This is in response to Jim Blaut's posting of Louis Proyect's piece.
I think it's unsustainable now to try an see some equanimity
between Serb and Kosovan attrocities. We can be utterly sure that if
Kosovans were responsible for anything like the attrocitioes the Serbs
seem to have committed, the very efficient Serb propoganda machine would
have publicized it high and wide.
On Proyect's argument, I think it is simply preposterous to
see Milosevic as still leading a socialist struggle that began in 1917.
If I believed that I could not be a socialist. Much as Proyect makes much
of Solidarity's "Third Camp" position reincarnating today, it is surely
just as fair to claim that this view of Milosevic represents a rather
nasty recrudescence of Stalinism. Apparent class mission allied with a
brutal nationalist state. Not an idle fear.
Second, let's assume that the history Proyect reports is correct,
and actually as far as it goes I have no reason to doubt it. I don't
think fascism in Kosovo in WWII (or in Croatia) justifies Milosevic's
genocide today. The offensive nature of Serb nationalism since 1991 is
equally a piece of the history. It is hardly convincing to use a 1/12/99
pro-Serb report to deny a genocide that by all reports became most intense
only in the following weeks (before as well as after the bombing).
Third, I agree entirely about the vital need for historical
context but WWII is not any prvileged starting place. If that history is
itself put in the context of the origins of the Yugoslav state after 1918
the picture is quite different. The ambition for a greater Serbia was the
central (internal) obstacle for all of the other participating states and
the events of WWII shouldn't blind us into seeing its recrudescence in the
1990s.
As for Solidarity, I would disagree with them on one central
issue. I do think there has to be some kind of self-determination for
the Kosovans but I agree with Proyect about the proto-fascist make-up of
some of the KLA and think that western support for the KLA and KLA
victory would only deepen that fascism.
I think when this whole war is over, however it ends, the
revelations about Serb attrocities will be significant, much as happened
in Croatia then Bosnia. Like both of these places, there were attrocities
on all sides but only extreme Serbian nationalists can deny that the vast
majority of such attrocities -- from Croatia to Bosnia to Kosovo -- are
squarely the responsibility of the Serb military, local police and
paramilitaries. That's why I strongly believe that a "stop the bombing"
politics is irresponsible without a clear anti-Milosevic politics too. In
very practical terms, the best result is for both sides to be badly beaten
-- not as quixotic as it may sound. I also agree with Proyect about the
importance of class, but I think it is precisely the failures of socialism
there and here that we have to wade through genocide and bombing and
ethnic cleansing in a vain attempt to get a clear class picture.
Neil Smith
Department of Geography
and Center for the Critical Analysis of Contemporary Culture
Rutgers University
Piscataway NJ 08854
phone: 732 445 4103 (Geography)
732 932 8679/8426 (CCACC)
fax: 732 445 0006 (Geography)
732 932 8683 (CCACC)
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