Sherlock Holmes used to say:"When you eliminate the impossible, what remains, however improbable, must be the truth."And what remains is a secret deal. A hidden agenda. A missing protocol. It is a wild reconstruction of bizarre events. It is improbable. But Milosevic's surrender was impossible – so it must be the truth or a close approximation thereof.I think that the only reasonable explanation to this week's events is the following:Milosevic agreed to withdraw from Kosovo and to turn it over to NATO for a limited period of time.NATO (not too eager to remain in the province and police it forever) agreed to disarm the KLA and transform it into a docile police force cum political party. It agreed, in other words, to do Milosevic's bidding and dirty work.The KLA agreed not to pursue its anti-Serb, pro-independence strategy. Coming from Rugova, such a policy would have been judged treasonable. The KLA was the only force, which could have delivered the climbdown.Serbia agreed to recognize the KLA as THE legitimate force in Kosovo once demilitarised and converted. It actually agreed to support the KLA against the now discarded Rugova. The KLA needed Serbia, a natural ally in the absence of others.The KLA and NATO agreed to let Serbia back into a KLA-dominated Kosovo later. The exact form of the final political-military arrangement has not been made clear. But it always was evident that it must – and will – include Serb sovereignty and military presence in the province. Kosovo's political future remained undetermined: a province? An autonomy? In a federation? A confederation with Serbia and a more independent Montenegro? No one knows, not even the main players. But the Serbs and the KLA and NATO are in cahoots. There is more to the "capitulation" than meets the eye.Macedonia – informed about these backstage accords – hurried to establish good neighbourly relations with the real winners of the war: with the KLA. In this it served as both Serbia's AND NATO's long arm. A perfect venue and communication channel, Macedonia established itself as the arena of future reconstruction and future political negotiations. Incidentally, it also secured its own territorial integrity. A happy KLA in a self-governed Kosovo will have little incentive to re-engage in subversive activities in Albanian-populated Western Macedonia.All the participants in this tragicomedy are now going through the motions. The Serbs are withdrawing. The KLA is taking over. NATO half-heartedly tries to disarm the more flagrant KLA units. Serbia is biding its time. In a few months, it will be asked to re-enter Kosovo by both NATO and the KLA. A political phase will then begin which will result in final status negotiations. Macedonia will host, convey messages between the parties, apply pressure together with Albania and its own Albanian politicians, make promises, hold secretive meetings, and diplomatically gesticulate. If all goes well – everyone will emerge victorious. If not – all the parties are steeling themselves for a second Kosovo war, much more inevitable than the first one.(Article published June 21, 1999 in "The New Presence")ReturnThe Deadly AntlersNATO, the EU and the New Kids on the BlockThe Irish elk roamed the earth 10,000 years ago. They had the largest pair of antlers ever grown – 3.6 meters (12 feet) across. Every year they grew new antlers from nubs prominently displayed on their heads. They were awesome to behold. They fought ferociously. They seemed eternal.Then the weather changed. The earth shed its forests for new Tundra attire. The Irish elk ignored this creeping revolution. It continued to grow its antlers and, by doing so, to deplete its own reserves of calcium and phosphorus. Drained of vital minerals, unable to find enough food to restore themselves they died out, their magnificent antlers intact.NATO has emerged from its Pyrrhic victory in Kosovo shell shocked and riven by internal strains. The European Union (EU), in the name of "Euro-Atlantic Structures", hurries to join NATO in the minefield it so unwisely occupies. Both are in danger of growing antlers too big for their own survival. There are three pairs of lethal antlers involved:a. Europe and Uncle SamThe misnomered Operation Allied Force employed little force (much less than during the Gulf War) and tore the alliance apart. NATO has split into a nascent European military structure (the former defunct West European Union which was officially absorbed by the EU a fortnight ago) – and an American (rather, an Anglo-Saxon) avuncularly benevolent umbrella. Europeans have yet to recover from the detached, callous and off-handed manner of the mismanagement of the whole crisis by the amateurs in Washington. Their trust in America's insight, foresight and sagacious hindsight has been shattered by American strategic mistakes, intelligence errors, diplomatic gaffes and internal squabbling in a poll-orientated administration. The Europeans emerged with a "never again" pledge. America is not likely to be invited to Europe's parties any time soon. Europe is too much of a China shop and