you read the original piece, it's clear that the author sees the Constitution as a bulwark for government programs (education, healthcare, politics of race, etc.) rather than against government abuses. I'm suspecting the same "logic" is at work in Britain; a decade of Blairism has led to many changes in British state and society, and it's only natural for Blair's heir to wish to cement these impositions, rather than risk them undone by someone else down the line.

Here's a passage from the NZ Herald op-ed that seeks to camouflage this sentiment and present a constitution as a protection of rights:

The Institute for Public Policy in Britain has warned that its Parliament can deprive citizens of centuries-old rights "by the same means as an alteration of the speed limit" - that is, a 51 per cent vote.

Welcome to democracy! That's precisely what it's about, when one gets rid of the legalistic frills. Of course the thought is terrifying. But it is precisely because the Parliament has such power that it has been exercised with restraint. That is, until Oliver Cromwell Blair chose to remake Britain in his own vision...

The American constitution, which established the federal government of the U.S.A., was a compromise between statist, empire-building ambitions and a conservative distrust of government. Fast-forward 200+ years since its passage, and one can easily see all the provisions limiting federal government power either circumvented or ignored completely, while a multi-trillion-dollar bureaucracy employing millions has arisen out of deliberate misinterpretation of a couple of words (i.e. commerce clause). But Americans today insist they are free, because the Constitution protects them. Right. And the Moon is made of cheese.

States love constitutions. Rather than being the chain that binds their power, constitutions are a disguise that protects their tyranny. When the behavior of the state is governed by tradition, history and precedents, society has control over the state. Once a paper replaces tradition, that control moves into the hands of the state itself. A court reviews it, a parliament of some kind amends it. The state becomes its own arbiter. How likely is it to judge itself harshly? If you answer "very," I've some beachfront real-estate in Nevada for you. Call now, operators are standing by.

If Britain gets a constitution - and with Labour controlling all the levers of government, the question is not "if " but rather "when" - it will become even less free than it is today (which, admittedly, isn't much). I don't know how highly the Kiwis value their liberty, but they are guaranteed to lose it if they follow Britain's example; leaving Israel as the only democratic state that answers to an authority higher than itself.

Aptly ironic, if you ask me.

Stranger Than Fiction

One of the reasons I don't even try writing fiction is that reality is often much stranger. A story involving three months of negotiations that went nowhere, a surprise election of the parliament speaker, a surprise reversal, overt foreign interference and a last-minute swearing-in of a new cabinet would have been dismissed as contrived and incredulous. And yet that's precisely what happened in Serbia over the past two weeks.

After the constitutional referendum last fall, Serbia held parliamentary elections in January. The ramshackle coalition that had somehow managed to maintain a minority government since 2004 did not manage to win enough votes for a new mandate. But then, neither did anyone else. The Radical party once again got the biggest chunk of the votes, yet not enough for a majority. Imperial legates and EU komissars put considerable pressure on Serbia to establish a "democratic bloc" government - effectively resurrecting the old DOS coalition that executed a the October 2000 coup.

For a moment there, early last week, their wish seemed doomed: prime minister Kostunica's DSS supported the election of Tomislav Nikolic, leader of the Radicals, as the parliament's Speaker. Amidst the resulting wailing, howling and gnashing of teeth, Kostunica reversed his position (or did he?) and successfully negotiated a deal with president Tadic's Democratic party and ex-partner G17 Plus. Nikolic resigned from his post after just four days, managing to retain an appearance of dignity and integrity amidst the parliamentary discussion that resembled a particularly vulgar episode of Jerry Springer.

The new, "democratic" government has more cabinet posts than it used to under DOS, tailored to fit party leaders and trusted cronies. Now, if the powers of the Serbian government were properly limited, none of this would be an issue. Unfortunately, and even under the new Constitution, the state is still near-omnipotent at home (circumscribed only by the wishes of its imperial overlords). In two fields that one might argue are legitimate domains of the state - foreign affairs and defense - Tadic cronies and Imperial lackeys are now firmly in charge. I never thought I would regret the political demise of ex-Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic, but his replacement beggars belief.

To paraphrase ex-Reichsmarschall Rumsfeld, you make the government with the parties you have. It is just depressing that in today's Serbia, the only alternatives to this pathetic collection of lackeys, quislings and fools are the fist-pounding populist Radicals (who'd rather have Serbia be a Russian province, if at all possible), or the even greater quislings, lackeys and fools, ex(?)-Communist "liberal democrats."

Serbia desperately needs a party - or better yet, a movement - that would seek to limit the power of the state in matters domestic, and ensure that in matters of actual national interest (defense of territory, lives and property of its citizens; foreign relations), elected representatives serve the people of Serbia, rather than the governments in Washington, Brussels, or even Moscow. Most people around the world would take these things for granted. In Serbia, they remain in the realm of fiction.

Quisling's Cause

John Laughland has an excellent and informative piece in the most recent Spectator, revealing that the idea of European unity was championed vocally by none other than Vidkun Quisling, the infamous Norwegian collaborator during the Nazi occupation. He also uncovers some interesting tidbits about Nazi flirtation with "Europeanism."

This isn't to say that today's Eurocrats are Nazis; they are more Soviet in their statist zealotry, if anything. But it is a good counter-argument to the oft-repeated canard that the EU arose as a reaction to Hitler and the second world war.

Jihadists, take note

The indomitable Julia Gorin reports that Tom Lantos (D-Ca.), sponsor of the latest House resolution supporting the independence of "Kosova," uttered the following words at last week's hearing:

(addressing Nicholas Burns of the State Department):

Let me just raise a few items, Mr. Secretary. The first one: just a reminder to the predominantly Muslim-led governments in this world that here is yet another example that the United States leads the way for the creation of a predominantly Muslim country in the very heart of Europe. This should be noted by both responsible leaders of Islamic governments, such as Indonesia, and also for jihadists of all color and hue. The United States’ principles are universal, and in this instance, the United States stands foursquare for the creation of an overwhelmingly Muslim country in the very heart of Europe.

There is no hint of "principle" anywhere here. It's pure politics. Like many others before him, Lantos is trying to appease the jihadists (he actually uses the term!) by throwing them a bone in the Balkans.

It is interesting, to say the least, that Albanians suddenly become Muslims when it's convenient to make this sort of "argument," but quickly become "secular" and "moderate" when critics try to point out the systematic destruction of Serb churches and construction of Saudi mosques. Same with the so-called Bosniaks - one day they are "moderate" and "secular," the next they are "Muslims in the heart of Europe."

