sebastian.luetgert on Fri, 28 Jan 2000 20:04:39 +0100


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Syndicate: Yugoslavs of all countries - unite!


        Juergen Elsaesser, speech delivered on the congress of the "Lord
        Byron Foundation" and the Serbian Writers´ Union, 24/25th
        January, Belgrad

        Uprising of the Tribes

        Kosovo was only the beginning: The Third World War is prepared
        like the Second by the tribes under german command.


        My first thesis might perplex you: I think, and in this way I
        follow the reflections of former Israelian foreign minister
        Sharon, that in the war against Yugoslavia the main war criminal
        was not the government of the United States, but that it were
        ?the europeans, who have torn the US into a horrible adventure?.
        Indeed the US assumed the main burden of the air campaign und it
        was responsible for the mass of the devastations in Yugoslavia,
        but it were the Europeans, especially the Germans, who provoked
        the war. To offer an image: The ?krauts? were the incendiaries,
        the ?yankees? extinguished the fire with gasoline.

        In three points the responsability of Germany for provoking the
        war is evident:

        Firstly. While the west as a whole supported the quite moderate
        albanian leader Rugova after 1992, the albanians? so-called
        president, Germany backed from the beginning Rugova`s rival
        Bukoshi, the so-called prime minister of the Kosovo-Albanians,
        who was a declared advocate and financier of the armed struggle
        of the KLA and its precursors.

        Secondly. In Dayton Clinton and Milosevic signed a treaty
        neglecting the Kosovo question. That pragmatism was a condition
        for the cease-fire in Bosnia.This was sharply criticised by the
        German government, and subsequently the Germans tried again and
        again to make Kosovo the focus of the western stand towards
        Yugoslavia.

        Thirdly. While the State Department denounced the KLA for a long
        time and with good arguments as ?terrorits oganization?, the
        guerillas were complacently supported by Germany. When for
        example Richard Holbrooke after his visit in Kosovo in summer
        1998 tried to stop the flood of money pouring out of western
        countries into the  pockets of KLA leaders, the German officials
        did nothing against this fund raising of the KLA on German
        territory. The bulk of KLA-money came from Switzerland and
        Germany, until the very end. Even the international supply of
        weapons for the KLA ran over Germany and was backed by the
        German secret service, the BND, what lead to a ?serious rift?
        between BND and CIA, as the british weekly The European wrote in
        September 1998.

        Not before the end of 1998 did the US take over the pole
        position in the preparation of war. Because the
        Clinton-administration thought that this war could not be
        avoided any longer, it at least wanted  to secure the victory
        for the US  - and not to to leave it to the KLA and its German
        advocates. Of course this was a wrong calculation: The US-Air
        Force won the war, but today, the KLA rules over Kosovo, and the
        German mark is the only currency there. The US won the war - but
        it lost the peace, to the KLA and Germany.

        Historic parallels

        The avantgarde part Germany played in the dismemberment of
        Yugoslavia in the nineties finds a historic model: The German
        avantgarde role in destabilizing and destroying sovereign states
        like Yugoslavia, Chechoslovakai, Austria and others in the
        forefield and at the beginning of WWII.

        In preparing WW II Germany took tribal irredentism and
        separatism directly in his service. It?s battle-cry was the
        ?right of selfdetermination of people?.Against the so-called
        artificial states founded according to the the Versailles
        treaties the Nazis mobilized not only their so-called countrymen
        in foreign states - the Volksdeutschen in Sudety, Silesia and in
        the Saar Region -, but encouraged also other so-called
        ?oppressed people? to secession and expansion: Hungarians,
        Croatians,  the Ukraine and Slovakia for example conquered their
        ?right of self-determination? at the side of Nazi-Germany,
        became part of the fascits axis and collaborated in executing
        the holocaust. SS-Fuehrer Heinrich Himmler spoke very frankly
        about this strategy: ?Regarding the alien peoples we must try
        to recognize and care for as many single nationalities as
        possible. That means that we have not only the greatest interest
        not to unify the population of the east, but in he contrary to
        subdivide them in as many parts and splinters as possible.?

        That WWII would not have been possible without the help of these
        nationalities and minorities, these fifth columns, shows
        exemplarily the smashing of chechoslovakia in 1938/39: The
        aggression policy of Hitler would not have succeeded, if not
        civil-war-like conditions would have ben unleashed in
        Chechoslovakia itself. For that purpose Hitler used in the first
        place the german mob in the frontier regions, the
        Sudetendeutsche. Their activities lead to the crisis in automn
        1938, finally to the treaty of Munich and the annexion of these
        frontier regions. But also the not-german tribe of the Slovaks
        sought its hail with the Fuehrer: The declaration of
        independence of slovakia in March 1939 was the ?key? - so the
        Czech hitsorian Miroslav Karny - for the smashing of
        Rest-Czechoslovakia and for annexing it as ?Protectorate Boehmen
        and Maehren? to the Grossdeutsche Reich.

