Re: [Marxism] on US media and Kosova in the 1980s

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Michael Karadjis wrote:
> Thank you for informing me that Kosovars live in a patriarchal society.

Aren't you aware that genuine movements for national liberation attack 
patriarchy? You should read something about the role of women in the 
Eritrean guerrilla movement for comparison's sake.

> power. If some Serbs were reportedly killed then during Albanian national
> resistance (that
> of course never happens in any other national liberation struggle, Palestine
> for example?)

Yes, in order to make an omelet you have to crack some eggs, I guess.

> and if chauvinistic forces are attacking Serbs now, what that proves is that
> Albanians are
> just always like that, a violent, xenophobic type of people, right? That
> then is the explanation

Mazlom Kumnova, a former KLA commander who returned to Kosovo to become 
the mayor of the southern town of Djakovica, has since been accused of 
attempted extortion by several international aid agencies.

While the UNMIK police are cracking down on terrorism and organized 
crime, the perception remains that a pro-Albanian agenda is being 
orchestrated at senior international political levels.

On Feb. 16, 2001, Albanian terrorists detonated a remote-controlled bomb 
directly beneath a Serbian bus on the Nis-Gracanica route. The blast 
killed 11 and injured 40. The UNMIK criminal investigation unit handled 
the case. "Although we were accused of being too slow, the Nis bus was 
actually an excellent bit of police work," said Mr. Chappell. "We 
collected DNA samples from the crime scene and compiled enough evidence 
to secure a conviction."

Although four men were arrested -- two of them officers in the TMK -- 
only one, Florim Ejupi, was detained. Fearing militant Albanians might 
try to force his release, UNMIK police transferred Mr. Ejupi from the 
Pristina Detention Centre to Camp Bondsteel, the American military base 
in Kosovo.

Located atop a low ridge, the massive installation -- 40 square 
kilometres in size -- is a virtual fortress. Ringed by three rows of 
barbed wire, the perimeter defences are formidable, complete with 
observation towers and floodlights. Yet Florim Ejupi managed to escape 
last May before his trial. He remains at large.

"We were told by the Americans that Ejupi had received a metal file 
hidden inside a spinach pie, and that was how he effected his escape," 
said Mr. Chappell, adding, "I'm not making this up."

(Ottawa Citizen, June 22, 2002)

> for the fact that they spent most of the century trying to throw off their
> Serb rulers - not because it is natural to resist oppression, like
> elsewhere, but because these naturally violent people simply didn't
> appreciate the good things that nice serb socialists wanted to bring them,
> like women's rights.

Actually, there was a precedent for this kind of clash in Afghanistan.

> Does the fact that all those imperialist arms were going to the Yugoslav
> 'workers state' mean the class nature of the state was of indifference to
> Washington? Probably not. But they figured that in the hybrid type of
> State that late 'market socialism' had become, there were class forces
> Arising within the state apparatus and elsewhere in the economy that
> Were more to their liking. Preening Milosevic was part of this same
> process. Which other workers' states did they arm?

This kind of tortured dialectics seems to address the question of the 
class character of Yugoslavia. As the psychotherapists would say, we 
seem to be making progress.

> Dictator? Who said any such nonsense. 

I guess I misunderstood Green Left Weekly when it wrote:

Despite its initial “anti-bureaucratic” rhetoric, the Milosevic regime 
proved to be authoritarian beneath a veneer of formal democracy. There 
have been repeated waves of protests demanding democratic rights.

> The question of who is intoxicated with their own theories on the Yugoslav
> question is of course highly subjective. No-one would ever suggest you were
> guilty of such a thing.

Let's leave aside the question of who is intoxicated or not. If you 
could explain why the Washington Post and other major media continued to 
describe Milosevic as committed to old-style communism in the mid-1990s, 
while you and your co-thinkers believe that he had consummated a 
bourgeois counter-revolution at least 5 years earlier, we'd at least be 
on the same page. Marxmail is fairly open to various ideologies. We have 
people here who believe that Cuba is a capitalist country. No problem 
with that. We have a big tent approach. All I would like is an 
explanation how the ruling class could have gotten so confused about its 
class interests in the Balkans.



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