THE BIRTH OF A GANGSTER STATE
There is a first class discussion of the problematic nature of Kosovan independence published over at the Splintered Sunrise blog, which argues: “There is a strong case in the abstract for Kosovo Albanians having the right to self-determination. In the here and now, I’m opposed to independence for Kosovo because the place is run by a bunch of mafiosi, its economy is based on the trafficking of drugs, arms and women, and giving this basket case the attributes of statehood will make a bad situation worse.”
As I have argued before the break up of Jugoslavia has been orchestrated by the Great Powers, serving their own grubby agenda.
Strangely the British leftists who swallowed exagerated NATO propaganda in support of an independent Kosovo are rather silent about the brutal reality Of Kosovo today. Not only is the province now a wild west haven of gangster capitalism, domiated by prostitution and drug trafficking, but as I have written before, NATO ruled Kosovo has also seen a systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing.
In March 2004, up to 50000 ethnic Albanian rioters launched a pogrom against their Serb and Roma (Gypsy) neighbours. The pogrom followed delibertely inflammatory and untruthful broadcasts that the tragic drowning of three Albanian boys at the village of Cabra was due to them being driven into a river by a mob of Serbs. An account that the well respected agency Human Rights Watch concluded was completely untrue.The account of the following pogrom in 2004 by Human Rights Watch is truly shocking. As they report “Once the violence began, it swept throughout Kosovo with almost clinical precision: after two days of rioting, every single Serb, Roma, or Askaeli home had been burned in most of the communities affected by the violence, but neighboring ethnic Albanian homes were left untouched.”
NATO troops took 6 hours to respond to calls for help by Serbs in Pristina, despite elderly defenceless and disabled people being attacked in their homes by the mob of Albanian extremists.It is important to note that according to HRW the ethnic cleansing of minorities by the NATO backed KLA/UCK started immediately after the Serbs withdrew: “Before the 1999 war, some 350 Ashkali families lived in Vucitrn, many of them engaged in the butcher trade. After the war, many of the Ashkali were attacked by ethnic Albanians. At least five Ashkalis from the town were abducted and “disappeared” and more than a hundred Ashkali homes burned. Almost the entire Ashkali community of Vucitrn fled, with only ten to fifteen families deciding to stay.”In 2004 the Albanian supremacists came to finish the job, watched and not hindered by NATO troops: “the Ashkali recalled the terror they felt when their homes were set on fire with their families inside and no-one came to help them. Nejib Cizmolli, a thirty-seven-year-old Ashkali [man], recalled being trapped on the second floor of his burning home with eleven people, including children aged three, eight, fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen”
It amazes me that some on the left support this Albanian fascism, due to an utterely mechanical understanding of the politics of nationality.
just because kosovo is run by corrupt mafia ex-kla albanian nationalists doesn’t mean that the people themselves should be denied their national rights, including their right to seperation which they evidently support.
all bourgeois-nationalists are corrupt vermin and enemies of the working class. this doesn’t therefore mean that socialists don’t support national rights and self determination.
does any socialist really support forcing the kosovars to remain part of serbia against their will?
building inependent workers’ organisations that fight for socialism and workers’ unity is the first step in the struggle for a socialist federation of the balkans.
would it be better if the balkans weren’t devided up into tiny states? yes of course it would. unfortunately we can only take the real existing starting point
Comment by ks — 18 February, 2008 @ 6:03 pm
Andy, yes, strange how much of the Left supports *NATO* as soon as the magic incantation of “self determination” is employed.
Enver Hoxha must be well-pleased.
Comment by BatterseaPowerStation — 18 February, 2008 @ 6:23 pm
A great day, only made greater by pro-Miolsevic apologists for ethnic cleansing scum like you whinging.
See:
http://www.gentheoryrubbish.com/archives/images/Kosova%2Bflag.jpg
http://drinksoakedtrotsforwar.com/2008/02/17/congratulations-kosova/
Comment by Simon B — 18 February, 2008 @ 6:23 pm
#1 is right about the people of Kosovo who suffered under Milosovic and clearly they are not being forced to stay in Serbia. However, the reality is that Yugoslavia was carved up by the west, specfically to serve Germany as it’s hinterland. When the war was conducted against Serbia in 1999, the British left didn’t take the view that it was a rotten government, but leave the people of Serbia alone. (I have to credit SWP here as they were fully opposed to the war and acted in committeees against NATO intervention).
The result was Kosovo became a NATO protectorate and for all intents and purposes it still is. Front page of the Independent today hails the arrval of the new republic. If they are as critical of the likely repression of Serbian people in the new Kosovo, as they have of the US invasion of Iraq, I’d be surprised. I certainly don’t think there’ll be a mention in The Times.
What is important for Socialists to understand is that Tito, did constitute a state structure that incorporated the rights of all the disparate ethnic groups. The constition of all provinces made this clear. So, for example, Croatia was a republic for Croats and Serbs. When the Western backed Tudjeman became leader of Croatia one of his first acts was to remove the words ‘and Serbs’. Milosovic didn’t exactly help, of course, by equally undoing the multi-ethnic framework that Tito created.
Don’t get me wrong - I’m not a Titoist, but compared to what followed, it should be obvious that Yugoslavia would be on the skids internally, let alone the helping hand it was receiving from outside.
I won’t be rejoicing in that Kosovo is no longer part of Serbia, any more than I would for the NATO establishing bases in any other parts of former workers’ states.
Comment by howardt — 18 February, 2008 @ 6:39 pm
What does #3 have to say about pro-NATO ethnic cleansing, I wonder?
Comment by howardt — 18 February, 2008 @ 6:41 pm
Intersting response from Simon B #3.
Firstly let us look at the facts about the “ethnic cleansing” in Serbian ruled Kosavo: There is an excellent demolition of this NATO spin, in Herman and Peterson’s article in ZNET. They argue: “The word genocide was applied to Serb operations in Kosovo even before the NATO bombing, although the number killed in the prior 15 months was perhaps 2,000 on all sides and despite the fact that there was no evidence of an intent to exterminate or expel all Albanians. The Kosovo conflict was a civil war with defining ethnic overtones and brutal but not unfamiliar repression (less ferocious than that carried out by the Croatian army against the Krajina Serbs in August 1995, in which some 2,500 civilians were slaughtered in the course of a few days). Even for the period of the bombing the term genocide is ludicrously inapplicable. The Serb reaction to bombing, while frequently savage, was based on their correct understanding that the KLA was linked to NATO and that NATO was giving it air support (Tom Walker and Aidan Laverty, “CIA Aided Kosovo Guerrilla Army,” Sunday Times [London], March 13, 2000). Their brutalities and expulsions were concentrated in KLA stronghold areas, and those expelled were sent not to death camps but to safe havens outside Kosovo. The intensive postwar search for killings and mass graves has produced under 3,000 dead bodies from all causes—killings of the same order of magnitude as the 1995 Krajina massacres of Serbs, carried out with U.S. support.”
A good summary of the arguments is in John Pilger’s article, originally from the New Statesman: “the International War Crimes Tribunal, a body effectively set up by Nato, announced that the final count of bodies found in Kosovo’s “mass graves” was 2,788. This included combatants on both sides and Serbs and Roma murdered by the Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army.”
Interestingly the very real ethnic cleansing that has been carried out by the KLA/UTC is ignored in the narrative of pro-imperialists like Simon B.
Comment by Andy Newman — 18 February, 2008 @ 6:45 pm
Herman is a Srebrenica genocide denier Andy.
http://srebrenica-genocide.blogspot.com/2006/01/facts-8106-killed-in-srebrenica.html
Comment by John O'M — 18 February, 2008 @ 6:58 pm
Yeah thanks for reminding me John, in that light i wouldn’t stand by Herman as a reliable source. We had this debate thrashed out before over srebrinica: see the comments on this thread:; http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=1200.
But even if we take a less controversial source than Herman, and one that is fairly consistently pro-American, Human Rights Watch,
HRW also point out that: “Many observers mark the date of the NATO air war as the beginning of the Serbian and Yugoslav campaign. “
So the displacement of Albanian Kosovans did not start until AFTER the war started, yet the propaganda was that the war was justified by ethnic cleansing that hadn’t even happened when the war started!
The main point here is that for 50 years there was a multi-ethnic society at relative peace, and then during the course of an ethnic insurgency by the UTC/KLA that society was turned upside down. And since NATO took over Kosavo, the scale of ethnic cleansing, and denial of minority rights has intensified.
Comment by Andy Newman — 18 February, 2008 @ 7:18 pm
You sound like Douglas Hurd 1991-95
Comment by John O'M — 18 February, 2008 @ 7:24 pm
The key point here is that the racialisation of Kosovan politics, and the violence were initiated by the KLA/UTC, and that violence and the deepening of racial politics has continued apace under NATO administration.
If the Serbs had wanted to create an ethnically pure Slavic state, then it is inexplicable why they have no tensions with the sizeable Magyar minority in Vojvidona.
Comment by Andy Newman — 18 February, 2008 @ 7:35 pm
Simon B may be a pro-imperialist, but it is pointless to dismiss Kosovar-Albanian national rights in the manner implied by this posting. If Kosova is a gangster state, then many others in the region can also be so called. In a sense, all the former ‘communist’ states in the region, and Russia too, are run by gangsters of one sort or another. The region is so mixed that, without a federal solution than incorporates wide-ranging autonomies for all peoples, the only way that national states can be forged is through ethnic cleansing.
The flip-side of that is national oppression, pure and simple, the forcible subordination of one people to another. All that does, of course, is delay the day of reckoning when ethnic cleansing comes back on the agenda if a progressive resolution is not found. In this regard, opposing Kosovar self-determination does not remotely help solve anything.
Beyond demanding that the imperialists get the hell out of Eastern Europe, there is precious little that Marxists can do in this situation except call for democracy and federalism on an all-Balkan basis and try to make links with people amenable to such possibilities, or prepared to involve themselves in struggles that pose class questions and hope to find ways to undercut divisions between nationalities.
I seriously worry about anti-Albanian rhetoric such as that posited in this posting; Albanians are Europe’s only fully fledged nation of the Muslim faith and some characterisations of Albanians as inherently backward and prone to organised prostitution etc sound very unpleasant to my ears. Romania, a member of the European Union, is no better in this regard. Even in Russia the ruling klepocracy is often involved in similar activities, and indeed wild-west capitalism is so rampant in Russia that different groups of oligarchs (or lumpen bourgeoisie) regularly slaughter each other in turf wars. The state is seeking to supress this, but is taking on a very authoritarian character.
It is also worth remembering the close political relationship that existed between Milosevic’s Serbia and Zionist Israel in the 1990s, based on a shared antipathy to Muslim peoples who they subjugated or sought to subjugate. This was no accident. It was by appealing to this kind of sentiment that Serbia tried to deflect the hostility of the West to its regional influence in the 1990s. It failed, because unlike Israel there was not the faintest chance of a Serb nationalist state becoming a regional ally or guard dog over strategic assets in that part of the world. But don’t kid yourself that present-day Serbian nationalism is in any way ‘progressive’ either - its attitude towards Albanian national rights are similar to that of the Israel ruling elite towards Palestinian rights - they don’t actually believe in that idea.
