Identity And Other Politics
Behind the Russophobia of Serbia's Quislings
by Nebojsa Malic, November 05, 2011
The Empire-manufactured reality matrix continues to disintegrate. Aware that its grip on power is rapidly weakening, the quisling regime in Serbia is now trying to whip up anti-Russian hysteria. Their target is Moscow's ambassador, Aleksandar Vasilevich Konuzin. Back in September, Konuzin stood up at a pro-NATO event in Belgrade, hosted by "NGOs" on Empire's payroll, thundering, "Are there any Serbs in this room?" This was in response to NATO troops beginning an operation of seizing the north of the province for the "independent" Albanian regime; an attempt thwarted by the Kosovo Serbs themselves, despite Belgrade's constant betrayal.
More recently, Konuzin attended a rally of the opposition Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), and praised it for advocating change. This drew harsh criticism from the government and its hangers-on, who charged the Russian with "interference" and "disrespecting Serbia's sovereignty."
The accusations reek of the worst kind of hypocrisy. First off, none of these people give a rotting rodent's posterior about Serbia's sovereignty. They are all too eager to surrender the occupied province of Kosovo, and give the Eurocrats everything they demand — and then some. Secondly, none of them have ever been bothered by interference or disrespect, so long as came from EU or Imperial ambassadors.
The Astroturf Opposition
Konuzin wasn't out of line to appear at an opposition gathering. He was, however, mistaken about the object of his praise. Namely, the Progressives are an Astroturf party, a product of post-electoral engineering on par with the current governing coalition. The alliance of Democrats and Socialists put together in June 2008 (with the "assistance" of US and UK ambassadors) is a perversion of democracy, as the two coalitions ran against each other.
US diplomatic dispatches published by WikiLeaks reveal that it was a Democratic operative that persuaded Tomislav Nikolic, deputy leader of the Serbian Radical Party (SRS), to split off and form the Progressives. SRS leader Vojislav Seselj has been imprisoned by the Hague Inquisition since 2003; unable to convict him on spurious "hate speech" charges, it has been keeping him imprisoned on repeated charges of contempt of court. Adding insult to injury, the Progressives got to keep the seats in the legislature, to which they were elected as Radicals. So, not only was the current government never elected as such, neither was the "opposition"!
Misdirections
Now, however, the government in Serbia is in trouble. An election is approaching in April, and they have nothing to offer. In 2008, the Democrats campaigned on a lie that they would fight for both European integrations and Kosovo. But the EU is in a major economic and political crisis, so few are likely to again buy the fantasy of money magically raining from the sky on Serbians loyal to Tadic. Furthermore, Brussels has clearly spelled out that recognizing the "independent" Kosovo is a prerequisite for further talks — about negotiating the possibilities of probability of maybe considering whatever may be left of Serbia (when everyone is done with it) joining someday.
The Kosovo policy was exposed as a fraud last year, and more so this fall, as Belgrade tried to backstab the Serbs standing up for their rights. The economy is a disaster. Mladjan Dinkic, the international bankster who ran Serbia's economic policy since October 2000, recently left the government and reinvented himself as a champion of "regionalism", hoping no one will remember that the country's ruin is largely his fault.
Meanwhile, the lunatic "Liberal Democratic" fringe is running on the platform of unconditional surrender to the Empire, pitching it as the pinnacle of patriotism. They call it "The Reversal" — of sanity, perhaps, but not of any government policy implemented by Tadic or his DOS predecessors.
The strategy seems to be to saturate the electorate with a plethora of options, all of which are run by Empire loyalists. Between that and post-electoral trickery, they aim to ensure the survival of their policies no matter who actually wins the vote.
Then there is a cabal of separatists in the northern province of Vojvodina, seeking to establish a private satrapy with Empire's backing – the way Milo Djukanovic did with Montenegro. It doesn't matter that the vast majority of inhabitants in the province are ethnic Serbs; a campaign is already underway to convert them to "Vojvodinians", exactly the same way as the inhabitants of Montenegro were stripped of their historic Serbian identity. Leaflets that appeared in the northern city of Novi Sad this week, picturing Serbia kicking to the curb a slovenly, vodka-swilling Russian, have all the hallmarks of this group.
False Choices
Not surprisingly, the mainstream Western media are covering the issue as a question of choice between Russia and Europe. One example was a piece this week by WSJ blogger Goran Mijuk, who argued that, "Serbs will now have to find a compromise between the Russian and European option… But a solution is possible. As is the case with the Serbian script, which uses both Latin and Cyrillic, Serbs know how to emulate Western and Eastern standards."
In fact, Cyrillic is the native Serbian alphabet, while the Latin alphabet in use throughout the Balkans (and claimed by everyone else) is a letter-for-letter adaptation of it. But the real question is, why emulate at all? Can't the Serbs just be themselves?
More to the point, the Russians aren't asking the Serbs to emulate their ways, culture, traditions, or politics. All Moscow is asking is that the Serbs stand up for their own freedom and look out for their own interests. How on Earth is that questionable?
On the other hand, the Empire – through the quisling government and "civil society" groups — has demanded of the Serbs to give up Cyrillic, "reform" their Orthodox Christian church and undergo a wholesale "identity change" in order to be accepted by the EU and NATO. You know, the NATO that 12 years ago attacked Serbia and occupied Kosovo, where the EU is now building an Albanian "independent state"? None of that bothers the "reformers," while Russian support for Serb independence makes them see red.
It's the Identity, Stupid
This deliberate conundrum about identity helps explain a peculiarity about last week's jihadist attack on the U.S. embassy in Sarajevo. Both local and Western media have described the attacker as "Serbian" – that is, a citizen of Serbia. Yet those very same media vocally insist that the Muslims living in that region of Serbia are "Bosniaks". So apparently, one can be a "Bosniak" when special privileges are about to be dispensed, but magically becomes "Serbian" upon engaging in terrorism.
Early in October, Canadian daily The Globe and Mail published a feature on a Quebecois composer of Serbian origin, who explained that only in Canada did she become aware of her roots and the richness of her native culture. While she still lived in Serbia, she believed, along with many others, that traditional identity and culture were something to be despised and ashamed of, cast aside in favor of some higher, global, cosmopolitan identity.
This was in the 1980s, before the wars that broke up Yugoslavia, or the "democracy" brought by NATO bombs, boots and bribes. Back then the identity to aspire to was that of the socialist workers of the world. Today it is of global conspicuous consumers. Either way, it was at the expense of genuine identity, culture and traditions. Back then, it was the Yugoslav Communists who demanded this. Today it is the Euro- Atlantic "Democrats". It makes one wonder what exactly is the difference.
Read more by Nebojsa Malic
- A Most Stubborn Reality – October 30th, 2011
- Occupations, Faux and Real – October 14th, 2011
- The Emperor's Speech – September 23rd, 2011
- Showdown at Goat Gate – September 16th, 2011
- Winter is Coming – August 26th, 2011
http://original.antiwar.com/malic/2011/11/04/identity-and-other-politics/