And please - what heart? Kosovo is the historical heartland of Serbia, and the Balkans in general is very much at the periphery of Europe. Or was Lantos maybe thinking of the Netherlands?

In any case, the whole effort to placate the world's Muslims by supporting Islamic causes in the Balkans has been proven ineffective repeatedly; not just in the countries like Indonesia, but among the Balkans Muslims as well. For example, far from appreciating Western help in claiming a state in the "heart of Europe," the Bosnian Muslims have come to believe that was the very least the West owed them, and have engaged in mockery of Western assistance.

Certainly, Pristina may have streets named after Bill Clinton and Madeleine Albright now, and Lantos and Nicholas Burns may exchange friendly quips about how their own names, and that of George W. Bush, ought to be among them. But already the Albanians of Kosovo believe that independence is the very least they are due, and don't hesitate to attack UN officials or NATO troops that are perceived to stand in the way.

So much for the gratitude of your Muslim "allies," Mr. Lantos.

Zobel raus!

Andreas Zobel, Germany's Ambassador to Serbia, was apparently absent the day they taught diplomacy in school.

Following the examples of his American (well, Austrian-American) and British colleagues, who have been preaching the independence of Kosovo for the past two weeks in every pro-Imperial media outlet that would accommodate them, Zobel spoke at the forum organized by the "European Movement in Serbia."

Maybe it was because he was surrounded by sycophantic lackeys, but Herr Andreas forgot which country he represented (Germany has meddled in the Balkans almost from its inception, with bloody and disastrous results) and began threatening Serbia with further disintegration unless it surrendered Kosovo.

Official Belgrade protested. Even the pro-Jacobin, former Dossie minister Zarko Korac condemned Zobel's words. Germany's Foreign Ministry issued a sort of an apology, and Zobel himself claimed he expressed private opinions. (Newsflash: ambassadors aren't entitled to those until they leave the service!). But it's hard to believe his words were "misinterpreted" or "taken out of context" when his so-called "private" opinions match those expressed by the ICG, Martti Ahtisaari, or the Albanian-American Civic League.

Here is what the Serbian news agency Beta (quoted by the pro-Imperial B92) said about Zobel on Wednesday evening, Central European time:

German Ambassador in Serbia Andreas Zobel said that the problem of Kosovo ought to be resolved as quickly as possible "in the manner of supervised independence," because otherwise the issue of Vojvodina and Sandzak (sic) could be opened.

"Insisting on Kosovo as part of Serbian territory would destabilize Serbia, because then the issue of Vojvodina could open up, which is a new province in Serbia. This is not a threat, it's an analysis," Zobel said at the International Relations Forum of the European Movement in Serbia.

Zobel said it was "not true" that Kosovo had always been in Serbia, because it became a part of the country in 1912 "after a long time," and reminded that Vojvodina joined Serbia in 1918. He added that, if Serbia were destabilized, Hungary could "insist on Vojvodina."

The German Ambassador said that the insistence of Prime Minister Kostunica on Kosovo as part of Serbia "leads into stagnation and digging into a situation where he cannot win."

He deemed that "there will never be agreement between Serbs and Albanians," so the insistence of continuing the negotiations was just delaying the solution.

In his words, the fact-finding mission to examine the achievements of standards in Kosovo would establish only one thing: that the two people do not wish to live together, and that is already known. The mission would delay the solution to the Kosovo problem by two months.

Zobel characterized the proposal by the UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari, which posits supervised independence for Kosovo, "is not good, but it is the best of all the bad solutions."

"In 15 months of talks, and eight years since losing Kosovo, Serbia has not offered a concept for reintegration of Kosovo. Albanians want independence, Serbia cannot integrate them, and many people in Serbia are happy the Albanians live apart, but would like the borders of Kosovo to stay within the borders of Serbia," Zobel said.

He claimed that neither Kostunica, president Tadic, nor any of their "clever advisers" could explain to him the meaning of their formula "more than autonomy, less than independence," and added that, in his opinion, Serbia "deserves a better political elite."

"Instead of insisting on keeping Kosovo within the borders of Serbia, it is better to work on having both Serbia and Kosovo within the EU in 20 to 25 years," the German ambassador said.

According to Zobel, Kosovo is a part of Serbia under international law, but Serbia cannot establish control over that territory; on the other hand, two million Albanians refuse to live in Serbia, so therefore Kosovo is a "special case."

"Many in Serbia are wishing for Albanian riots in Kosovo, so they could later claim they were right when they warned the international community about terrorist threats," he said.

Zobel also said that the status of Kosovo should be resolved through a UN Security Council resolution, because otherwise there would be discord within the EU and the lack of consensus in the EU mission in the province, which is projected to stay "for the next 20 years."

Germany's ambassador also pointed out that many in Serbia "do not care for medieval myths, but want better life."

Regarding the continuation of SAA negotiations with the EU Zobel said that "promises, which were many, will no longer do" and added that the future Serbian government would have to take specific actions to fulfill its obligation to cooperate with the ICTY.

Ne claimed that a devotion to Europe and patriotism were "not opposites, but complementary," and that no country that wishes to become an EU member would be asked to give up its national interests for it.

Let's start from the beginning, shall we? Is Zobel saying that the Treaty of London and the Peace of Trianon are somehow subject to revision today? Hey, by all means, let's abolish the state of Albania, which was created by the 1912 treaty. And what will his Slovakian and Romanain colleagues say, when they hear that the ambassador representing the current EU chairman is challenging the treaty that abolished Greater Hungary after World War I?

Maybe he's right about the impossibility of agreement between Serbs and Albanians. But it doesn't help that the Albanians have de facto control of the province that NATO delivered to them in 1999, through an illegal war of aggression and terror-bombing (Germans should know a little something about both, one would think), so they have no incentive to bargain. As for Kosovo being a "special case" because Serbia allegedly cannot assert sovereignty... may I remind Herr Zobel that this might have a little something to do with the presence of NATO troops, the Kumanovo agreement, and UNSCR 1244? And why should some million-plus Serbs in Bosnia not have the right to refuse living in a state they refuses to treat them as equals? Ah, but Bosnia is different... Where oh where have we heard that before?

