After the Rain : how the West lost the East Part 9

The Bulgarians regard the Macedonians as rebel Bulgarians. The Macedonian regard the Bulgarians as Tartars (that is, Barbarian and Turkish). The Slovenes and the Croats and, yes, the Hungarians claim not to belong in this cauldron of seething, venomous emotions.

And culture was used abundantly in the Balkan conflicts. Where was the Cyrillic alphabet invented (Macedonia, Greece, Bulgaria) and by whom (Greeks, Macedonians, Bulgarians). Are some nations mere inventions?

(The Bulgarians say this about the Macedonians). Are some languages one and the same? Minorities are either cleansed or denied out of existence. The Greek still claim that there are no minorities in Greece, only Greeks with different religions. The Bulgars in Greece used to be "Bulgarophone Greeks". The Balkan is the eternal hunting grounds of oxymorons, tautologies and logical fallacies.

It is here that intellectuals usually step in (see my article: "The Poets and the Eclipse"). But the Balkan has no intelligentsia in the Russian or even American sense. It has no one to buck the trend, to play the non-conforming, to rattle, to provoke, to call upon one's conscience. It does not have this channel to (other) ideas and view called "intellectuals". It is this last point, which makes me the most pessimistic. The Balkan is a body without a brain.

(Article written on August 8, 1999 and published September 6, 1999

in "Central Europe Review" volume 1, issue 11)

Return

The MinMaj Rule

I have a Roma (gypsy) cleaning lady. She cleans my house every fortnight. She is nice and well spoken. She values education and good manners. She is spotless, obsessively purgatory, and compulsively tidy.

And she hates "shiptars" (the derogatory name a.s.signed to Macedonian Albanians). They are dirty, she says, and criminal and they have too many children. They don't respect their women. She is afraid of them.

Her eyes glow with the gratification of the underdog turned top dog, if only verbally, if only for a while, if only while cleansing my house.

This is the way it is, a chain of abuse, a torrent of prejudice, an iron curtain of malice and stereotyping. Czechs portray "their" gypsies with the same lingual brushstrokes, the same venomous palette, a canva.s.s of derision and atavistic, reflexive hatred.

In the Balkans reigns supreme the Law of the MinMaj. It is simple and it was invariably manifested throughout history. It is this: "Wars erupt whenever and wherever a country has a minority of the same ethnicity as the majority in its neighbouring country."

Consider Israel - surrounded by Arab countries, it has an Arab minority of its own, having expelled (ethnically cleansed) hundreds of thousands more. It has fought 6 wars with its neighbours and (good intentions notwithstanding) looks set to fight more. It is subjugated to the Law of the MinMaj, enslaved by its steady and nefarious domination.

Or take n.a.z.i Germany. World War Two was the ultimate manifestation of the MinMaj Law. German minorities throughout Europe were either used by Germany - or actively collaborated with it - to justify one Anschluss after another. Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, France, Russia - a parade of Big Brotherly intervention by Germany on behalf of allegedly suppressed kinfolk. Lebensraum and Volkdeutsch were twin pillars of n.a.z.i ideology.

And, of course, there is Yugoslavia, its charred remnants agonizingly writhing in a post Kosovo world. Serbia fought Croatia and Bosnia and Kosovo to protect besieged and hysterical local Serbs. Croats fought Serbs and Bosnians to defend dilapidated Croat settlements. Albanians fought the Serbs through the good services of Kosovars in order to protect Kosovars. And the fighting is still on. This dismembered organism, once a flourishing country, dazed and scorched, still attempts to blindly strike its former members, inebriated by its own blood. Such is the power of the MinMaj.

There are three ways out from the blind alley to which the MinMaj Rule inevitably and invariably leads its adherents. One exit is through ethnic cleansing, the other via self-determination, the third is in establishing a community, a majority of minorities.

