Jim Heartfield wrote:
>You are surprised, because your own thinking is one-sided and dogmatic
>and presume that everyone else thinks the same way. But my argument
>against Western intervention does not need to whitewash the repressive
>measures undertaken by the Milosevich regime. I only have to tell the
>truth, that the greatest reactionary influence in the region is Western
>intervention. So all of Chris' Petrocelli-like questions 'do you deny?'
>etc etc are pretty redundant. A great deal of the war atrocity stories
>have already show to be fictitious, but even if they were true, the
>dynamic of political and economic development in the Balkans is entirely
>contingent upon what happens in the West - a fact of life since the
>dismantling of the Soviet bloc.
Well I am not sure how much more clearly we can draw the lines of demarcation. Jim H continues to play down the scale of the atrocities. These are not just the atrocities associated with any war. There is an issue of quantity turning into quality here. This is massive ethnic cleansing by means of terror. 200,000 Bosnian muslims were killed. It is entirely reasonable to think that the number of Kosovo Albanians killed has already reached half that number.
Jim H arbitrarily asserts that external causes, the western imperialists, are the main cause. It is a fact in various countries of the former socialist bloc where countries split up they looked to a mixture of nationalism, communalism and socialism to restabilise. And in the course of this came to new conflicts between themselves. The case of the Chechens is very similar. Does Jim H deny that, whether it is a Petrocelli question (whatever a Petrocelli question is)? Chechnya was part of the Russian Federation and therefore was regarded by the Russians as not having a right to secede, whereas the Ukraine, Belarus, etc did. There was muslim influence among the separatists and a war of great destruction in which Russia attempted to crush the Chechens.
Jim H's analysis of putting the main cause on external factors - imperialism - is in fact a whitewashing of the Serbian regime, which very few on this list support. Jim H's also protests that he too does not support it.
>>In the short term confronting fascism makes it more difficult for liberals
>>in that country, true. How does one confront fascism successfully? By
>>appeasing it?
>
>I'm sorry, but like most people here, I don't see how this relates to
>the events in the Balkans, since there is no fascist power at work
>there.
Jim H dissolves away the fascist nature of the reactionary Serbian state by semantic definition of fascism that is too narrow to allow it to be applied to the genocide that has happened in Bosnia and in Kosovo.
>I see that you want to relive the patriotic events of the Second
>World War, but even there you are mistaken, since your question 'should
>it be appeased' assumes that you are in charge of what Western
>imperialism wants to do. You are not. You are only cheering from the
>sidelines, and forcing the events of 1999 into the template of the
>'people's war' of 1939.
Here Jim H signally fails to address the question of the importance of an anti-fascist united front, and tries to win an argument by mockery. It was necessary in 1939 to try to urge our imperialist masters to be prepared to go to war, with Soviet Russia, in defence of reactionary Poland against Germany if Germany attacked her.
The class against class line, that is implicit in Jim H's analysis, was fatally flawed as an application of marxism in this century. Let him argue that it is adequate and appropriate.
The road to socialism runs through democracy.
>
>>Do you deny the accuracy of comments that the Serbs told the Albanians in
>>Kosovo that they were looking forward to the NATO attacks so that they
>>could sort the Albanians out? Do you deny that the speed of departure of
>>the deportees suggests a prior plan and not just that the occupying forces
>>had edgy nerves?
>>
>
>Yes. This sounds like grade 'a' bullshit propaganda to me. It is child's
>play to retrospectively discover a 'plan' that indicates that your
>victims are really planning to attack you, so disguising the fact that
>you attacked them. This 'plan' is about as plausible as the 'Protocols
>of the Elders of Zion'. I am surprised that you are so naive as to
>swallow such twaddle. You probably believed the story about the IRaqis
>throwing Kuwaiti babies out of incubators, too.
OK. Jim H argues it is implausible that the Serbian nationalists had a plan to clear Kosovo of Albanians. He stakes his intellectual credibility on it. Well and good. Let him judge and be judged.
What were the Serb nationalists to do, but clear Kosovo of Albanians? They faced mounting provocations by the KLA. They were determined to hold on to Kosovo despite the overwhelming majority of Albanians. They therefore had to be prepared to pursue a ruthless war against the KLA even at the expense of civilians getting hurt. Indeed as all young Albanian men could potentially be members of the KLA they had either to be got out of the country or killed.