Serbia does deserve better politicians (I resent the term "political elite," as if these people are somehow better than folks with honest jobs just because they wallow in the morass called politics), but obviously Zobel needs reminding that its present leaders were put in charge by the US/EU-sponsored coup in 2000, and that everyone else is labeled "ultra-nationalist"? Unless, of course, Zobel and his superiors are referring to the Jacobins and their lunatic ideas...

Of particular concern is the quip about how Serbs wish to see violence in Kosovo. Albanians have shown a propensity to violence whether the Serbs wanted to see it or not; and saying that Serbs would rejoice in seeing them cannot possibly be an excuse or justification for another March 2004 - but that's precisely how Zobel's comment sounds.

Note, however, that it will do the Albanians absolutely no good, whether they riot or not. The EU will sit on their backs for 20 years! So much for "independence," then. That's incidentally the timeline for Serbia's own entry, which directly contradicts the promises of "Euro-Atlantic" integrationists that membership awaits just past the next humiliation. If borders were so irrelevant to the EU, why the insistence on preserving Bosnia, or refusal to partition Kosovo? For that matter - and this is a question one can confidently ask while pointing the finger straight at the Germans - why did you break up Yugoslavia, then?

The EU would never ask anyone to give up their national interests? So, does that mean Kosovo is not a Serbian national interest (since the EU is demanding its surrender as a possible precondition for theoretical talks about eventual remote possibility of discussing the options for membership)? There is no other way of interpreting that remark. "I would not do anything wrong; therefore, what I'm doing is not wrong." That's Ashdown logic, Jamie Shea logic, Carla del Ponte logic... no logic at all.

Herr Zobel considers what happened in Kosovo in 1389 a "medieval myth" that people should abandon in favor of a "better life." Had Andreas Zobel lived in Serbia in 1389, he would have certainly survived the battle (by not showing up), and by the following morning declared himself Ahmed Zobeloglu. After all, he would not dare stand in the way of "Eurasian integrations" and the better life, tolerance and growth opportunities offered by the enlightened Ottoman Empire.

Radical Party leader Tomislav Nikolic told the press on Thursday that Zobel should be expelled. It's not going to happen, because the current authorities would reach for the smelling salts at the very thought of being so... impertinent to their Euro-Atlantic overlords, and especially the EU-chairing Germans. But it would be a perfect response to such disgraceful behavior of someone who calls himself a diplomat. Who knows, it might even show the Empire that Serbia means business, and that the days of bullying Belgrade are over. Zobel, raus!

Not going to happen. Pity, though.

Gratitude

When the Izetbegovic regime picked a fight with the Bosnian Serbs fifteen years ago (April 6, 1992), one of the immediate results was a division of Sarajevo with roadblocks and barricades, with the part of the city controlled by Muslim militias effectively cut off from the rest of the country. Most stores were looted within weeks, courtesy of crime overlords who declared themselves "defenders" of the city - although they had copious help from local residents who figured (and correctly) that this was all the food they would see for a while.

Food began arriving into the city in June, when the airport re-opened under UN management. Thus began the Sarajevo airlift, which lasted longer than the Berlin one. Someone somewhere probably has a tally of all the food, medicine, blankets and plastic sheeting that UNHCR delivered to Sarajevo, and Bosnia in general. I can only say with the certainty of someone who's been there throughout the war that this aid kept people alive who would have otherwise starved. And not only civilians - because as soon as the food and supplies started arriving, the government set up an "Agency for reception and distribution" of aid, which would skim 60% or more of the rations for use by the government and the military.

One can only imagine the dire predicament of civilians trapped in wartime Sarajevo when MREs were considered gourmet food, usually sprinkled on top of rice, pasta or - on those rare days - beans. One of the staples of humanitarian aid rations was Icar - canned beef from somewhere in the EU which looked rather vile.

Well, as war and propaganda went on, soon the people inside the Muslim portion of Sarajevo began to grow a sense of entitlement. The food was nothing more than the world "owed" us, for failing to defend us from "aggression" and "genocide." How dared they send us ratty gray blankets, or vitaminized biscuits from 1968, pulled from stocks never used in Vietnam? Didn't they know we were Europeans, used to Italian shoes and German cars? The outrage!

Few, if any, stopped to think that without this food, those blankets, or the admittedly hideous-looking foil we used to cover up our shattered windows, we would have all frozen or starved to death in 1992. Or that the UNHCR was essentially the logistics command for the "Bosnian Army," enabling it to continue the war until Izetbegovic could get a territorial settlement he actually liked. Instead, we had people protest that the inconsiderate Europeans sent us this terrible beef...

Fifteen years after the "international community" saved us from starvation just in time, Reuters reports that an art organization has sponsored a monument to Icar beef (Reuters photo below).



"To the international community, the grateful citizens of Sarajevo," reads the inscription on the pedestal holding up the giant Icar can.

"It's witty, ironic and artistic," says Dunja Blazevic from the Center for Contemporary Art, which is behind the sculpture.

The popular urban myth from the war, recycled by Blazevic in her statement to Reuters, is that Icar beef was so vile even cats and dogs refused to eat it. It's certainly possible. But I've traveled a bit since, and Icar is hardly worse than what they serve in school cafeterias or fast-food places in the U.S.

No one in the world had the slightest shred of obligation or duty to send anything to the people of Bosnia, who democratically elected politicians that led the country into civil war. The responsibility for supplying and defending the civilian population was squarely on the government that declared independence - and that government failed at everything a government is supposed to do. Miserably. To cover that up, it constantly blamed the "international community." To the present day, hundreds of thousands of people in Bosnia believe "the world" had failed them, and that the West owes them something.

Thus the Icar monument. "Hey foreigners, how dare you send us non-gourmet food? We are the righteous victims, didn't you know?"

I wonder if those ingrates who made the sculpture, as well as those who will walk past it with an approving snicker, will ever realize that without that help, without those very cans of grade-Q beef, few of them would still be alive? The world owes us nothing. And we owe ourselves the truth.

Expelled?

Last week in Balkan Express, I challenged the Albanian argumentum ad atrocitas for the independence of Kosovo - the notion that, because of "ethnic cleansing" and atrocities allegedly perpetrated by the army and the police, Serbia has somehow "forfeited" the right to this province.

