Bomb this Ganster State

Firstly, national identity, and political nationalism entailed from it is not some natural human predisposition. Most potential proto-nationalisms either on linguistic, ethnic or cultural/religious grounds do not aspire to statehood. The other historical options that have been taken are assimilation, accomodation in a multi-ethnic state or migration. Politicall nationalism is a deliberate movement that has to be fought for against other political ideas.

The disintigration of Jugoslavia on ethnic grounds combined a number of conflicting and intertwined themes – and national aspirations which were in some cases unprecedented. The “Muslim” identity was constructed in the modern period and had no historical precedence and indeed had no implication of Muslim religious faith, just that people were descended from others who used to be Muslims, and was an identity generated out of those excluded by either the orthodox/Cyrrillic or catholic/Latin dominant culture.

the growth of political nationalism in Jugoslavia was delibertaley createdb as a political alternative to the multi-ethnic state. Now there is nothing necessarily wrong with that, but the political content of that aspiration to leave Jugoslavia was also explicitly anti-Socialist and pro-Market. It was also turning its back on the neutral independence of Titoism, as each of the petty nationalisms would have to align themselves with major powers. This also forced many in the multi-cultural cities like Beograd, Novi Sad and Zagreb to choose (often on arbitrary grounds) what “nationality” they wanted.

Serbian nationalism was more janus faced than most, because it combined all of those negative aspects with the rhetoric and partial reality of progressively defending Jugoslavia and Titoism. One outcome of the situation was a long running low intensity war in Kosovo, taking on an increasingly racialised character on both sides. It is simply a fact that the KLA/UTC were the instigator of much of the racialised violence, and that the politial choice of Albanian ethnic seperatism was a deliberate right wing decision. It is also simply a fact that the Serb forces protected the Roma and Ashkali peoples in Kosovo.

It is unfortunate;y also a fact that the Jugoslav and Serb forces committed attricities. I don’t now about Kosovo, but in the war with Croatia, freelance Serb facsists (Arkan’s Tigers) committed atrocities outwith Jugoslav/Serb military control, but becasue the whole situation was a political mess, they did operate under a protective umbrella (though Miolsevic did have Arkan assassinated to put an end to it). I am sure that in such circumstances atrocities were also committed by regular troops.

As ian quite correctly observes the war in Kosovo was forced upon Serbia as a war of national defence by the terms of rambouillet which required Serbia to allow NATO forces to be billeted agaist the will of the Serb people all accross Serbia, and at their expense. Remember that Hungary had only just joined NATO as well (literally a few weeks before the attack), and popular right wing parties in Hungary claim the northern Serb province of Vojvodina.

Only once the war started did the Serb military commanders in Kosovo unleash military terror against the whole Albanian population. This certainly was not a campaign of extermination, however reprehensible and appaling, it was a textbook standard military operation to drive a wave of refugees into the NATO camp. It was no different in scale or intent than the terror launched against the Krajina Serbs by Croat forces a few years earlier; nor different in essence from General Sherman’s campaign in the Shenanoah valley

What we see in Kosovo now is somewhat different. The province has no economy, except the funds sloshing around the NATO occupation forces, and the fact that it has become a centre of internatinal drugs, arms smuggling and slavery. And the political trajectory is ethnic seperatism, including pogroms against the Ashkali and Roma people. In such political circumstances, Kosovan independence only accelerates the negative features in the situation.