America – whether Republican or Democratic – too much of an elephant. As it were, there was no love wasted between these two constituents of NATO. Now they are effectively divorcing or, at least, going through a phase of not so amicable separation.To this one should add the conflicting interests of members in this uncomfortable ménage a 19. Greece (aided and abetted by Iran) is already fighting proxy wars with Turkey throughout Central Eastern Asia (the Asian Republics of the former USSR), in Cyprus and in the former Yugoslavia. France is uneasy with the German-British Third Way and what it regards as a rapprochement between the two, which threatens its privileged status in the EU. The poorer countries and the EU regional aid beneficiaries (not always the same group) are dead set against EU enlargement to the east. The list is very long.b. Central EuropeDisgusted by what they regarded as a superfluous and unnecessarily brutal war – the Central Europeans had the rudest awakening imaginable. They were forced to participate in a war effort within what they believed to be a defensive alliance. They joined NATO the introverted giant – and woke up to NATO the agile, hyperactive and violent neighbourhood cop. Hungary was forced to risk its ethnic kinfolk in Serbia's Vojvodina region. The Czechs engaged in bruising internal verbal fistfights. It was not a seemly sight. The new Central European entrants joined the likes of Greece and Italy and recoiled from assisting the war effort in any meaningful way. The shock waves are likely to reverberate for longer and transform NATO's commitment in Central Europe. It is not inconceivable to end up with a two-tier NATO: the fighting goons and the battle-shy, logistics-only allies.This uneasy co-existence is made even less cosy by the clear reluctance of the EU to absorb the poor relatives to its east and south. Entry deadlines are habitually postponed, bureaucratic hurdles gleefully presented, sadistic reports about the Central Europeans' lack of progress periodically issued. No wonder the six eternal candidates feel rejected and abused. This humiliating misbehaviour on the part of the EU resulted in a turning of the tide. Opinion polls show growing opposition to the idea of Europe (in the Czech Republic, for instance) – unthinkable just two years ago. The countries of the Balkan area – the "New Associates" – constitute ominous competition for funds, attention and orientation, as far as the current future members are concerned. The Lucky Six (the Visegrad Trio, Slovenia, Cyprus) are likely to be relegated to the backburner now that the EU found a new toy, the Balkans. This will engender great bitterness and enmity between the EU and Central Europe and between Central Europe and the Balkanians. Hardly a recipe for orderly transition, for democracy, or for market economy.c. The Balkan SoreThe EU is known for its verbal pyrotechnics, its unlimited pool of enticing vision and its great spinning and marketing techniques. This arsenal is fully employed now to bedazzle the Balkan natives into happy submission to the seductive harmonies of the common market. The EU is dangling a cornucopian promise of eternal economic bliss in front of the bleeding, limb-torn statal rumps, which comprise the former glory of Yugoslavia. But the targets of this brainwashing will do well to look to their Central European neighbours for an antidote. The "New Association" status offered to the likes of Macedonia, Albania, Bulgaria and Romania and, later, Montenegro and perhaps, post-Milosevic Serbia is an ingenious piece of camouflage, a fata morgana, devoid of content. It is an evocation of hitherto repressed desires and it leads to self-delusion but it will amount to no serious attempt at integration by the EU.The economic disparity between the aspirants and the current members is numbing. The average GDP per capita in Macedonia is c. 2000 USD per annum. This is the GDP produced by a Slovenian in 10 weeks, by a Greek and Portuguese in 8, by a German in 3 weeks. There is no convergence to talk of – the gap is increasing, not decreasing, especially following the Kosovo debacle. The legal system in these countries is biased against the individual, antiquated and totalitarian. Human and civil rights are foreign implants, inflammatorily rejected by the body politic. The economy is corrupt, nepotistic and cronyist. Crime organizations constitute a big part of the trading activities and maintain a heavy grip upon the political class. The media is mostly government-owned and manipulated. The Balkan simply is not European. It is Byzantine, Ottoman, Eastern, and Orthodox. It belongs to Turkey and the Middle East, not to Frankfurt and Paris. It is closer to Moscow than to Leningrad. It will never be successfully subsumed by the West. Turkey has been trying for decades now and has been consistently (and perfunctorily) rejected by the EU. And Turkey is an important member of NATO and a country much more developed than the likes of Macedonia or Albania.As these unpleasant truths emerge, the bitterness, resentment and disillusionment