[PEN-L:8126] Re: Tito and Serbian nationalism

["Henry C.K. Liu" <hliu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Louis Proyect wrote:

> Washington Post
> One Nation Under Tito
> By Dan Morgan
>
> >From the Serbian standpoint, Serbian interests eroded steadily after Tito's
> death in 1980. The Titoist system that controlled Yugoslavia after World War
> II was wary of Serbian nationalism. The boundaries of the six republics were
> drawn in ways that divided Serbs and ruled out a "greater Serbia" that could
> dominate the rest of the country. But as long as Yugoslavia was run
> as a centralized communist state, the scattered Serb populations in Bosnia,
> Croatia and Kosovo felt secure.
>
> With decentralization, however, that sense of security diminished and the
> seeds of virulent Serbian nationalism began to grow. Then came the breakup.
> The decision of Croatia and Slovenia to unilaterally declare their
> independence in 1991 stranded Serbian minorities without providing any
> guarantees of their future status.
>
> Faced with a series of accomplished facts, Serbian character and Slobodan
> Milosevic's personal demons came into play. In the uplift of national
> paranoia, Serbia's own darker history of bloody deeds against Muslims,
> Albanians and Tito's World War II partisans resurfaced.

>
> It suggests that dangerous Serbian nationalism is not a given. It
> dissipates in a political environment in which Serbs feel secure.
>
> How to recreate such a climate after Serbs have done so much to threaten the
> security of others is the next challenge for the international community.
> European models abound. France and England embraced Germany within NATO and
> the European Union after World War II.

The reintegration of Germany into the Western Alliance was made possible by the
Cold War, nothing else.

> In the Balkans another model exists: the old Yugoslavia. It cannot ever be
> reconstituted as it was. But it provides a structure for the integration of
> economic and security interests that could heal wounds and contain Serbia's
> demons, if men of good will in Belgrade and Zagreb decide to make it work.
>

The old Yugoslavia did not come together out of Western good will.  It came
together out of a revolutionary movement to build socialism.
Domestic nationality conflicts will dissipate when the external threat of
neo-liberal globalization, the new imperialism, revives the re-emergence of
pan-slavic nationalism.

Ironically but predictably, the slogans such as humanitarian interventionism and
moral imperialism, banished about by the extreme right in American politics,
such a Pat Bucanan, are apt descriptions of post Cold War US foreign policy.

Henry C.K. Liu