Much as it has been the case with reported death tolls in Bosnia, the number most often cited in wire reports (10,000 dead Albanian civilians) is a complete fabrication. This is not to deny that crimes against civilians happened; the Yugoslav Army has actually prosecuted a number of its troops for violating the laws and customs of war. But the notion of widespread, state-ordered or sanctioned atrocities against Albanian civilians is simply not supported by evidence. There was no "Operation Horseshoe," much as the NATO apologist behind that Wikipedia page would hate to admit it.

So, do I deny that 800,000 (or however many) Albanians were expelled from Kosovo by Serbs? Absolutely. I don't deny that these people were displaced; that would be challenging physical reality, which happens to be the purview of the Empire. I do, however, question the claim they were deported by the police and the military. And indeed, some may have been. But all of them?

In July 1999, a Belgrade daily published a copy of the leaflet that was disseminated to Kosovo Albanians in April, just before the mass exodus to Macedonia and Albania proper. With the help of some friends, I have obtained a digital image of the leaflet. Here it is:



And here is what it says:

FELLOW CITIZENS

We invite you to temporarily evacuate the endangered territories of the Republic of Kosova, due to the ongoing major offensive by the Serbian occupation forces. We cannot protect you, and neither can the Kosova Liberation Army.

We need to save our people and our lives. Therefore, proceed immediately towards Albania and Macedonia.

We have asked NATO to help us in our struggle against the Serb occupation forces, because these forces have launched a great offensive in the entire territory of the republic of Kosova. We are getting this help, but the KLA is not able to fully resist the offensive and defend the Albanian people.

Therefore we call on all Albanians who face danger from the Serb occupation troops to evacuate to Albania and Macedonia.

Ibrahim Rugova
President, Republic of Kosova

Now, let's see. It's April 1999. NATO has been bombing Serbia for a week, on the pretext of imposing the Rambouillet "agreement" on the government in Belgrade. It's become clear that Belgrade would not surrender. The KLA - which had recovered from defeat in the fall of 1998, thanks to the intervention of Richard Holbrooke and the subsequent support from the KVM - was being routed by the Serb police and the Yugoslav military, deployed to the province to stop the NATO invasion. In other words, things were going rather badly for the Alliance.

All of a sudden, throngs of Albanian refugees pour over the borders into Albania and Macedonia, into camps set up by the KLA and staffed by KLA cadres, who are more than happy to guide the correspondents from NATO countries and OSCE reporters around, collecting testimonies and listening to sob stories. CNN can now show photos of crying Albanian women. The German government, engaged in open war for the first time since 1945, can now bolster the NATO cause by claiming the existence of a secret Serb plan to "ethnically cleanse" Kosovo Albanians. Macedonia is overwhelmed, and destabilized (which would come in very handy two years later).

So, Albanians were transformed from separatist terrorists (KLA) to innocent victims of evil Serbs. NATO was provided a justification for its illegal war that sounded much better than the imposition of a fake peace plan, or a shoddily fabricated massacre. And the KLA was able to assume the role of "protector" to Albanian refugees, thus becoming the leading force among the separatists (who had until then supported Rugova).

What an utterly amazing set of "coincidences," don't you think?

Absence of Principle

In July 2004, I posted on the Antiwar.com blog some translated excerpts from an interview with Morton Abramowitz, published in the Serbian magazine NIN. Abramowitz is the founder of the International Crisis Group, a major figure in the Council on Foreign Relations, and somewhat of a guru to Madeleine Albright, Richard Holbrooke, and other "stars" of U.S. policy-making in the Balkans. At the forefront of interventionism in the 1990s (to the point of advising the KLA at the 1999 Rambouillet "talks"), he has scaled down his public profile since, but has remained steadfast in his pursuit of the American Empire.

NIN was interested to hear from Abramowitz because they knew he spoke for the Democratic foreign policy establishment, and since the Kerry-Edwards ticket still looked like it might unseat Bush the Lesser, it looked like good foresight. Little did they - or anyone else - know that Abramowitz's notions of "aggressive solutions" would be embraced as official policy by the Bushites in the spring of 2005, culminating eventually in Ahtisaari's proposal.

This is what Abramowitz said then (emphasis added).

On Kosovo Albanian politicians:

“Their ability to cooperate is almost nonexistent, except when it comes to the independence of Kosovo. About that, they do not argue. This is why the West must establish a dynamic towards realizing that plan, because the Kosovars [sic] aren’t capable of doing it themselves.”

On multi-ethnic Kosovo:

“We all want a multi-ethnic state in Kosovo because that is the politically correct position. […] Unfortunately, the problem is that Serbs do not believe in Kosovo as a state. So, if you are considering a multi-ethnic Kosovo in which Serbs are safe and Albanians run the show, that is feasible, but it is far from what we call a functioning state. … [There can be no functional state] while the status of that state is unresolved. So long as Serbs believe in the return of Serbian authority to Kosovo, there will be no progress.”

On Serbia’s plans to enter the EU:

“EU membership is certainly a vital decision and goal for Balkans countries, especially for Serbia which first has to make a choice. If it wants to be a part of the EU, Serbia must give up Kosovo.“

On U.S. and the Balkans:

“America, of course, has strong interests in the Balkans and Washington very much cares about successfully finishing everything that has been done in the Balkans so far. […] In case of Kerry’s victory, Dick [sic] Holbrooke would be one of the main candidates for Secretary of State, which would probably result in a much more active role of the U.S. in the Balkans. Other candidates are [Senator Joseph] Biden and [Sandy] Berger. In any case, Holbrooke has the most personal interest in the Balkans and actual success in the region. I speculate, but I think that with Holbrooke as Secretary of State, the U.S. would seek the resolution of the Balkans situation much more aggressively. […] With a new administration and someone like Holbrooke, who is deeply interested in the region, the possibility of accelerating Kosovo’s independence is much greater.”

On Greater Albania:

“There are strong elements among the Albanians who will demand the unification of Albanian territories, but I think the West can control that and prevent it from happening. I am convinced that the U.S. believes the independence of Kosovo is inevitable, while the creation of Greater Albania can be prevented.”

On Bosnia:

“You will not get the [Bosnian] Serb Republic. Why? Because Bosnia is a result of the Dayton agreement which we have to honor, and this question will not be opened. That would mean our approval of ethnic cleansing and everything we fought against. Bosnia is a quasi-state, I agree. [But] the Serb republic is a horrible creation of Slobodan Milosevic and Radovan Karadzic… Everyone knows that Dayton legitimized status quo and created the Serb Republic because we stopped the Croats from expelling all the Serbs from Bosnia. And that was humane of us. Were it not for Dayton, the Serb Republic would not have existed, and all the Bosnian Serbs would have been in Serbia now. We could not allow half a million [sic!] Serbs to be expelled.”

