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BELGRADE - My neighbour Nikola is in action once again. Positioned on the roof of the building, inspired by the state media and alcohol, he fires his Beretta while screaming in joy. The last time he conducted this ritual was in the honour of his daughter's wedding, or maybe it was the last time Yugoslavia became the world basketball champion - I don't quite remember. Anyway the reason for this sudden outburst of emotions is -- the victory? Well no, not really -- even a die hard Milosevic fan like Nikola wouldn't describe the outcome of this ordeal as a victory -- let's just call it an" honorable truce"
Call it whatever you want but the fact remains that people are on the streets celebrating. The logically imposed question is what exactly are they celebrating, and do they have anything to be happy about? But that's just the way people are here, the shots rang out all over the city and people are singing, the youth is driving around in the cars blowing their horns . So let's check out the state media's explanation of this reaction.
"After the heroic 70+ days spent under terror and constant pressure the nightmare is finally over, the Yugoslav people are happy because their sacrifices are now paying off --the integrity and sovereignty of the country are preserved, the future decisions concerning Kosovo will be in the hands of the United Nations, and the whole world witnessed the determination and pride with which we opposed the ruthless aggression. People are happy because their lives will finally turn normal again."
Normal again?
Factories are ruined and 500 000 workers unemployed as a result, the whole infrastructure is destroyed and no one knows whether they'll be forced to celebrate the new millennium freezing to death under candle lights. 800 000 Kosovars are brutally "thrown out" by the army or simply killed by Milosevic's paramilitary death squads and Kosovo's cities look like a set for the new Mad Max movie thanks to the American bombers. Thousands of young people are planing to leave or have already left this "country without future"
We have invading imperialist troops on our soil, and on the top of it all we're now facing with Milosevic who is stronger than ever thanks to a whole bunch of fascistic laws introduced under the excuse of war.
Why, things couldn't be better.
Tolerance
"If you tolerate this then your children will be next." --so I wrote to
readers during the bombing. Well, the world has obviously tolerated it. The
only two strong rival army-powers capable of confronting the American beast
remained more-or-less passive during the whole attack. Russia is a giant
junkie, addicted on the credits and dependable of the good old dealer -the
International Monetary Fund. Keeping this in mind it was unreal to expect any
real opposition from Yeltsin and his corrupt regime. In the middle of the air
campaign Russia received the long-awaited credit which was obviously enough
to "keep them in their place." It was only the question of the price for
which Yeltsin would sell out his "Slav brothers" and allow NATO to spread
further . The capitalist China didn't want to rock the boat without a good
reason(although I personally don't see any better), the shaking could slow
down its future economical "growth" so they didn't want to take any chances.
When their embassy was bombed they had to react, they raised a little noise
in the UN but nothing more. Like all other capitalist countries China is
selfish and its own interest's are more important than some long-forgotten
international law.
The two countries became surprisingly active once it was all over. When Milosevic finally decided that he had enough and agreed to the terms which were imposed to him, Russia and China used their UN veto rights to drag out the "peace process"(read: the: occupation process) in order to push their interests into the deal; that way they only extended the agony of the Yugoslav people because while they were negotiating ("squeezing" some gains from the Empire) the bombing and destruction continued. Russia and China behaved like the imperialistic vultures.
On the other hand, apart from their ruling regimes, Chinese and Russian people once again showed their potential. For the first time since the Tienamen massacre masses were on the streets --a glorious sight. American embassy in Beijing was virtually under siege for several days; the Empire^Òs embassy in Moscow was not only surrounded but attacked by bazooka and an arrow (yes you understood right - arrows), and the statistics show that the anti -American feeling among the Russians is stronger than ever.
The proletariat of the "most developed" NATO countries proved its long time state of coma. The Western proletariat is obviously very ill, it s inert, passive and indifferent - its soul is dead. They feel safe and enjoy the deal that they made with their class enemies, "democracy" and MTV compensate them with the image of sex, wealth and excitement in exchange for their slavery to the capitalist economy. The polls conducted in most NATO countries showed that most of the citizens supported the military action (especially in Britain). Local anti-war gatherings were held in these countries but it was all insufficient, looking from this perspective the sixties seem like they happened centuries ago. Take the German Green party for example -- founded on the 68's student principles with a strict anti-war programe it lived to see their main man Joshka Fischer (minister of international affairs) give his full support for the air attacks.
So much for the German students' strategy of "long march through the institutions" set out in the sixties; it's impossible to change the system through its own institutions -all western reformists should finally realize this and accept it as a fact.