Comment by Ian Donovan — 18 February, 2008 @ 7:37 pm
“If the Serbs had wanted to create an ethnically pure Slavic state, then it is inexplicable why they have no tensions with the sizeable Magyar minority in Vojvidona.”
Land and control Andy.
Minority and Majority.
Important words,and I know you’re not stupid so don’t deliberately introduce red herrings.
Now you sound like Malcolm Rikfkind.
Comment by John O'M — 18 February, 2008 @ 7:47 pm
“If the Serbs had wanted to create an ethnically pure Slavic state, then it is inexplicable why they have no tensions with the sizeable Magyar minority in Vojvidona.”
If they had peaceable relations with a Magyar *majority* in Vojvodina, then Andy may have a point. But minorities are not in a position to demand anything other than minority rights and consideration. In Kosova, there was an clear and massive ethnic Albanian *majority*, which could not be fobbed off in the same way.
Tito stopped short of giving Kosova the full republican status it deserved. Why? One possible clue is in the name of Yugoslavia itself - “the state of the Southern Slavs”. There was an aspiration among some Titoists to create a Yugloslav nation based on a largely common language - except for the slightly aberrant Slavic linguistic fragment that is Slovenian - but even that could concievably be incorporated. The near-majority of Muslim Slavs in Bosnia-Herzegovina could be accomodated to a proto-Yugoslav form of nationalism, but a majority Albanian republic could not.
This pan-Yugoslav aspect of Titoism is the key weakness that led to the break up. It is no accident that it was the Kosova question that in 1989 acted as the trigger for the break up of Yugoslavia. Tito’s federation was not a genuine Balkan federation - Stalin and his henchmen stopped a federal Balkan state being formed after the war. Tito’s state was massively reformed, but it fitted the national template of the pre-war Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, and this was proven utterly inadequate when the Stalinist regimes lost their coherence.
Comment by Ian Donovan — 18 February, 2008 @ 7:52 pm
I haven’t written about Yugoslavia in a few years but I would recommend that people who want an alternative to the cruise-missile narrative check out my articles at:
http://www.columbia.edu/%7Elnp3/mydocs/fascism_and_war.htm
Just look for anything with Kosovo, Yugoslavia, etc. in the title.
Comment by Louis Proyect — 18 February, 2008 @ 7:57 pm
This piece on Kosovo, written by me, appeared in today’s Morning Star.
KOSOVO has finally declared independence from Serbia. Mainstream TV news bulletins broadcast scenes of euphoria and celebration on the streets of Kosovo.
Very different images were transmitted from Serbia - scenes of riot police formed up in numbers in front of the US embassy in Belgrade to protect it from protesters hurling missiles and chanting Serb nationalist slogans.
Recognition of Kosovo’s independence is expected to be announced by Germany, Britain and the US, while Russia and Serbia have already condemned it.
Inevitably, those well-worn words, “freedom and democracy,” have once again been brushed down and rolled out by commentators to describe Kosovo’s declaration of sovereignty.
In truth, Kosovan independence merely represents the final stage in the break-up of the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the last socialist country in Europe, in a process which began after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
The six Balkan republics of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia were brought together after the second world war in 1945 to form the socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia under the leadership of Josip Broz Tito, a Croat who led the communist partisans against the nazi occupation of the Balkans and the old monarchist kingdom of Yugoslavia.
Between 1960 and 1980, Yugoslavia enjoyed a period of sustained economic growth that funded its commitment to social and economic justice. Free health care and education was provided as a right for all of its citizens regardless of ethnicity, as was the right to work, a living wage, affordable housing and utilities, and 60 per cent of all industry was state owned and run.
As a founding member of the Non-Aligned Movement, which was made up of nations that refused to be subsumed into either the Soviet or Western blocs during the cold war, Yugoslavia had influence and prestige on the international stage.
Tito was an astute and a respected leader committed to the principle of self determination and to the forging of alliances with the world’s developing nations for mutual advancement.
Yet, despite Tito’s refusal to be subsumed into the Soviet bloc, Yugoslavia remained safe from capitalist penetration while the Soviet Union existed as a countervailing force to US-led imperialism.
As soon as the Soviet Union collapsed, however, this protective cloak was removed and the die was cast.
Fuelling the impressive economic growth enjoyed by Yugoslavia during the ’60s and ’70s was its decision to borrow heavily from the West in order to invest in industry and the production of both export and consumer goods.
This proved a disastrous course, as it rendered Yugoslavia’s economy vulnerable to the fluctuations of global markets. As a result of the world recession of the 1970s, export markets contracted with the result that Yugoslavia’s export production dried up along with its ability to service its debts.
As a result of this debt crisis, the IMF demanded a restructuring of Yugoslavia’s economy to prioritise debt repayment. Stuck between the hammer of indebtedness and the anvil of continued borrowing in order to subsidise its commitment to the provision of education, health care, housing and social security for its citizens, by the late 1980s, the Yugoslav economy was in free fall.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, central banks moved in at the behest of policy-makers in Washington, London and Bonn. Determined to break up the last socialist country in Europe, they threatened to institute an economic blockade unless the Yugoslav government agreed to hold separate elections in each of its six republics.
This threat was enshrined in law in 1991, with the passing of the US Foreign Operations Appropriations law 101-513. A section of this law relating specifically to Yugoslavia committed to cut off all loans, aid and credits within six months unless these elections were held.
Given the extent of US control over the IMF and the World Bank, this legislation was a de facto death sentence for the Yugoslav federal republic.
Its most devastating provision stipulated that only the forces within Yugoslavia deemed democratic by Washington would now receive funding.
Various right-wing factions in each of the six republics benefited directly from this provision and became the recipients of US largesse. It was a measure designed to bring to the fore and exacerbate differences along ethnic lines throughout the six republics that made up Yugoslavia and, in a climate of economic hardship, it was a measure which proved eminently successful.
Germany recognised the secession of Croatia in 1991. Civil war ensued. It lasted for the next eight years until a three-month NATO campaign of air strikes against the recalcitrant Serbs, who’d refused from the outset to toe the line and acquiesce in the break-up of the federal republic, brought it to an end.
Led by the intransigent Slobodan Milosevic, the Serbian people were demonised for their refusal to bend the knee, with accusations of genocide and nazi-like atrocities being levelled against their military forces and against their government. After the war ended, Milosevic was arrested and charged with war crimes and genocide.
Of course, as in any war, and certainly in fratricidal civil wars, atrocities are committed by all sides involved. But the Serb people found themselves on the losing side and so on the sharp end of victors’ justice.
During Milosevic’s trial in The Hague, allegations of genocide were not proven. This was despite the scouring of the countryside, towns and villages, throughout the region for evidence in the form of mass graves and witnesses willing and able to corroborate such allegations.
In fact, before his premature death, which remains shrouded in mystery, Milosevic had managed to turn proceedings in the International Criminal Court into a trial of his accusers, successfully exposing their role and culpability in the break-up of his country.
As for the former Yugoslavia, with its collapse came the inevitable shock therapy in the form of the privatisation of all public services, utilities and state-run industries and, like a pack of rabid and hungry dogs around a carcass, the arrival of global corporations.
As night follows day, this resulted in severe economic hardship and the scourge of unemployment, which led directly to the dislocation of communities, mass migration to the West and, on the back of all this, the rise of criminal gangs involved in people trafficking, the sex and drugs trades and other illegalities.
Kosovo’s declaration of independence completes the process of breaking up a nation founded as a vision of brotherhood, peace and unity in a region of the world traditionally beset by war and strife.
Along with the collapse of the Soviet Union before it, the break-up of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia will go down as a dark chapter in human history and a setback in the ongoing struggle for human progress.
End.
