Fwd: FROM THE GRANDSON OF YUGO PARTISANS

[Borba100@xxxxxxxxxxx]

Forwarded from Konstantin Kilibarda who is not on this list.

-- jared israel



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This is a copy of a letter I sent to TV Ontario (TVO) to protest Eric
Margolis' racist and virulent anti-Serbian hate-speech that is a regular
feature of Mr.Paikin's current events show Diplomatic Immunity:

Dear Mr. Paiken,

I am a huge fan of your show Diplomatic Immunity and I watch it on a regular
basis.  I've already written once to you (through your audience relations
department) but I feel inclined to write once again.  I would like to make
some constructive criticism about your programme.

I enjoy most of the pannelists on your show, unfortunately Mr.Margolis seems
to dampen the quality of the show besides the more refined Mrs. Stein and
incesive Mr.Gwyn.  I hope you have read Mr. Margolis recent article for the
Toronto Sun.  If not you can view it at
http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/margolis.html. In this article, entitled
"Heil Haider?" Mr.Margolis suggests that a worldwide "socialist" conspiracy
is seeking to undermine Jeorg Haider.  He then acts as an appoligist for
Mr.Haider by stating that the "Waffen SS was the first pan-European army"
because "Half the Waffen SS troops came from other European nations".  He
even mentions how,

    "France's late President Francois Mitterrand hailed the "courage and
patriotism" of  Germany's soldiers in World War II, including the Waffen SS.
So, let's recall, did Ronald    Reagan"

as if these controversial comments by a former Vichite (who by the way never
singled out the Waffen SS - although Mr.Margolis has taken creative liscence
with this aspect of history) and a hard-core rightwing US President -- and
I'm assuming here that he knew what he was doing :-) --
where sufficient proof of the innocence of a branch of the bloodiest army in
the history of the European continent, and for that matter the world.  I
believe such a profoundly distorted view of world history would disqualify
Mr.Margolis from appearing on current-events shows such as yours, if not the
Toronto Sun (which is looking for readers, not reliability, veracity,
dignaty, etc.).

I will admit my bias immediately - I am a 21 year old Montenegrin whose
familly was staunchly pro-communist.  My grandparents fought in the partisan
resistence in Yugoslavia and many of their friends and relatives where
brutally butchered by Mr.Margolis' "pan-European" heroes.

Now it is not necessarily Mr.Margolis' anti-communism or anti-Serbian
chauvinism per-say that offend me.  Ms. Stein, for instance, is highly
critical of the Milosevic regime and is no fan of communism (although she is
sympathetic in a liberal-capitalist way to the government in Havana).
Yet there is a crucial difference between Ms.Stein and Mr.Margolis -- Ms.
Stein basis her oppinions on fact (or at least her subjective
interpratations of it) while Mr. Margolis either lies or sounds like a
mouthpiece for the repetition of highly dubious State Department propaganda
which aggressively despizes movements advocating slavdom, arabic unity,
communism, anti-american islamism or any current State Department candidate
for public ennemy #1.

I personnaly enjoy debates of any kind, I enjoy talk shows such as yours,
but I do not enjoy watching individuals with a mission spew forth all sorts
of lies to prove a point.  If you don't mind I'll give you an example --

Imagine that you and I are debating on a TalkShow about child-pornography
laws in Canada, and in this case you opposed them and I support the current
laws...now suppose you are making a particularly good point and seem to be
putting me into a corner, BUT ---->

all of a sudden I burst out with "Sorry, Mr.Paikin, but I don't think you
are one to talk, after all you still rape your daughter?"

-- Now ask yourself: What exactly has happened here?

1) I LIED, but it has the effect of,
2) putting you on the defensive,
3) I state a complete fabrication as fact,
4) I don't know if you have a daughter or if you rape her but the comment
implies both these things, and the STILL in the sentence implies to the
viewer that rape is an ongoing behavior of yours and that it has happened
before, etc., etc.,

[NOTE: by the way thank you Jared for the idea for this example!]

You will then naturally deny the accusation, but it has left the impression
on the viewer who doesn't know you that maybe I was right.  Maybe Steve
Paiken is a rapist?

Sorry for the brutal example (especially if you DO have a daughter - in
which case I'm really, really, really, sorry! :-( ), but I believe it
illustrates Mr.Margolis' style -- if all else fails use the BIG LIE.

As an example of this consider the Sun article mentioned above where he
attacks Massimo Dalema, a very intelligent and honest Italian politician
(and yes I'm aware that as a result of our heavily stereotyped media most of
us, saddly, view this as an oxymoron) in the following manner:

    "His Communist party is part of Italy's governing coalition. Communists,
let's recall,   murdered 100 million civilians last century; Hitler 12
million. According to the Euro  double standard, "reformed" Communists are
dandy, but anyone to the right of the moderate  left must be an "extremist"
or "Nazi.""

