KOSOVO ON-LINE
Topic:

THE KOSOVO WAR: THE BEGINNING OF A NEW CENTURY



Authors:

Aleksa Djilas
Arben Xhaferi




Aleksa Djilas

On Tuesday, March 23, at about 11:30 p.m., NATO Secretary General Javier Solana authorized NATO's military command to begin with the bombing of Yugoslavia. I was convinced that to achieve the greatest intimidation effect, the bombs would start falling immediately, and in hugh numbers. But the supreme allied commander in Europe, Gen. Wesley Clark, waited until the next evening; probably because the U.S. embassy's charge d'affaires hadn't yet left Belgrade.

Immediately after Solana's speech, a friend with whom I was watching television and I went to his home to tell the news to his wife. When we arrived there, she was already asleep. We decided to wake her up believing that she would object less to us waking her up than to us failing to inform her. Also, it wouldn't be good for her to be completely taken by surprise when the bombs start to explode.

When she entered the sitting room still not properly awaken, a thought struck me: "When she fell asleep, it was peace, but when she woke up, it was war. The war with which the 21st century began." I was overwhelmed by a powerful feeling of being a witness to something entirely new, that I and all of mankind were for the first time watching the appearance of new historical forces that would shape the future.

Historians divide centuries into long and short. The 19th century began as early as 1789, with the French Revolution (or maybe even in 1775, with the American Revolution), and ended with World War I. The 20th century began as late as 1917, with the October Revolution, and ended in less than one hundred years - in 1989, with the Fall of the Berlin Wall. If the 21st century indeed began with NATO's attack on Yugoslavia, that those ten years between 1989 and 1999 do not belong to any century. Maybe that decade filled with futile hopes of a peaceful and harmonious world in the wake of the Cold War, does not even deserve anything better.

Historical centuries, as opposed to those from the calendar, are marked by crucial events and social processes: the 19th century saw the surge of the bourgeoisie, liberalism, class struggle, imperialism; the 20th - worlds wars, Communism and Fascism, and liberation of colonies.

What, then, would the century that has just began look like? Though I am convinced that it is already here, I do not find it easy to describe. It seems as if cruise missiles and NATO aircraft have brought to Yugoslavia not this unborn century, but its ghost, untouchable, unheard, elusive. Only its vague features can at present be discerned.

One of them is that U.S. public opinion is much less humane than was once believed. Before this war, many informed people claimed that U.S. public opinion would stand up to any bombing that would cause numerous civilian casualties (for instance, more than one hundred), especially if they come from a European country which does not endanger U.S. interests. While I am writing this, the tenth week of the bombing is in progress, and the civilian death toll in Yugoslavia is nearing the figure of 1,500. Though the U.S. public, and even the media, are not indifferent, there are still no large-scale protests.

At the same time, the United States of America, which in the first several decades of the new century will be the only super power, is worrying more than ever before about the safety of its soldiers and seeks to be victorious without a single fatality. When three U.S. servicemen were captured, and released after several weeks, the U.S. media paid much greater attention to them than to the daily killing of dozens of Serb and Albanian civilians. U.S. promotion of human rights throughout the world will appear hypocritical to many because of this way of waging war in which the lives of Americans are valued much more than the lives of others.

To avoid aerial attacks like those NATO launched against Yugoslavia, a number of countries in the future will increase their military budgets. They will spend genorously when purchasing and producing anti-aircraft rockets and -- aware of the sensitivity of the U.S. and other western countries when the lives of their own nationals are in question -- they will develop weapons capable of killing numerous soldiers and civilians, primarily medium and long range missiles with biochemical and nuclear warheads. Thus the arms race will become one of the most prominent features of the onset of the 21st century.

In a conversation pregnant with mutual threats, Khurshchev once told Kennedy: "A poor man does not fear fire." This was not the whole truth, because the Russians were afraid of nuclear war, though less than the Americans. The present, enormous fear of the U.S. and western countries of the loss of their own lives will make much weaker countries equal to them, especially if these countries do not jeopardize the West's vital interests.

In NATO countries, presidents, prime ministers, foreign and defense ministers, diplomats and generals claim that this is not a war, but a "humanitarian intervention" launched to ensure respect for human and minority rights, and carried out in the name of national, religious and cultural tolerance. They like to add they have much respect for the Serbs and Serb culture -- President Clinton even said that Serbs are "a great European nation."