Comment by John W — 18 February, 2008 @ 8:05 pm
On this issue Ian Donovan is closer to reality and socialist principle than Andy and the others who chant about the “Kosovars are Mafia”. For decades the Kosovar majority faced discrimination and repression from Belgrade. Under Milosevic this evolved into the threat of mass ethnic cleansing. Just consider this extract from a 1995 speech by the neo-fascist deputy prime minister, Voislav Seselj in Milosevic’s government. No one wonder the Kosovars wanted out as fast as they could
“The colonization of Kosova and Metohija should be carried out quickly and conclusively. Through political propaganda, colonists could be portrayed as Serbs populating Serb land and it is all the same which part of the country they live in as long as they live in their own land. These Serbs should also be supplied with equipment and long-term loans so they can cultivate the land they are granted which would make them stay there. Most of the Croats from Janjeva and Letnica [two Kosova regions where some Croats lived and still do], guided by ethno-centrism, left for Croatia without any pressure whatsoever. Their property has been either sold to Albanians or was plundered by Albanians from adjacent regions. Serb refugees from Croatia should be settled in those homes and estates. Besides confiscating the land from Albanians which they illegally expropriated, all those who have pillaged the wealth and have occupied Serb territories must must pay the consequences pursuant to the Law on Banning the Repatriation of Serbs in Kosova and Metohija. The Law on Prohibition of Selling Estates should be fully respected and all efforts should be made to have its provisions fully and properly implemented. To this end, the foremost responsibility goes to the current Ministry of Finances (Treasury) of the Republic of Serbia, which has in fact mostly not enforced that law. Ethnic expansion of Albanians onto Serb state- or privately owned land must be foiled by all means possible. All Albanians who are not citizens — something can be easily proved with a census — should be fired from their jobs. All the Albanians who wish to leave will be given passports. Albanians of Yugoslav citizenship living abroad and/or involved in secessionist activities must lose their citizenship. Taking into account the current ethnic distribution (with only a few rural Serb enclaves and over 700 purely Albanian centers, while the few Serbs in owns have been virtually suppressed by the Albanians, we consider that the colonization should be carried out in an organized fashion, through establishing of new villages, settlements, small towns or new neighborhoods in existing towns). Such places should be of a closed type with an inner form of organization, i.e., medical services, entertainment, cultural activities, etc. In this way people can be divided along ethnic lines, while the minority Serb population in mixed neighborhoods in the towns would gradually move to the newly established enclaves, an idea which requires both support and motivation. In order to have the Serb enclaves protected, an Albanian population of 5 to 10 per cent should be installed there (a selection of distinguished families and those with authority). Highways should be constructed (up to 1 kilometer apart — in a process that can be called “terrain configuration — to cleanse a wide belt through Albanian enclaves and near other sites like military barracks, polygons, depots, etc. Near such highways the land and space must be allocated to Serb colonists, which would result in thinning the Albanian population of the territories, one element that provides a feeling of security for Albanians. These moves would create a “leopard spot” pattern of Serb enclaves that would grow and eventually become larger than the Albanian enclaves. Conquering territories in this way is more efficient than “planting” individuals in Albanian communities, for it does not raise ownership issues. The first method provides far more security for colonists, while the second is a more lasting process. The Serb enclaves would chiefly depend on state supplies and a small number of Serb-owned private firms, while Albanian areas would be supported mainly through private firms, which could be allowed to operate. The state could help private firms that don’t operate efficiently. Further, electricity and water supplies to the Albanian enclaves can be disrupted to make their lives unbearable. All this will be aimed not only at having the Albanian population divided but utterly isolated too. But if the Serbs find the neighboring enclaves of Albanians attractive (with privately owned shops, entertainment etc.), these can be eliminated by prompting incidents in those enclaves, such as beatings and violence. The fundamental prerequisite to efficiently control the flow of goods and capital is to prevent corruption in Kosova and Metohija and Serbia proper, for one has to bear in mind that Albanians are very good at cheating and bribing others. To prevent the flow of large amounts of capital through illegal routes - money should be strictly controlled by a well-organized banking system, frequent interventions of the fiscal police, rigid control of transportation and roads, attention to any kind of major change in the market, customs procedure and trade with dealers from abroad, financing political organizations, etc. All necessary measures should be taken to thwart the functioning of the Albanian private sector through permanent restriction of their activities, which could in turn result in maintaining rigid control over the funds of their political parties. Contacts with private firms and companies in Serbia must be prevented so Albanian capital cannot have a monopoly in Serbia. Through adequate legislation and efficient taxing policies, large amounts of money could be collected and used in financing programs like colonization . Paramount attention must be paid to drugs trafficking. If one Albanian is caught in such an activity, that must be used as a pretext to stalk and punish large groups of them. Such cases would discredit important personalities in the eyes of the Western world. This is a particularly sensitive issue for them because Albanians are already considered the main traffickers of drugs in the world. Rigorous measures should be undertaken against Albanian smugglers — especially in tobacco. All this can result in serious social tensions if one bears in mind the fact that most of the Albanian population earns its living from selling things on the streets and by smuggling, practices which inevitably results in increase of criminal/illegal activities. However, we consider that through a strong and efficient police force, it is quite easy to make people seek refuge abroad. All steps should be undertaken so the capital of Albanians be channeled through Macedonia and Albania. The issuing of papers from state authorities (besides the seizure of passports) has to be as complicated as possible, with all those who fail to possess proper papers to be oppressively fined. Albanians like to stick to their tribal procedures in solving disputes and hate administrative intervention in the walks of life they consider important to them. Such legislation should be adopted which would force Albanians to ask for permission to even possess a cow. To promote such regulations will persuade them to go abroad, and then face serious impediments at the borders when attempting to come back. As for Serb enclaves the procedure should be less complicated, while in the cities where services are common to the whole community, like the Ministry of Interior, citizens of different nationalities should be treated in different ways. These procedures will undoubtedly result in dissatisfaction in their community which will be a precondition for a broad readiness for involvement in various organizations, including terrorist ones. Therefore, individuals from the state security must be “infiltrated” by agents who could pretend to press for establishing such underground or/and hostile organizations, or even become the leaders of such groupings. Such ruses could be exploited by the state as a pretext to undertake uncompromising actions against all their organizations which would result in inter-ethnic tensions and a further ruptures in their parallel life. To this end, more and more such groups are needed, while the police would now and then destroy one of them, which could then be allowed to consolidate again and look like genuine and “bona fide” organizations. Political parties of Albanians should be created through specific legislation and at the same time scandals should be created to discredit them. This could discredit their leaders in eyes of the domestic and foreign public opinion, a particularly sensitive consideration for Albanians. Distinguished individuals who play important roles in their political life should be eliminated through scandals or by staging traffic accidents, jealousy killings or infecting them with the AIDS virus when they travel abroad. Their infection would be discovered when crossing borders thus they could be quarantined. Through adequate propaganda in their mass media such events can create such an artificial picture of an intolerable percentage of infected people, which would be used as an excuse to isolate large groups of people. This would help in promoting a picture of Albanians as an infected people.”
John Palmer
Comment by John Palmer — 18 February, 2008 @ 8:06 pm
Indeed Louis, this is a useful article: http://www.columbia.edu/%7Elnp3/mydocs/fascism_and_war/Kosovo.htm
excerpt
Comment by Andy Newman — 18 February, 2008 @ 8:06 pm
#15 JohnW describes the period under Tito well and the internal economic problems that developed, not exactly coincidental with the growing crisis in Eastern Europe. That Milosovic’s crimes remained unproven may have much to do with his death. The political course followed by Milosovic based on Serbian Nationalism contrasted with Tito’s multi-ethnic guaranteeing of minority rights in every republic.
This is not Stalinophobia as #17 cites, but a recognition of a disatrous political course that was followed.
Both the working class and the petty-bourgeoisie have suffered as the result of NATO, Germany and the West being able to carve up Yugoslavia.
Comment by howardt — 18 February, 2008 @ 8:29 pm
The problem is, that every nasty attribute of the KLA that can be quoted, also applies to the Serbian (and Croatian, and at times Muslim Slav) paramilitaries that ran amok across Bosnia and Kosova at various stages of the break-up of Yugoslavia. Why single out the KLA as uniquely evil?
All this signifies is that, given the collapse of ‘actually existing communism’, i.e. the only kind that existed in popular consciousness in that time and place, nasty forms of right-wing nationalism became the dominant political force among ALL the contending nations. Or how is the fascist Seselj quoted above better than the likes of Agim Ceku?
All this doesn’t change the fact that there was a 90% majority of ethnic Albanians in Kosova, that Serb nationalists wanted to either supress by force, or get rid of. Or the fact that this is 100% anti-democratic, comparable to apartheid South Africa in its naked anti-democratic character.
The worst crime by far of the KLA was signing up to the imperialist Rambouilliet agreement. This has a clause in it that is an attack on Serbian self-determination, viz. allowing NATO forces to operate at will on any Serbian territory. This is what partly negated the national liberation struggle being waged in Kosova and made it partly (but only partly) a struggle on behalf not of the KLA against Serb rule, but also of the imperialists to subjugate Serbia.
The KLA, of course, had no intention to operate within Serbia, but NATO did, and used the KLA in a manner analogous to the way Kurds have been used against Saddam Hussein. This underlines the cynicism of the imperialists, and why they can never act as an honest broker or liberator when it comes to oppressed nations such as the Kosovars or Kurds.
Thus resistance by Serbia to the imperialist Rambouillet agreement was justified, and THIS component of Serbia’s war against NATO was a jusified war of self-defence. But insofar as a considerable portion of the Serb war effort was waged to retain Kosova against its people by force, that aspect of its war effort was not supportable and indeed had to be opposed particularly by socialists and democrats within Serbia. Distinguishing between the two in a complex situation is not easy, but then life (and politics) were never meant to be easy either.
Comment by Ian Donovan — 18 February, 2008 @ 8:41 pm
So the displacement of Albanian Kosovans did not start until AFTER the war started, yet the propaganda was that the war was justified by ethnic cleansing that hadn’t even happened when the war started!
This has always been an absurd point from those people desperate for a reason to oppose this war.
Ethnic cleasning was already going on, and the war was fought to stop it turning into another ten year long conflict. The fact that the Serbs immediately speeded up the ethnic cleasning process by putting into place their plan to expell the entire Muslim population of Kosovo - 90% of the population - as soon as some very light bombing occurred, only gave the game away as to their intentions. Just think about it for a minute.
Hitler also tried to blame the allies for why they had to speed up their efforts to do with the ‘Jewish problem’ after Britain declared war on them.
How this site can claim to be all in favour of tackling Islamophobia, but term self determination for Muslims as nothing but ‘gangsterism’, is staggering.
I very much hope that this issue will remain in the headlines for some time to come so Muslims in the Respect coalition can see what you people are really about.
Comment by Ed D — 18 February, 2008 @ 8:43 pm
And of course, apart from the issues of principle involved, another problem with Andy’s semi-Stalinoid approach to this is that it makes it more more difficult to politically defeat anti-Muslim scum like Ed D, who pose as friends of Muslim Albanians (but only in Kosova) while supporting every bloodthirsty crime of imperialism and zionism against Muslims all over the Middle East, where the most strategically important Muslim peoples live.
Comment by Ian Donovan — 18 February, 2008 @ 8:52 pm
The main point here is that for 50 years there was a multi-ethnic society at relative peace, and then during the course of an ethnic insurgency by the UTC/KLA that society was turned upside down.
Sorry, Andy, but this is absurd. The KLA only achieved the power it did because of Serbian repression of Kosovar Albanian political movements. There’s been reason for concern about Serbian rule in Kosovo since at least the 1986 Memorandum.
“The Serb reaction to bombing, while frequently savage, was based on their correct understanding that the KLA was linked to NATO”
Faurisson said something similar about the Nazis’ internment of Jews (linked to Chaim Weizmann’s international Zionist organisation, which had declared war on Germany). Foul apologetics in both cases.
Comment by Phil — 18 February, 2008 @ 8:56 pm
Ian Donovan, you can’t support Serb fascism against a Muslim people and call me Muslim-hating scum. The game is up.
When this gets out it will mark the end of Respect Renewal. It’s over.
Comment by Ed D — 18 February, 2008 @ 9:26 pm
“Ian Donovan, you can’t support Serb fascism against a Muslim people and call me Muslim-hating scum. The game is up.”
I’ll call you a lying piece of shit, since my point against Andy was exactly the opposite of supporting Serb nationalism against the Kosovars. I defend Kosova self-determination while opposing imperialist schemes to use the Kosovo issue to subjugate Serbia.
Ed D’s propaganda methods against Muslims and their defenders come from Goebells. Not surprising - one day he might expect to be found running a gas-chamber for Muslims … in his own twisted fanstasies.
Hence his line that the Asian community in Northern towns were responsible for the racist riots that took place in 2001, rather than the BNP scum and racist police bigots who provoked these uprisings. He’s got the same kind of twisted mind as the late Dutch racist Theo Van Gogh, who accused Muslims in Holland of being a ‘fifth column of goatfuckers’. Caveat Emptor!
Comment by Ian Donovan — 18 February, 2008 @ 9:44 pm
When this gets out it will mark the end of Respect Renewal.
Don’t be ridiculous. RR may have shibbolethim, but supporting one group or another in the Balkans isn’t one of them as far as I’m aware.
Comment by Phil — 18 February, 2008 @ 9:46 pm
All the arguments that have been used on this post to oppose Kosovan independence from Serbia could equally be used for example to oppose Chechen independence from Russia. Given the emerging tensions with Russia it is entirely conceivable that at some point in the future the US, UK and other imperialist powers might support an independent Chechen state for their own opportunist reasons.
Given such a hypothetical scenario does that mean we should refuse to support Chechen self determination on the grounds that the major imperialist powers support it. I don’t think so. I think we are all aware of the near genocidal oppression suffered by the Chechens at the hands of Russia.
And now for the quote from Trotsky on sectarianism taken from the Transitional Programme itself.
“Sectarians are capable of differentiating between but two colours: red and black. So as not to tempt themselves, they simplify reality.”