        In the twenties and thirties there was a cross-over of  left and
        fascist policy in destabilizing the Versailles system in many
        countries. The self-determination    of the Sudetendeutschen
        ?including the right of secession?, the main instrument for the
        destruction of Chechoslovakia, was demanded by the Czech
        communits party even before the sudetendeutsche Fascists
        demanded it. The same cross-over took place in Yugoslavia where
        the Comunists collaborated with the croatian Ustascha until 1935
        in order to destroy the central state and to enable Croatians
        and others to build up there own state. In Austria the Socialist
        Party bate the drum for the unification with Germany for so many
        years, that finally it could hardly convince its adherents, why
        they shouldn?t support Hitler?s version of this unification. Its
        leader Karl Renner remained on the pro-german cours even after
        the invasion of the Nazi-Wehrmacht in 1938 and even called his
        compatriots to vote ?Yes? in the annexion-referendum in April
        1938.

        Germany could annex Austria and Chechoslovakia because many
        socialists, communists and even the appeasers in western
        governments shared the biologistic understanding of nation and
        people which was in the center of Nazi-ideology: Therefore a
        people is an anthropological mythic entity, a kind of extended
        version of a tribe, which is based on vague cultural community,
        in the las resort based on blood. In this non-sense the majority
        of the citizens of Austria and even a big minority of the czech
        citizens werde defined as - and defined themselves as - Germans.
        It?s the same like today in Kosovo: The main of the yugoslavian
        citizens there are defined - and define themselves - as
        Albanians.

        The alliance of Yalta

        That the civilized world  at last refused this biological tribal
        halluzination, was the fundamental philosophic condition for the
        forming of the Anti-Hitler-coalition. The Soviet-Union as well
        as the western democracies - after they both had hesitated much
        too long - began to fight nazism when they remembered that
        modern understanding of nation from which the french republic as
        well as he United Kingdom and the soviet as well as the american
        Union once had originated: Nation is not based on biology, but
        based on constitution. It is the totality of those, who wish to
        live in a common state after common ideals - irrespective of
        their origin, their language, their religion or culture:  nation
        as a political construction based on the volonté général, a
        daily referendum (Renan). That was a strict denial of the
        pre-modern german halluzination, that there were nations or
        people (or even races) outside real-exitsing states. There are
        no nations or peoples before, above or under the populations of
        real-exitsing states. If the documents of the Big Four use the
        term ?self-determination of people?, they understood it in the
        sense of ?self-government? of the citizenship of real existing
        states. And even the Soviet-Union in those times used their
        propaganda-terms of ?people?s front? or ?people?s democracy? not
        in the german sense,  but in a french sense, in the sense of
        ther french revolution and the Ius soli: as the right of the
        population of  a real-existing state to decide over the fate of
        this state in its already existing borders.

        The experiences wih the unleashing of WWII lead to important
        political decisions of the Big Four, who ratified in the Potsdam
        Conference the Versailles system against the aspirations of the
        German-led tribes. All self-proclaimed nationalities and ethnic
        splinters who had served as fifth columns of the Germans und
        thus enabled them their aggression policy, were deprived of
        their territorial background. The Potsdam Conference sanctioned
        the transfer of some asiatic and tartarian minorities in the
        Soviet-Union by silence, and it supported explicitly that the
        so-called Volksdeutschen were driven out of Chechoslovakia and
        Poland. This was a peace-building measure.

        Also the Charta of the United Nations decided in late 1945
        symbolizes this  paradigm-change: The smashing of sovereign
        states by referring of the self-determination of allegedly
        oppressed minority-peoples was put to a stop. The UN-Charta
        tolerates the use of violence only in the case of self-defence
        of souvereign states and after a decision of the Security
        Council, but not to enforce the self-determination of people.
        According to the UN-Charta subjects of the international
        relations  are states, not peoples.

        My conclusion: The victory of the Anti-Hitler-alliance was only
        possible, because a worldwide unity was formed of constitutional
        nationalists against blood-based nationalists, of nations
        against tribes. At the top of the allies stood men, who fought
        primarily for the power and strength of their nations-states and
        who committed in pursuing this aim more or less severe crimes:
        Stalin, the worst, had purged the party from all
        internationalits already in the thirties, Churchill and DeGaulle
        pursued a severe course in colonial issues for a long time.  Why
        these machiavellistic politicians didn?t try to build up an
        alliance with Germany  for the profit of all participants? What
        made them enemies of the Nazis? It was at first  the
        multi-ethnic origin and the constitutional character of their
        own states. If they would have tolerated the German
        ethnic-biological theories, these states would have been blown
        up by the uprising of the tribes. Therefore the states of the
        Yalta-Alliance represented in spite of all differences and of
        all crimes they committed the principles of the one and
        undividible human race: Everybody can get the citizenship, and
        all citizens are equal under the law.