Simultaneously, however, there has been no nation since World War II in the West that was written about with such hatred as were the Serbs. It seems as if a complete turn had occurred in western culture and now, instead of "political corectness," that which sociologists call "essencialistic opinion" -- viewing the policy of one nation as a consequence of this nation's inferior culture, and even of this nation's evil nature -- has returned. Such an approach to a policy of "others" was rather common in Europe on the eve of the First and Second World Wars. While listening to the rumble of the century approaching us, we have to ask the following question: Who will be the next victim of this school of thought? Will not the nations of the West begin to use such words to describe each other?

Before the bombing, Serbia was an industrial country; now, it is much less so, and when the war ends, maybe it will become a chiefly agricultural country. Many skilled workers from Kragujevac, Valjevo, Novi Sad, Cacak, Nis, and other heavily damaged industrial cities are returning to the country to work the land. Will in the future the U.S. and NATO subjugate other nations by destroying their economies?

When a U.S. B-2 "stealth" bomber, worth over two billion U.S. dollars, which departs exclusively from a base in Missouri, hit with several bombs the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, from the point of view of international law it was a U.S. attack on Chinese territory. Even before that, China viewed the bombing of Yugoslavia with great concern. There was no U.N. Security Council authorization for the attack and it was against the U.N. Charter, the Final Helsinki Document from 1975, and many other international agreements, and therefore China believed it was creating a precedent that would serve to threaten its own sovereignty and territorial integrity one day.

After the attack on the embassy, NATO's war against Yugoslavia became the main topic of the Chinese media and China's foreign policy. Up to then, countries of eastern Asia showed interest in Europe primarily as a large market. Now the largest country among them, China, is entering European policy because of this war.

Since its founding in 1949, NATO has never faced such great opposition in the world as it faces today, while the present anti-American sentiments bring to mind the days of the Vietnam War. Indeed, the majority of the world population is against the bombing of Yugoslavia. This has been confirmed by public opinion polls in Ukraine, Russia, China, India, Japan, entire Latin America, most countries of Sub-Saharan Africa, even in a number of Muslim states (for example in Egypt, Iraq, Iran and Siria), and in most countries in northern, southern, and eastern Europe.

During her third term as British prime minister, Margaret Thacher used to occasionally refer to herself as "we." Now, Tony Blair declares the views of his own governement and the U.S. administration as the position of the "international community." Similar arrogance is rather noticeable in other NATO countries. It is beyond doubt that it will be even stronger in the coming century, and that it will face growing opposition in the world.

For the first time since the Roman Empire, the West is unified under the leadership of a single power -- the United States of America. This power is so much stronger than other western countries - militarily, economically and politically alike -- that not one of these countries dares to even think of rivalling it, while owing to U.S. hegemony, they cannot come into a conflict among themselves. However, western countries unified under the U.S. mantle are a greater threat to the rest of the world than they have ever been before. (The author is a sociologist and a political commentator from Belgrade)



Arben Xhaferi



The End of False Globalism and the Beginning of True Globalization

At the end of the 1980s, the Eastern Crisis pushed to the forefront a whole new class of politicians zestfully announcing their race for the Brave New World, new intellectuals showing off with an aura of dissidentism who, fanatically certain they possessed capabilities and competence, promised to reveal us the secret spheres of geostrategic interests, new instigators of false hopes for a better life, new journalists, criminals, apparatchiks, in short, new new-arrivals. In this tide rolling forth at full speed there was no room left for wise considerations: what will be the consequences of the destruction of the existing value system? Are the new chief protagonists of the historical process of building a new world adequately cast for this role?

At the end of the 1980s, all of them were enthusiastic, full of hopes, self-confident and certain that their beliefs, truths, forecasts, and values were the best. At the end of the 1990s, however, all these guides towards a new world, and not only them, but both active and passive intellectuals and various opinion leaders as well, turned out tired, crushed under the burden of suspicions, concerns, and anxiety over their identity and -- their integrity lost, depersonalized, sidelined and tricked by their skillful Leading Sorcerer -- they are trying to turn to themselves, their families, personal fate, selfishly nurturing an intimate hope that at least they as individuals will be saved. They do not even have enough strength to be angry with the Leading Sorcerer who, at the end of the road, will innocently tell them: You forced me to do this! He, who was always right, will be right once again. There are no mistakes in dreams.

Now, after the collapse of their Grand Campaign, the time has come for embarrassment over the past, over enthusiasm, mobilization, great projects; now it's time for advice such as "Don't rock the boat!," "Don't be too curious!," "Believe in miracles!" Only those who knew they were not the main protagonists, the propagators, or the participants in one of the great missions, feel fine, but exclusively in their existential dymension.

