The Latest Crisis

Following the announcement that the UN will allow further elections to take place in Kosovo, which will be overseen by OSCE monitors, renewed “ethnic tensions” explode onto the streets of Kosovo . The partitioned town of Kovoska Mitrovica has witnessed pitched battles between Serb and Albanian “communities” resulting in 14 deaths. This followed the drowning of two Albanian children who allegedly leaped into a river after being chased by Serbians with a dog. It now seems that, whatever the rumours, no Serbs were involved. The violence has since spread across the country, with Albanians burning Orthodox Churches (90% of which are already ablaze according to Radio Five), and Serbs destroying Mosques . Britain is now to send 750 troops to Kosovo to put the natives back in their place.


Who Did What, Where and Why...

As per usual, it would repay significantly to step back from the immediate horror and ask what happens when nothing happens? In other words, what is in this place that is leading to a renewal of the old “divisions” which Nato thought they had pounded to dust when they wrecked the Serb civilian infrastructure, killed a few thousand and dented some tanks.
First of all, the terms that I have enclosed in “scare quotes” are precisely useless for talking about this. The only reason I use them is because they are automatically recognised by everyone when discussing a topic like this. “Bitter hatreds”, “barbaric enmity”, “divided communities” … the lexicon of the liberal humanist (for such it is) is thus disfigured with politically vacant terms. I remember them well from growing up in Northern Ireland when the alleged apolitical liberals of the press pack would constantly bemoan the “sectarian rivalries” which were tearing Northern Ireland apart. The only problem was “hard-liners” and “the tiny majority that spoils it for the everyone else”. Please! It wasn’t no “tiny minority”. And, at any rate, this whole gesture reduces an intensely political conflict with a transparent inequity of power and blame to a simple ethnic conflict, a failure of two cultures to understand one another properly.
Imperialists, naturally enough, seem to use the same tactics to divide people wherever they find it useful. So why should it surprise us that Nato and the UN thought the best thing for Kosovo would be first to partition Serbia and Kosovo, second to partition the towns within Kosovo? From Belfast to Kashmir, the same dynamics replicate themselves in alarming fashion. (Or perhaps these are best understood as yer Wittgensteinian “family resemblances”) It isn’t that they create the division in each case – rather, they take it as read, perhaps as something natural in the species they’re dealing with, and institutionalise it. Predictably, it also contributes enormously to diverting the resources of the subjugated into internal conflict.
So, what has been germinating, breeding, in this cleaved community?


Neither Belgrade, nor Washington...

The starting point has to be international interference in the former Yugoslavia, specifically the bombing of Serbia and Kosovo which began on March 24th, 1999. The bombing's alleged motivation was the oppression of Kosovo Albanians by the Serb authorities. Either the scale of Serb repression in Kosovo had escalated (one version) or it was going to escalate (complementary version) under the aegis of Operation Horseshoe. I bow to noone in my cynicism toward corrupt old Stalinoid regimes like that in Milosevic-era Serbia. But my equal cynicism toward America necessitates that I cast a somewhat wider net of critique than the narrow concerns of the mainstream (especially liberal) media...

To continue, please visit...

 http://leninology.blogspot.com/2004_03_01_leninology_archive.html#107964122613385441

or, if you prefer,

 http://medialies.blogspot.com/2004_03_01_medialies_archive.html#107964189098892484