Posted on 01/13/2004 8:44:31 PM PST by DTA
The legitimacy of ethnic patriotism
George Jonas
National Post
Monday, January 12, 2004
Victorians tried to sweep sex under the carpet. Our era tries to do the same with ethnic nationalism. The Victorians had the tougher task -- sex has deeper roots in nature than tribal loyalties -- but the roots of ethno-cultural affinity go deep enough.
In Serbia's elections last month, to the dismay of many and the surprise of some, the Radical Party won 28% of the vote. This translates to a plurality of 81 seats, or the biggest single bloc, in Serbia's 250-seat parliament. Another 22 seats went to the Socialist Party, which received 7.4% of the popular vote.
The Radical and Socialist parties have two things in common. One, they're ultra-nationalist and anti-Western, with the Socialist Party coming from the left and the Radical Party from the right. Both parties call for, or at least favour, some form of "Greater Serbia." Two, the leaders of both parties are indicted war criminals currently being tried in The Hague. Radical Party leader Vojislav Seselj is accused of having commanded a paramilitary gang that committed atrocities during the internecine wars of the region, while Socialist Party leader Slobodan Milosevic, the former head of Yugoslavia, is prosecuted, among other things, for having been the patriarch of ethnic cleansing.
I'm among those who are dismayed by the election results but I'm not surprised by them. It seems to me the West is reaping what it has sown in the region. Throughout the Balkan conflict we made either the wrong choices or, at best, the right choices too late. We were motivated by various factors, but chief among them was our bias for multicultural models of nationhood, coupled with our prejudice against ethnically (or religiously) based nation-states.
This bias made us reluctant to support Croatian, Slovenian and Bosnian ambitions for independence in 1990-91. Though a prompt and unequivocal Western endorsement of self-determination might have averted bloodshed altogether, we didn't want to see the multicultural federation of Yugoslavia, a model we liked, break up into its ethnic/religious components. Then, when war became inevitable, we needlessly prolonged the conflict through a vapid UN arms embargo imposed on all factions in September, 1991 -- which naturally gave an edge to the better-equipped Serbs. Thanks to our humanitarian-cum-pacifist folly, the savage war had an extended run, especially on the Croatian front, probably costing thousands of lives. It's a safe bet, though, that no one will be prosecuted for this fatal error in The Hague.
The United States, slow to protest against the illegitimate ambition of multicultural Yugoslavia to forcibly keep in its fold three nations that wanted to separate, came down like a ton of bricks on ethnic Serbia for its far more legitimate ambition to preserve the country's territorial integrity against the secessionist guerrillas of Kosovo. Washington, which resisted recognizing genuine, if splinter, nations such as Croatia, Slovenia and Bosnia until April, 1992, was quick to launch Stealth bombers to ensure the autonomy of ethnic Albanians in a Serb province. As a multiculturalist thug Milosevic was a protected species; as a nationalist thug, NATO declared an open season on him.
In the end, the West's policy didn't even amount to a defence of a multicultural ideal. As events unfolded, NATO's bombers were raining destruction on Serbia's bridges and factories not to forestall the ethnic cleansing of Albanians from Kosovo, but to ensure the ethnic cleansing of Serbs. The crime-ridden province today is almost devoid of Serbs, and seems well on its way to becoming either a separate Muslim state or part of greater Albania.
Why the West felt obliged to choose sides between Serb and Albanian ethnic national ambitions in Kosovo, and if it did, why it chose Albania's side, remained a mystery to most Serbs. Those who had an answer concluded that it was an attempt on the part of the West (or at least the flower-child generation that had taken over NATO and the Clinton White House in the 1990s) to appease the Muslim world -- as if Osama bin Laden & Co. could be appeased by America's support for Muslims against Orthodox Christians in the Balkans.
If this hadn't been enough to boost the cause of the ultra-nationalists, the United States put the icing on the cake after the fall of Milosevic by bribing (in effect) Serbia's new government to extradite the former strongman to The Hague. (The chief architect of the US$1-billion deal, Serb Prime Minister Dr. Zoran Djindjic, was assassinated in March last year.) By the time Milosevic was shipped to the war crimes tribunal few Serbs supported him, but even among those who would have gladly tied the knot around the ex-communist dictator's neck, many regarded selling Milosevic to a UN court a disgrace. They included Vojislav Kostunica, the leader who succeeded Milosevic -- and whose Democratic Party received the second biggest bloc of votes last month (18%.)
Dr. Kostunica is a nationalist himself. There's a world of difference between the sombre legal scholar and the two indicted war criminals who lead Serbia's other nationalist parties. The fact remains, though, that between the three parties over half the voters, 53.4%, affirm being Serb patriots. They were outraged by UN Prosecutor Carla del Ponte's attempts to extradite more Serbians for war crimes during the election campaign. The deputy head of Serbia's Liberal party, Rebeka Bozovic, was quoted as saying that the UN tribunal's overzealous functionaries couldn't have done better if they had meant to campaign for the ultra-nationalist Radical Party.
If we persist in denying the legitimacy of ethnic patriotism; if we persist in selectively criminalizing wartime conduct and putting the agendas of international tribunals ahead of reconciliation in conflict areas, chances are more and more voters will support extremist and anti-Western parties and politicians. On the other hand, if we stop trying to sweep ethnic nationalism under the carpet and resist the prosecutorial ambitions of UN functionaries like Carla del Ponte, we've a better chance of seeing Dr. Kostunica in coalition with other pro-Western reform parties at the helm in Belgrade. The choice is ours. The gain would be ours as well, along with Serbia's gain and its neighbours'.
I suspect that was only because Clinton was a buddy of Chretien's...... strange bed fellows and all that.
If you have noticed, the very same excuses Chretien gave for following Clinton, was the same as the ones he used for not following Bush.
True for Americans, as it is true for Poles as it is true for all people. That is the essence of traditional conservativisim.
True for Americans, as it is true for Poles as it is true for all people. That is the essence of traditional conservativisim.
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