For the sectarian pseudo leftist apologists for Serbia, imperialism is black and because Serbia was opposed by imperialism it must be red. And because the Kosovans opposed Serbia they like imperialism must also be black notwithstanding the fact that they suffered national oppression at the hands of the Serbs, but that bit tends to be airbrushed out.
Let’s all try to engage with the complexities of social reality.
Comment by Patrick Scott — 18 February, 2008 @ 9:51 pm
I don’t think anyone should try to justify the political stance taken on the national question of anyone post Tito. That sections of the left prettify Milosovic’s Serbia or capitulate to pro- Imperialist forces is evident in this discussion. Trading insults, however heated you may get, is not much use in a serious political discussion of any sort. Respect Renewal has various views on this, of which I have one. It would be good if the SWP allowed for open discussion outside of the pre-conference period, too. I recommend building a heterogeneous party.
Perhaps we should also look at how USA has changed the world map since 1991. The invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan needs no comment from me. However, they have also sought to bring slective people to justice within a framework of their international justice (ie if it suits their interest) All aprt of the new world order. Perhaps some questioning of the moral authority of Washington to indict anyone should be questioned, given their role - covert or otherwise - in El Salvador, Chile, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Cuba, Gutenamo Bay, of course;Colombia today; Wheras Iraq and Aghanistan need no intro from me, nor indeed does Palestine, less well known is Uzbekistan, Kirgizia and so many others. Their justice is to construct regimes of their choosing - and they will manipulate the local situation if there’s any failings of the local regime - I’ll make no apologies for Milosevic or even Kostunica - but had Milosevic have been in Chile, El Salvador or Colombia commiting the same acts, we all know that the international outrage would have been muted.
Comment by ray — 18 February, 2008 @ 9:56 pm
Ian Donovan, nobody is fooled by your attempts to divert attention away from your deep seated Islamophobia by claiming I must also be an Islamophobe for agreeing with the police and every independent report into that seperate issue.
You have oppose self determiniation for the Muslims of Afghanistan, Iraq and now Kosovo. I see a pattern here.
Comment by Ed D — 18 February, 2008 @ 10:05 pm
Don’t be ridiculous. RR may have shibbolethim, but supporting one group or another in the Balkans isn’t one of them as far as I’m aware.
I wouldn’t be so sure. Yes the problems that Muslims have faced in Balkans during the 1990s has faded into the background in recent years for obvious reasons, but don’t underestimate the commitment of many Muslims to this cause. If it comes to be a constant issue again, as it may well do, they will make their feelings known.
Don’t forget that some members of Respect, such as the guy who went to Guantanimo bay, actually went to training camps in the Balkans where they were taught to fight the Serbs. Do you think people like him are going to let it rest when they realise what side Andy and Ian Donavan are on?
Comment by Ed D — 18 February, 2008 @ 10:10 pm
Strategically important to the imperialists in terms of the land they inhabit. Maybe something to do with living on top of the most important fossil fuel reserves on the planet. The reason why they have to be subjugated, not encouraged to dream about national independence and ruling themselves. Stuff Jim doesn’t really give a rat’s arse about, since he thinks imperialism is progressive.
Comment by Ian Donovan — 18 February, 2008 @ 10:12 pm
I’m amused that Ed D actually thinks that Muslims don’t know that George Galloway has similar views to Andy on Kosova. Not exactly new news - it has been widely known for years. Hizb-u-Tahrir tried to make an issue out of this in the 2005 general election. It didn’t really cut much ice since the disintegrating Serb nationalist project is hardly comparable to Israel and the US as a threat to Muslim peoples.
Even funnier that he tried to make out that myself and Andy are in agreement, when everyone else can see we are on two different sides of the discussion. He is such a desperate, pathetic liar.
Comment by Ian Donovan — 18 February, 2008 @ 10:25 pm
Some of the comments above fall into the trap of blaming either the Kosovans or the Serbs for the disaster that is now Kosovo. It reminds me of the situation in the Six Counties in the North of Ireland where the rationality for blame was placed with the Catholics or the Protestants, depending who you spoke to. The prime responsibility there was the British and the prime responsibility in Kosovo is Imperialism and NATO. We can take no comfort that we move from a situation where Muslims were oppressed to one where we can expect the same process to apply to the Kosovo Serbs with NATO turning a blind eye.
Israel was founded following the most horrific holocaust ever and the outcome, supervised by USA is what we see today.
So much for analysis. Solutions are a little harder.
Comment by ray — 19 February, 2008 @ 8:27 am
Ok there is a lot here.
Firstly, national identity, and political nationalism entailed from it is not some natural human predisposition. Most potential proto-nationalisms either on linguistic, ethnic or cultural/religious grounds do not aspire to statehood. The other historical options that have been taken are assimilation, accomodation in a multi-ethnic state or migration. Politicall nationalism is a deliberate movement that has to be fought for against other political ideas.
The disintigration of Jugoslavia on ethnic grounds combined a number of conflicting and intertwined themes - and national aspirations which were in some cases unprecedented. The “Muslim” identity was constructed in the modern period and had no historical precedence and indeed had no implication of Muslim religious faith, just that people were descended from others who used to be Muslims, and was an identity generated out of those excluded by either the orthodox/Cyrrillic or catholic/Latin dominant culture.
the growth of political nationalism in Jugoslavia was delibertaley createdb as a political alternative to the multi-ethnic state. Now there is nothing necessarily wrong with that, but the political content of that aspiration to leave Jugoslavia was also explicitly anti-Socialist and pro-Market. It was also turning its back on the neutral independence of Titoism, as each of the petty nationalisms would have to align themselves with major powers. This also forced many in the multi-cultural cities like Beograd, Novi Sad and Zagreb to choose (often on arbitrary grounds) what “nationality” they wanted.
Serbian nationalism was more janus faced than most, because it combined all of those negative aspects with the rhetoric and partial reality of progressively defending Jugoslavia and Titoism. One outcome of the situation was a long running low intensity war in Kosovo, taking on an increasingly racialised character on both sides. It is simply a fact that the KLA/UTC were the instigator of much of the racialised violence, and that the politial choice of Albanian ethnic seperatism was a deliberate right wing decision. It is also simply a fact that the Serb forces protected the Roma and Ashkali peoples in Kosovo.
It is unfortunate;y also a fact that the Jugoslav and Serb forces committed attricities. I don’t now about Kosovo, but in the war with Croatia, freelance Serb facsists (Arkan’s Tigers) committed atrocities outwith Jugoslav/Serb military control, but becasue the whole situation was a political mess, they did operate under a protective umbrella (though Miolsevic did have Arkan assassinated to put an end to it). I am sure that in such circumstances atrocities were also committed by regular troops.
As ian quite correctly observes the war in Kosovo was forced upon Serbia as a war of national defence by the terms of rambouillet which required Serbia to allow NATO forces to be billeted agaist the will of the Serb people all accross Serbia, and at their expense. Remember that Hungary had only just joined NATO as well (literally a few weeks before the attack), and popular right wing parties in Hungary claim the northern Serb province of Vojvodina.
Only once the war started did the Serb military commanders in Kosovo unleash military terror against the whole Albanian population. This certainly was not a campaign of extermination, however reprehensible and appaling, it was a textbook standard military operation to drive a wave of refugees into the NATO camp. It was no different in scale or intent than the terror launched against the Krajina Serbs by Croat forces a few years earlier; nor different in essence from General Sherman’s campaign in the Shenanoah valley
What we see in Kosovo now is somewhat different. The province has no economy, except the funds sloshing around the NATO occupation forces, and the fact that it has become a centre of internatinal drugs, arms smuggling and slavery. And the political trajectory is ethnic seperatism, including pogroms against the Ashkali and Roma people. In such political circumstances, Kosovan independence only accelerates the negative features in the situation.
Comment by Andy Newman — 19 February, 2008 @ 10:12 am
Andy - Read the Milosevic government plan for Kosova - outlined by Seselj (above) and then tell us that the war was forced on Serbia by the Kosovars. Ridiculous.
Comment by John Palmer — 19 February, 2008 @ 11:23 am
So the way to curb Kosovan chauvinism is to hand back Kosova to Serbia? How, by military occupation? That’ll dampen down national feeling, for sure.
Andy your argument about movements for independence from Yugoslavia (and later Serbia) being entirely reactionary only works if you assume there was no national oppression at all under Titoism - the big guy himself and the heroic partisans may have been genuine, but I don’t think the Stalinist bureaucrats concerned with their own privilege, especially post-Tito, did better in solving national oppression and chauvinism in Yugoslavia than elsewhere. You also need the assumption there was something remotely socialist or multi-ethnic about Milosovic’s program. I’m no expert but Mike Karadjis for one has sliced up both assumptions in his book and in numerous articles for Green Left and Links.
To get past chauvinism you’ve got to deal with national oppression, and I don’t think there’s been any alternative since about 1989 to consistent self-determination in referenda etc across the former Yugoslavia. Within this of course the left should do what it can to fight against imperialism and chauvinists of all sorts, for real self-determination and consistent democracy and human rights.
There have been unpleasant alliances and actions in many justified national struggles, such as the collaboration with Japanese occupiers, including aiding the slave labour system, by Sukarno and other Indonesian nationalists. Not to mention the chauvinism displayed by Sukarno and even more by his pro-imperialist successors against Papuans and Timorese.
The Balkans tragedy is fundamentally the result of Stalinism and its collapse into capitalist restoration rather than socialist democracy. If the latter had happened the national tensions in Yugoslavia still would have had to be resolved, although in a much less brutal way.
Comment by Nick Fredman — 19 February, 2008 @ 11:38 am
To understand the disintegration of FRY, all you really need is to be able to add up. Once Milosevic had forced the replacement of the Vojvodina and Kosovo leadership, and engineered a similar transition in Montenegro, he controlled three of the eight votes on the federal presidency and could rely on a fourth. Of course, the secession of Slovenia (had this been recognised) would have made Milosevic’s control over the federation even more complete. (In the event both Slovenia and Croatia were unconstitutionally ‘expelled’.)
As for the rhetoric and partial reality of progressively defending Jugoslavia and Titoism, I might be more inclined to take that seriously if the JNA hadn’t been involved in dismembering the multi-ethnic republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
It is unfortunate;y also a fact that the Jugoslav and Serb forces committed attricities
Where the facts contradict the rhetoric, it’s usual to pay more attention to the former.
Comment by Phil — 19 February, 2008 @ 12:06 pm
This is all somewhat besides the point, Phil.
Jugoslavia was a multi-ethnic state. Political nationalism seeking the break up of that state had to be delibertaly constructed. This is where Nick Fredman is wrong. We don’t need to deny the reality of ethnic or lingusitic discrimination in Jugoslavia to argue that sessession was not the best way to solve those problems.
At every step of the way, each break up has further deepened the violence and social misery.
It tells you everything you need to know about Kosovan nationalism that the British government flew 1000 Welsh Guards to Kosovo at the weekend to protect the Serb, Ashkali and Roma populations from the forces now in charge of the new “state”.
