Geert Lovink on Fri, 28 Feb 97 09:32 MET |
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nettime: ivo skoric/news |
>From iskoric@igc.org Thu Feb 27 01:23:30 1997 Subject: News Those news are bad for the people of Balkans - they are not necessarily bad for us here, tho couch warriors: Bad News 1 Croatian "Operettendiktator" (German media came up with that perfectly suitable nickname) will live through elections and, perhaps, win, but then he will rapidly become incapacitated to rule, not unlike Yeltsin, because he *is* dying of lymphoma - a cancer of lymph nodes which takes its time, but it is inoperable and terminal, I learned from a regional diplomat, while bumping into him accidentally in Los Angeles. Consequently, Croats should brace themselves for the probably not-so-peaceful grab for power between all those different political factions inside and outside of HDZ in Croatia after Tudjman. Bad News 2 His uniqueness, the Butcher of Balkans, meanwhile proved once again how foreign the concept of SHAME is to him. In the interview for Greek newspapers Vita, he explained how majority of vote in Serbia was won by "left and democratic forces", while "the opposition" won just a few cities and counties. Of course, he said that he was NEVER OPPOSED to that opposition take those posts. Yeah, and we all remember how he claimed that Serbia was never involved in the war. Which war, by the way? Not only that he is willing now to recognize the victory of opposition, but he wants to pass a special law (lex specialis) recognizing that victory, setting a legal precedent in which elections are decided by a law (an interesting concept, actually - I am sure that lawyers in the U.S. follow it with great appreciation). He, after all, called OEBS commission to Serbia, didn't he? Now, he says that he agrees with everything that they concluded. So, why all the police in the streets? Well, some demonstrants destroy property and behave aggressively. Lame. Every politician would say that anywhere in the world. And why are then so many demonstrants for so long in the streets in the middle of winter if everything is so rosy? Demonstrants? Which demonstrants? Why the special law? The system is obviously unprepared to deal with somebody else replacing communists/socialists in power. Old Yugoslavia was build around the Constitution which in theory granted necessary legal grounds for establishing political parties (as so called socio-political organizations), but it guaranteed to the League of Communists its historic and vanguard role, basically suggesting that nobody else is fit to actually rule and govern. The bureaucracies in all successor countries (Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, etc.) were largely carried over from the previous regime, and they still behave in the confines of the old system: they are cynical and suspicious about the random drastic changes of political power and direction which naturally occur in any democracy. They simply don't believe that ordinary people are qualified to elect their leaders. To them their constituents are sheep. They are probably the dogs, and they hate when the shepherd changes. Now, the law makes a difference - if the sitting president proposes and already elected legislators pass such a law, bureaucracy will accept the victory of opposition - but for a very high price - proving that Serbia lacks basic foundation of any democracy and civil society: trust in its citizens. This event should be closely watched since it is bound to repeat itself sooner or later in Bosnia and Croatia. Bad News 3 Bosnia is fucked up. Everybody knows that. Bosnians know that particularly well. Squeezed inside Republika Srpska envelope in the West, East and North and clogged with Herceg-Bosna in the South, Bosnia is largely dependent on the World's mercy. Two cities could change that. Brcko in the North: if Bosnian government would have Brcko, it would gain access to river Sava, Croatian Slavonia and Hungary - the added benefit would be the control over the narrow corridor connecting Eastern and Western parts of Republika Srpska, which would probably make Bosnian Serbs more agreeable. Of course, that is precisely why Biljana Plavsic asserts that they will never give up Brcko, and the West, reluctant to fight, is ready to oblige her. As Brcko is key in the North, Mostar is key in the South. Mostar is the largest city in the Neretva canyon, which controls the region and carves its way to the Adriatic Sea, where Bosnian government has its terminals in Croatian port of Ploce. Again, this is precisely why the local Croats do not want to give it up. Control of traffic between Croatia and Bosnia is too lucrative to let go without a fight. The situation in Mostar is extremely sad, with both