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January
17, 2002
Wastelands
of Imperial Reality
In
the twisted universe that is the Balkans today, the improbable
may happen any minute and the most absurd often assumes the
mantle of logic. As the song goes, "black is white, up is
down and short is long."
THE
LOCAL ENFORCERS
While
millions of desperate denizens of the Peninsula spend their
lives waiting for a better tomorrow that is supposedly just
around the corner, their hopes will remain largely meaningless
for as long as they are led by the people whose actions and
ideas lie at the very root of the region's misery. Much
has been said of the Empire's responsibility already, perhaps
not enough and yet too much
to be repeated just now. A lot has been said about its willing local servants as
well. However, though head-on resistance to the Empire might
well be both masochistic and suicidal at this time, resistance
to its local enforcers can and must be the first step if the
Balkans and the rest of the world, for that matter is
to ever emerge from the darkness that lies upon it firmly
still.
MALICE
ON THE MOVE
Already
the wheels of malice are on the move. News coming out of Bosnia,
Kosovo, Macedonia, and Serbia is most disturbing. In Sarajevo,
the Empire's Reichskommissar plots to forcibly amend the constitutions
of Bosnia's member entities, in order to enforce a judicial
ruling that explicitly violates the 1996 peace treaty. The
ruling which makes all ethnic groups "constituent" in the
entire territory of Bosnia is supposed to protect equal
rights of all ethnic groups. Conveniently forgotten is the
fact that guarantees of those rights were in the Constitution
before the war, and that government abuse of them was largely
responsible for both the war's outbreak and Bosnia's
"independence." What makes anyone think the current authorities
would behave differently than their ideological predecessors?
Or that Bosnia's foreign masters would care about Bosnian
laws, when they hardly heed
their own?
No
less perturbing but entirely predictable was last Friday's
announcement by Macedonia's Albanian separatists that their
"liberation army" is being resurrected
as a "response to Macedonian repression." Another faction
of the separatist movement is also
readying for war; though officially blacklisted by the
US government, it still considers the Empire "an important
ally in the efforts of the Albanians for freedom and democracy."
It begs the question why
or does it?
(UN)DIVIDED
LOYALTIES
Every
country in the world expects its Foreign Minister to represent
its government before foreigners, which is often done by projecting
a positive image abroad. As with everything else, Yugoslavia
is a sad exception to that seemingly inviolate rule, as its
foreign minister, Goran Svilanovic seems to have understood
his job as representing the foreign governments in
Yugoslavia.
He
did Florence Hartmann's job earlier this month, when he supported
the Hague Inquisition's claim to supremacy over his country's
laws. Then, in a news conference this Tuesday, he accused
his own government of promoting
and tolerating "expressions of [ethnic] hate." Anywhere
else in the world, a member of the cabinet who spoke thus
would be immediately sacked but don't hold your breath.
Unlike
other governments in the world, such institutions in the Balkans
are composed of multiple political parties, whose leaders
all hold cabinet positions. FRY, Bosnia, Macedonia and Croatia
are all in the same fix. Instead of just one incumbent party
abusing power to promote its reelection, they all do in Yugoslavia's case, eighteen of them.
Svilanovic's
statements are thus partly his own political promotion and
partly the promotion of ideas and policies favored by his
government's sponsor the Empire. His loyalty is to his own
political advancement, rather than his country and by virtue
of necessity, also to Serbia's current fuehrer Zoran
Djindjic. No one aspiring to power in the Balkans can afford
to be disloyal to the Empire, too, for its enmity usually
ends political careers with a "war crimes" indictment.
TRANSCENDING
TREASON
The
hunger for power is so potent, it makes people do the most
monstrous things. Serbia is by no means the only example of
this truism, but it may be the most acute. For instance, Serb
representatives in the phony parliament of occupied Kosovo
recently expressed a willingness to support
Albanian separatist Ibrahim Rugova in his presidency bid,
if Belgrade blessed the choice. It is easy to see how Belgrade
might actually do this in order to appear a "constructive
partner" in the Imperial occupation, thus sacrificing its
territory, people and dignity for the sake of fleeting and
insincere Imperial approval.
After
all, Djindjic & Co. are by no means protesting the fact
that the EU has already written a new Constitution
for Yugoslavia, since they see that as a personal victory
over Montenegrin separatists. Djindjic already
scrapped the Constitution last June, so he can hardly
be its defender, but to have it written by Javier Solana and
his NATO pals
well, there might be such a thing as dignity,
but there is precious little of it left in Serbia.
