Buchanan and the Balkans

Yoshie Furuhashi furuhashi.1 at osu.edu
Wed Mar 3 15:26:32 PST 1999


Doug wrote:
>I've noticed a great correlation between people's positions on the former
>Yugoslavia and their Cold War affinities, with people in & around the CP
>showing great sympathy towards Serbia and against US/NATO intervention, and
>social democrats/Third Campists showing great sympathy towards Bosnia and
>antipathy towards Serbia and US/NATO intervention.

This division seems to apply to our local lefties in Columbus, too. However, one of the most vocal and long-standing activists on the anti-intervention side here is not a CPer and subscribes to _The Workers Vanguard_ (though not a Spart--he doesn't belong to any party). Another is a Presbyterian.


>The pro-Serbian left

Well, I don't like to ethnicize an anti-intervention position. Our opponents have been doing it to discredit us. When we have debates, teach-ins, etc. on the Balkans, white activists are often asked, "are you Serb-American? Do you have relatives in Serbia?" Columbus is lucky to have me, for I in no way look like I got one in Serbia.


>always cites the Nazi sympathies of the Croatians during WW II.

Well, Tito was a Croat and Partisan, so the situation is not that simple, but the re-emergence of Ustashe is real.


>I was wondering if Pat B. harbored some secret affinity for the Croatian
>Nazi-symps.

I suppose Pat B. must have all kinds of affinity with all sorts of racists, but taking an anti-interventionist America-First position in 1995 wouldn't have helped Ustashe, for the target of the intervention was not them.

Yoshie



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