sides not shrinking from even the most gruesome actions. Mostar is today under dual control - Bosnian Muslims in the East and Bosnian Croats in the West. On top of that there is an International Police with powers over local police - but they are outnumbered, and therefore ineffective, because the people of Balkans understand only the language of an overwhelming power. Croat West is larger and economically more prosperous than Bosnian East. Croats continue to expel Muslim elderly from the West. But the worst happened just recently: Bosnian Muslims had their end celebrations of Ramadan (Bajram) and they were gathered at their cemetery, and Croat thugs opened fire on them; parallel with that Croat Catholics had their beginning celebrations of Lent (Carnival), and Bosnian thugs stormed the ceremony attacking police with knives and other weapons. In 500 years of Ottoman occupation, Muslims honored Christian holidays, and did not attack processions, and vice versa, Christian rebels honored Muslim holidays and did not attack their cities at that periods. Did we all become more barbaric and uncivilized with years? Bad News 4 Not only Serbian students were invited to Clinton inauguration: the editor-in-chief of Zagreb's Radio 101, Zrinka Vrabec-Mojzes, was also there. Not unlike the Belgrade students who dissed all their previous connections and friendships in favor of dull but lucrative tour organized by them by some of those Serbian Unity guys, Zrinka too did not call any of her old friends, including me, or express gratitude for carrying on the struggle to save her radio to guys like Vladimir whose Real Audio Server broadcasts 101 news daily. To my knowledge she did not attend any fundraisers, either. In fact if she did not call her high-school girlfriend to brag about her invitation to inauguration, we wouldn't know she was ever here. She was always embarrassed that she knew me. We went to school together. Later she was the one to organize those yearly graduation gatherings. On the year when the state police took away my passport and when I was kicked out of the Radio 101 (where we both worked at the time) for the same political reasons, she simply did not call me for the graduation party. People in Eastern Europe are cautious: they are well trained to be always prepared to rather sacrifice their loved ones to save themselves. So, after a while they become insensitive and incapable of empathy. Those who dare standing up to the challenge are ostracized. There is a very good example of Mira and Goran to testify for this hypothesis: I know Goran from Zagreb. He was a D.J. at a popular indie-rock hang-out of my generation (Lapidarij). Actually he was a v.j. - because they called that VTV (Happy Television) and the set up included TVS and video equipment always. I knew that he was into sex, drugs and rock and roll, since he hanged out with the older brother of my best friend. I had no idea that he was a Serb. Also, I completely missed that he dated the best looking Croatian actress. I was already gone from former Yugoslavia when he was accepted to Film Academy in Belgrade. At that time, of course, Belgrade and Zagreb were in the same country, and people regularly applied to both film academies (I did the same earlier, yet I was rejected at both), as people in the U.S. would apply both in LA and in NY. The Yugo-communists, as Croats like to say today, didn't have much appreciation of Goran's work: come one this guy hanged out with Laibach, which was banned to perform almost anywhere in Yugoslavia at that time. One would think that would make Goran liked by the new Croatia. Wrong. He was a Serb, period. Mira was not bothered that he was a Serb, and she went on to live in Belgrade with him (who later became her husband). After all, she probably reasoned, Zagreb and Belgrade were still in the same country, so what would be wrong with living in either of cities?! But it was a time to decide sides, because the mobs were forming everywhere and preparing for the bloody clash. She stayed in Belgrade, putting her family attachment before her country. She even received some award in Nis, when the war already started. Following that, the Croatian media, prompted by her envious colleagues, basically dissected her cruelly like a band of hyenas would do a wounded antelope. And nobody stood in her protection: probably the best young actress in former Yugoslavia with years of acting both on film and in theater had to have tremendous amount of friends and acquaintances in her home city of Zagreb - yet everybody just played dead when the HDZ henchmen dragged her small intestines over the front pages. This is a tragedy of Central and Eastern Europe - so awfully well displayed in the case of Zagreb: people are simply afraid to