Fresh ideas from a friend but will they work?
>i have been thinking about kosovo and all the hard
>questions it raises for people like us who are opposed to imperialism
and
>fascist nationalism and fundamentalism. many people on the left are
>sickened by the fascist genocide being carried out against ethnic
albanian
>in kosovo and want to take some kind of action to help stop it. this
is a
>healthy response, however the left is so weak in the us and
internationally
>that it actually has few practical options. this is our dilemma we have
no
>organized forces to put into play and therefore all practical options
are
>discussions of what we want other forces; NATO, the UN, the KLA ,
etc
>to do. we're trying to play with other people's money and game pieces.
this
>leads to bad politics and inevitable opportunism.
>
>we have to start from our real situation, we are disorganized and cannot
be
>a force for good changes in the world until we reorganize and we
cannot
>reorganize until we understand the causes of our world historical defeat
>the defeat of socialism has changed everything for us tactically and
>strategically. the left still thinks and acts as if we had a mass
socialist
>movement and a socialist camp. this is one of the things that
disorients
>leftists today, the left has been a world historical player for over a
>hundred years since the rise of the german socialdemocracy in germany
in
>the 1880's, but is no longer. today the oppressed are almost totally
>defenseless, organizationally and ideologically. so when struggles and
>crises break out now the political options are always terrible for
us..
>choosing the lesser evil does not help matters and often makes them
worse.
>but until the oppressed build new organizations and a new vision of
>liberation there will be more kosovos and more rwandas. so for me the
most
>important thing in kosovo is to support and encourage all those
actions
>that build political autonomy and self-reliance of the most oppressed
:
>primarily poor women, children and youths , those that have the least
>privilege and power under patriarchy, and always suffer the most in war
and
>under fascism. we have to struggle to build relationships and
encourage
>political dialogue with poor women and anti-war youths in kosovo and
>serbia and montenegro and raise the question of overturning patriarchy
in
>all its forms, fascist, "democratic" capitalist and "socialist" .
>
> i believe that only an oppressed, third world women-led
anti-patriarchal
>revolution will stop fascism and genocide. kosovo is a power struggle
>between competing gangs of patriarchal fascist men, NATO being the
>biggest and most dangerous of these gangs. until women and their male
>allies, mostly the children and youths organize independently tney will
be
>at the mercy of all the countless male mafias that are infesting the
world
>today. to call for resistance to male fascism today means asking
ourselves
>and our friends to challenge very powerful, brutal armed groups of men,
and
>this scares everyone. real resistance means sacrifices and possible
death,
>but non-resistance and remaining political beggars at the table of
history
>means sure death and continued defeat for oppressed women everywhere.
would
>the ethnic albanian women who are being evicted from their homes, raped
and
>murdered, their families broken up, be any worse off if they organized
>armed women's militias to defend themselves, i don't think so, the KLA
has
>shown that it cant defend them, NATO ? hah, thats a joke, the left?
not
>hardly. armed women fighting patriarchy in kosovo would take heavy
>casualties you say. but women in kosovo are aleady taking heavy
casualties,
>without any thing to show for it. this way at least their losses would
>become meaningful as the first steps toward building a future free of
>genocide and wars , and capitalism and fascism
>
>this at least is where our thinking needs to go, toward new autonomous
>,self-reliant, anti-patriarchal organizatios of the oppressed, not in
>choosing between the equally suicidal options patriarchal politics
>offers us today. the emergence of independent anti-patriarchal
women's
>resistance groups would revolutionize world politics and offer us a
way
>forward out of our present hopelessness and powerlessness.
>
>
<bold> u can forward this to anyone you think will listen,
*************************
</bold>>
>>>I believe the United Nations have opposed the NATO campaign. What is
>>>interesting is that NATO has deployed human rights as a vehicle for
war.
>>>This is not to ignore the serious human rights breaches by the
Serbian
>>>regime. Didn't the US also deploy human rights as a reason for their
>>>continued intervention in Iraq. I must say, though, I do not
understand the
>>>continued existence of NATO which was intially set up as a defensive
pact
>>>against the Soviet Union and its east European satellites.
>>>
>>>At 14:26 15/04/99 EDT, you wrote:
>>>>The Nation, April 26, 1999
>>>>
>>>> The Case Against Inaction
>>>>
>>>> Sadly, some on the left are angrier about NATO's bombing
>>>> than they are about the Serbian forces' atrocities, even though
>>>> Milosevic's men have killed more in one Kosovan village than
>>>> have all the airstrikes. Those who want an immediate NATO
>>>> cease-fire owe the world an explanation of how they propose
>>>> to stop and reverse the massive ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, in
>>>> light of Milosevic's history as a serial ethnic cleanser and
>>>> promise-breaker. Arguments that the NATO action diminishes
>>>> the stature of the United Nations are, to say the least, highly
>>>> questionable. What could diminish the UN's stature more than
>>>> Milosevic's successful defiance of more than fifty Security
>>>> Council resolutions? Only last September, Resolution 1199,
>>>> invoking Chapter VII of the UN Charter, ordered Belgrade to
>>>> "cease all action by the security forces affecting the civilian
>>>> population and order the withdrawal of security units used for
>>>> civilian repression" in Kosovo. Only last October, Milosevic
>>>> promised to reduce troop numbers in Kosovo, and his pledge
>>>> was endorsed and given the force of international law by
>>>> Security Council Resolution 1203. By the time the
>>>> Rambouillet negotiations had started, he had more troops in
>>>> Kosovo than ever before, and they had already begun their
>>>> well-prepared campaign of ethnic cleansing.
