"Pro-Serb-Nationalism"/"Pro-Milosevic" Baiting and the Death of Yugoslavia

Yoshie Furuhashi furuhashi.1 at osu.edu
Fri Apr 2 12:03:48 PST 1999


Angela wrote:
>I haven't been repeating this 'thesis' and no one has, or could have,
>characterized me as a supporter of Serbian nationalism.

Of course, not, with your musings on 'EU hegemony' and obligatory denunciations of 'all nationalisms.'


>a consistent anti-nationalist position that is
>simultaneously against those imperial projects: demand that NATO
>countries open their borders to the refugees, alongside the demand
>that the bombing be halted.

OK to demand it (knowing that it is impossible under capitalism), but an open border demand can be also 'transmuted' into a nationalist/chauvinist one: e.g. "Let us set an example as a civilized multicultural nation." There is no 'consistent anti-nationalist position' as long as nation states in fact exist, defining the rights and obligations of citizens, mostly monopolizing the power of violence & taxation, etc.


>but I suspect you are reaching for the accusation of red-baiting not
>in order to denounce any that has actually taken place but rather in
>order to re-position you arguments as the only red ones available.
>they are not the only ones.

No. What I am objecting to is not red-baiting, but "pro-Serb-Nationalist"/"pro-Milosevic" baiting, to which I think red-baiting has provided a rhetorical structure but is not identical.

Yoshie



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