voice their opinion if this opinion is not the same as the opinion of the currently loudest violent mob in the city. Citizens of Zagreb always reminded me of rabbits in that respect, with their ears straight up and on attention. Existential fear by far precedes the professional integrity, period. Obviously, Serbian propaganda machinery welcomed Mira warmly, and she was offered to play in theater and film in Belgrade. Serbian propagandists did anyway a far better job than their Croatian or Bosnian counterparts by snatching Mira Furlan and Rade Serbedzija from Zagreb, and Emir Kusturica from Sarajevo. Rade, Mira and Emir are not some Milosevic's spies. They are artists. They may be sometimes vain and insecure and require some personality pampering and some kindness and you can't expect from them to behave like political apparatchiks. We should realize that they ended up in Belgrade because Belgrade did a better job of attracting them. They ain't stupid either. They know what Milosevic did. They know what role Serbia played in this nasty Balkan war. Rade after all immediately gave his voice to the opposition in Belgrade. Emir's Underground is a profound criticism of the regime. And Mira and Goran left Belgrade a long time ago (as soon as Goran graduated) and came to the country where nobody would care were they Croats or Serbs or whatever. Here, in the U.S. she and Goran stayed a while in NY doing what immigrants do, giving up the glamour for freedom, giving up both countries in the Balkans, but preserving their family - which is actually very American to do - and America took them in. Then they moved in LA. A friend of Mira's (again a Serb, which doesn't tell anything about Mira, but a lot about her Croat friends') with connections in the "industry" made a party and invited some people, which landed Mira to several auditions and ultimately she got a role in the Sci-Fi TV series Babylon 5 (Ambassador Delen). Allegedly, according to my Croatian sources, Mira foul-mouthed Croatia a lot in her interviews, among other things telling that he was always harassed there because she was Jewish. Wow, I didn't even know that she was Jewish. Yet, I don't doubt that Tudjman's media discovered that and delightfully exploited it against her (stupid again because Croatian Jews did not do anything to undermine Tudjman's power, so why sneer at them?). As I realized, Mira and Croatia don't have many nice things to say about each other (Goran makes his usual jokes telling that his wife can't keep her tongue in cheek and loves to provoke). Sad. But, that's life. Mira is now an American actress. Her English is flawless and as her many fans witness every week - without an accent. Since her fans are computer geeks and nerds, she has 7 personal pages on the web (check the biography at http://www.hookup.net/~bjust/b5/biog.html ) and 615 references to her name are returned by Infoseek - about ten times more than to the name Franjo Tudjman. She still likes to do pranks - for example she admittedly climbed to the Hollywood sign in Griffith Park, which is just behind and above her house, that is forbidden by some LA ordnance. Goran didn't - too steep, he said. Goran is definitely not a work-out freak (it was so hard to get him outta house for a walk after dinner). Recently his music video about the band Laibach was screened in LA, and he is currently directing a few low-budget advertising projects. Mira still sometimes talks with nostalgia about her apartment in Petrova street in Zagreb where she lived all her life (I am sure that'd please Tudjman to know, since he revels so much in the suffering of others). But they settled in LA and became very Californian in general including the two dozens of bottles of vitamins and other supplements that adore any Californian kitchen. And she was objecting to Goran and me repeatedly listening to the new Disziplin Kitschm (a hard core punk band from Belgrade that went on living in London where it became a hard core rave band and sounds better than Prodigy) with an almost suburban nag. In the small talk part of our evening together Mira casually asked me about myself and my family, so I delivered my well prepared long whine about the parents who saw each other more often during the divorce than at any other time of their relationship, while I lived with an over-protective granny. She listened and then calmly commented how this was a real tragedy, because my parents divorced when I was so young, while her mom died when she was already a bit older. I almost got sick of myself at that point, which really rarely happens to my big ego. Heh, but I re-bounced quickly. Bad News 5 In 1987 a shortly imprisoned dissident from Serbia came to the U.S. and was granted asylum. In an unusually short time he