A reply to Solidarity/ATC on Nato's war

Louis Proyect lnp3 at panix.com
Sat May 22 12:00:17 PDT 1999



>where did you get the information that walker
>pressured the committee to blame Belgrade?

from Lexis-Nexis


>what's this, a claim that 'they started it'? and, what is "Albanians were
>the first nationality"? you are perilously close to my accusing you of
>racism, Louis. why did you find it so easy to designate a 'nationality' here
>as the player? the article you appended was not in effect proof of this
>slander of yours

Okay, try this for size:

"Before long the instigators of the complaints were joined by hundreds of other youths, who then spilled on to the streets immediately surrounding the university There they were met by a hasti1y formed cordon of security police who were able to disperse the crowds. But this was only a temporary pause, because even more students came back onto the streets of Pristina on 26 March. This time, Serb and Montenegrin citizens were beaten, their homes and businesses burned, and their shops looted. Kosovo's Serb Population were now seriously alarmed. During the night of 15 March 1981, a mysterious fire destroyed much of the old guesthouse wing of the Pec Patriarchate, including the monk's living quarters, together with a quantity of books..."

(Miranda Vickers, "Between Serb and Albanian")


>three points here: a) since when would any marxist claim that high
>expectations are a problem? why shouldn't they have struggled against
>reductions in the conditions of life?

Struggled against the reductions in the conditions of life? Kosovo received proportionately more investment and social spending than any Yugoslav republic when the nationalist movement took root. They simply wanted to separate from people who did not look like them, speak the same language and follow the same religion. Just like during WWII, when Mussolini backed them.


>oh please. a few months ago you would hear nothing of criticisms of
>'traditional ways of life' (ie., patriarchal ways of life) if you had rather
>arbitrarily decided they were anti-capitalist. I recall having countless
>arguments with you over this.

My argument actually was with the Social Darwinist influence in Marxism. When I wrote about the Miskitus, I tried to show how Sandinista dogmatic ideas drawn from Engels harmed the revolution. This does not translate into support for the Miskitu revolt. I organized protests against the contra armies, including the Miskitu guerrilla component, in the 1980s.

Louis Proyect (http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list