July 1999

“I believe there were overlooked or suppressed dimensions such as collective psychology, deep cultural codes and domain Western expansionist/missionary values at work in the West’s handling of Kosovo, and I think we do wise to discuss them. For instance, does the US-led West in fact hide a latent, deep-seated authoritarian ideology that seeks world dominance while pretending to create global democracy, partnership and multiculturalism? And does it in its own manner – like Milosevic and Hitler in their different manners – thrive on somebody else’s crisis while pretending to help them?It is fascinating to see how quickly the public, the politico-diplomatic discourse and the media have managed to relegate the crisis, this turning point in contemporary history, to the past. But what has happened in, and to, the West itself during the Balkan wars and during Kosovo in particular deserves a bit of introspection – and perhaps we won’t like...

“Ubeđen sam da je u načinu na koji je Zapad postupio sa Kosovom na delu bilo nekoliko momenata koji su ostali uglavnom zanemareni pa čak i potisnuti u drugi plan (takvi kao kolektivna psihologija, duboko usađeni kulturni kodovi i preovlađujuće zapadne ekspanzionističko-misionarske vrednosti), pa sam stoga ubeđen da bi nam moglo veoma koristiti da i o njima malo porazgovaramo. Na primer: da li Zapad predvođen Amerikom u suštini samo prikriva sopstvenu latentnu, duboko usađenu autoritarnu ideologiju koja ga tera na dominaciju nad čitavim svetom dok samo naizgled pokušava da postigne globalnu demokratiju, partnerstvo i multikulturalnost? Zar nije i Zapad na svoj poseban način – isto kao i Milošević i Hitler, svako na svoj način – taj koji profitira od teškoća i kriza koje proživljavaju drugi dok se samo pretvara kako im pomaže? Zapanjujuće je koliko su brzo javnost, političko-diplomatski krugovi i mediji uspeli da tu krizu premeste u prošlost kao...

Stereotipi i diskriminacija Zapitajte se da li bi NATO-ovo bombardovanje i okupacija koja mu je sledila uopšte bilo moguće u bilo kojoj drugoj zemlji današnje Evrope. Postoji li ijedna druga zemlja sem Jugoslavije i ijedna nacija osim Srba koja bi bila dovoljno prezrena? U žiži interesovanja medija bile su patnje i stradanja albanskih izbeglica, ali da li su i koliko mediji pokrili patnje srpskih, goranskih, crnogorskih, turskih i romskih izbeglica s Kosova? Izbeglički logori u Makedoniji i Albaniji su se prosto preselili u naše dnevne sobe – no da li se isto dogodilo i sa patnjama ljudi koji su živeli pod bombama ili su od njih bežali širom bombama razvaljene Jugoslavije? O nedavnom nasilju albanskih ekstremista protiv Srba izveštava se s „razumevanjem“, ono se predstavlja kao (opravdana) osveta za sve što su srpska policija, vojska i paravojne jedinice uradile. Međutim, nijednom mediju koji ovu priču priča na ovakav način nije...

Stereotyping and discrimination Ask yourself whether NATO’s bombing and subsequent occupation could have been done against any other nation in today’s Europe. Whether any other country than Yugoslavia and any other people but Serbs is so despised? The plight of the Albanian refugees is in focus, but how well and how extensive did media cover that of the Serbs, Goranis, Montenegrin, Turks and Gypsies in Kosovo? The refugee camps in Macedonia and Albania entered our living rooms – but did the human suffering of people living in and fleeing to bombed-out Yugoslavia? Recent Albanian extremist violence against Serbs is reported with “understanding,” presented as (justifiable) revenge for what Serb police, military and paramilitary units did. But the media which told the story this way never “explained” that Serb ethnic cleansing after NATO started bombing could be “understood” as (justifiable) anger at what THEY saw as the destruction of their entire...

Nå, hur ska DU egentligen fira nyårsafton? Det ÄR ju inget som händer med det första igen! Gud nåde den som inte har svar på den frågan. Som jag. Överallt hör man att “nu när vi är på väg mot ett nytt sekel, så måste vi..” eller att “här vid ingången till ett nytt milennium bör vi sträva efter” och “av det 20:e seklet bör vi lära att…” På väg in i “den nya tiden” – vad tror man just nu att framtidens människor kommer att tänka om 1900-talet när de om ett decennium, ett sekel eller milennium ser tillbaka? Kommer de att beteckna det som teknikens, krigens, tillväxtens, det kalla krigets, demokratins eller globaliseringens sekel? Handlar “vår tid” om liberalismens seger över fascism och kommunism? Eller lite av varje? Fascinerande, eller hur?! Många planerar att befinna sig på bestämda, mer eller mindre märkvärdiga, platser den 31 december – t.ex....

“Sovereignty is less absolute than in earlier times. Just as we now consider it right to intervene in families to prevent domestic violence, so it has become normal to override State sovereignty in cases of large scale violations of human rights.”(1)This is the rationale proposed by Mary Kaldor, to justify NATO’s decision to bomb Yugoslavia. Ever since the cold war ended, she claims “the distinction between internal peace and external war, between a domestic rule of law and international anarchy that characterised the Westphalian era has broken down”.(2) Indeed, she continues, since the second world war “there has been steady progress towards a global legal regime which deals both with the laws of war and with human rights and which has been strengthened by bodies like Amnesty”. And so we arrive at a new role for the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation: “benign or ethical imperialism”. NATO at 50 must “switch...