Ethnic cleansing is the safest route. It is final, irreversible, just, fast, easy to carry out and preventive as much as curative. It need not be strewn with ma.s.s graves and smouldering villages. It can be done peacefully, by consent or with the use of minimal force. It can be part of a unilateral transfer or of a bilateral exchange of population.

There are many precedents - Germans in the Ukraine and in Czechoslovakia, Turks in Bulgaria, Jews in the Arab countries. None of them left willingly or voluntarily. All were the victims of pathological nostalgia, deep, disconsolate grieving and the post-traumatic shock of being uprooted and objectified. But they emigrated, throngs of millions of people, planeloads, trainloads, cartloads and carloads of them and they reached their destinations alive and able to start all over again - which is more than can be said about thousands of Kosovar Albanians. Ethnic cleansing has many faces, brutality is not its integrated feature.

The Wilsonian ideal of self-determination is rarely feasible or possible - though, when it is, it is far superior to any other resolution of intractable ethnic conflicts. It does tend to produce political and economic stillborns, though. Ultimately, these offspring of n.o.ble principle merge again with their erstwhile foes within customs unions, free trade agreements, currency unions. They are subsumed in other economic, political, or military alliances and gladly surrender part of that elusive golden braid, their sovereignty. Thus, becoming an independent political ent.i.ty is, to most, a rite of pa.s.sage, adolescence, heralding the onset of political adulthood and geopolitical and economic maturity.

The USA and, to a lesser degree, the UK, France and Germany are fine examples of the third way. A majority of minorities united by common rules, beliefs and aspirations. Those are tension filled structures sustained by greed or vision or fear or hope and sometimes by the very tensions that they generate. No longer utopian, it is a realistic model to emulate.

It is only when ethnic cleansing is combined with self-determination that a fracturing of the solutions occurs. Atrocities are the vile daughters of ideals. Armed with stereotypes - those narcissistic defence mechanisms that endow their propagators with a fleeting sense of superiority - an ethnic group defines itself negatively, in opposition to another. Self-determination is employed to facilitate ethnic cleansing rather than to prevent it. Actually, it is the very act of ethnic cleansing which validates the common ident.i.ty, which forms the myth and the ethos that is national history, which perpetrates itself by conferring resilience upon the newly determined and by offering a common cause and the means to feel efficient, functional and victorious in carrying it out.

There are many variants of this malignant, brutal, condemnable, criminal and inefficient form of ethnic cleansing. Bred by manic and hysterical nationalists, fed by demagogues, nourished by the hitherto deprived and humiliated - this cancerous mix of definition by negation wears many guises. It is often clad in legal attire. Israel has a Law of Return, which makes an instant citizen out of every spouse of every Russian Jew while denying this privilege to Arabs born on its soil.

South Africa had apartheid. n.a.z.i Germany had the Nuremberg Laws. The Czech Republic had the infamous Benes Decrees. But ethnic cleansing can be economic (ask the Chinese in Asia and the Indians in Africa). It can be physical (Croatia, Kosovo). It has myriad facets.

The West is to blame for this confusion. By offering all three solutions as mutually inclusive rather than mutually exclusive - it has been responsible for a lot of strife and misery. But, to its credit, it has learned its lesson. In Kosovo it defended the right of the indigent and (not so indigent but) resident Albanians to live in peace and plough their land in peace and bring forth children in peace and die in peace. But it has not protected their right to self-determination. It has not mixed the signals. As a result the message came through loud and clear. And, for the first time in many years, people tuned in and listened. And this, by far, is the most important achievement of Operation Allied Force.

(Article written on July 4, 1999 and published July 12, 1999

in "Central Europe Review" volume 1, issue 3)

Return

The Balkans between Omerta and Vendetta

On the Criminality of Transition

In a State Department briefing on Thursday, August 5th, 1999, the spokesman of this venerable and ever-so-truthful organ of the American administration, James Rubin, said:

"We have supported and continue to support the regime in Montenegro that is a democratic regime that has pursued a democratic course. We do believe that Milosevic's efforts to consolidate power have led to repeated violations of the Yugoslav federal const.i.tution, in particular the rights and privileges of Montenegro.