To give a different example, the nationalities question in the USSR. This is complicated because state spending per head of population in the Russian federation was lower than other parts of the USSR, but the privilaged layers of the bureacracy did seem to privilige certain ethnic groups. BUt this did not translate into demands for political nationalism.
Political seperatist sentiment only really existed in the baltic republics (itself a paradox as these states were utterly fictitious when first formed by the Germans during the First World War, with no historical precedence, and no popular demand for them). The country with the longest established political nationalism is the Ukraine (nationalism in the Ukraine wass earlier than any Russian nationalism in the Czarist empire by probably fifty years), yet it is the Ulraine where there remains strong popular sentiment for unity with Russia.
The subsequent independence of the Turkic republics was a manouevre from parts of the bureaucracy to sustain their own privilages, and never had popular political support, and the peoples of those benighted countries look back at the USSR era as their Golden Age.
Comment by Andy Newman — 19 February, 2008 @ 12:26 pm
Typical that the article uses the amalgam technique (as perfected by so many Stalinist CPs) of lumping together the nation of Kosovo (and indeed those leftists who back its self-determination) with “Albanian fascism” and NATO.
Also unsurprising is Andy’s Serb chauvinism, presumably rooted in his admiration of Stalinist pan-Slavism or some sort of “mother Russia” complex.
The Morning Star does the same - putting out Russian nationalist propaganda even after the fall of their beloved “Soviet” bureaucracy.
Comment by David Broder — 19 February, 2008 @ 12:26 pm
“Jugoslavia was a multi-ethnic state.”
Except that it wasn’t. Its very name says it wasn’t. It was a pan-Slavic state. Which is why small Slavic entities such as Montenegro and Slovenia were given full republican status whereas Kosova, comparable to both in terms of size and composition of population, was denied that status and made an autonomous, but still subordinate part of Serbia. That contradiction led to the growth of a mass, basically left-wing, Kosova-Albanian movement and a mass uprising against that inequality in 1981, which was supressed with considerable repression, albeit given the relatively benign character of the liberal Stalinist regime of the FRY up to 1989, the repression did not last long. But that inequality meant that there would inevitably be a national struggle in Serbia over Kosova.
The overthrow of Kosovar autonomy in 1989 was a racist act, and the repression of Kosova in the decade that followed was racist and undemocratic in the South African mould. Ethnic Albanians were expelled from universities en masse, a racist program of resettlement of Serbs into Kosova was undertaken based on a medievalist progamme justified using myths about Kosova Pole and the struggle against the Turks.
Incidentally, anyone who has come across racist Islamophobic websites such as ‘Gates of Vienna’ that evoke the struggle of medieval Austria against the Turks as a metaphor for Islamophobia today, should be aware of the similarity of Serb nationalist bullshit about Prince Lazar to this stuff. It also resembles Zionist claims to Palestine, and regards the present day Albanian population of Kosova very much the same way as Zionists regard the Palestinians - as an inconvience to be got rid of at all costs.
It is, I repeat, no accident that close, friendly and sympathetic relations existed between Israel and Serbia during the Milosevic period. This is an inconvenient fact, that discomforts both anti-Zionists with Stalinoid leanings who tend to be soft on Milosevic, and ‘democratic’ Serbophobes like the AWL who are also pro-Zionist. The basis for such friendly relations was a shared Islamophobia and fear/hatred of Muslim peoples.
Milosevic’s regime was the opposite of Tito’s, it was a racist regime that was forged on the grave of Kosova autonomy. Milosevic was the ultimate charlatan - he used some of the rhetoric of Titoism as cover, while inviting fascists such as Seselj into his government. Given the depth of repression and naked racism involved, the only surpising thing about the emergence of the KLA in the mid-1990s is that it took so long.
Comment by Ian Donovan — 19 February, 2008 @ 12:53 pm
RE comment #7 - I posted the following in 2 commentos on the thread Andy links to in comment#8 at
http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=1200.
…I laughed out loud when I noticed that the International Commission for Missing Persons site contains a recommendation from the 2004 Iraqi governments ‘Commissioner for Human Rights’- you couldn’t make it up.
Nearly all the executive and staff of the ICMP are Nato personnel - hardly an independent body. I would want to see evidence that every stage of the process is potentially subject to genuinely impartial, or hostile scrutiny…
On 14 March 2007, Glasgow’s ‘Scotsman’ newspaper posted, on its website, an interview with Adam Boys, ICMP’s Chief Operating Officer and Director of Finance since September 2000 at
http://news.scotsman.com/ViewArticle.aspx?articleid=3354195#comment444047
Balkan Witness, a site dedicated to rubbishing the work of Parenti, Herman, Johnstone et al posts a link to this, I guess as the most up-to date evidence of the 8000 figure, under the banner:
“To date the ICMP has positively identified about 3000 bodies of Srebrenica victims and has partial remains of about 1000 more. The ICMP still predicts that about 8000 were killed in the massacre. ”
A blog debate follows in which Boys participated, In his replies to posts #33 and #34 Adam Boys
stated:
“The date of death, manner of death, and who did the killing are a matter for the courts. ”
It will be a decision for the (Nato-appointed) regional governments whether a list of those identified from Srebrenica will be available online.
Asked whether there is: ” a publicly accessible database, broken down by date of death, place remains found, cause of death, ethnicity (established by DNA from relatives) etc. details? ”
Boys evades the question by answering ” There is the ICRC list of missing. It does not show ethnicity. Neither do our records. ” I take that as a NO.
Asked whether there are ” scientific reports detailing the methodology, results and interpretations?”
Boys says yes. I look forward to these being made available for public scrutiny.
Those figure just seem to keep melting away, don’t they.
Comment by Jock McTrousers — 19 February, 2008 @ 2:18 pm
Note re my previous post: the link to the Scotsman article still takes you to the blog debate, which was the most interesting bit. The initial article/interview with Boys is missing now - there was little of interest in the original article, and Boys participates in the blog discussion.
Comment by Jock McTrousers — 19 February, 2008 @ 2:22 pm
” It is, I repeat, no accident that close, friendly and sympathetic relations existed between Israel and Serbia during the Milosevic period. This is an inconvenient fact, that discomforts both anti-Zionists with Stalinoid leanings who tend to be soft on Milosevic, and ‘democratic’ Serbophobes like the AWL who are also pro-Zionist. The basis for such friendly relations was a shared Islamophobia and fear/hatred of Muslim peoples.”
Israel was also one of the first states to recognise Croatian independence. So what does that prove? - nothing about Milosevic and Serbia (even if what Ian Donovan said is true, which I doubt), but it maybe says something about how much Israeli elites really care about the ‘holocaust’.
Comment by Jock McTrousers — 19 February, 2008 @ 2:55 pm
We don’t need to deny the reality of ethnic or lingusitic discrimination in Jugoslavia to argue that sessession was not the best way to solve those problems.
No. But we do need to deny the reality of the governing structures of the Yugoslav federation, apparently. What future was there for the federation when one member of an eight-seat presidency could turn up with four votes in his pocket? (The casting vote was with the chair, a position which rotated among the eight members year by year; if the federation had lasted, Milosevic would have had an absolute majority for four years out of eight.)
Reform of the federation would have been a possibility, had Serbia allowed it. A looser confederation would have been a good possibility, had Serbia allowed it. But Milosevic had no interest in any reform that would run counter to the interests of his pan-Serb power-base, and the other republics were not sufficiently united to overrule him - or rather, to overrule the combined vote of Serbia, Vojvodina, Kosovo and Montenegro.
Comment by Phil — 19 February, 2008 @ 2:56 pm
RE the Serbia/Israel link - this is an interesting point to make, and an important one when you consider the allies the “multi-ethnic” regime of Milosevic supposedly defended.
If you search for items on Kosovo on far-right neocon websites like Frontpage Mag.com you will see clear comparisons to the West Bank with Kosova; both are sacred to their occupying powers as the “birthplace” of their nations (Israel and Serbia) but both have the unfortunate problem of having too many brown coloured people living in them.
Sharon explicitly opposed NATO bombing of Serbia on the basis that Israel could be put into a similar position if the Arabs of Gallilee declared autonomy.
The denial of national oppression in Kosova is also an issue - its often put in opposition to the claims of outright genocide by the Milosevic regime. While its true the numbers of hundreds of thousands dead were inflated, this doesn’t change some relatively black and white cases of repression,
* The removal of Kosovar autonomy,
* The denial of independence after an earlier referendum in the early 90s,
* The war in Kosova (albeit non-genocidal) which took Kosovars as the majority of its victims (as the poor demonised Serbs had the majority of Yugoslavias heavy weapons),
* And last but not least the mass expulsion of Kosovars carried out during the NATO bombing.
For the final point theres a tendency on the Left to blame this on Kosovars fleeing “NATO bombs” or that the KLA forced them to leave. For one, most NATO bombs did nothing to remove the heavy weapons attacking the Serbs, most NATO bombs hit civilian targets throughout Serbia proper, and the KLA expulsion claim has clear parallels with the Zionist claim that “Arab radio broadcasts” ordered the movement of thousands of Palestinians in 1948.
Its correct to attack the chauvinist leadership of the Kosovars, and their subsequience to gangsterism and links to the US. But these criticisms could be made of Hamas (anti-semitism in the charter) and Fatah (corruption and links to the US).
That would not stop any Socialist from supporting Palestinian independence, nor should it stop us from supporting the Kosovars right to self-determination while having no illusions about the problems that they will face, alongside the whole Balkans region.
Comment by Andy Bowden — 19 February, 2008 @ 3:31 pm
Just thought I’d mention I’ve started reading Noam Chomsky book ‘The New Military Humanism’ its very good at looking at this issue.
Comment by dan Wright — 19 February, 2008 @ 5:56 pm
The problem is that Kossovo doesn’t only contain Albanians, so declaring and independent state is inevitably going to antagonise the Serb minority, Serbia itself and its Russian allies. So it has to be seen as a provocative act.
I’ve never supported any of the former Yugoslav states declaring independence, even if there were majorities in favour of doing so.
Whatever the imperfections of the Yugoslav federation, genuine attempts were made to protect the interests of its different ethnic groups, including Muslims (who are not only confined to the Albanian minority, but exist in Bosnia, Montenegro and Serbia itself).
The promotion of seperatism in the republics inevitably created antagonisms which set in train the process towards war and political disintegration.
Whether this was inspired by Germany and NATO or not, their forces moved into the country in force and all of the independent republics are underwritten by that fact, along with investments from Western Europe and America.
The consequences are starting to become clear to many workers now. For instance the unions in Slovenia, which always had the highest standard of living of all the Yugoslav republics, are now demanding Western wages to compensate for Western prices.
The nationalist leaders in all the mini-republics will stand in the way of a working class revival because it threatens their positions as clients of the west.
But the working class does have a tradition of joint struggle, in particular the partisan resistance, which occurred *despite* the policies of Stalin and not because of them.
I find it hard to believe that Albania will not lay some claim to an independent Kossova and this will create further tensions with Serbia. Of course, there will be no opportunity for the Serb population to have a plebiscite on whether they want to join Serbia. So there is a dynamic towards another regional war.