>>>>
>>>> Real internationalists can hardly use the dubious rights of
>>>> "national sovereignty" to oppose action to stop massacres.
>>>> Opposition to US military intervention is an understandable
>>>> rule of thumb, but it shouldn't become obsessive dogma. After
>>>> all, most Europeans were happy with US intervention in
>>>> World War II. The British court decisions on Gen. Augusto
>>>> Pinochet show that, at last, politicians who murder cannot
>>>> expect amnesty afterwards. Why should Slobodan Milosevic
>>>> expect impunity as he carries out crimes against humanity?
>>>>
>>>> Ideally, there should have been a UN Security Council vote
>>>> endorsing military action, but China and Russia had made it
>>>> plain that no matter what barbarities Milosevic committed
>>>> they would veto any such resolution. Happily, most of the
>>>> Council agreed that ethnic cleansing was not something that
>>>> could be shielded behind a dubious claim of national
>>>> sovereignty and soundly defeated, 12 votes to 3, a Russian
>>>> draft resolution condemning the bombing. Only Namibia
>>>> joined Beijing and Moscow. NATO, most of whose
>>>> governments are members of the Socialist International,
>>>> agreed on a military response.
>>>>
>>>> In short, the court of international public opinion has
>>>> implicitly, resoundingly, endorsed military action. Milosevic
>>>> is clearly counting on past experience that the international
>>>> community will compromise, accept the results of ethnic
>>>> cleansing and leave him in power. We hope that this time he
>>>> has miscalculated. Three of the major European
>>>> players--Britain, France and Germany--under like-minded
>>>> left-of-center governments have united in their determination
>>>> to stop him, and they have popular majorities for doing so.
>>>>
>>>> Soon NATO will be faced with two alternatives: stop the
>>>> bombing and "negotiate," or commit ground troops. The
>>>> bombing should stop only when Belgrade agrees to pull out or
>>>> is pushed out of Kosovo, if necessary by ground troops. For
>>>> most of this decade Milosevic has used negotiations as a cover
>>>> to consolidate the gains of ethnic cleansing.
>>>>
>>>> The precondition for a cease-fire must be the withdrawal of
>>>> Serbian troops and police from Kosovo and their replacement
>>>> by an international force, mostly NATO but including
>>>> Russians if they want to become involved--and can afford to.
>>>> (No one who saw the UN in inaction in Bosnia could wish UN
>>>> forces on the long-suffering Kosovars.) Of course, the present
>>>> campaign carries risks. To exorcise its frustration and put off
>>>> the inevitable involvement on the ground, the White House
>>>> will be increasingly tempted to escalate attacks on civilian
and
>>>> economic targets. The sooner ground troops are committed to
>>>> clear Kosovo of Serbian forces and allow the refugees to
>>>> return, the less temptation there will be, and the more likely
>>>> that Milosevic will withdraw. Successful military action
>>>> would also strengthen the prospects for democracy in Serbia.
>>>> Much of the Serbian opposition argues that airstrikes weaken
>>>> their position. In fact, it would be impossible to weaken their
>>>> position on Kosovo: Even fewer of them explicitly oppose the
>>>> repression there than resisted the war in Bosnia. In reality,
>>>> Serbia cannot have democracy and Kosovo.
>>>>
>>>> There will be casualties, but the Serbian army and police,
>>>> although fearsome against unarmed civilians, will be far from
>>>> home, in hostile territory without air cover. The alternative
is
>>>> a terminal weakening of all the precarious advances in
>>>> international humanitarian law that have been achieved over
>>>> the past decade--not to mention the deaths and exile of
>>>> hundreds of thousands of Kosovars.
>>>>
>>>> Bogdan Denitch and Ian Williams
>>>>
>>>> Bogdan Denitch, director of the Institute for Transitions to
>>>> Democracy, which operates in Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia, is
>>>> the author of Ethnic Nationalism: The Tragic Death of
>>>> Yugoslavia (Minnesota). Ian Williams is The Nation's
>>>> United Nations correspondent.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>The foucaldien ethos has already reached his/her eternal utopia in
the
>>"present". No need for further move!
>
>"Solidarity is running the same risks."
> - Che Guevara
>("La solidarieta' significa correre gli stessi rischi.")
>
>
>
<bold><italic>The foucaldien ethos has already reached his/her eternal
utopia in the "present". No need for further move!
</italic></bold>