But, it is a big question whether this enthusiastic generation of the late 1908s had any real knowledge of what was actually going on in the historical scene, of whether they indeed had a mission to accomplish, as they vainly imagined, and could they indeed be global factors such as the ones now demonstrating their presence and interests in this territory. To give a statement for the CNN, to appear on the CNN or BBC, to meet renowned politicians, journalists, at al., did not equal attaining a global goal; it was an important event only in their own private lives. And these "important events" in the lives of various non-entities, local and provincial officials and apparatchiks were represented -- in all their distorted aspiration towards globality -- as meant for the general well-being and a proof that those insignificant characters were indeed playing a global role. This is the same blunder Federico Fellini's amateur actors make when -- playing themselves -- they take themselves as grand artists, forgetting they are but a material in the hands of a true creator to be used only once and then be discarded.

This energy for missions, visions, and tackling global problems characteristic of the 1980s was a dominant feature of Yugoslav public figures, and the Serb mistake was in having failed to understand this was only a snobbish pose rather then a true project. Serb politicians kept talking about a Western conspiracy against them, the secret Green Transversal, the creation of the Third and Fourth Reichs, the leading role of the Serbs in renewing Byzantium, Serbia as a bastion that would hinder the thrust of Catholicism towards the East ("The Vatican -- satanic state!" chanted the demonstrators), and of Islam towards the West, and -- at the end of this self-appointed globalization -- called on the Russians to start a Third World War with the debauched West which dared attack the Slavhood. But it was a simple error in judgement: neither were the Serbs called to play a global role, nor was the Slavhood under attack; it was all about an insolent person who dared play with matches in a gun powder storage.

This fixation on globalism and a tendency to play a global role is a Yugoslav syndrome owed to the period of Josip Broz Tito's pharaohnic rule. His imitators only recycled this fixation. At the time when others began to play a global role by offering their actual financial, technological, military, cultural, and other attainments at the global market, Tito bluffed with his non-aligned movement. From this false globalism, only faded photographs are left today showing the Marshal in his white uniform on his glamorous journeys through the Third World countries.

Historic dead ends last longer and peoples who lack mature and independent scientific and other institutions are easily manipulated, and incapable of timely realizing they are on a wrong historic course. Such mistakes cost a lot. The price currently being paid in Kosovo is the result of a grave mistake of this generation which attempted -- relying on a grandomaniac communist desire for Yugoslavia to play a global role -- to prevent the establishment of the demonized New World Order, which, in fact, represents democratization, market economy, and respect of human rights and international law.

Milosevic succeeded neither in turning Yugoslavia into a bastion, except his own, nor to scare the world by globalizing the Albanian Question. Spain did not fall apart because of the Basques, nor did the U.S. because of the Hispanics, nor Australia because of the Aborigines, nor did any other country at that, of all those placed on the list of horrifying forecasts the Milosevic propaganda used to threaten with. There was no Third World War, and the EU and NATO did not fall apart. Instead, Yugoslavia fell apart. And instead of initiating a deep split in global interests, Milosevic's idea backfired and made him tragically aware of their strength. With their unbreakable resistance, the Albanians were the catalysts for starting the true globalization process in the region. Their perseverance and the refusal to accept Milosevic have brought NATO to the region, that is -- the standards of Western civilization all will benefit from.

The war in Kosovo and the Albanian suffering will open the road to Europeanizing the Balkans. Milosevic is crushed; he can no longer resist this process. But it appears the globalization game is to continue on an intellectual plane. There are already attempts to ascribe the Kosovo crisis to a global conspiracy, this time not only aimed against the Serbs, but even more against the Europeans, the Russians, the Chinese, et al. This opens yet another moral problem: of facing the crime. If there is a global conspiracy, then no one is guilty of the crimes. The criminals were only executing a global will. The criminals are not to be blamed because they were forced to commit the crimes. And this is an easy way out of misdeeds.

Much like joyful target sign bearers protesting on Serbia's bridges convinced they were fighting demons and unaware that in their name a Serb was cutting off a head of an Albanian, exterminating an entire family, murdering a three-year old child, or raping a little girl, so will certain post-war intellectuals -- joyfully, arrogantly, and cynically -- offer a theory enabling them to avoid facing the crimes committed in their name, absolving them of any responsibility and the need to clearly distance themselves from the spiritual pattern which made those crimes legitimate.

(The author is the leader of the Democratic Party of Albanians in Macedonia)