The only two NATO countries in which the proletariat successfully played its role in society's political life were Greece and Italy. The long history of class struggle in these countries and all the sacrifices handled by the proletariat obviously weren't in vain. They learned their lessons from their rich legacy of class struggle and Greek and Italian proletariat can now be proud on their strong organisational skills and highly developed class consciousness. Mass protests were organised all across these countries and workers were stunningly well-organised and united --one day marching through the streets of Athens and Rome and the other trying to stop the military supplies from coming to Greece's harbours or breaking in the NATO's Aviano air base in Italy, (a group of Greek workers even joined us in our marches through the streets of Belgrade while the attacks were still in effect); urban guerrillas became active again and the system was shaking -fearing that the "years of terror" (referring to the seventies-a decade when Italy was paralyzed by the actions of the infamous Red Brigades and other revolutionary organisations) might come back. NATO's aggression gave the leftists of these countries a chance for a new influx, they seized the moment wisely and gave a breath of new air in the stained political life on the left wing. This way the Greek and Italian proletariat became (once again) aware of its potential power and its influence on the society as a whole--the results were obvious: the public radically changed its attitude towards the war, the support for the campaign was disappearing and consequently the governments cracked--they were forced to adopt a more "peaceful" line and therefore divide the NATO alliance from the inside making it more disorganised and weak.
What's Next?
Just like it wasn't hard to predict the outcome of this war, the future is
also very transparent. Pay attention: The Crvena Zastava (Red Flag) factory
was one of the former Yugoslavia's industrial giants after the collapse of
the country; it maintained its production (on the lower level of course) and
in 1995 it got into serious talks with some foreign buyers (the most serious
were the French firm Peugeot and the south Koreans). Privatisation was
knocking at its door, but surprisingly the negotiations dragged out,
Yugoslavia was demanding some "silly little" terms for itself and the workers
...as soon as the attacks started Zastava was burned to the ground! They were
severely punished for their hesitation. This also goes for the national oil
industry which Milosevic stubbornly did not want to "let go" --the refineries
in Pancevo were bombed for a few days in a row until there was nothing left.
On the other hand the telecommunication system remained intact, it was
recently sold out to Italian and Greek corporations. The pattern is clear,
those who dare to oppose the process of ruthless privatisation must be
punished so they can serve as a lesson for the others who are still
hesitating to abandon their "outdated" models of production and join the
wonderful world of private ownership and free market. The almighty European
Union is saying that it needs us. Balkans is a part of Europe so after they
teach us a little bit about democracy and economy (the naughty boy in the
back row was grounded and now the lessons continue without any obstacles)
they plan to make us a part of the big happy European family. Of course no
one ever stated that we'll enter as the equal members -more as "joined
partners". The new "Marshal plan" for the Balkans is not a secret anymore,
they are going to bless us with credits and everything will work out just
fine, the economical interest's will unite us once again and the new credo,
replacing the old "brotherhood and unity" will be "Let's all make some
money!"
No matter how strong Milosevic looks at this moment sooner or later he will be replaced by more "Western-oriented" government and then the pre-WW2 aristocracy and bourgeoisie and others who secretly listened to Radio Free Europe in their basements for the last 50 years will finally have a chance for the full revenge. The bourgeoisie revolution (which we skipped during the course of evolution) will inevitably happen and it won't bring anything nice for the working class: privatisation will be conducted with hyper speed leaving behind thousands of layoffs, Milosevic's gangsters and war profiteers will be swept away and drowned in a wave of capital on which a new breed of gangsters will skillfully surf. Businessmen, agents, managers, yuppies and others will form a new model of desirable lifestyle.
The big race will be on and those who are ready to step over the other people's dead bodies and the ones who adopt the "man eat man" philosophy the fastest will place themselves in the leading positions in society leaving behind them all the "unfit" to stare in envy --elimination process in full effect.
Hopefully this process will open the proletariat's eyes, they will realise that capitalism won't bring them a house with a green lawn and a sports car but just a ruthless exploitation with a poor compensation. We mustn't fool ourselves that we can stop this process and it's also wrong to try to hide from it, like it or not it's going to happen. The best we can do is prepare the workers for the "race," teach them about the functioning of the system and warn them about the propaganda. The disorganised and confused proletariat will hopefully become conscious and grow stronger as the system grows.
The Children Of The Parliament And Media Scam
Once the country is attacked from the outside you can see the real face of
the bourgeois "democracy." Only then you can witness how homogeneous and
friendly the fierce parliament "rivals" really are. Once that there is a
serious threat to the system (which all of them are integral part of ) and
the "order" (from which they all derive their privileges and benefits) you
can easily see through the "parliamentary democracy" smoke-screen --they all
become one family united with the aim of defending the country and its
sovereignty (read :protection of their monopoly and interests). All of a
sudden all of them (the ruling party and the "opposition") sing the same
song, they all hide under the same banners of romantic patriotism, historical
legacy, religion and nationalism. It's important to note that no
parliamentary party condemned the chauvinistic policy and atrocities done
against the Kosovo's Albanians. Now that Milosevic signed the agreement the
right-wingers accuse him of capitulation and selling-out the "Serbian holy
land" (no matter how absurd this might sound Milosevic's party and its
coalition represent the left wing on today's political scene here).