No context for Kosovo:

“All that can happen is that Serbs and Kosovars [sic] agree on the partition of Kosovo. If you don’t succeed in that, there will be a united, independent Kosovo. Those are the only practical solutions.[…] The only thing on the table is Kosovo and how it might be partitioned. […] What you will get for letting Kosovo go is membership in the EU, better life, growth and prosperity. […] As I said, setting the Balkans in order would require some delicate and hard compromises that can only be achieved of all the countries involved have a clear goal at the end of the road.”

To sum it up: questions of law, sovereignty and self-determination (especially when it comes to Serbs) are irrelevant to the Empire, which Abramowitz hopes will return to its “aggressive” policies in the Balkans if the Democrats win power. The sacred issue of practicality demands that Serbs surrender both their self-determination and their sovereignty for an empty promise of better life in the EU (into which, though I did not note it here, Abramowitz cautions they would enter only after completely submitting to the ICTY’s demands for “war criminals,” surrender of Kosovo notwithstanding).

But his line about the “humane” effort of the Empire to save the Bosnian Serbs from extinction that befell their western brethren is by far the most cynical and demented argument presented here. It is as if he assumes no one read Holbrooke’s memoir, in which Croatia is identified as Empire’s “junkyard dog,” armed and supported for the explicit purpose of countering Serbian claims; why should the Serbs be grateful to America for leashing its attack dogs, instead of angry that they were unleashed to begin with?

Ironically, at the time I had glossed over the most important thought in the entire interview, and didn't bring it up until November 2004. Answering the reporter's question about the self-determination of Bosnian Serbs as opposed to Kosovo Albanians, Abramowitz said this:

"My answer is that there is no entirely rational answer; you seek perfect reasoning, which does not correspond to reality on the ground."

Ponder this for a moment. There is "no entirely rational answer," he says. Because logic does not, and cannot, apply to Serbs. How else would ethnic cleansing be legal only when aimed at Serbs, self-determination be unacceptable only when those who wish to practice it are Serbs, borders be sacred only if they don't belong to Serbs? These are not minor quibbles, but fundamental issues; Abramowitz rejects "perfect reasoning" but the "reality" he preaches means no reasoning at all!

With this in mind, my end-of-the-year column in 2004 concluded with these passages:

What seems to govern events in the Balkans under Imperial rule is something that, for lack of a better term, could be termed the "Abramowitz doctrine": a complete absence of any principle that would be valid for all. Indeed, a complete absence of any principle at all, except power.

Completely different rules are in force for Serbs and for Albanians, or Bosnian Muslims; certainly, no external rules whatsoever apply to the Empire, in any of its manifestations. What "rules" that exist are made by Imperial viceroys, commanders, envoys, commissioners, and advisors, on the spot and without any need (or regard) for internal consistency. The ends – ultimately elusive, but hiding under the platitudes of "justice" and "Euro-Atlantic integration" – justify any and all means, while any resistance to them is a priori considered criminal.

The Ahtisaari Plan is just the latest manifestation of this nightmarish "order" which the Empire seeks to impose on the Balkans.

Schooled

Roger Cohen, one of the "star reporters" of the Bosnian War and a columnist for the International Herald Tribune, apparently wrote a screed recently blasting former British foreign secretary Douglas Hurd for daring to protest the war in Iraq. Hurd, opined Cohen, should keep quiet, since he stood idly by while the evil Serb aggressors were committing genocide against the poor defenseless "Bosnians," etc, ad nauseam.

Cohen's text didn't register on my radar. I was a little busy observing the anniversary of the 2004 Kosovo Kristallnacht, and about half a dozen other more important things pertaining to this corner of the world than the ramblings of some American Serbophobe.

Fortunately, the indomitable Taki Theodoracopulos seized on the opportunity to school Cohen in a bit of European history. After describing the centuries of Muslim invasions, often aided and abetted by power-hungry European nobles, Taki finishes thusly:

Hurd was right when he blamed ancient hatreds and warring factions for keeping cool and detached in the Balkans. If anything, Blair and Bush should have attacked the Muslim infiltrators in Kosovo. Instead, they went and attacked the only secular state in the Middle East. We armed and trained bin Laden in Afghanistan. He was given Bosnian citizenship soon after, and when his gang went down to Kosovo and began to blow up 500-year-old churches, we bombed a European city on the gang’s behalf. Cohen should shut up.

Bravo, sir.

Jihad's Other Victims

During the 1992-95 civil war in Bosnia, hundreds of Islamic militants from all over the world came to fight for the "beleaguered Bosnians" in what they considered a part of the ongoing jihad against the infidels. Many stayed after the war's end, marrying local women and taking over ethnically cleansed villages, where they would establish theocratic communities based on Wahhabi Islamic teachings.

Bosnian Muslim leader Alija Izetbegovic wrote as early as 1970 (PDF) about the need to "re-Islamize" the Muslims as a way to improve their position in the world (Izetbegovic devoted a lot of space in his Islamic Declaration to the pathetic state of contemporary secular Muslim countries, comparing them most unfavorably with the former Ottoman Empire - a Caliphate, whose fall he blamed on the Western infidels). The Bosnian war provided him with an opportunity to put his ideas in practice. Izetbegovic's rejection of any agreement with the Bosnian Serbs started the war in the spring of 1992; his troops clashed with their erstwhile Croat allies from 1993 to 1994; and a portion of Muslims loyal to a rival politician in Western Bosnia were declared "traitors" and mercilessly repressed in 1995. Parallel to his efforts to establish a "Bosniak" nation, Izetbegovic and his followers sought to ensure its Islamic identity. Turkish and Arabic phrases that were once used only in religious context became commonplace; the new "Bosnian" language abounded with words borrowed from Turkish, Arabic and Persian, often resurrected from century-old linguistic oblivion; and new mosques appeared in every neighborhood.