        Fascism in Pristina

        Today, those principles are cancelled in Kosovo: The so-called
        Kosovars are alltogether yugoslavian citizens but only those
        under them can survive who don?t feel and confess as such, but
        as ?Albanians?. How much the unleashed identity-delusion of a
        tribe differs from constitunional nations even in their racist
        attitudes shows perhaps best the example of the gypsies, because
        they are the weakest in any society: Under serbian rule the
        gypsies were - like in many other contries - discriminated and
        sometimes mistreated, but they were always tolerated. Fear for
        their life was not necessary until the 11th of June 1999 when
        the ?Albanians? could enforce their right of self-determination
        with the help of Nato. Nearly all of the gypsies - about 150.000
        - have fled, hundreds were murdered. Varyfying Daniel Goldhagen
        one could say: The hatred against gypsies of the Yugoslavs was
        discriminatory, the one of the ?Albanians? is eliminatory.

        The difference in the aggressivity of the nationalism of
        constitunional nations on the one and of blood-based nations,
        peoples and tribes on the other side may have it roots in the
        following: A constitutional nation is an artificial
        construction, but it is at least a construction; it has its
        reality in the state and its enemy can only be those who are
        enemies of this state. But the blood-based nation or tribe is
        less than a construction, it is a mere fancy without material
        reality, and danger is threatening from anybody at any time.

        Tribes and peoples based on blood - for lack of objective
        criteria to define their ascribed identity as nation - define
        themselves much more merciless than constitutional nations. The
        Yugoslavs guaranteed all inhabitants of Kosovo the full scale of
        civic rights - including the ?Albanians? except of only those
        who fought against the centralstate. They followed  more or less
        the principle: Who is not against us is for us. The ?Albanians?
        cannot make sure of their identity but by inversing this
        principle: Who is not for us, is against us.

        Today in Kosovo, all individual human rights are cancelled by th
        KLA while only the ?right of self-determination? of the
        Albanians is guaranteed. With other words: The values of the
        Atlantic Revolution were substituted by the values of the
        ethnic, tribal revolution which the Nazis advocated more
        consequently than any other. Why then the western countries have
        supported this? Why then they have supported the transformation
        of Kosovo in a fascist tribe territory?

        I suppose because the modern nations who managed to defeat the
        tribes yet in WWII  have come into a deep crisis themselves in
        the last decades. In Belgium, Italy, Spain, even in the UK and
        France the centrifugal forces are getting stronger, allegedly
        oppressed people like the Scots and the Corsicans emerge with
        mythic ambitions. If the cohension of a society is in danger
        because the state is no more able to guarantee the welfare of
        all its citizens and all its regions, wealthier regions intend
        to separate themselves from poorer ones in a foolish attempt to
        belong to the winners of globalization. At the same time it is
        more attractive for the global trusts to maintain their
        worldwide suppliers not in unsecure and perhaps refrectory
        greater states but in special economic zones, spheres of
        co-prosperity, complaisant  micro-republics and Ruritania-like
        entities. That means: The unchained capitalism devours its own
        children, the nation-states, which it generated during its rise
        in the 19th century. Those which want to survive have to subdue
        to the hegemons of he world market, the United States and the
        German-led European Union. That Germany has some advantages in
        this rivalry shows the warm greeting ?Heil Hitler? with which
        German soldiers and journalists are welcomed by the natives in
        Kosovo today. The Albanians remember the brotherhood in arms
        under the flag of SS-Europe and pin their hopes on that for the
        future. After all the Germans are again their idols since 1989:
        With their battle-cry ?We are one people? they have enforced
        german unification and then brought half a continent under heir
        command - why shouldn´t Albanians, tribes of Caucasus and Hutus
        try the same?

        But still there is hope, because still there are  remainders of
        the Anti-Hitler-coalition within the constitutional nations: The
        grandchildren of Stalin, Churchill and DeGaulle, that means the
        russian Communists, the french Gaullists and the british Tories,
        together with parts of the US-republicans, opposed quite
        vigorously the Nato-Aggression  against Yugoslavia. Henry
        Kissinger´s arguments during the Rambouillet summit were based
        on the reason of the modern constitutional state, Jus soli:
        ?Yugoslavia, a souvereign state, is forced to deliver the
        control and souvereignity over a province with a lot of national
        sanctuaries to foreign military. Analogously one could urge the
        US to let foreign troops march into Alamo, in order to give the
        city back to Mexico, because the ethnic balance has changed.?
        (re-translated from german)

        Kissingers? position did not succeed until now - like in the
        thirties, as Chamberlain?s appeasement and Molotov?s pact drove
        the antifascists of all countries into desperation. But at a
        certain point Churchill and DeGaulle put an end to this
        undignified spectacle - and for precisely such a turning point,
        for precisely such a paradigm-change we wait today. I would be
        glad if we could debate the question during this conference as
        to how we could promote such a paradigm-change for the defense
        of western values against barbarism. In any case: With the
        bombing of Belgrade and other yugoslavian cities and villages
        the west did not only destroy a peaceful country and kill
        countless of innocents, but also ruined the bases of its own
        civilization This process must not be continued if mankind is to
        survive. Therefore I would like to alter Karl Marx? famous old
        slogan:  Not ?Proletarians of all countries -unite!? but
        ?Yugoslavs of all countries - unite!?

        http://www.juergen-elsaesser.de/byron.htm


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