nathan wrote:
>This is an interesting article by SALON, with a bit of ammunition for
both
>sides of the bombing debate, but it does make clear that even the
most
>liberal of Serbs have ultimately been apologists for Serbia's
atrocities.--
nathan, max, margaret, others who support the bombing; and to those who are opposed --
let me preface the following remarks: I have no desire to pretend that any ambivalence can or should be avoided here. this is, after all, what 'tarrying with the negative' means, and despite some people paying lip service to that in theoretical discussions, they tend all too often to lapse into a one-sided, and often cynical, polemic which effaces those crucial moments of ambiguity and contradiction. especially in a context such as an email list, the positions being espoused are pretty irrelevant when it comes to influencing the war and its outcome, so any compulsion to drive a debate toward a resolution or to insist that everyone adopt the right position, is at best a pretense at relevance and at worst an exercise in annihilating one's opponents as the means of bounding a 'community' in some other place far distant from the shelling and killings.
this is mostly why I thought it was important to post stuff from serbian leftists instead of engaging in a debate over what is or is not the right stand to take.
but let my try and address what I see as your aims: the massacres and racist purifications of serbia should be stopped. I agree. there is nothing more important than this. and, in forgetting this we would be sliding into a geopolitical mindset which makes of this a mere rhetoric in the service of various, and contradictory, foreign policy aims. and herein lies the problem: either we are serious about the fundamental objective or we are not.
so let me take it seriously. how can this be accomplished? all indications from inside serbia (and the posts from serbian comrades show this clearly) are that the nato bombing has intensified that rather than brought it to a halt. the longer the bombing proceeds, (and to answer your claim above) the longer serbians are subjected to the paranoia that would make it impossible for any opposition to this to survive inside serbia. milosevic is not afraid of the bombings. he knows, as should we, that a more frightened serbian population is more pliable to supporting the revenge against the albanian kosovans (who will be thought responsible for the bombings), and looking to his govt for protection.
the posts from inside serbia show that the shelters are little more than centres for the production of paranoid subjects; that even those who oppose the serbian govt have felt compelled to plug themselves in to what is an increasingly censored media. what would any of us do in a similar situation? i admire the bravery of the woman who has until now refused to go to the shelters. i do not know if i would be so brave in a similar situation.
so: the bombings have not made matters better for either those in kosovo or the serbian left. quite the opposite.
when the bombs stop dropping, will they be replaced by a strategy of humiliation and starvation as is the case in iraq?
will nato send in ground troops, which seem much more likely to have an effect, and will those now defending intervention sign up for this or (better) an international brigade?
and, having said that, a question I would ask of those both for and against the bombing: what other strategies can be offered? I for one have no idea about concrete strategies, and I am never too enamoured of so-called diplomatic solutions which would mostly likely end in partitions, bantustans, and the expansion of already bloated geopolitical orbits marking a continuation of racism and racist hatreds on a new terrain.
in the short term, the aim would be to put a halt to the bombings. that is indisputable, since the bombings have not nor will cease the slaughter.
but in the longer term, those who oppose the bombings on this list will have to ask themselves whether their gaze is as fleeting and detached as that of CNN's cameras.
angela