“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 what we see if we try,” says TFF director
Jan Oberg.
“Norwegian-Swedish philosopher Harald Ofstad 30 years ago
analysed the ideology of Nazism. He maintains that Nazism
builds on and is an extreme version of Western values, of
its ‘Weltanschauung.’ Its main feature is ‘our contempt for
weakness’ and a celebration of strength, power and heroism.
The Strong SHALL rule over the Weaker. The good/stronger has
a right, or God-given authority, to control or eradicate the
evil/weaker who only deserves our contempt. The stronger
takes upon him a burden of civilisation, sacrifices and acts
heroically in the name of a higher principle or ‘law’, of
Good. Thus he is never made responsible for his deeds; he
has a higher mandate and is above common law. Those carrying
out the leader’s orders are conveniently also relieved from
responsibility, no matter how criminal they may be – since
they too aim to drive out Evil and (re)install Good.
Anti-semitism is not essential to the authoritarianism of
the Nazi worldview, rather just a flawed, perverted element
in it.
We admire the winner and the strong-willed and despise
the deviating, the hesitating, the loser. An integral part
of the Nazi ideology is to PRETEND to fight idealistically
for high moral goals and against evil while promoting one’s
own petty cause and meanness. The world is black and white.
Discipline and obedience is rewarded; asking too many
questions punished. Nationalism and symbols such as
uniforms, medals and flags are important. The Leader and
Leading Nation see themselves as exceptional, as chosen
people by God to (re)create Paradise on earth. Personal
responsibility does not mean questioning what is right and
wrong, but being responsible for meticulously carrying out
the mission. Language must be use to seduce, it has to be
full of analogies, cliches, euphemisms, – and Nazism is
fundamentally anti-intellectual, simplifying,
pseudo-scientific. Particularly important is that aggression
and idealism melt into one: ‘we do what we do for the good
of humankind, don’t judge US the way you judge THEM, our
motives are noble, theirs are evil – which permits the
criminal to be seen as a hero.’ Conflicts often hold
elements of projection. Projection means ascribing to others
the ‘dark sides’ we find inside ourselves and abhor. Could
it be that Western leaders and media, when calling Milosevic
Hitler, signalled their fear or unpleasant awareness that
their own project could be seen as ‘Hitlerist,’ i.e. that
they knew that at least some of the elements of
authoritarianism were at work in their own policies? Could
it be that they needed the analogy to the Jews by casting
all Albanians in the role of innocent victims and not as
participants in a politico-military conflict – in President
Clinton’s repeated words they were ‘objects of ethnic
cleansing not because of anything they have done but
exclusively because of who they are’?
NATO invaded another country, committed aggression and
violated international law. It used indiscriminate weapons.
It wanted to bring an ‘evil’ nation down on its knees. The
West accused Yugoslavia for doing what it did itself, e.g.
killing innocent civilians, committing aggression, creating
ethnically clean(er) units, sidelining democracy, using
disproportionate and overwhelming military power, having
‘evil’ plans (CIA getting rid of disobedient leaders),
having a firm grip on media, etc.
A minimum of historical consciousness tells us that
ethnic cleansing is not something invented in the Balkans,
but an integral part of Western behaviour in other cultures
throughout history, not the least against the Indian
indigenous people in the United States. Isn’t it quite clear
also that the US, for instance, is a nationalist actor,
having ‘national interests’ all over the world? When
did you see a State Department press briefing or President
Clinton without the Stars and Stripes, how often did
American leaders not praise their own country, democracy,
freedom, peace, strength and honour the way they interpret
it: as exceptional, as Chosen People? What shall we make of
false historical analogies about Serbia being Hitler’s
Germany? Here is what TFF adviser Dr. Johan Galtung of
TRANSCEND wrote recently about the West’s handling of Kosovo
:
“The parallel that comes to mind, mentioned by
Solzhenitsyn, is Hitler’s use of the national conflict
between Sudeten/Germans and Czechs, the pressure on
Czechoslovakia (with the support of England). Japan’s attack
on Manchuria 1931-45 and Italy’s attack on Ethiopia 1935-41
were also against the Kellogg-Briand Pact (Briand got the
Nobel Peace Prize in 1926, Kellogg in 1929): 62 states,
among them all major powers, agreed to renounce war as
political instrument and to settle all international
disputes by peaceful means. The exceptions were wars of
self-defence or military obligations from the League
Covenant, the Monroe doctrine or alliance obligations – very
similar to the UN Charter Article 2(4), with exceptions.
The three dictatorships were above the law and the
League, brushing all resolutions aside, lifted by their
visions of a New Order. Their propaganda was as massive as
the NATO propaganda with its insulting ‘apologies’ for
‘collateral damage’ that so obviously was intended by those
on top from the very beginning. Well, the world did not have
Internet at the time, that helps.
But the power was on the side of those ‘above the law’
because of a criterion of their own choice (there was
probably more popular will behind what those dictatorships
did than for the sneaky action by the ‘democracies’). The
dictatorships followed up what they started: the Second
World War. The USA, using NATO-AMPO-TIAP is probably tempted
to do the same, starting with North Korea and Colombia (?),
to implement the New World Order. Time to prevent the Third
World War: Now. Place? Everywhere.”
