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February
6, 2003
Yugoslavia's
End
The
name is gone, but delusions remain
This
Tuesday, the parliament of the last Yugoslavia decided to
lay the name and the idea to rest, abolishing
the country in favor of a new, ill-defined entity called
"Serbia and Montenegro." The new Constitutional
Charter and the bill governing its implementation had already
been passed
by the Serbian parliament on the 28th, and by the
parliament of Montenegro the
day after.
The decision
is not unexpected. As early as last March, Serbia and Montenegro's
vassal potentates signed a pledge drafted by their conqueror,
erstwhile NATO GenSec Javier Solana, to kill off the last
Yugoslav federation. At the time, this
column declared:
The new
"state" is but a vampire, an undead monstrosity
which is destined to live for three more years until the EU
mercifully stakes it through the heart. Meanwhile, it will
subsist by sucking blood from the people on which it was imposed.
This Wednesday's
New York Times frankly
described the new entity as a way to "buy some time"
for Europe and the Empire to think of something better suited
to their interests. It also acknowledged that "Western
governments" (a.k.a. Washington) had encouraged the separatist
tendencies of Montenegro's regime. Unsurprisingly, the people
who 'solved' the crisis between Serbia and Montenegro were
the ones who created it to begin with.
Malicious
Epitaphs
Predictably,
most media reports on Yugoslavia's demise were riddled with
historical inaccuracies and false characterizations. For example,
Reuters claimed Yugoslavia was "established in 1929 as
a royal dictatorship," though the kingdom itself had
been in existence since 1918, and in 1929 merely changed the
name.
Continuing
the pseudo-historical survey was the
AP, pioneering the theory of 'spontaneous Communism' by
stating that, "After World War II, the kingdom became
a communist-run, six-republic federation." The way this
rather substantial change occurred was anything but spontaneous.
During the war (1941-1945), Tito's Communists waged a war
against the monarchy as much as against the Axis occupiers,
conducting a campaign of social and political engineering
parallel to their military operations. Yugoslavia was thus
organized into Soviet-style 'republics' with no more sovereignty
or legitimacy than their USSR counterparts.
Reuters
rounds out Yugoslavia's turbulent past by declaring
that "the old six-member socialist federation collapsed
violently during the rule of Slobodan Milosevic in the 1990s."
The fact that Milosevic never ruled the six-member federation,
or that he only became President of its truncated successor
later in the decade, does not faze these brave paladins of
historical charlatanism.
European bureaucrats
were similarly unfazed by reality in 1991, when they ruled
that both Soviet and Yugoslav 'republics' were indeed sovereign
states, erasing both countries with the stroke of a pen. This
insane insistence on inviolable sovereignty of Stalinist creations,
whatever its motivation, was the actual root cause of ethnic
conflicts in both former countries not, as Christian
Science Monitor ignorantly
claims, the "Serb nationalism that Slobodan Milosevic
incited in order to cling to power."
Echoes
of 1941
It
is the Monitor's resurrection of the much-abused canard
that suggests the real reason for all the post-mortem libel.
Yugoslavia's detractors really cared not a whit for the Yugoslav
idea, one way or another. Certainly, when convenient they
lauded it as a model of 'multiethnic multiculturalism' or
other such nonsense they were trying to peddle in its successor
states, but they had no qualms when it came to actually destroying
that 'multicultural paradise' by decree. Both the disingenuous
talk of Yugoslavia's supposed glories and Yugoslavia's actual
destruction were united by the vilification of the Yugoslav
idea's principal supporters, the Serbs. It was not enough
to merely wipe out something the Serbs had sacrificed so much
to create (while getting little or nothing in return), they
were to be blamed
for said destruction!
Many Nazi analogies
were involved in this endeavor, yet the actually applicable
one was hardly ever mentioned. Even as he swore to destroy
Yugoslavia with "unmerciful
harshness" in April 1941, Hitler himself clearly
revealed his hatred for the Serbian people:
"
just as in World War days, the Serbs thought the time was
ripe for taking advantage of the situation for new assassinations
against Germany and her allies. Soldiers of the Southeast
Front:
In doing this, your duty, you will not be less courageous
than the men of those German divisions who in 1915, on the
same Balkan soil, fought so victoriously."
Hitler
also claimed he was acting to defend Yugoslavia's Germans,
who were "being subjected to the most humiliating attacks,"
and that he'd endeavored for eight years to "bring about
closer co-operation and friendship with the Yugoslav people."
Such words ring as false as NATO spokesmen's nonsense about
"democratic bombs" and "humanitarian intervention"
from the spring of 1999.
Defective
Dreams
In
all honesty, Yugoslavia's relegation to the dustbin of history
is by itself a good idea. From its very inception, Yugoslavia
had been a
flawed creation, a grandiose experiment in both nation-building
and social engineering, doomed to failure by simple truths
of history and human nature. No king could make distinct nationalities
blend into one, nor could any Communist make those nationalities
love each other after the horrors of World War Two and especially
not by playing them against each other in a game of power
thereafter. Nor could any country sustained by four decades
of massive ethnic manipulation survive when those tensions
boil over into violence.
Though
all have suffered from this ill-conceived (though well-intentioned)
idea, the Serbs have sacrificed to it almost everything they
had: from half of Serbia's able-bodied males in World War
One, and almost a million again in World War Two either
as victims of genocide, guerrillas of different persuasions,
or civilians executed by the warring factions to their own
recognized statehood, their entire society and economy, and
even their national identity. Malicious tongues attribute
this to a desire for domination, but yet again, evidence
does not bear them out.