Even
criticism of Djindjic's ever-more-blatant dictatorial behavior
leaves Serbia and Yugoslavia as collateral damage. Vuk Draskovic,
a former opposition leader, recently compared Djindjic to Milosevic
by describing Serbia as a fascist dictatorship something
that will no doubt please the Empire. Draskovic most likely
seeks to unseat Djindjic by himself, but apparently cares
little that the integrity of the country might get squashed
in the process.
THE
GREAT BANK ROBBERY II
While
on the subject of Zoran Djindjic, one more thing deserves
mention. Having arranged for the liquidation of four major
Yugoslav banks last
week, this Monday he attended the ceremonial opening of
a new state bank, National Savings, Inc. Started up
by thirteen anonymous investors contributing more than $50
million (from where?), one third of National Savings will
be "bought out" by the government over the next three months.
But with what? For an impoverished country that begs foreign
bribes in exchange for gross violations of sovereignty that is an awful lot of money. Why go through the trouble?
The
answer lies in a boast by National Savings' new CEO, who told
Belgrade daily Glas Javnosti that the bank's purpose
was to "collect money from the citizens, safely invest it
in economic development, and offer the citizens attractive
consumer credit in the near future." Most likely, this state-owned
institution will invest the money of private citizens in state-approved
business ventures, then offer the citizens credit to purchase
consumer goods. This is no
way to achieve economic development, only a way to enrich
the government. Perhaps that is the point.
Consider
also that the four banks were closed per instructions from
the World Bank and the IMF, whose "assistance" never helped
any country develop. On the contrary, benefits from
any money borrowed from these institutions are always privatized
(among government members), and their cost is always socialized
(to the general populace).
FACE
OF THE ENEMY
Djindjic's
regime, like the regimes it replaced, seeks to control all
aspects of society as all governments do, to differing
degrees. Serbia's current predicament is exemplary of other
post-communist nations. Decades of Communist socialism have
taken their toll on its inhabitants, discouraging profitable
enterprise and destroying the very fabric of traditional society.
Nationalist socialism that followed in 1990 was no better
economically, and it further devastated its subjects through
vicious warfare.
The
current system, best described as Imperial Socialism, was
adopted by Serbia's neighbors more or less simultaneously
with its nationalist variety, their dictators securing power
by pledging allegiance to the Empire. Only after Slobodan
Milosevic who refused to make such a pledge was removed,
could Serbia bend its knee and join the rest of the world.
Thus the only legitimate function of government defense
against foreign aggression was subverted into its very opposite.
Whether
ruled by Tito, Milosevic or George II through his gauleiter
Zoran the Foul, Serbs are still subjects in a socialist
State. There should be no illusions about the meaning of "socialism."
It is most emphatically not a "humane" form of anything, nor
is it concerned with "society." What it is concerned with
are power and force power of the State and force with which
it controls its subjects. Rather than guaranteeing the freedoms
of individuals (the basic of which is ownership of
one's own life the root of private property), the
State violates that freedom by taking property from some and
"giving" some of it to others, while retaining the lion's
share for its own growing apparatus of repression. It is called
"law enforcement" in the name of "liberty," but of course
that is pure Doublethink, just as black is white and ignorance
is knowledge.
Imperial
Socialism is doubly repressive, for it exploits a nation not
only for the sake of its own rulers, but for the benefit of
the Empire as well. Hardly capable of supporting the avarice
of one's own local kleptocracy, no Balkans nation is capable
of serving the Empire as well. All that try sink even deeper
into poverty and despair.
A
VOICE OF RESISTANCE
So
deep is the bog of delusions and despair, so strong the merciless
Imperial boot that grinds the Balkans deeper into it every
day, that few are even aware they should oppose it, let alone
know how. One such voice of opposition is Belgrade University
law professor
Kosta Cavoski, whose scathing commentaries are frequently
found on the Internet page of the aforementioned daily Glas
Javnosti. With a superb command of facts and a plethora
of classical metaphors at his disposal, Prof. Cavoski does
not hesitate to condemn in the harshest of terms the policies
practiced by the current regime, nor does he fail to identify
the policies' foreign sponsors and those sponsors' ultimate
intentions.
Indeed,
Prof. Cavoski's ideas and essays deserve much more space something which this particular column is running out of.
Suffice it to say, for now, that his is a rare voice of liberty,
dignity and justice in a land otherwise confined to dreary
darkness of Imperial servitude. Hopefully, his voice will
soon be joined by others.
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