In addition to their fighting prowess (which remains dubious), foreign mujahedin were one of the instruments of "re-islamization." Their integration into the "Bosnian Army" (ARBiH) enabled the Izetbegovic regime to transform it from a self-proclaimed "people's self-defense" force into a heavily Islamic organization. Thanks to universal conscription, the subsequently demobilized soldiers would come home more receptive to the message spread by immigrant imams from Saudi Arabia, Iran, and elsewhere in the Islamic world. As a side note, every Muslim soldier who died during the war was considered a "martyr" in a jihad, and given the appropriate burial. Izetbegovic himself is buried in a "martyrs' cemetery" in Sarajevo

After the war, hundreds of new mosques were built by foreign donors - most prominently Saudi Arabia - and the imams preaching there introduced a new, different version of Islam. Adherents to Wahhabi teachings were soon easily identified by long beards, distinctive headwear, and rolled-up trousers. The carefully nurtured atmosphere of hatred and mistrust of Bosnia's Serbs and Croats, coupled with a persecution complex and victim mentality (according to which the Bosnian Muslims were victims of "genocide" not just in the 1992-95 war, but multiple times in the 20th century, ever since the Ottomans were forced out), created fertile soil for widespread discontent. Jobless, frustrated men turned to the mosques, where the foreigners plied them with money and promises, if only they turned to the "true" faith.

From helping the "Bosnians" in their jihad against the Serbs and Croats, to recruiting "Bosnians" for the greater jihad in the West was but a small step. Mirsad Bektasevic, a.k.a. "Maximus," who was convicted earlier this year of a plot to conduct terrorist attacks against foreign embassies in Bosnia. Sulejman Talovic's rampage in Salt Lake City last month was in all likelihood an act of Islamic terrorism. Though Talovic was pitied by the American media as a victim of the Bosnian war (Americans even collected donations to fund Talovic's funeral; he was buried in Bosnia - as a martyr for the faith!), information that has surfaced recently indicates that he was in fact a jihadist, and that his shooting spree was a premeditated attack on "infidels" planned with the help of a "friend" at a nearby mosque. According to the young woman who claims to be Talovic's long-distance girlfriend, he had told her the night before the attack that tomorrow would be the "happiest day of his life."

Many Balkans Muslims, however, resent the heavy-handed attempts by the Wahhabis to impose their view of Islam as the only one allowed. There have actually been physical confrontations between the official Islamic clergy and the Wahhabis, both in Bosnia and in the Raska region of Serbia, which has a significant Muslim population. Last November, three people were injured in a shooting clash between the Wahhabis and traditional Muslims in Novi Pazar. And just last week, four men were arrested in Novi Pazar, when Serbian police raided a nearby Wahhabist camp and found weapons, explosives, and terrorist literature.

Serbia's leading expert on Wahhabi terrorism, Darko Trifunovic, was quoted by the Italian news service AKI on that occasion: "[T]here is no doubt that the main victims of the divisions in the Muslim community will be Muslims themselves."

With the well of coexistence with Serbs and Croats already deeply poisoned, fratricidal violence in Novi Pazar, and young Muslims being recruited for jihad across the world, it appears the bill is already coming due.

All about the Germans?

Simon Tisdall of the Guardian echoes the blustery bloviations of Richard Holbrooke from Tuesday’s Washington Post, seeking to blame Russia for a "possible new war in Europe."

Per Holbrooke, if Albanians don’t get exactly what they want, they will start a war – but it will really be Russia’s fault, and Serbia’s (of course), not theirs. Or, heaven forbid, that of London and Washington, who were behind the 1999 occupation of Kosovo and have supported Albanian separatists since.

In and of itself this British parroting of American imperialist drivel wouldn’t be extraordinary, were it not for some choice words from Martti Ahtisaari, the ICG – er, UN – envoy charged with finding a way to independence – er, a solution (there I go again, evil Serb that I am) for Kosovo…

According to Tisdall, Ahtisaari dismisses several EU members’ concern about the potential fallout from such a toxic precedent as seizing a country’s territory in clear violation of international law, UN, OSCE, NATO and other charters, calling it “mithering” (sic). Tisdall quotes from “a recent interview” Ahtisaari gave in London:

"If the EU cannot do this, it can forget about its role in international affairs. If we can't do this during the German presidency, we should give up and admit we can't do anything." (emphasis added)

Um, what’s the German presidency have to do with anything? Is Germany supposed to be the strongest power in the EU, and therefore if it cannot force a decision on this, its power is largely fictitious? Or is it that Germany is a driving force behind EU involvement in the Balkans? Let's not forget, it was Germany that in 1991 strong-armed its EU fellows into recognizing Croatia and Slovenia - one of the first in a chain of illegal and illegitimate actions outside powers have taken in the region in the past decade and a half. In 1999, Germany was one of the most vocal supporters of (and participants in) NATO's aggression in Kosovo, turning the Luftwaffe, Kriegsmarine and Bundeswehr loose on the world for the first time since 1945. Ahtisaari’s words make it sound as if his frantic attempt to separate Kosovo from Serbia is really all about German-led EU asserting its imperial prerogative and imposing a “solution” to Balkans “savages,” sticking it to Russia in the process.

Maybe it is.

But now we have proof that it's not some "Serb conspiracy theorist with delusions of victimhood" saying it, but a Chairman Emeritus of the ICG Board of Trustees.

The Baby Doth Protest Too Much

Last week, a Brit named Ed Alexander posted on his blog ("Balkan Baby") an account of his 2006 visit to a Mitrovica cafe, owned by an Albanian who impersonated Hitler. Within a couple hours the link had made its rounds, and feedback started coming. Julia Gorin, a conservative commentator who has raised some excellent questions about the Balkans, gave full credit to Alexander for documenting this monstrosity. I mentioned it on Sivi Soko, as part of a story on Nazis and their sympathizers in the Balkans. I also included information from a Slovakian paper, Format, which covered that very same cafe some months before Alexander and his friends paid "Hitler" a visit. All of this stuff was scrupulously credited (though I probably should have explicitly noted that Alexander took the photo of the bill featuring the swastika).

Seems like Alexander is "a bit put out," though. He resents the fact that Serbianna.com and Julia Gorin "were very selective in the way they quoted" him. He describes Serbianna as a "Serbian nationalist website which tries to incite hatred and fear towards Bosnians, Croats, Kosova Albanians and anybody else that they choose to take a swipe at," while Julia is a "perennial right-wing commentator" (what's wrong with that?) he tars by association as "crony" of George Bush, "Islamophobe" and "warmonger." Well, now, who's being unfair here? Who is being racist, bigoted, intolerant or unprincipled?