Now I don't want to touch what Mr.Margolis might have meant with this (at
the very least) off-colour comment with a ten-foot-pole -- I'll let him
explain this to you;  What interests me is the similarity of this quote with
the rape example above.  In this quote Mr.Margolis does several things,

1) he makes an illogical connection between Massimo Dalema's ruling party,
the Refondazzione Communista, and the entire communist movement of the past
150 years,
2) he seeks to place moral equivalency between the unambigously greatest
evil of this century with a highly compex and heterogeneous movement that
also contributed greatly to the causes of anti-racism, anti-colonialism,
feminism, and a whole range of liberation and progressive struggles
world-wide, by
3) stating as FACT that "communists" (whatever that means) killed 100
million civilians (the only source for this highly disputed, and
intelligently refuted many times over, assertion is the "Black Book of
Communism" a  controversial work that draws heavily on far-right sources and
does little in terms of traditional archival and primary source research,
instead, basing its findings on wildly inflated estimates) while,
3) stating that Hitler killed (and an "only" is unfortunately implied in his
text in relation to the grossly inflated figure given for communist crimes)
12 million civilians (even though, at least the commonly known figures I'm
familiar with, suggest that some 6 million Jews where killed, 3 million
Poles, 6 million Soviet civilians, 1 million Yugoslavs, for a total of 16
million and I still haven't included the numbers for Gypsies, Brits, French,
Belgians, Germans, Italians, Greeks, military personel (14 million Soviets
alone) etc., etc.) again a lie, which eventually,
4) forces decent people to attempt to refute what in the first place are
preposterous claims, and ultimately,
5) has the effect of dangerously biasing individuals reading his column on
the basis of grossly distorted or simply made up "facts",

What I am suggesting here is not that Mr.Margolis be removed for an article
that he wrote for the Sun, but that he be replaced with someone who seeks to
honestly get at the root of today's conflicts.  In short an individual that
does not build his or her career on his or her own openly chauvinist and
racist hatred of other peoples.  I realize Mr.Margolis is probably a ratings
getter for his flamboyant style, but if he is on your show only for this
reason may I suggest that he at least be replaced by another, and better,
attention getting trick from the Sun -- I'm talking ofcourse of the Sunshine
Girls and Boys - at least they would be a more interesting addition to your
show with, sadly enough, a greater potential to foster understanding and
dialogue than Mr.Margolis' confrontational and zealous tone   :-)

In all seriousness though, I will tell you that a lot of honest people, at
least in the Yugoslav-Canadian and Serbian-Canadian communities I am
familiar with, and those of us who still identify with the Yugoslav ideal
feel threatened by Margolis' rhetoric. I realize that "the Serbs" are so
demonized that Margolis style has become commonplace and part of common
rhetorical currency (bash the Serbs - everyone else does it), but I will
honestly tell you Mr.Paikin that Mr.Margolis' irresponsible behavior has
hurt many inncocent individuals in communities I am close to, in many eyes
he is seen as nothing more than an angry little racist Fuhrer. He openly
calls for violence against an entire ethnic group "the Serbs" on the basis
of collective punishment, he openly calls for the death of people who could
include, among others, my grandmothers, my friends in anti-Milosevic
movements, and other innocents while valorizing and acting as an appoligist
for the Waffen SS and US genocide in Iraq.  "Serbs are humans too", I often
saddly find myself saying in conversations with Canadian students and even
some of my professors at the University of Toronto.  I'm now telling you the
same thing.

I understand Mr.Margolis might have signed a contract but I sincerely urge
you NOT TO RENEW IT.  Your show could benefit from the insights of anyone
else on the political right (because I don't want to be reponsible for the
stifling of any honestly arrived at perspective) who lacks such a clear (and
ultimately overly simplistic) agenda.  Open and virulent racial hatred (and
no, I'm not suggesting, as Mr.Margolis would probably say if he read my
letter in an attempt to demonize me, that the Serbs are a "race" distinct
from others, such a claim is naturally preposterous, I'm only saying that
Margolis' attitude has the character of racism) I believe has no place on
(at the very least) publicly funded television.

If for holding this oppinion you decide to brand me a Nazi, a fascist, a
communist, a Serbophile, a chauvinist, or whatever that's fine, but I hope
you'll move beyond the labels and see my appeal as one of one human being to
another.  I do feel guilty about writing this letter, I always believed in
free speech, but I think Mr.Margolis attitude verge on the slanderous,
libelous, and are perhaps in direct violation of the Charter of Rights (I
will be contacting some activist groups who look into such matters). I am
starting to see what the media's gatekeeper role means. I still do not feel
fully sold on such a gate-keeper role (especially for corporate controled
media outlets), but I felt impelled to right because I believe that
Margolis's oppinions are indistinguishable from those of some of the more
refined (and carefull) neo-Nazi's.  I did not write any letters to the Sun
because I don't expect high quality from them anyway, but over the years
I've truly come to respect TVO, especially your (meaning you Mr.Paiken)
efforts to cover the Balkans with an objective eye.  Unfortunately DI
suffers from Margolis' presence - replace him with another critic of
Milosevic, another anti-communist, ANYTHING! BUT PLEASE NOT WITH ANOTHER
RACIST [even if he only hates Smurfs :-) ]!!!! Thank you,

Sincerely,

Konstantin Kilibarda
- a fan!



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