If you go to the Yugoslav government website and look up Kosovo and Metohija, you will find a map of historical relics in Kosovo. It consists *entirely* of Christian Serb sites of churches or other religious buildings!
We Londoners are used to a concept of human rights that an individual of any ethnicity has human rights in a country if accepted as a citizen. The meaning of that map however, is that the Albanians have no rights by history to be in Kosovo, and they should be preferably be cleared out. This is similar to how the region of Serbia south of Nis just to the east of Kosovo was cleared of its large muslim Albanian majority in the wars of the 1870's and the territorial changes of 1878.
That is the politics of nationalism at the time of the rising bourgeoisie: the establishment of a nation state and a national market on the basis of a single culture and language. Transposed to the late 20th century when the development of capitalism has transcended the size of possible nation states, it is reactionary. It is no answer to the problems of stabilising the economy after the fall of the socialist bloc.
But just how reactionary needs to be clarified. In one sense the Serbs are turning the clock back to 1912 when they won Kosovo in war. (Fairly recent)
In another sense they really are using stories taken from 1389 for the political economic mission today. And this is specifically associated with Milosevic who has spoken from Kosovo Field, the battle ground. The mission of Serb social fascism is to avenge the defeat of 1389 whereby this medieval Serb area with all its historic Christian religious sites became populated with muslim Albanians. Seriously!
Go to their internet site and see the evidence of how they emphasise such a selective view of history. Go to the site where they discuss in great detail all sorts of ways that the figure for the preponderance of Albanians in Kosovo is inflated, including comparisons of their birth rates.
Yet Jim H is confident that it is twaddle that the Serb nationalists could have had a preconceived plan to empty Kosovo of Albanians.
I hope Doug is developing archives for this list.
>Well, I am surprised. You see I thought that you wanted to see an
>international force in Kosovo.
No I do not particularly want an international force in Kosovo! I did not want an international force in Chechnya, though I have the same sympathies for the people there. I think fascism must be confronted and not appeased, but by proportionate measures. Without oppressing other nations. Clearly NATO has declared war on Serbia but it is not clear that it is oppressing the Serbs, except in so far as it is at war.
I think that the imperialist nature and approach of NATO has indeed in some ways made things worse, and implied to the Kosovans that they could rely on it prior to the war. At least no promise was made to the Chechens, and they could decide how and when they were ready to fight with all the serious risks that involved.
>would have been interested in what the model of international rule was.
>I see now that you are wholly uninterested in what kind of solution is
>imposed upon the Balkan people, as long as your blood-lust against
>Milosevic is sated (how many civilian lives would that take, we wonder).
What is this about blood lust? I have said I want him tried for war crimes, like I want Pinochet tried for crimes against humanity.
Jim H's terminology comes from the fascist nationalism of the Serbs and the Croats. I do not want to see Milosevic executed. I do not want to see him publically raped by the Albanian victims of rape. It would be a fitting punishement that he is sentenced to several years community service, perhaps restoring mosques in Kosovo. But that must only come after an international trial in which he is convicted of war crimes. That is the punishment I personally have in mind.
Of course Jim H may protest that Clinton and Blair should go on trial for war crimes but there is no likelihood of that ever being politically possible. There is most definitely a possibility that Milosevic will go on trial for war crimes. As Jim H knows, the world is sometimes unfair.
(And no I am not in favour of passenger trains being bombed or babies bayonetted!)
I think as the limitations of NATO's power are becoming more apparent it is even clearer that it is progressive to arm the KLA. I do not see why collections should not be raised for them.
>Chris then quotes my extensive description of the dictatorial powers of
>the UN High Representative, the absolute liberty enjoyed by Nato troops
>in Bosnia, and the complete control of the Bosnian central bank by the
>IMF.
And what of the "absolute liberty" of Serbian nationalist and fascist forces in Kosovo? Jim H is distracting attention from that. And from the 200,000 muslims killed in Bosnia.
>>TO which Chris replies, bizarrely,
>>I am not impressed by Jim H's adulation of bourgeois forms of democracy.