What did Mr. Alexander expect, that such a bombshell of a story would remain private? He posted it - so obviously he wanted it to become public. He was given credit. So, he "wrote very favourably about the Serbian residents." Pardon me if I don't care, especially since he very graphically sympathizes with the "Republic of Kosova" (sic!) which has done its utmost to eradicate those very Serbs. If he had been quoted out of context, or misrepresented, then I would be sympathetic. But he was not - not by Julia, not by Serbianna, and not by me. Maybe by Kurir - I actually agree a great deal with his assessment of what passes for their investigative journalism - but the photo they used was from the Slovakian paper, and I'd wager the stuff he could not recognize in their coverage came from the same source.

Is anything any of us noted about his story factually untrue? Did we make anything up?

Mr. Alexander has a sizable chip on his shoulder, believing himself to be a member of some vast righteous majority - or, in his terms, "those of us who want the Balkans to progress, to admit its wrongs as to display its wonderful culture in the best possible way," while painting those who disagree with him as "nationalist Serbs, Serbs who had been duped by what they read in Kurir and a handful of American Bushites."

Seems to me like he suffers from myopia, an exaggerated sense of self-importance, and a dangerous set of delusions such as the belief in blooming bombs.

I see it almost every day. Westerners come to the Balkans and fall in love with its authenticity, but then wish to remake it into suburban Des Moines or Birmingham, so they can feel more comfortable. What they can't seem to understand is that it's the very authenticity they seek to destroy that endeared the place to them to begin with - and that both the hospitality and hatred are part of it. They desire "progress" of the same kind that made their own homelands such cultural voids, quagmires of welfare statism and political correctness. They see the world as a series of theme parks. Not their fault, I suppose; it's all they know. But it irks me when they try to forcibly remake my corner of this earth (yes, I live in the U.S. at the moment - that in itself is a long story, and one I intend to address at some point) into their distopian horror. We have enough imported delusions as it is.

Ed Alexander is entitled to his opinions, of course. But methinks he doth protest too much.

Humanitarian bombs, again

I've seen many terrible things since the outbreak of Yugoslav Succession Wars in 1991, whether live or on television screens, in newspapers or online. But this image, accompanying a Seattle Times opinion piece this weekend, filled me with revulsion such as I haven't experienced at least since 2004, and the photos of the March pogrom in Kosovo.

The op-ed itself is fluff. Written by Deborah Senn, in places it seems copied out of ICG's handbook: Serbia's people, she says, "have the intellectual skills, determination and know-how to create a prosperous future, as long as their nation can leave behind the nationalism and ethnic divisions of the past."

Senn gushes over "well-educated and eager young people" who can make a "giant leap" and "[write] a new chapter in its colorful history — this time as a tolerant, pluralistic country"...

Never mind any of this naive, liberal-imperialist bovine excrement. Look at the picture the Seattle Times editors ran next to the article.

LOOK AT IT.

Flowers in blue, white and red - the national colors of Serbia - are blooming from the ground seeded with bombs. This is the message: (American) bombs bring democracy, prosperity, tolerance.

Well, Ms. Insurance Inspector, you can take your bright shining future and shove it. Serbia is not latte-sipping lumpen-studentariat gushing over the newest Western celebrity craze and blaming the "evil old regime" for every ill sent its way by the Empire in the past decade. That Serbia which you envision is never going to exist, save in the demented imaginations of western imperialists and domestic sycophants. If it gets its act together, Serbia will bloom and grow - not out of those "humanitarian" bombs of yours, but despite them. In defiance to them.

And you better hope and pray that some time down the line, when the American Empire is no longer the most powerful military force in the world (which may be sooner than you think), someone else doesn't decide to "humanitarianize" Seattle the way Americans "brought democracy" to Belgrade.

For shame.

A compliment, of sorts

So I'm a little behind the times (which is ironic; it'll be self-explanatory in a second), but I just saw Bruce Sterling's op-ed in last weekend's Washington Post. Most of the piece is talking about the "dot-green" revolution sweeping the globe, as more and more people get on the "global warming" bandwagon, but at one point he mentions this:

Serbia may be the world's single-greatest locale for a professional futurist. Awful things happen there faster than awful things happen anywhere else. The Balkans is a tragic region that denied stark reality, broke its economy, started multiple unnecessary wars, and basically finger-pointed and squabbled its way into a comprehensive train wreck. It suffered all kinds of pig-headed mayhem, all unnecessary.
...
So what's the good part? They never gave up around here. On the contrary: There's a certain vivid liveliness in the way they're scrambling and clawing their way out of yawning abyss. The food is great, the women dress to kill, and sometimes they even laugh and dance.

You don't have to predict the future when you live in it.

See, Sterling now lives in Belgrade. He is married to Jasmina Tešanović (of the "Women in Black," B92 and such crowd), which helps explain the scornful analysis of "unnecessary mayhem," but he is still capable of seeing the essence of the people: the "vivid liveliness" and determination. His wife's colleagues in the "human rights" industry lament and harangue on a daily basis the "primitive backwardness" of Serbia, and desire to drag it into "modernity" at all costs (preferably without Serbs)... but if Sterling is to be believed, Serbia is already living in the future.

It's a compliment, of sorts.

Jacobins in Serbia

Here's a Photoshop parody I received from a friend, via email. It's the cover of a faux-magazine called Les Jacobins, with a tagline "Your source of demagoguery."

That is Čedomir Jovanović, leader of the "Liberal Democrats" on the cover, powdered up like a French revolutionary.

Some of the topics from the front cover:

• "Serbia without Serbs"
• "A thousand questions... one answer."
• "Democracy, that's me!"
• "Global warming caused by... Serbs?"

Whoever did this... I like his sense of humor. The most appropriate response to the neo-Jacobin nonsense of Chedists and their ilk is indeed ridicule.

"Not enough"

My commentary on Monday's ICJ verdict clearing Serbia of genocide charges will be up on Antiwar.com tomorrow; in the meantime, there is a lot of good coverage up on the Byzantine Sacred Art blog.

I did want to share a memory from the war in Sarajevo, concerning some reactions to the verdict coming from Bosnian Muslims. For years, they've been convinced of the righteousness of their cause and their claim before the ICJ. Now that the court has said their "evidence" failed to prove their point, they reject the court itself and once again wallow in the wronged victim mentality.