“Projection, of course applies to Serbia/Yugoslavia
itself, too,” Jan Oberg continues. “I remember how in 1991
Serbs of all walks of life told TFF’s conflict-mitigation
team members how they were victim of Ustasha/Fascism, that
they had always suffered and now fought for the Good –
democracy, peace, multiethnicity, minority rights, and –
survival. They saw and see themselves as victims of a
Greater US/Western/EU/NATO imperialist conspiracy (another
famous, secret Plan functioning like ‘Operation Horseshoe’
to the West). Like Croats would tell you the same about Serb
Fascism/Greater Serbia and the equally secret Science
Academy Plan for Greater Serbia. Serbs and Albanians have
projected on to each other a series of features,
stereotypes, prejudice and historical dark traits. My team
members and I myself have met pure racism on both sides –
and people who have tried to convince us about the
truthfulness of their noble cause and historical destiny
(and suffering) – and told us again and again that something
much worse would happen if they didn’t take matters in their
own hands or got some help from abroad.
When NATO committed aggression, Serbs felt that they were
right in believing that there was a Plan against them. And
when the Serbs committed atrocities this spring they greatly
helped the West – politics and media – in justifying its
law- and human rights violating, disproportionate violence.
Thus, they locked each other into a vicious circle –
resulting in tremendous human suffering down there, of
course, not in technologically superior NATO.
Nazi ideology advocates struggle against those who are,
or threaten to be, equally strong and subduing or
eradicating those weaker than us. Kosovo was not only a
struggle against Serbia, the infinitely weaker. It was also
about fighting potentially strong actors: a) humiliating
Russia a little more with yet another NATO expansion; b)
antagonising China (add to the embassy bombing the spy
‘scandals’, exclusion from the WTO, human rights and
democracy lessons, Taiwan, Tibet, nuclearism, etc. and you
have more than enough conflict material); c) undermining the
UN as world organization and peacekeeper, and d) eradicating
socioeconomic systems that threaten to not succumb under the
pressures of ‘globalisation’ or otherwise refuse to obey the
power of the stronger. After the collapse of the Eastern
bloc there are not supposed to appear any viable competing
system to world order à la West and global capitalist
integration.
NATO overwhelmingly held all the cards: military power,
money, unlimited access to world/global media which are all
Western-controlled and cultural power: selling the message
of democracy, human rights, humanitarianism. NATO could hit
anywhere in Yugoslavia, which had no capacity to hit the
West and had not committed aggression against any other
state.
This tendential world dominance is much more global,
sophisticated and multifaceted than Nazism, but it is sold
in ways that make many Western citizens endorse or even
embrace it – as did many ordinary citizens Hitler’s
Messianic vision of a world without Evil and led by an
enlightened, all-powerful, culturally superior Germany.
So, projection? Most likely, yes!” says Oberg. “Nations
seem to fight the dark sides of themselves that they have
projected onto others – who then becomes the terrible
‘Other’ that must be stopped. It happened between the two
main contenders in the Cold War, and it repeats itself now
in new conflict formations: Serbia/FRY has been cast in the
role of the ‘evil’ Soviet Union, the other republics and
peoples playing the role as Western-oriented, peace-loving,
democratic, morally right – according to the long-outdated
Cold War paradigm, the only one that existed in 1991.
Without projection – and authoritarianism, stereotyping
etc – things like Kosovo and NATO in Kosovo would be
impossible. The West is so upset about Serbia because they
have so much in common – among other things a wildly
exaggerated perception of their own mission and importance
in the world and their sense of being Chosen Nations for
Great Projects, whether regional or global. Only someone who
has never studied conflicts and violence in the field can be
surprised that there are MORE similarities than differences
between Americans/Britons/NATO on the one hand and Serbs and
Russians on the other – deeply Western as they all are,
expansive and fearful of revenge from all those they have
hurt.”
Concludes Jan Oberg – “some of us have been around in
ex-Yugoslavia for too long a time to believe that
democracies are inherently peaceful or moral. Look at this
century and how it ends! We have more education, more
information, more military power, more violence – and more
democracy and shrinking wisdom. Politics and ethics, as well
as technology and culture HAVE divorced. I am convinced that
Kosovo was not a minor event in contemporary history, that
it is quite likely to be a turning point for worse things to
come – an evidence that we have learnt absolutely nothing
from this century.
Until we challenge the legitimacy of violence and the
institution of war itself, world order, civilised state
power, humanism, decent manners, fair play and democratic
governance will – I fear – decay further. NATO and KFOR are
huge steps in the wrong direction and bode ill.
A project worthy of humanity in the next century is to
promise ourselves to learn from the 20th century and stop
this madness, stop this violence, stop this arrogance and
human folly, stop NATO/KFOR-type fraud ‘peace’keeping and to
use all our human and cultural skills, our economic and
technological resources – in short, our humanity – to learn
to do better and handle and solve our conflicts with the
least possible violence. And let’s not celebrate before we
know how to ‘cleanse’ violence from our thoughts, words and
deeds – and thus become able to imagine a more peaceful
world.”
© TFF 1999
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