will grow and a backlash will develop. It might wear the guise of internal strife, of isolationist policies, of wounded retreat, of terrorism – all weapons of the deceived and trampled upon underdogs. It was wrong of the EU to promise what it can never deliver and couch it in deceptively ear soothing phrases. It will pay the price in added instability and ruin.The Euro-Atlantic structures are evolving, assuming ever more ambitious and comprehensive goals, and growing ever more impressive antlers. They roam the whole earth, administering human rights and free marketry. They impose their will. They are awesome to behold. But from within they are being depleted and consumed by their very own incoherence. It is the eternal cycle of prowess and vanquishment. NATO, struggling to redefine itself and perpetuate its totally superfluous existence. The EU struggling to secure peaceful markets to its east and south. Europe struggling to assert itself. The USA struggling to secure its superiority in an emerging multi-polar, multi-ethnic, fractured world. All are fighting losing battles, wagging their antlers to and fro.(Article written on June 22, 1999 and published June 28, 1999in "Central Europe Review" volume 1, issue 1)ReturnThe Treasure Trove of KosovoNothing like a juicy, photogenic human catastrophe to enrich corrupt politicians and bottom-line-orientated, stock-option-motivated corporate executives. The Balkan is teeming with both these sad days. Even as the war was raging, shortages of food and other supplies led to the dispensation of political favours (in the form of import licences, for instance) to the chosen few. Bulgarian, Greek and Albanian firms, owned by ruthless criminals and criminals-turned-politicians benefited mightily. Millions were made and shared as artificially high prices were maintained by various means while cronies and crime controlled firms shared the spoils. This orgiastic intercourse between the corrupt and the criminal was not confined to one country. The whole region partook in robbing the most impoverished populations in Europe by "legal" means.Their more refined and perfumed Western brethren were never far behind in taking advantage of American largesse on the one hand and re-emerging alarmist tendencies, on the other. Thus, American, German, Greek, French and Italian firms enjoyed funds allocated to international humanitarian aid by the likes of the US government, the United Nations, the World Bank, the IMF and other long arms of the American octopus. Defence contractors and the dubious characters known as weapons intermediaries stoked the atavistic fires of war in securing defence contracts. And aid workers resided in six star hotels, driving the latest sports utility vehicles and brandishing futuristic laptop computers as they went about the business of dispensing aid. In the meantime, at least one half of all aid money was pilfered – not to use a harsher term. Aid rations were freely available in Macedonian, Albanian, Greek and Bulgarian markets – offered at a discount by aid workers who stole them from their supposed recipients. The refugees were never given mattresses, were short of blankets, water, showers and toilets (I visited the camps – this is an eyewitness account). Only bread was abundant.Now that the war is over, some people are counting their dead – while others are counting their blessings. But this has all been a prelude. It is the next wave of aid, which is the main course in this bacchanalia. Outlandishly feverish numbers are tossed around. Kosovo's immediate reconstruction (housing and infrastructure) will require well over 2 billion US dollars in the next 2 years. Of this, 1.5 billion dollars has already been raised. A further 2 billion USD is slated as direct aid to the shattered economies of Macedonia and Albania. But the real booty lies in Serbia. A minimum of 10-13 billion dollars will be required simply to restore Serbia's infrastructure to its former, inglorious self. To resuscitate the whole languishing area, a staggering 30 billion dollars is touted as the minimal bill.Rest assured that at least one third of this generous cornucopia would end up lining the pockets of the rich and mighty. At least 1 billion dollars will end up festering in Swiss, Cypriot, South African and Israeli bank accounts. The politicians know it, the "grupirovki" (business cartels controlled by mafia-style organizations) know it, and Western governments know it. This is the REAL stability pact. Financially inebriated politicians are better motivated to maintain peace and stability, or so the thinking goes.The history of the Balkans will play a major role in determining the topography and geography of this flood of cronyism, nepotism, criminality and vice. The Balkan is composed of states run by crime organizations and crime organizations run by states. Old alliances last long (as opposed to the Middle East where alliances, dune-like, shift with the winds). Bulgaria and Macedonia, for instance. Serbia and Greece. Albania and Kosovo. And now Albania and Macedonia. Meetings of regional "leaders" in the Balkans were always reminiscent of scenes from "The Godfather". The dons, uncomfortably clad in expensive business suits and wearing golden rings, deciding life and death and a jovial yet vaguely menacing atmosphere. Only the leaders of the New Balkans are much younger, less experienced, more prone to superstition, extremism and moodiness. The old tensions are bound to re-emerge, this time in the employ of business interests. Expect a flare up of animosity between Greece and Macedonia. Despite its Bulgarophile regime, expect uneasy moments between Bulgaria and Macedonia. And expect an unholy alliance of business interests between Mr. Thaci and his sprawling business empire and the governments of Albania and Macedonia. If not assassinated before, Thaci is definitely the Man to watch. Young, well educated, ruthless, involved in business (read: corrupt to the core) – an aptly dangerous man in dangerous times.The problem is that everyone holds high expectations. This is a poor recipe for an amicable carving of the cake of international funding. Macedonia expects to lead the reconstruction effort of Kosovo. It was offended greatly by the decision to base the Kosovo reconstruction agency in Pristina. Greek and Italian firms expect to snatch profits out of the jaws of their near treacherous behaviour during the war. Turkish firms except to be rewarded for the loyalty of Turkey during the same. American and German firms expect to exclude all else in gaining access to American and German (=EU) funds (as they have done in Bosnia). These all are mutually incompatible expectations and they will lead to mutually exclusive behaviour. Expect some very ugly scenes, including spilt doses of this cheap, red liquid, blood.Albania, already governed by the ungovernable crime gangs it spawned in the last few years, has formed an alliance with the KLA, never a moral standard-bearer. This expanded amusement park of drug trafficking, prostitution, weapons smuggling, contraband and much worse is now threatening to take over its more virtuous (though by no means virginal) neighbour, Macedonia. A flare up of hitherto unimaginable brotherly love has indicated this sacrilegious rapprochement. The Macedonian Prime Minister – encumbered by a demanding Albanian coalition partner – has met Thaci and the encounter had all the trappings of a state visit. Soon after senior Albanian politicians started talking about a Macedonian recognition of an independent state of Kosovo and an Albanian language university (the reason for student riots just two years before).To a large extent, the Kosovo war was gang warfare. The Serb criminal organization known as Yugoslavia against the Albanian gang known as the KLA. It was a war over turf and lucrative businesses. In what used to be the Third World and more so in the post-communist countries in transition, criminal activities often accompany "wars of liberation". In Congo, in Sierra Leone, in Chechnya, in Kashmir – wars are as much about diamonds, oil and opium poppies as about national aspirations. Kosovo is no exception but it was here that the West was duped into intervention. NATO was called upon to arbiter between two crime gangs. There is no end to the mischievous irony of history.Perhaps the following incidents are more telling than any learned analysis:In late April, the Albanian telecom switched off the roaming facility of cell phones in Albania. Foreigners – including aid workers – had to pay the company 1000 dollars for a special roaming-enabled chip.Rumour has it that the post of the Chief of Police in the Tirana Airport was "sold" at the beginning of April for an undisclosed amount (presumably 250,000 US dollars). The reasons: all shippers (including NATO and aid organizations) have to pay enormous kickbacks to airport and customs officials to release their goods.Most Albanian families charged refugee families an average of 500 DM a month for their accommodation in subhuman conditions. Refugees who could not pay (or who had no relatives in Germany and Switzerland to pay for them) were evicted, often cruelly.As Serbs were murdering their supposed brothers in Kosovo, Albanian crime gangs laid an oil pipeline (through Lake Shkoder) to Serbia and supplied the Serb army with the oil it was deprived of by NATO.Welcome to the Balkans.(Article written on June 27, 1999 and published July 5, 1999in "Central Europe Review" volume 1, issue 2)ReturnLucky Macedonia or Macedonia's SerendipityThe Good Fortune of Neighbouring a Human CatastropheIn October 1998, the unreformed communists of the SDSM – the Socialists – lost the elections in Macedonia by a wide margin to an improbable coalition. It consisted of the VMRO – fervent nationalists with Bulgarian roots, headed by the poet-politician Ljubco Georgievski – and the Democratic alternative (DA). The latter was a hastily assembled party headed by Vasil Tupurkovski, a pro-US former member of the old Yugoslav nomenclature. DA enjoyed grassroots support especially by young professionals, businessmen and liberals. It imported Western campaigning