Perhaps this is what NATO really wants, because it continues to engage in provocative actions that rankle Putin’s Russia.
A revival of joint struggle by the working class in Yugoslavia could play an important part in heading of that possibility.
Comment by prianikoff — 19 February, 2008 @ 6:19 pm
The promotion of seperatism in the republics inevitably created antagonisms which set in train the process towards war and political disintegration.
I’m sure it could have happened like that, but it didn’t.
Comment by Phil — 19 February, 2008 @ 6:32 pm
Phil #43
The governing structure of the Federal republic notwithstanding, all you are saying is that Jugoslavia was a non ideal multi-ethnic state. But compare it to the legal discrimination introduced in 1993 against the 600000 Magyar population in Slovakia, the removal of citizenship rights of Roma in the Czech republic, or the second class status of Russians in Estonia. Look at the prosecutions in modern Greece of Macedonians for using their own language
these are modern problems, and no-one is arguing for the break up of these states.
Even recognising - as I have - that Milosevic combines multi-ethnic Jugoslav rhetoric with the less pleasant reality of Serb nationalism, this was not necessarily irreversible within the Jugoslav context. Wherwas at each stage, taking the rot of ethnic nationalism has increased the tension and body count - which was and is a political choice.
It is worth looking at the arguments of the toy-Bolsheviks that Lenin argued for national self-determination. In fact Lenin argued for the right of seccession of nations on the principle of Manzini style nationalism - constructing viable national economies, and that these nations would naturally involve assimilation or special representation of minorities. For example, Ukrainian nationalism would not allow sessession of the German and Polish minorities within it, let alone the Yiddish speaking minority. Lenin did not argue that the Swedish minority form a seperate state from Finland. Lenin’s views were uncontroversial in the paradigm of liberal 19th century nation building - indeed th fact that Lenin and Woodrow Wilson’s arguments are interchangeable is proof of this
Late twentieth century ethnic nationalism in eastern europe is totally different beast - no longer with a model of a national economy (how could Kosovo exist except as a client economy of bigger powers) and is based upon Xenophobia. So you give independence to Kosovo. What next, independence to the scattered enclaves of Askali and Serbs within Kosovo?
Comment by Andy Newman — 19 February, 2008 @ 6:40 pm
#47
il you will have to explain your comment there. To the casual observer, the disintegration of Jugoslavis HAS been followd by war and in Kosovo certainly political disintegration.
Comment by Andy Newman — 19 February, 2008 @ 6:41 pm
Prianikoff #46 “The problem is that Kossovo doesn’t only contain Albanians, so declaring and independent state is inevitably going to antagonise the Serb minority, Serbia itself and its Russian allies. So it has to be seen as a provocative act.”
Of course it does not contain only Albanians. But it contains an overwhelming majority of Albanians. And that majority has the right to determine its own future. Attempts to veto the rights of the majority due to the wishes of a minority are hardly democratic. Nor does one have to advocate secession - just to defend the right to secession. But if an attempt is made to prevent the exercise of that right, once chosen, by force, then those seeking to secede deserve solidarity from socialists. That is true for Scotland (where I would argue there is no real national oppression and no reason to advocate secession), and true in Kosova, where there is an historic oppression.
Andy #48 “The governing structure of the Federal republic notwithstanding, all you are saying is that Jugoslavia was a non ideal multi-ethnic state. But compare it to the legal discrimination introduced in 1993 against the 600000 Magyar population in Slovakia, the removal of citizenship rights of Roma in the Czech republic, or the second class status of Russians in Estonia. Look at the prosecutions in modern Greece of Macedonians for using their own language
these are modern problems, and no-one is arguing for the break up of these states.”
Indeed, the break up of the unitary Yugoslavia was a bad thing. It should have been broadened out into a genuine Balkan federal state. One step towards doing that would have been the promotion of Kosova to full republican status. Yugoslavia would then have had a non-Slavic republic with full rights, and could claim to be the beginning of a broader Balkan unification. Unfortunately, the direction taken by the Slavic bureaucracies at the core of the state was the opposite of this, and the Serbian bureaucracy was one of the worst offenders.
The idea that Kosovars should fight to maintain the unity, not of the original Yugoslavia, but of the rump post-1992 ‘Serboslavia’ after the secession of Croatia, Slovenia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, is something completely different and crazy. If you concretely deny Kosovar national rights in this situation, all you do is hand an oppressed people over to the imperialists to be used and manipulated.
Kosova is a historically constituted distinct territory, with an overwhelming majority of one nationality that has a national consciousness. If they don’t have the right to establish their own national state, then no-one does.
Kosovo is a more homogenous territory in this regard than many advanced Western capitalist nations. In that sense, it is a bit unusual in the Balkans - the polar opposite of Bosnia-Herzegovina where no ethnic-confessional group has a majority and hence the polity is inherently unstable if it attempts to stand as a seperate state.
Comment by Ian Donovan — 19 February, 2008 @ 8:53 pm
Ian
the trouble is that all this stuff about oppressed and non-oppressed nations as the criteria for judging these questions is just so much nineteenth century liberalism, given the weight of ahistorical law by reference out of context to Lenin. Add to which a dose of Joseph Stalin in judging them on their territorial integrity, and you have a nineteeth century paradigm applied to a twenty first century problem
Lenin was writing in a period where nations states were only beginning to be constructed in eastern Europe. The Czarist government only started promoting Russification in the 1880s, and Russian was not even recognised as a language of court in Moscow until the mid nineteeth century - they spoke German and French. The Hungarian ruling aristocracy spoke latin at home and in business until the 1840s. Both the Romanov and Habsburg governments were dynastic rather than national. It was only in this context that lenin wrote that oppressed nations, by which he meant nations in construction, should have the right to secede - and adopt the Manzini program of political nationalism. And this would involve nation building,and the assimilation of minorities.
The question of creating or advocating national states is a political one. The political choice to pursue Kosovan national seperatism and independence, rather than fighting to improve their lot within Serbia or Jugoslavia, was a choice that entailed political and practical consequences. In fact the great merit of Lenin was that he grasped that the national question is a political one, and not one that can be decided by scholastic means, with a check list to determine whether or not a particular national movement should be supported. Yes the Kosovans were oppressed, and no the correct response on political grounds was not and is not seperatism.
The question of whether there should be an independent England or Scotland is utterly independent of questons of oppression, it is about the political content of such a move.
Comment by Andy Newman — 19 February, 2008 @ 9:15 pm
To the casual observer, the disintegration of Jugoslavis HAS been followd by war and in Kosovo certainly political disintegration.
Yes, but what Prianikoff wrote was:
“The promotion of seperatism in the republics inevitably created antagonisms which set in train the process towards war and political disintegration.”
Separatism -> antagonism -> war -> political disintegration. It’s a very plausible narrative - particularly to casual observers - but it’s not the way it went. The first nationalism to revive in the 1980s was Serbian, or more specifically pan-Serb nationalism, cynically exploited by Milosevic. Serb nationalism wasn’t separatist - it aimed to unite the Serbs, and to hold the federation together under Serbian domination. But it was Serbian dominance, rather than Slovenian separatism, which made Slovenia secede - and it was Serbian dominance, particularly Milosevic’s engineered dominance of the federal presidency, which made Slovenian secession fatal for the federation.
Comment by Phil — 19 February, 2008 @ 9:23 pm
The governing structure of the Federal republic notwithstanding, all you are saying is that Jugoslavia was a non ideal multi-ethnic state.
I’m not talking about what federal Yugoslavia was but about a very specific political process which took place over a few years. Yugoslavia in 1986 was a non-ideal multi-ethnic state (as if there are any ‘ideal’ ones). Yugoslavia in 1990 was a multi-ethnic state in the process of being destroyed from within.
Even recognising - as I have - that Milosevic combines multi-ethnic Jugoslav rhetoric with the less pleasant reality of Serb nationalism, this was not necessarily irreversible within the Jugoslav context.
Beyond a certain point, ‘the Jugoslav context’ was Serb nationalism - look at the role of the JNA in the Bosnian conflict.
Comment by Phil — 19 February, 2008 @ 9:31 pm
#52
ahh , I see what you are getting at. But there are plenty of succesful multi-ethnic states where one national group is dominant.
And in some less succesful states, would seccession be a good solution. For example Slovakia today, if we follow your logic that the response to Serbian dominance was the justifiability of national seperatism, then look at the clearly chauvinist Slovak treatment of the magyars - would this justify the 600000 Magyars in Slovakia seeking political sessession, then we are in dangerous waters, especially as right wing political parties in Hungary claim Slovakia.
What about the million Russian speakers with second class citizenship in Estonia. They are an oppressed minority if ever there was one, would it be progressive for them to ask Moscow to step in to protect and promote their rights. Estonian nationalism is clearly the driving and repressive nationalism there, so would that justify Estonia being broken up?
Comment by Andy Newman — 19 February, 2008 @ 9:35 pm
Incidently, a feature of the former East European socialist countries was protection of national minority rights, for example the fact that the DDR recognised the Lusatian Sorbs as an offical language group. The only real exception to this was Roumania.
Comment by Andy Newman — 19 February, 2008 @ 9:41 pm
“The question of creating or advocating national states is a political one. The political choice to pursue Kosovan national seperatism and independence, rather than fighting to improve their lot within Serbia or Jugoslavia, was a choice that entailed political and practical consequences. In fact the great merit of Lenin was that he grasped that the national question is a political one, and not one that can be decided by scholastic means, with a check list to determine whether or not a particular national movement should be supported. Yes the Kosovans were oppressed, and no the correct response on political grounds was not and is not seperatism.”
Yes Andy, but if you read what I wrote above, I did not advocate Kosova separatism from the original, properly so-called Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. I advocated that Kosova should have become a fully-fledged republic. This is not an abstract question, it was a key demand of the left-wing Albanian student movement that led a mass youth uprising in 1981. Which was suppressed, largely because of the narrow nationalist vision of the Yugoslav regime. That demand would have strengthened Yugoslavia and made it into more of a genuinely multi-ethnic state.
Fighting to ‘improve their lot within Yugloslavia’ is one thing. But within Serbia? That is ridiculous. How could Kosovars ‘improve their lot’ within Serbia? If Serbia were to recognise that Kosovar Albanians have national rights, it would have to let them secede - it cannot even concieve of doing anything else to them because it is a Serbian nation-state, not a multi-national or multi-ethnic state, and actually doesn’t claim to be anything else.
Secession is a lesser evil to forced unity, because it lays the basis for voluntary federation at a later point. Forced unity only lays the basis for more hatred and future deeper schisms. That is the lesson of history. There is nothing outdated about Lenin’s method of analysing these questions and nothing ’scholastic’ about using the same approach today. It fits the objective situation and offers a way forward.
I dont see how simply calling Kosova a ‘gangster state’ and regretting it was ever created offers any way forward whatsoever. It exists, it will not go away. There is little difference between it and the other post-Stalinist fragments in the region. All of these questions have to be analysed concretely, and socialist solutions found to what exists today, not weeping for the old ’socialist’ Yugoslavia that has not existed for a decade-and-a-half in any case.