In particular, Belgrade has sought to strip Montenegro's const.i.tutional rights and powers and has prevented Montenegro from playing its const.i.tutional role in the federal government. We continue to believe that Montenegro's leaders have demonstrated a measured and rational approach to political and economic reform, which we support. We commend their efforts to work within the FRY for reforms that would bring democracy and a better life to all Yugoslav citizens.

To achieve that objective, we've been providing them a.s.sistance, we've been exempting them from the effect of certain policies that apply to Belgrade and the people of Serbia. We worked very, very hard during the war to avoid any unnecessary damage to facilities or people in Montenegro as a result of the air war. So we have been showing, I think, great efforts to try to build up the democratic efforts that President Djukanovic has shown in Montenegro. We think that they should continue to work within Yugoslavia to ensure their rights are protected."

The war in Kosovo and the impending war in Montenegro and the wars that were in Croatia and Bosnia - were all gangland warfare. These were skirmishes between gangs of criminals, disguised as statesmen, politicians, members of "parliaments" and businessmen. Some of them were protecting their turf - others were trying to usurp it and they all made a killing, often literally. It is the same the world over - from Lebanon to Myanmar, from Sierra Leone to Nigeria and from Sarajevo and its ephemeral Stability Pact to the killing fields of Pristina.

Crime gangs, Mafiosi, local versions of omertas and vendettas, black hands and red rivulets of the cheapest liquid of them all: blood.

Shadowy dealings, drug trafficking, white slavery, smuggling and forfeit goods are all intertwined with political power in the Balkans.

Thaci we discussed elsewhere. Milosevic we discussed everywhere. But Djukanovic is portrayed as different - more gentlemanly, "democratic", a protector of civil rights.

Nothing can be further from the truth. The West - notably the USA - is in the habit of creating pairs of villains and heroes, monsters and saints where there are none. It provides for good soundbites, it raises the fighting spirits at home and it focuses attention and energy on the enemy. Very often, the spin-doctors are caught in their own whirlwind and with them - if they happen to be American - the rest of the world.

Shrewd villagers such as all Balkan politicians are, have caught on to this self-delusion. They pose as democrats, autocrats, strong men, underdogs - anything to get Western aid and investment flowing. It is currently very fashionable and expedient to be a democrat - so Mr.

Djukanovic is a democrat. And the West duly delivers the goods: international recognition, money, and political support.

Milka Tadic is the Editor of the popular (and, as you will see, independent) Montenegrin magazine "Monitor". This week, she wrote about Djukanovich (in "Currency Wars", in IWPR number 63):

"Whenever Djukanovic, then Montenegro's Prime Minister, demanded economic liberalization and more economic independence, Milosevic would close the border and block trade between Serbia and Montenegro. In retaliation, Djukanovic opened Montenegro's borders with Italy, to cigarette smuggling, and with Albania, for oil imports. Djukanovic also liberalized the import of foreign, second-hand cars - many of them stolen vehicles from Western Europe that Montenegrins bought from the Bosnian-Croat mafia, in border towns in Bosnia. Taxes from imported cars, the smuggling of cigarettes and oil, provided Djukanovic with the hard currency to replenish the republic's coffers and begin to chart an independent course away from Belgrade. In economic terms, this tiny republic was becoming less and less dependent on its partner in the Yugoslav federation. ... As NATO launched its bombing campaign, the Yugoslav Army took over control of the Montenegrin border crossings and custom posts, banning even the entrance of humanitarian aid; speed boats smuggling cigarettes between Montenegro and Italy could no longer break the blockade; and the border with Albania was also closed.

Djukanovic was facing economic disaster and was only saved by the end of the war, since when Montenegro has resumed its dubious trade with its neighbours."