<nettime> infowar? some more error messages (1/2) [and] (2/2)

["a.s.ambulanzen" <h0444wol@rz.hu-berlin.de>]

Date: Thu, 08 Apr 1999 16:12:44 +0200
From: "a.s.ambulanzen" <h0444wol@rz.hu-berlin.de>
Subject: infowar? some more error messages (1/2)

### some more error messages (1/2) ###

serbia blindness?

> Milosevic looks like on many point to Hitler regarding his programm of
> ethnic cleansing

was there, in nazi germany, a jewish liberation army fighting for the
secession of a province, claiming their own national or ethnical identity?
do we face, in yugoslavia today, the european-wide, industrial annihilation
of a whole so-called "race"?

> we can see that on ideology level it is really closed to the work of
> nazi on jews...

has milosevic accused the people in kosovo of planning or being part
of a secret world conpiracy against yugoslavia? is the yugoslavian
ideology based on the radicalization of a century-old, european-wide
traditon of anti-kosovism?

> On the other side we have one man (Milosevic), one land (Great Serbia),
> one homeland (serbs) as Hitler with great Germany !

has serbia invaded poland? invaded russia? have they destroyed coventry?
destroyed rotterdam? they occupied france? bombed london?

> The nation state and nationalism are one of the causes of the greatest
> evils of our time, but what should replace them? and how? Edward Said has
> called for a multi----shall we call it "ethnic"---Palestine/Israel. Would
> someone explain to me why this is not possible in "Yugoslavia"? Several
> decades of evidence says it is.

so isn't it rather that the nation state and nationalism have just replaced
what was possible before, and that the question that was on the western
politicial agenda was rather: how to break up the former east bloc, where to
draw the lines, what ethnic borders to accept? what western nation was it
again that first supported independence for slovenia and croatia? what
western nation was it again that supplied the kla with weapons? what western
nation now announces it is willing to take 10.000 kosovo refugees while they
have just sent many more of them back because they said it was safe there?

sometimes one might wonder what most people in the west actually expected
to follow when the "post-war" era ended. the end of history? here you are.
as if it wasn't obvious that, when "post-war" stops, "pre-war" begins.
and one might wonder where all the people have been when that wall
came down in 89? what did they think would appear behind it? freedom and
democracy? prosperity? xs4all? how many people died at the border between
poland and germany again, since 1990? and how many died at thet wall? not
trying to do any calculation with these figures, but nevertheless, this is
real, and the berlin wall has been filed under "shame of the century". not
trying to justify it, the eastern side was a shame, but the western side,
in a way, served as a holocaust memorial. a cut, for historical reasons.
so that, when it was gone, most of that history was to disappear as well,
and western germany discovered, in former eastern germany, a horrible and
despotic regime that, after only ten years of continued discoursive efforts,
is now said to equal nazi germany, all in all. now milosevic equals hitler.
if that was a slogan of the yugoslavian opposition, one might hesitate
to complain, but as slogan of the german government, "milosevic equals
hitler" will be transformed into "hitler equals milosevic" and finally
result in "1933 - 1945 = 0".

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Date: Thu, 08 Apr 1999 16:12:50 +0200
From: "a.s.ambulanzen" <h0444wol@rz.hu-berlin.de>
Subject: infowar? some more error messages (2/2)

### some more error messages (2/2) ###

> I've spent the last days just trying to read and make sense of the
> overwhelming quantity of opinion, comment, observation and personal
> expression arriving in my mailbox from nettime and other quarters.
>
> So what i wonder is - how does anyone find the time to author and then
> send smart ass comments like the one above, and do they help any of us?

what kind of help is it that people need in dot-no? here in dot-de,
they're all fine. (diary from berlin: there have been summer-like
temperatures last week, people were sitting outside the cafes discussing
how expensive a b2 stealth bomber is, that nato will be running out of
cruise missiles, that the german uniforms are the worst of them all etc.
and the papers say our social-democrat defense minister has just
discovered that milosevic is building kz's in kosovo.)

and what kind of online help could we offer to those in dot-yu? as godard
once put it in "loin de vietnam": is so easy to speculate about bombs as
long as they don't fall on your head. what kind of help? i could tell
slobodan markovic that i truly appreciate his postings, i could tell
him that i am a 26-old male student from berlin/germany who feels ashamed
ashamed ashamed by the fact that the german army, as a part of the nato
forces, is attacking yugoslavia once again, this time run by a coalition
of social democrats and greens that don't give a shit about any part of
german history anymore, 18, 33, 45, 68, it's all gone, it all equals 89
(plus that i am, of course, against milosevic and what is going on in
kosovo and so on), and that he or whoever has a busload of my symbolic
solidarity. would that be: help? would he feel better? would i? it
doesn't cost me anything, and it feels totally surreal. and how can i
express my online solidarity with refugees from kosovo unless they are
equipped with mobile phones that they can recieve and send e-mail with?
or would recieve-only be ok?

so, i'd rather hesitate to upload my so-called personal emotions to any
kind of public server. this is not about opinion. desert opinon. we're
all against this. so what? those who want to help: help. those who want
to analyze: analyze. but drown in some overwhelming quantities of other
people's emotions? get paralyzed by other people getting paralyzed? we're
all free to uninstall our real-audio/real-video/real-ascii players.
if it becomes all too much, just disconnect for a while.

because: how does that "war on the web"-thing work, anyway?
nato sends a cruise missile, and three hours later i get that new mail
notification sound from my inbox. is that a desirable device? and, wow,
i'm even able to talk back. sorry for the bridge! stop whining 'bout the
bridge! what kind of device is that? and then later, i can hang out in
some bar and wear all these e-mails from yugoslavia like some precious
info-jewelry. if the first victim of the war is truth, then the second one
is data dandyism. communication guerilla, whatever. go on, subvert, fight
back! flood the nato! ping the pentagon until it's gone! is the electronic
disturbance theater on vacation?

> p.s: message to serbs:
> DESERT YOUR ARMY
> DESERT YOUR REGIM
> we will be pleased to help you !!!!

we will help you by dropping care-mails, heal your bridges by remote
control, open the borders of our mailing lists and turn them into
24-hour online chatrooms. because this is our war, not your war, and
the info war is ours, too. and on the day that nato starts transmitting
"messages to serbs" - remember where you heard them first!



sebastian luetgert
a.s.ambulanzen
berlin/germany
_________________________________________
http://www2.hu.berlin.de/~h0444wol/rolux/
*victory to the klf! fuck the millenium!*

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