Comment by Ian Donovan — 19 February, 2008 @ 9:53 pm
Ian
It is simply not true that Serbia has sought to create an “ethnically pure” nation. Beograd is a multi-ethnic city, and so is Novi Sad; and Magyars and other ethnic groups serve within the Serb army. Despite their own internal mythologies most states in the world are multi-ethnic.
I don’t know how you can rule out of consideration that Serbia could have allowed regional autonomy to Kosavo, although it would have requied a political and nor a military campaign. If you simply assume these problems can only be solved by secession you are setting a precedence for an escalating problem.
Should the Serb and Ashkali minorities in Kosavo now take up arms and demand their own even smaller states, after all they are more oppressed now than the Kosovans were in Serbia before the war.
Comment by Andy Newman — 19 February, 2008 @ 10:05 pm
I don’t know how you can rule out of consideration that Serbia could have allowed regional autonomy to Kosavo, although it would have requied a political and nor a military campaign.
Again, this is bizarrely ahistorical. Kosovar political movements were agitating for regional autonomy years before anyone had ever heard of the KLA. Those peaceful - and sometimes explicitly non-violent - movements were vilified as secessionists and suppressed, sometimes violently. Eventually, Serbia reaped the whirlwind.
Comment by Phil — 19 February, 2008 @ 10:24 pm
“I don’t know how you can rule out of consideration that Serbia could have allowed regional autonomy to Kosavo, although it would have requied a political and nor a military campaign. If you simply assume these problems can only be solved by secession you are setting a precedence for an escalating problem.”
Serbia may not an ‘ethnically pure’ state, but it is not a multinational state either. It is a nation-state, with some national minorities that do not consitute a majority in any discrete territory. Kosovo has the attributes of a nation, not a national minority, and I dont see how that can be accomodated within Serbia. Unless you want to argue that Serbia could evolve a similar kind of common body-politik with Kosova to the one that makes, for instance, the United Kingdom possible. I really dont see it. Serbia cannot unite peoples in this way, and the very idea that it could is strange. Only a broad Balkan federal and democratic project could do this.
I’d venture that Kosovo is highly likely to evolve in a manner that treats its own national minorities, that do not threaten the existence of the state, no differently from most other states. And the Serb and other minorities in Kosova do not in themselves threaten the existence of Kosova.
If anything, the unresolved state of Kosova over the past few years, and the attempts to stop independence from happening, made it more likely that otherwise non-threatening minorites would be seen as a threat than in a situation where independence is seen as secure and unlikely to be reversed. The question of hatred and bigoty against Roma is separate from this, of course, but this is a problem throughout Eastern Europe, not peculiar to Kosova. Of course, these are partly subjective questions and cannot be guaranteed. But those who oppose the national rights of the majority in a situation like this don’t do those smaller minorities any favours in that regard.
Comment by Ian Donovan — 19 February, 2008 @ 10:33 pm
#50 “that majority has the right to determine its own future.”
That’s an argument for a democratic plebiscite on partition, not for the vote that took place, which ignored the rights of the Serbs, a minority with historic roots.
That was the democratic programme of marxists on issues of disputed territorie
“The first nationalism to revive in the 1980s was Serbian”
Not really. There were various fringe nationalists operating in Yugoslavia throughout the post-war period who were repressed by the state, including Chetniks and Croat nationalists. Izetbegovic developed his ideas for a Muslim influenced state in Bosnia before 1980. Pan-Serb nationalism was an incorrect response to a genuine threat posed by the break up of a multi-ethic Yugoslavia. Socialists in Kosovo should have been arguing for the restoration of autonomy and the democratisation of the state, not seperation. Much the same is true in Bosnia.
None of the resultant break away states are economically viable, which means they’re wide open to imperialist penetration. Something Tito’s Yugoslavia managed to prevent, whatever its faults.
#59 “Kosovo has the attributes of a nation, not a national minority”
No it doesn’t. Part of Kosovo has the attributes of an Albanian nation.
So the logic of independence will be absorption into Albania. The Serbs will inevitably draw that conclusion and Serbian border police are already moving into Northern Kosovo to secure the customs posts.
The logic of the situation is partition of the province and that will lead to a messy conflict where the populations are not fully homogenous. Albania and Nato will be on one side, Serbia and Russia on the other.
The whole situation is another disaster waiting to happen and this has all been encouraged by idiot politicians in Washington and Brussels.
Comment by prianikoff — 20 February, 2008 @ 7:27 am
This article kind of passed me by as was very busy at work. However, it seems confused and not a little disturbing.
The Nato ‘protectorate’ is not an indepndent state of Kosova but an imperialist enclave. We can agree on this.
There are serious problems with the Kosova elite selcted by imperialism- agreed.
But to maintian that there was not serious national oppression and ethnic cleansing of kosovars - albeit accelerated by imperialism’s miliitary intervention- is quite mistaken.
Comment by Jason — 20 February, 2008 @ 7:30 am
There were various fringe nationalists operating in Yugoslavia throughout the post-war period who were repressed by the state, including Chetniks and Croat nationalists.
Yes, that’s true - I was typing quickly. My main point is that, if we focus on the period of the breakup, the growth and assertion of militant pan-Serb nationalism actually precedes the militant Croat, Kosovar and Bosniak nationalism which it appears to respond to. (That was certainly the way it looked at the time.)
Pan-Serb nationalism was an incorrect response to a genuine threat posed by the break up of a multi-ethic Yugoslavia.
A genuine threat which was quite containable in the 1980s, and which became an unmanageable reality in reaction to the revival of pan-Serb nationalism.
Socialists in Kosovo should have been arguing for the restoration of autonomy and the democratisation of the state, not seperation. Much the same is true in Bosnia.
Weirdly ahistorical again - socialists and democrats in Kosova and Bosnia did argue for these things. The growth of secessionism was a last-ditch response to the failure of more genuinely Yugoslav-minded politics to make any headway.
Comment by Phil — 20 February, 2008 @ 8:39 am
The same old lies about pan-Serb nationalism. Why is it OK for Kosovo to secede from Serbia, but not for the Krajina Serbs to secede from Croatia and remain in Yugoslavia/Serbia to which they were adjacent? In ‘Sprska’ the population was more mixed, but an accomodation could have been arrived at, but for the US encouraging Izegebovic to be intransigent - for goodness sake, does anyone even bother anymore to deny that the US imported muhajeddin to Bosnia?
I think Kosovo, unfortunately, is a lost cause for Serbia, and we should focus on supporting a reasonable accomodation for the Serbs remaining there. We should also focus on keeping Kosovo out of the EU (if we can’t get out ourselves)until such time (if ever)that the US pulls out - there is nothing that can be done with it while it is under US occupation. If a really independent Kosovo has any future, it’s only as a part of Albania, and that’s going to cause all sorts of problems, in Macedonia for instance.
Comment by Jock McTrousers — 20 February, 2008 @ 9:39 am
“That’s an argument for a democratic plebiscite on partition, not for the vote that took place, which ignored the rights of the Serbs, a minority with historic roots.
That was the democratic programme of marxists on issues of disputed territories”
Kosovo is ‘disputed territory’ only in the sense that the Israelis say that the West Bank and Gaza are ‘disputed territories’. As for the question of those small areas where the population is non-Albanian, there could concievably be adjustments to the border. But since the programme of Serb nationalism was to block and supress any democratic expression of the Albanian majority, I don’t see how this can be placed at the door of that majority. If a democratic plebescite had been allowed in 1989, for instance, then this problem would never have arisen, and there would have been no opportunity for the imperialists to intervene and taint the process as they taint everything they touch.
“Part of Kosovo has the attributes of an Albanian nation.
So the logic of independence will be absorption into Albania. The Serbs will inevitably draw that conclusion and Serbian border police are already moving into Northern Kosovo to secure the customs posts.”
That’s not necessarily true. There are separate states with common languages in Europe, with different historical origins and hence different body politics. Germany, Austria and (largely) Switzerland, for instance, or how about Romania and Moldova? It remains to be seen whether Kosova and Albania will unify. Maybe, maybe not.
If they do, that is their business provided that does not involve some kind of program of expansion and conquest of other peoples. Abstractly, I have no objection to the unification of Serbs in one state either - the only reason why this is reactionary in practice is that it would tear apart the very mixed discrete territory of Bosnia, where no ethnic confessional group has a majority.
But again, there seems to be an implicit assumption in this that Albanian national assertion is something uniquely terrible, which I find disturbing since Albanians are Europe’s only fully fledged (mainly) Muslim nation.
Comment by Ian Donovan — 20 February, 2008 @ 9:57 am
Ian,
Your approach based upon states based upon “ethnic confessional” groups forming states where they hold a majority, and therefore creating further enclaves of minorities is very problematic. You haven’t answered my question that given the undoubted oppression of Roma, Ashkali and Serb people in Kosovo, should they now form a seperatist movement from Kosovo?
I suggest that you refer to the work of Karl Renner and Otto Bauer, who had to face very similar issues a hundred years ago, facing not only with simlar issues but actually the same populations, for example the Habsburg annexation of Bosnia-Herzogovnia was a huge issue for the social democratic Gesamtpartei.
The ignoring of these key marxist texts on the national question is a shame.
Comment by Andy Newman — 20 February, 2008 @ 10:23 am
I think that the Serbs of Mitrovica and other such groups have every right to self-determination if they are the majority in any area. That could either mean local autonomy or separation (particularly since the Serbs in the north of Kosova actually border with Serbia), but it is important that it is they who get to choose. They cannot be used as an excuse for keeping the Kosovars under the Serb yoke, nor is the territorial integrity of Kosova as it is some sort of cast-iron principle.
Comment by David Broder — 20 February, 2008 @ 1:31 pm
Albanians are not a ‘confessional group’ are they? They are a nation (or arguably nations).
Andy seems to be under the impression that I favour separation for separation’s sake. Not so - I favour a broad democratic solution in the Balkans that includes all the peoples of the region in a single federal state. However, the forcible imprisonment of one people within the borders claimed by another is not a step towards that, but rather a provocation against democracy that deepens hatred between nations. Separation is the lesser evil in such conditions.
David Broder is right in terms of what he says above. There is no need to fetishise existing borders, nor to deny the rights of autonomy or even seperation to enclaves whose populations cannot reconcile themselves with Kosova independence. If the Serbs in these enclaves wish autonomy or to be part of Serbia (if geographically possible) or some kind of confederal arrangment (if not) then why not?
As to Roma (and Ashkali, or Albanian-Roma are part of this question) this is not a national question in the same way, but rather a question of a pernicious form of racial oppression that is widespread across East Europe. I dont think separatism is remotely possible for the Roma, there has to be a fight to overcome this bigotry wherever it occurs.
I dont think ‘Austro-Marxism’ is a particularly healthy tradition, since the assumptions behind their schemes of ‘cultural-national autonomy’ were that the Habsburg Empire would remain basically intact. I think Lenin’s approach to self-determination is the correct approach, which by the way is not counterposed to the goal of democratic federations based on equality.