In retrospect,
it is easy to see that Yugoslavia was an ill-defined Statist
project from start to finish, and as all such designs brought
its subjects naught but wrath, ruin and misery. What little
happiness, peace and prosperity they've enjoyed ultimately
proved ephemeral.
Of course,
what replaced it has proven far
worse, but the choice was never solely between the two.
Unfortunately, it seems the last successor of Yugoslavia,
the 'Serbia-Montenegro' zombie state, will not fare any better.
Given its rulers and their proclivities, that is hardly surprising.
Same
Old Crooks
Yugoslavia's
end would bring no change to residents of Serbia-Montenegro.
They would still be ruled by corrupt, power-hungry, amoral,
facetious, and highly corruptible people, who did not even
bother to cloak themselves in the sham
legitimacy of democratic elections.
Belgrade again
faces Imperial extortion,
this time a threat to withhold 'aid' unless three wanted 'war
criminals' are sent to the Hague Inquisition. Never mind that
this 'aid' will most likely end up lining the pockets of the
government, American consultants, and various NGOs whose raison
d'être is to peddle pro-Imperial nonsense to the
masses. In case of loans the Empire is threatening to withhold,
Belgrade is better off without them. The worst thing anyone
so impoverished can do is to go into debt. Yet Serbia's current
rulers are taking out substantial foreign loans to cover pensions
and welfare payments. They buy social peace and stay in power,
while their subjects will have to pay it back with interest
for generations.
As
for their 'cooperation' with the Hague Inquisition, or even
the International
Court of Justice, they would do well to observe a simple
bit of wisdom:
"In confessing false sins, no one believes the apology
of the accused, nor waits for the forgiveness of the accuser."
The
Horrors of 'Djukadjin'
Since
the new 'union' would be dominated by the Prime Ministers
of Serbia and Montenegro, Zoran Djindjic and Milo Djukanovic,
some critics have already dubbed the creature "Djukadjin."
They might as well have called it Mordor, or Upper Hell.
Djindjic's
vision of the State is epitomized in the recent treatment
of an elderly woman who tried to supplement her meager income
by selling flowers from her garden. The 73-year-old Dafina
Stojkovic from Nis was arrested and sentenced to a
fortnight in jail or a 900-dinar fine, for selling flowers
"outside the designated marketplace." (Glas Javnosti,
Belgrade, January 30, 2003) Her fellow citizens, outraged
by this act of judicial terror, took up a collection and paid
the fine.
What monstrous
creature would criminalize the sale of one's own property,
and choose to make a point of it by prosecuting a 73-year-old
grandmother? The State as Zoran Djindjic sees it, that's who.
Montenegro's
leaders are even worse. Milo Djukanovic's regime has been
linked to various forms of organized crime beyond what governments
normally do, that is the latest concerning abuse of trafficked
sex-slaves.
Djukanovic's answer to everything is increased harping about
independence. In pursuit of this, and encouraged with plenty
if Imperial cash, his followers have twisted or outright fabricated
history, religion, and even language.
Djindjic
and Djukanovic have long since sold their souls to the Empire.
Thus one can't even insult
them properly any more: "To call them whores would be
an insult to that noble profession; whores only sell their
bodies, their souls are their own." Now they are to run
the temporary and very involuntary association of Serbia and
Montenegro. Oh joy of joys
Another
Foolish Promise
But
what else is there? What can anyone in the now-dead Yugoslavia
do that is different, or better? Just asking that question
reveals the sheer desperation of the forlorn. The right question
would be what can't they do better, for it can
hardly be worse.
A favorite
panacea of Empire's quislings is that by continued sacrifices
Serbia and Montenegro would soon join the European Union,
where peace and prosperity await. Sure. And Arbeit
macht frei.
This is the
same European Union that recently mandated that pig farmers
had to put toys
in their sties to make pigs happy. Serbia has always been
famous for its pork. Would any decent Serbian pig farmer ever
agree to this nonsense?
Then again,
they won't have to. Nobody will ask them, just like nobody
has asked any of the people there about anything. In line
with the predominant reasoning of today, people exist to serve
the State and not the other way around.
Even if Djindjic
and Djukanovic honestly believed what they're saying, the
woebegone people of Serbia and Montenegro would end up exchanging
a past historical failure Yugoslavia for a future one,
the EU, while their leaders benefit handsomely in the process.
Most Balkans politicians may only be good for hanging
from lampposts, but these people
it would be an insult
to the lampposts.
And
Yet
For
all the misery still in store, one era in Balkans history
has ended. Yugoslavia is no more. While hard on those who
harbor nostalgia for what compared to the present justly
seem the "golden days," Yugoslavia's demise has
opened up possibilities (however slim) for deconstructing
other Statist boondoggles that keep the Balkans mired in conflict,
poverty and despair.
Just as those
it benefited most nowadays revile its memory, those who foolishly
invested the most in its creation should not mourn Yugoslavia's
end. If anything, they should learn from the tragic folly
of their obsession, which has cost them millions of lives,
most of their society and almost a hundred years of history.
They should use this occasion to re-examine the notions of
Statism as the source of their troubles and not something
unrelated or God forbid! even 'natural.' Who knows, perhaps
the rein of terror by the Empire and its vassals may yet meet
a swift and deserving end.
Either way, Yugoslavia
should ever serve as a reminder that even the best-intentioned
Statist dreams come at too high a price. May it rest in peace
its people never really had.
–
Nebojsa Malic
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