became an editor of Chronicles, picked for that position by Thommas Fleming, a Christian-Right oriented author. Chronicles are financed by the Rockford Institute whose Board of Directors and Executives list like who is who on American forefront of Family Values, Religion, Christianity - shortly it is an obviously Republican leaning right of center foundation praised by George Bush and Bob Dole - a kind that would be naturally expected to back righteous Croat struggle for independence from Serbian Antichrist communist dictator. Wrong. Rockford and Chronicles are staunch supporters of Serbs, particularly Bosnian Serbs in this war. Which testifies to how inexplicably big role a single character may play in this country: if there was not for that Serb dissident who made his way under Fleming's skin, Rockford Institute and Chronicles would most probably favor Croats. What happened to him? As soon as the war in Bosnia started he packed his bags and returned to the country he once sought an asylum from, becoming a reporter from the front in Republika Srpska. He is a competent writer and his reports are vivid and strong. He doesn't make Serbs look too good, he knows that wouldn't work. But his message is clear: not Serbs but others in former Yugoslavia are to blame for the war and destruction, because they started with the secessionism. Today, his reports became valuable to Fleming in order to appeal to extreme right in the U.S., which opposes American intervention in Bosnia on isolationist grounds. Fleming is also a co-founder of Southern League, a controversial secessionist (sic!) movement in American South, which in Village Voice once compared its struggle (for white living space, I presume) to the righteous struggle of Serbian people. Interestingly, both righteous struggles coincide with massive destruction of spiritual objects of "others" (Muslim mosques in Bosnia, Black churches in the South). Southern Leaguers consider themselves British, not American, and they are eager to reverse the revolution. Hence, there is support from Brittany. In its bid of support to Republika Srpska Rockford Institute is joined by Lord Byron Foundation, one of those old blue-blooded establishments, which, curiously again is headed by a Serb - one who formerly did P.R. jobs for prince Karadjordjevic, and then for Radovan Karadzic (while his wife was - despite Croatian-American protests - kept as a chief of Croatian section at the Voice of America), a job that he still, obviously, relishes. With Radmila Melentijevic becoming the Minister of Information in Serbia - and she was the one responsible for taking Serb leaders from Croatia and Bosnia around Serbian centers in the US to raise funds, and later served as Karadzic's spokeswoman in the UN - we can expect stronger support for Republika Srpska. Bad News 6 Hands-on experience is still very regarded. That's why Mobutu Sese Seko, Zairian dictator, called Serbs to train Hutu refugees to fight Tutsi rebels in the East of Zaire. Mobutu was a lifelong friend of Tito, the late Yugoslav dictator, and Zairian army was trained and armed partially by Yugoslav military-industrial complex - the connections obviously survived the collapse of Yugoslavia as a state. My friend's article was censored out of the press in Zagreb as late as 1988 when he criticized Mobutu's visit to Yugoslavia that year, calling him a murderer. Zaire is in poor shape: a giant nation comprised of hundreds of tribes scattered through the jungle with almost no infrastructure - Eastern parts are accessible ONLY by air, burdened by incapable army and stagnating economy. After the massacres in Rwanda the East Zaire was flooded by first Tutsi and then Hutu refugees - which completely destroyed the delicate balance in which Zaire survived all those years. Since the end of cold war Zaire lost some of its appeal to the West, so the money stopped flowing in. Soon, Tutsi and Hutu continued to carry on their war in Zaire. Mobutu realized that he'd have to fight to hold onto the East, and he decided to do it using Serb instructors and Hutu refugees (while keeping Belgian mercenaries on call for the case that this low-cost expendable rag-tag army does not succeed). Why does nobody cry foul? The West seems terrified by the prospects of Zairian collapse - humanitarian workers working with Rwanda can probably best perceive what kind of nightmare would the humanitarian work in Zaire be. ivo -- * distributed via nettime-l : no commercial use without permission * <nettime> is a closed moderated mailinglist for net criticism, * collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets * more info: majordomo@is.in-berlin.de and "info nettime" in the msg body * URL: http://www.desk.nl/~nettime/ contact: nettime-owner@is.in-berlin.de