Reply to Nathan on Kosovo analogy

Seth Ackerman sackerman at FAIR.org
Mon Oct 8 16:12:58 PDT 2001


Nathan Newman wrote:


> Actually, a large percentage of the Serbian population in Kosovo was of
> recent origin and some of it was part of policies to integrate Kosovo into
> Yugloslavia. And where a minority oppresses a majority population, that
> is occupation. And whatever you think of Palestinian oppression, the
> Israelis never committed the wholesale mass murder that the Serbs
> committed against the Kosovars.
. What do you mean, "policies to integrate Kosovo into Yugoslavia"? Kosovo is a *part* of Yugoslavia! It was, and it is now. Read UN Security Council Resolution 1244, June 1999.

Some Kosovo Serbs were of recent origin, and some Kosovo Albanians were of recent origin. But both Kosovo Serbs and Kosovo Albanians were communities that had lived together in Kosovo for centuries. Whereas Jewish settlers were implanted into illegally occupied territories after 1967. Do you really recognize no difference between settlers and indiginous ethnic communities?

Are you saying that if Belgian colonialists settle in the Congo, and form a majority in some small section of it, they suddenly become an ethnic group with rights to self-determination in their own Congoan "homeland"? And if their efforts to fight for such a homeland are met with Congoan repression, they have become persecuted victims of apartheid in their own "occupied" homeland? This is just backwards, Nathan.

There is no nationalist solution in Kosovo. The argument in Kosovo is about whether the Albanians are a majority who were persecuted by a Serb minority or whether they instead constitute an Albanian separatist minority within Serbia. The only people who claim to know with certainty what the morally correct position on this is are fanatical nationalists, Serb and Albanian.

The rest of us proceeded on the assumption that there is no right answer, but that both sides should be forced to find a compromise solution to stop the killing. You're putting yourself on the fanatical nationalist side of the fence. Besides which, your position mirrors the Bosnian Serb line: that for Bosnian Serbs to have their areas run by foreign Muslims in Sarajevo is occupation, and they had the right to "liberate" their land from Sarajevo's grip. And if that means ethnic cleansing, that's okay, since the Muslims are oppressors - remember Jasenovac!

Seth



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