On the other hand pro-Western forces say that none of this would happen in
the first place if Milosevic was replaced on time by more "democratic" forces
(this is indeed true -the main Milosevic simply didn't open the doors of
privatisation (and the inflow of foreign capital) as wide as they demanded.
If the doors had been opened there would be no such thing as the "Kosovo
crisis," I mean there would have but you wouldn't have heard of it ... Kosovo
would remain Yugoslavia's "internal problem."
The same goes for the media. All of the TV stations including the so-called private / "independent" ones stopped broadcasting their regular programs and took over the official state programe and its news.
That way a lot of people, including myself were forced to tune into one of many satellite news channels. In my previous writings I directed my whole anger and frustration towards one channel -- CNN became the embodiment of unobjective journalism in the service of big capital. But now after 70 days of comparison of the "rival" news channels I conclude that I deeply underestimated the British potential for prejudice, racism, brainwashing, eurocentricity and straight-up stupidity. Sky and BBC 's evening news damaged my health and sleeping ability more than million of NATO's tomahawks. After each NATO briefing (where everyday NATO spokesman Jamie Shea amazed us ordinary mortals with his larger-than-life ego and incredible arrogance), the speakers in the studio were joined by so-called experts -- CNN usually hosted former politicians and Pentagon cut -outs (most of them used and long-forgotten bureaucratic "players" who got ran over by the system and new "young lions"). BBC concentrated on many "military experts" with royal titles that they dug out from various museums, institutes and social clubs. One thing that they all had in common (along an utterly reactionary understanding of history and world issues [when asked why is the Balkans the center of constant wars in the last decade one of them nonchalantly answered something like "we are dealing with the centuries-old national hatreds, they have been fighting amongst each other from time immemorial]) was their oxymoronic language and shameless and cynical usage of bourgeois terms such as collateral damage."
This went so far that one "expert" was convincing viewers that NATO was in fact incredibly "precise" in its bombardment of Yugoslavia, in his own words if you take into consideration the number of the flights made the number of "accidents" is really minor. All of them had that smug and soulless attitude, handling figures of "collateral damage" and refugees like it was a basketball game statistics cracking jokes and laughing together like they are dealing with some kind of fiction novel and its fable, not real-life tragedies and human beings. It came to a point where the speaker announces the news about the NATO's massacre of refugees and then makes a joke about the moody weather (not to mention that a royal cat who jumped out the Buckingham Palace^Òs window was a more important news headline than the little girl wiped out by a cassette bomb in central Serbia).
When you are put in a position where people around you are dying every day this kind of an attitude hurts. It creates a feeling that these stations exist exclusively for the privileged "first world" viewers who want to have some fun. After the long day at work they get comfortable in their big sofas and enjoy the evening news and its report about slaughter in some faraway country named Yugoslavia (inhabited by barbarous and murderous tribes) instead of a new Shwarzenegger action movie.
BBC's specialty is to make these round tables where journalists from different publications and countries come together and viewers get a chance to hear a wide range of opinions as journalists supposedly clash. And furious battles there were indeed --was it necessary to send ground troops or would air raids do the job; whether Apache helicopters should go in or not; were politicians too "liberal" in their policies towards Yugoslavia and should they let the NATO generals to handle this "properly." Questions about the legality of bombarding a sovereign country were never raised- that's something that's already understood, everyone knows that the world^Òs most developed democratic countries had a MORAL OBLIGATION to intervene. One of the American journalists at the round said it best: "America doesn't enjoy its role of 'world's policeman', it's a hard, exhausting and distasteful role ... but someone's gotta do it and the American people are ready for these sacrifices in order to lead the whole world to democracy."
Isn't it great to have such a noble and self-sacrificing knight as a trailblazer for the whole of humanity?
After all, we didn't understand the whole point of the bombardment. The rain of explosives, the ruination of our factories, roads, rail lines, schools, hospitals, heating plants, electrical systems --and the hail of lovely yellow cluster (anti-personnel) bombs -- were not meant to harm. IT WAS ALL FOR OUR OWN GOOD.
Korea, Guatemala, VietNam, Laos, Cambodia, Lebanon, Grenada, Panama, Libya, Iraq .... and now Yugoslavia -- the B-52's delivered democracy once again!
More From Goran.
Related articles can be found in Yugoslavia and
War.