Comment by Ian Donovan — 20 February, 2008 @ 5:20 pm
#62 Phil
“The growth of secessionism was a last-ditch response to the failure of more genuinely Yugoslav-minded politics to make any headway.”
That doesn’t make it the right programme.
Those who defended a multi-ethnic Yugoslavia were in a minority.
But within that context, the secessionists were not to the left of Milosevic.
Sometimes you just have to have to remain in a minority until your arguments are proved right.
#64 Ian Donovan
“Kosovo is ‘disputed territory’ only in the sense that the Israelis say that the West Bank and Gaza are ‘disputed territories’”
Historically, Kosovo been disputed for most of the past 500 years.
There’s hardly been a single century in which foreign powers haven’t altered the demographics.
Within living memory, Mussolini’s Italy handed it over to its Albanian puppet government, which altered the ethnic balance in their favour.
That’s why independence based on demographics without considering history is so provocative there.
There was also some justification to the Serb’s complaint that the Albanian nationalists misused the autonomy they had under the Yugoslav Federal Constitution to discriminate against them.
Don’t forget Tito wasn’t a Serb and he believed in restraining the power of Serbia in the interests of a strong Yugoslavia.
Milosevic fundamentally altered that policy and made an appeal to Serb nationalism rather than defending the idea of a multi-ethnic socialist Yugoslavia.
ID
“As for the question of those small areas where the population is non-Albanian, there could concievably be adjustments to the border.
But since the programme of Serb nationalism was to block and supress any democratic expression of the Albanian majority, I don’t see how this can be placed at the door of that majority. If a democratic plebescite had been allowed in 1989, for instance, then this problem would never have arisen, and there would have been no opportunity for the imperialists to intervene and taint the process as they taint everything they touch.”
Given the fact that Albanians are not Slavs, in principle Kosovo should have had the right to self determination.
But that right could not encompass the areas where Serbs formed a majority.
For historical reasons, the only equitable democratic plebiscite would have entailed the question of the right to join Albania and Yugoslavia.
Just taking into account the historical context of 1989 would have unfairly favoured the Albanians territorially.
ID
“There are separate states with common languages in Europe, with different historical origins and hence different body politics. Germany, Austria and (largely) Switzerland, for instance, or how about Romania and Moldova? It remains to be seen whether Kosova and Albania will unify. “
I’m not saying it can’t work, but Switzerland is a a mutually advantageous business arrangement between the local French, Schweiz Deutch and Ladino population.
It also has a standard of living better than the United States.
I seem to remember a certain war that began shortly after the Anschluss.
ID
“there seems to be an implicit assumption in this that Albanian national assertion is something uniquely terrible, which I find disturbing since Albanians are Europe’s only fully fledged (mainly) Muslim nation.”
I don’t make that assumption at all!
Albanians have been around in Europe for longer than the Slavs and no one is questioning their right to statehood.
The problem with Kosovan statehood is its effect on the Serb population.
Just as Croat independence negatively affected the Krajina Serbs.
To say that they’re a “Muslim nation” is an overstatement. They had nearly 50 years of being an Atheist state!
Most Albanians and Kosovans I’ve met aren’t religious, or are even anti-religious.
Even when they are Muslim, why does that mean the “nation” is?
Muslims were free to practice their religion in Yugoslavia.
When people like Izetbegovic began to theorise on how that affected the local state, rightly or wrongly, it was perceived as a threat in a country with a highly intermingled and intermarried population and a secular majority.
Comment by prianikoff — 20 February, 2008 @ 7:14 pm
The argument that Kosovo Albanians are Muslim is indeed an odd one.
Comment by Andy Newman — 20 February, 2008 @ 8:50 pm
Those who defended a multi-ethnic Yugoslavia were in a minority.
But within that context, the secessionists were not to the left of Milosevic.
Sometimes you just have to have to remain in a minority until your arguments are proved right.
Ahistorical again. It’s 1992; the JNA is in Bosnia. They’re working with Bosnian Serb militias; they’re opposed by Muslim and Croat militias, but also by the army of the republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina - an army which has Bosnian Serb and Bosnian Croat as well as Muslim officers. Who’s defending a multi-ethnic Yugoslavia?
Muslims were free to practice their religion in Yugoslavia.
When people like Izetbegovic began to theorise on how that affected the local state, rightly or wrongly, it was perceived as a threat in a country with a highly intermingled and intermarried population and a secular majority.
This threat was very selectively perceived - see above re: composition of Bosnian army. The only government Izetbegovic ever led was a coalition with the main Serb party.
Comment by Phil — 20 February, 2008 @ 10:48 pm
#70 Phil: 1992 Bosnia “Who’s defending a multi-ethnic Yugoslavia?”
Well I don’t think the Bosnian Army is, because the tri-national parity agreement of the Bosnian Constitution had already been effectively torn up and Izetbegovic had already formed the SDA on nationalist lines 2 years earlier.
The problem is that the bureaucracy in Belgrade had already given up on the idea and were trying to cut their losses by agreeing on a carve up with their rivals in Zagreb. Which left the Bosnian Muslims in a fairly hopeless position.
But their government alliance was not with people in favour of a “multi-ethnic Yugoslavia”, but an alliance of convenience with the SDA, a Serb Nationalist party known to contain “ethnic cleansers”.
The only way out under such circumstances would have been to maintain a party consisting of all the nationalities and religions and a workers defence force.
Where that *actually happened*, I have no problems with it.
The question being, where did it actually happen?
Comment by prianikoff — 21 February, 2008 @ 6:08 pm
#70 Phil: 1992 Bosnia “Who’s defending a multi-ethnic Yugoslavia?”
Well I don’t think the Bosnian Army is, because the tri-national parity agreement of the Bosnian Constitution had already been effectively torn up and Izetbegovic had already formed the SDA on nationalist lines 2 years earlier.
The problem is that the bureaucracy in Belgrade had already given up on the idea and were trying to cut their losses by agreeing on a carve up with their rivals in Zagreb. Which left the Bosnian Muslims in a fairly hopeless position.
But their government alliance was not with people in favour of a “multi-ethnic Yugoslavia”, but an alliance of convenience with the SDS, a Serb Nationalist party known to contain “ethnic cleansers”.
The only way out under such circumstances would have been to maintain a party consisting of all the nationalities and religions and a workers defence force.
Where that *actually happened*, I have no problems with it.
The question being, where did it actually happen?
Comment by prianikoff — 21 February, 2008 @ 6:08 pm
Kosova declares (semi-) independence: Yes to full self-determination for Kosova. No to continuation of colonial-ruled state
This Links article is an extended version of the one that appeared in
Green Left Weekly.
http://www.links.org.au/node/290
Comment by Terry Townsend — 25 February, 2008 @ 7:25 am
There is now a nifty audio interview with Karadjis as well. Go to http://www.links.org.au/node/290
Comment by Terry Townsend — 26 February, 2008 @ 12:17 am
BPS - yes, the SDA was a ‘Muslim’ party, and yes, the alliance with the SDS was opportunistic. My point was that Izetbegovic’s actions in government weren’t the actions of someone who either wanted to carve up BiH into ethnicallly pure statelet or to impose the rule of one minority over the others. And there were self-identified ‘Bosnian Serbs’ and ‘Bosnian Croats’ in the Bosnian army, which gives it a better claim to representing the Yugoslav ideal than the JNA had at that point.
Incidentally, there are some surprisingly sensible comments from Seymour on a recent mega-thread on the Tomb. Not that I agree with him (I found the original post alternately deterministic and weaselly, Gowan meets Glenny) but he ends up being attacked by Serbophiles, which is generally a sign that you’re getting something right on this one.
Also worth seeing for a confrontation between Seymour and John Palmer, who ‘lenin’ at one point lectures about “the IS tradition”. The best part is how he tries to get out of it - yeah, well, you obviously don’t know anything about it any more…
Comment by Phil — 26 February, 2008 @ 8:10 am
Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia & Herzigovina, Macedonia, Montenegro & now Kosovo all gained independence for a reason.
Now it may interest you all to know that Serbs are well known for their propaganda for the purpose to hide the reasons for Serbian aggression and to blur the realities of genocide prosecuted solely to maintain a centralised Serbian dictatorship in what was then Yugoslavia. Over the years a great deal of Serbian propaganda has become mythology with a life of its own, growing and changing with each retelling (funny that!). These myths were not only resurrected and embellished by propagandists, but by well-intended journalists and others as well attempting to understand or to justify Serbian aggression.
Despite a wealth of scholarship condemning the role of Serbian Chetniks during World War II, Serbian mythology lives on. No amount of ancient fiction or new mythology will ever make Serbia the victim or erase their crimes. Far too many have seen too much through the eyes of the media.
MARK MY WORDS ‘MYTH WILL NOT TRIUMPH OVER REALITY!’
As a matter of fact the truth has already started to unravel ‘A Dark Secret Comes to Light in Serbia’
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990DEFD81E3CF932A35755C0A9679C8B63 and more will come as new evidence comes to light.
May Kosovo Independence bring a new beginning and renewed hope for the people of Kosovo:))
GOD BLESS XOX
Comment by The Unspoken Truth — 26 February, 2008 @ 9:29 am
To my mind the problem with discussing the break up of Jugoslavia and its consequences is that not only do the facts becomes swiftly contested (aided by deliberate NATO propaganda of course), but positions are taken based upon partial readings of the facts, without taking into acount that there were lots of parallel events, interests and motives operating at different levels at the same time.
There is then a problem with thinking that the ” national question” can be decided by some formulaic first principles, rather than seeing it as a political question. Political seperation is not necessarily the best political option even for opressed people, and every serious theorist about nations will point out that the number of potential nations is much greater than the number of potential states.
Looking at the specific case of Kosovo now, does independence improve or worsen the political situation? Clearly it worsens it by increasing tension and effectively sanctioning the gangsterism and racism of the Kosovo leadership, and validating the popular anti-Serb and anti-Roma racism among the Kosovans.
Instead of looking at lenin (the real one), perhaps we might be better of looking at the work of socialists who specifically considered this question, as far back as the 1899 Brno Congress of the Gesamtpartei the social democrats agreed the principle of self determination but argued that the highly heterogenous population of the Balkans would lead to interminable ethnic strife if that principle was applied to breaking up (or uniting) territories based on who had an arbitrary majority. the dynamic behind the demand for Kosovo independence has been a political disaster, and was not the only option.
Comment by Andy Newman — 26 February, 2008 @ 9:53 am
the social democrats agreed the principle of self determination but argued that the highly heterogenous population of the Balkans would lead to interminable ethnic strife if that principle was applied to breaking up (or uniting) territories based on who had an arbitrary majority. the dynamic behind the demand for Kosovo independence has been a political disaster, and was not the only option.
You don’t need to go back as far as Brno - some of us were making exactly this argument against the irredentism of the Krajina Serbs and the attempted carve-up of Bosnia. Santayana quote goes here.
Comment by Phil — 26 February, 2008 @ 10:00 am