Well, back in the early 1990s, after Alija Izetbegovic rejected yet another peace plan because it didn't give his regime enough land, a joke appeared in Sarajevo that went something like this:

Mujo and Suljo are sitting down, drinking coffee and smoking in proper silence. At some point, Mujo asks, "Suljo, what do you get when you add one and one?"
Suljo ponders for a moment, sips his coffee, shakes the ashes off the cigarette, and replies,"Two."
Mujo sighs, shakes his head, and says, "Not enough."

"Modern" Morality

Slobodan Antonić writes in Politika (Serbian original here):

... My "favorite" is the argument that says, "This isn't evil; the sooner we realize it's actually appropriate, the better off we will be!" Because, you see, "that's not ours anyway," and "who has ever actually been there," and "only priests and romantics care" and "queues in front of foreign embassies are a much bigger problem" and "they are actually doing us a favor," etc.

But when a NGO elitist says these words, he is really talking about himself. His mouth says "that's not ours anyway," but his eyes are betraying his thoughts: "that's not mine, so I don't care." His mouth says "who has ever actually been there?" but his eyes are going "I have never been there, so why would I care?" His mouth says "only priests and romantics care," his eyes are saying "I hate priests anyway, one church more or less, all the same to me." While his mouth says "queues in front of foreign embassies are a much bigger problem," his eyes are saying "why should I have to wait in those queues because of that damn Kosovo?" He considers it one and the same to "be modern" and "think only of oneself and money," and is now trying to persuade the rest of us that we should also be "modern," so we would feel as good as he does.

The hypocrisy of NGO "modernists," says Antonić, is best tested by the following hypothetical scenario: would they be as willing to give up one of the parking spots reserved for their SUVs, as they are willing to cede Kosovo? Ah, well, that's different, you see...

This is quotable enough, but Antonić offers another great passage in the same article:

Someone once compared the seizure of Kosovo with rape. The rapists are big and strong, the poor girl could get a beating if she resists too much, and maybe it is really better for her to give in. But for crying out loud, how can anyone say on top of that, "Oh be smart! Maybe they are rapists, but they are rich, powerful, you can't risk ruining your future relations with the, so don't dare complain. Think of your future, think of becoming a part of their rich and beautiful society tomorrow. Cry a little, then come back and smile as if nothing happened."

Can it really be like that? As if nothing had happened? Are you serious about the smiling? What if the boys get a desire to have a little bit of fun again? And what could one possibly say about those who jeer at the unfortunate woman, "Come on, sister, don't be conservative, the boys are doing you a favor, you need to be modern, enjoy the sex, and especially when the Big Boss goes on top of you. Then you have to be particularly enthusiastic, groan and sigh and scream - Yes! Yes! More!"

Yes, Big Boss likes to be the ladies' man. But dear Serbia, you don't have to put on an act for him. Cry freely. And most importantly, remember them all, both those who took their turns with you and those who jeered and cheered. Because one day...

Howling Mad

I've been writing columns about the Balkans for almost eight years now, and have always made the utmost effort to document every claim included there. If I recall correctly, my detractors have found only two factual errors in any of my columns. I once wrote that the indictment against Milosevic had been filed by Carla del Ponte (it was Louise Arbour). The other one was when I asserted that modern Croatian arms (chequy gules et argent) were the same as the World War Two arms of the Nazi-allied "Independent State of Croatia" - and an intriguingly well-informed Croat said this was patently false, because the WW2 arms were chequy argent et gules.

Alright, so that second case is more comical than truly illustrative - but the point I was trying to make is that I do my homework. If I am making a claim in any of my articles, I am doing my damnedest to provide some backing to it, preferably a source that can hold up to serious scrutiny, rather than assertions of the "everyone knows" variety. And it is such "history," often quoted in shrill tones by professional [insert ethnicity here] at events and in letters, that annoys me to no end. Worse yet, people spouting such pseudo-historical drivel are deeply convinced of its accuracy and allow that sentiment to pervade their, um, presentation.

Perfectly illustrating the point are letters and responses from Croats following the publication of Julia Gorin's article "When will world confront the undead of Croatia?" in the Baltimore Sun two weeks ago or so. Croats worldwide wrote to the Sun denouncing her piece as "Serbian propaganda" (right, because everything in the world is the fault of Serbs - the sentiment itself proving Julia's point that hatred of Serbs is not a thing of the past). Many wrote to Julia personally, using language so vile I admire her for having the fortitude to preserve the messages and post them online (latest post here, see her blog for more).

Julia Gorin's researched, documented article, could not be challenged factually. Therefore it became the subject of a firestorm of spitting and howling by people who "knew" the "actual truth" and spouted it free of Serbodiabolical constraints of proper English and decency. Even the polite letters were based on premises so ridiculously false, even I had a hard time believing there were folks who actually thought that way. And I'm supposed to be used to all manners of Balkans oddities, having lived there for almost 20 years and written about them since 1999.

Some years ago I would have been tempted to say "Well obviously their problem is ignorance... once they realize their beliefs are false, they would stop hating." Now I know better. Ignorance is the consequence of hatred, not its source. Those Croats who spat on Julia over the Internet, much as those Croats, Muslims, Albanians, or Serbs who have railed at me for years, don't just disagree with the message - they hate the messenger. Just look at the sheer number of hate-mail pointing out Julia is Jewish (thus proving her point even more...).

And it's not just the "uninformed" private citizens doing this. A couple years back, when I published on this blog the results of an ICTY-sponsored inquiry into Bosnian War deaths, a Reuters correspondent tried to discredit the scoop by calling it "reports circulating on Serbian weblogs" and "internet rumours."

Last week I was at the University of Michigan, at a conference about Europe and globalization. One of the panels was dedicated to the future of Kosovo, and it happened to be on the very day Martti Ahtisaari presented his plan to Belgrade and Pristina. I had the dubious pleasure of sitting on the panel with two top Albanian lobbyists in the U.S., who turned the session into their political rally (most of the audience were ethnic Albanians). Nothing I could say to that crowd would have made the slightest difference. All they wanted to know was what the world owed the Albanians for their centuries of suffering under the brutal, fascist, genocidal Serbs, and how dare anyone suggest any of the "history" presented by the lobbyists (or the people from the audience, which was often even more "flavorful") was anything but absolutely accurate?!

And then people wonder why there's hatred and war.