>
>But Chris, I did not describe the imposition of bourgeois democracy in
>the Balkans to praise it, but to show that it was entirely hostile to
>the right of those very people that it claimed to be defending.
Bourgeois democacy cannot do more than at best (ie far from always) support bourgeois democratic rights. I find it hard to understand what sort of political position Jim H is coming from which sounds increasingly cynical to me. The lessons have been hard learned that we cannot overlook bourgeois democratic rights. But of course a bourgeois government will uphold the interests of capital, and if necessary use dictatorial methods to do it.
>
>>As
>>we all know from our direct experience, quite apart from theory, the degree
>>to which any constitution gives democracy is very limited in the sense of
>>power for individuals to change their lives.
>
>So what you're saying is that it doesn't matter that the constitution of
>Bosnia says that it is illegal for any citizen of Bosnia to head the
>central bank?
Of course I am not saying that. Are you arguing that there could have been a new socialist revolution in Bosnia? If not where does your left rhetoric leave you?
>You think it is ok that candidates in elections can be
>arbitrarily disqualified by the occupying military power.
Of course I do not think it is "OK" any more than I accept an epithet that I am hard bastard. But at least you realise I am not just a soft liberal. Fascism must be confonted in the language it understand. And the apologists and appeasers of fascism must be confronted.
Nor do I like people who are revolutionary in words and in practice cynical.
>Yes, clearly for the dictatorship of Western Capital to hold sway over
>the Bosnians, their rights must be continually abused and they
>themselves denounced as genocidal.
This is opportunistically evasive. Jim H knows I was not accusing all the Bosnians of being genocidal. (Nor have I accused all Serbs of being genocidal!) But what is Jim H's overall analysis of the balance of forces? Is he arguing that the Balkans have any chance of resisting the dictatorship of Western Capital in the short term? Why, Russia itself has not been able to resist the dictatorship of western capital.
That is why the present period must be one of retrenchment and defence of democratic rights, extending them to economic rights. In the course of this, any form of racism or oppression of one nation by another is damaging to the prospects of winning the unity of working people on a new basis.
>>They also give class dominance to finance capital, as in many western
>>states. But if he thought that Bosnia should have been a socialist state,
>
>So, this is you then Chris, fighting to re-establish the domination of
>finance capital.
This has degenerated into silly polemics. I am on record more than once that I am in favour of us moving internationally as fast as possible to restrict finance capital and landed capital. That is not because I am particularly in favour of industrial capital but if we are preparing to win some real shifts in the global balance of economic power we cannot take on all the capitalist classes equally at the same time, just because it would seem pure to do so.
>Of course it is a lot easier to argue against an imaginary opponent who
>says just what you think he should say than a real one. I certainly do
>not support Serb nationalism. As you noted it was me who posted the
>historical background of Serb chauvinism against the Albanians of
>Kosovar. My position is crystal clear and in no need of caricature: the
>main threat to peace in the Balkans is the West.
So you do not support Serb nationalism, but you deny it is fascism, and you oppose any action to oppose its aggression. That sounds like appeasement. Or is it that you think any demand on the imperialist state is not only reformist but morally wrong?
I also think the European Union should use its state power to impose penalties on Turkey for its treatment of the Kurds. I am not in favour of NATO going in there by force, but I am certainly against appeasing the fascist Turkish regime, and I would have thought a great majority of the list were too. But it does actually involve making demands of our capitalist states rather than wallowing in revolutionary cynicism.
>(Incidentally, just so we know what's being said here, do you really
>think that the Kosovars are Albanian nationalists? Does that mean that
>they want to be a part of the Albanian nation, a demand that, so far, we
>have not heard.)
Yes of course I think many Albanians are nationalists. And there is a danger they will act in a chauvinistic way towards minorities within any state they run. Arming them should IMO be dependent on their political programme for government in Kosovo respecting all democratic rights.
None of this should be interpreted as being pro-imperialism. Indeed only by uniting with what people feel about events like Kosovo can be get to a position where we influence what happens away from an imperialist direction thereby winning more support for a progressive cause. That is the only way to undermine the influence of imperialism.
For a just peace in the Balkans!
Chris Burford
London