RABAT, MOROCCO – Unlike the late King Hussein of Jordan, the late King Hassan of Morocco who died on Friday has seemingly bequeathed his son, King Mohammed VI, a weak hand. A weak hand that is, if you judge power by autocratic reach. Hussein had dabbled with democracy, but his prime ministers and their governments came and went with alacrity and no one doubted who called the shots. With Hassan it was, until fairly recently, a similar, “l’etat, c’est moi”, even if he didn’t change his prime ministers so regularly. But a little over a year ago in a remarkable development, Hassan voluntarily handed over a good slice of power to a former political prisoner, once sentenced to death, the socialist parliamentarian Abderrahman Youssoufi, ending 40 years of conservative rule. Most royal functionaries were sidelined, apart from the king’s powerful, but much reviled, minister of the interior, Driss Basri. Democracy not...

Nåh, hvad skal DU egentlig lave nytårsaften? Det ER jo ikke noget der sker sådan lige med det samme igen, vel! Vé den der ikke har svar på rede hånd. Som jeg. Overalt hører man at “nu hvor vi er på vej mod et nyt århundrede, så må vi lige have ordnet…” eller at “her ved indgangen til et nyt årtusind” bør vi sætte os for at..og “af begivenhederne i det her århundrede bør vi lære…”. På vej ind i “den nye tid” hvad tror man så at vore efterkommere vil sige, når de ser tilbage om et årti, århundrede, årtusind på 1900-tallet? Vil de fremhæve det som teknikens, krigenes, vækstens, den kolde krigs, eller globaliseringens århundrede? Kendetegnes “vor tid” af liberalismens sejr over fascismen og kommunismen? Eller lidt af hvert? Fascinerende, ikke! Nogle planlægger at befinde sig på bestemte, mere eller mindre mærkelige, steder, nytårsaften, f.eks. på en luksustagrestaurant i New...

LONDON- After the Congo peace agreement, nothing but an eerie silence. Will they? Won’t they? President Bill Clinton made a post Kosovo speech only a few weeks ago promising immediate U.S. intervention the next time lives are at risk. Yet the silence continues. Mention the word Congo and whether it be in Washington, London or Paris, you can hear a pin drop. Is Washington now prepared to turn the clock back to where it was before the 1993 Somalia debacle when in the flush of good feeling following the end of the Cold War UN peackeeping was not only to be given a new lease of life and a rush of new mandates but more robust guidelines for military engagement? It was all dramatically undermined by a great American panic after 18 U.S. rangers were killed in a firestorm of guerrilla bullets in Somalia. Today it is not so much a...

Juli är en het månad på Cypern. Samtidigt som meteorologerna varnar för nya värmerekord pågår på var sida om den buffertzon som skär igenom ön förberedelserna inför den 20 juli. I år tilldrar sig detta datum särskild uppmärksamhet. Det är nämligen tjugofem år sedan som Turkiet genomförde den militära intervention som ledde till att ön delades och en gräns drogs mellan grekcyprioter i söder och turkcyprioter i norr. Alla ansträngningar att återförena ön har hittills misslyckats. Interventionen skedde den 20 juli 1974. I en andra våg tre veckor senare avancerade de turkiska styrkorna tills dess att de kontrollerade en tredjedel av ön. För grekcyprioterna var interventionen och den efterföljande ockupationen av norra Cypern en katastrof. Hundratusentals grekcyprioter tvingades lämna sina hem och egendomar i norr. Turkcyprioterna däremot välkomnade de turkiska soldater som seglade ner i sina fallskärmar som räddande änglar. För dem var det turkiska ingripandet en räddning undan enosis;...

Building peace in the Balkans Le Monde diplomatique July 1999 _________________________________________________________________ Just as they did in Bosnia after the Dayton Agreements, the Western powers are getting ready to place Kosovo under their guardianship, with the declared aim of restoring peace and democracy. Yet the protectorate, a modern form of colonialism, risks putting a seal of approval on the ethnic partitioning of the province. by ANDEJA ZIVKOVIC _________________________________________________________________ A spectre is now haunting the world community, one that many believed was a thing of the past: the return of the empire. Taking its legitimacy from the implosion of former Yugoslavia and the civil war in Somalia, the idea of the protectorate has invaded diplomatic thinking in the West. In the minds of Western leaders, the situation in Kosovo today has even made it a cure-all. The policy of the protectorate follows on naturally from the approach taken by international bodies in...

By Richard K Moore Cyberjournal, A public service of Citizens for a Democratic Renaissance George Bush’s comment in 1990, that the Gulf War heralded a ‘new world order’, was the trigger that got me started on the path of analyzing and writing about political power relationships. Bush was suggesting that the Gulf War was more than a special case, that it was establishing some kind of new pattern for international order. He didn’t tell us much about the details, and I found myself drawn in to figuring out what he could have meant. The starting point for the investigation was the Gulf War itself. What was unique about it? In some ways it wasn’t anything new – it looked quite a bit like yet-another case of American gunboat diplomacy, one which expanded on the tactics used earlier in Panama and Grenada. All three events were accompanied by misleading propaganda, including...