techniques and made bold promises to revitalize and energize the economy.When the news of the unequivocal victory of the VMRO-DA coalition arrived, the nation was swept by an unprecedented wave of enthusiasm, optimism and joy. Unprecedented because the young nation's history (its independence was declared in 1991) provided it with very little reason to be joyful. Its main trading partners were either boycotted by the world (the rump Yugoslavia) or themselves boycotted Macedonia – Greece in the wake of outlandish dispute regarding Macedonia's official name (hence the impossible FYROM) and Bulgaria because it refused to allow the use of the Macedonian language in bilateral documents. The economy collapsed, unemployment soared, investment all but vanished, corruption erupted and the Albanian ethnic minority became restive.Macedonia was laid to economic waste by powers beyond its control. Its entrepreneurial inhabitants – fresh from 500 years of Ottoman training followed by 50 years of communism – resorted to smuggling (from Greece to Serbia through the Vardar river) and established a reasonably functioning underground economy. The IMF and the Central Bank maintained macro-economic stability (following years of hyperinflation) at an excruciating social cost. Trade was liberalized, inflation tamed, the currency was made freely convertible and the exchange rate eerily sustained (rather, suspended).But under-currents seethed below the tattered facade. Disenchantment with the ruling classes and their mafia-like structure increased dramatically. Intricate webs of village and family loyalties were tested to the limit in affairs such as TAT, the collapse of a savings bank in a pyramid scheme in which some top level officials were implicated. Cronyism and nepotism led to the legalized robbery of the assets of the state through bogus privatisation schemes. Some people grew exceedingly rich – others became inordinately poor. The tension was palpable. The youth felt trapped, facing a dead end future. Many emigrated.Albanian nationalism was introduced into this explosive vapour in 1997-8. It existed long before (the KLA, for instance, became a force to reckoned with as early as 1993). It constituted the main concern of the ethnic Macedonians (of Slav extract). People spoke ominously of an Armageddon to be waged between the two ethnicities.The two communities exist separately. There are no inter-marriages, very few common business ventures and the Albanians either live in ghettos within the main cities – or in Albanian dominated cities of their own (such as Gostivar and Tetovo) in western Macedonia, across the border from Kosovo. The ground was shaking long before 1997. The mutual hatred, loathing and, above all, fear of domination and cultural subjugation were real and under a very thin veneer of civility. The inclusion of a national Albanian party (there are three) in the government was greeted as a welcome omen and respite. But this was not to be.The ethnic Macedonian's main fear is that the Albanians are aiming to recreate a "Greater Albania" comprising the current Albania, Kosova and Western Macedonia. A natural Islamic axis (Albania-Bosnia-Central Asia) would then form and threaten the Slav peoples wherever they are (Serbs, Russians, Bulgarians). What started as the normal friction between two ethnic groups in close physical proximity ended as a mythical re-enactment of the Islamic (Ottoman) invasion of Europe in the 14th century. A nightmare revived fraught with the fears of an economically languishing Christian-Orthodox, Slav, Byzantine civilization. A very concrete issue of land and autonomy assumed the dimensions of a cosmic clash between the titans of religion.Officially, the Albanians constitute 23% of the population in Macedonia. But Albanian did not take well to what they regarded as coercion: the population census. They refused to be counted and evaded the census takers – to their great detriment. As a result, their numbers are severely understated. It is safe to say that well over ONE THIRD of the population was of Albanian origin long BEFORE the wave of refugees swept over this 25,000 square kilometres country. Should one third of the refugees be absorbed by Macedonia – another 80,000 Albanians – the Albanian population stands to constitute more than 40% of the population. The Albanians marry younger, have double the number of children of the ethnic Macedonian (it is a much younger population) and almost never divorce. Their families are very cohesive and tend to stick together geographically. In the year 2015 – the majority of the population in Macedonia will be of Albanian origin, if this trend continues unperturbed and one third of the refugees remain. In 1912 Kosovo had a sizeable Serb majority. In 1972 this was no longer true.The ethnic Macedonians are appalled by this demography. They are scared. They do not believe that they can co-exist with the Albanians. Stereotypes abound: the Albanians are backward, criminal elements, illiterate, violent and expansive, say the Macedonians. And their main goal in life – for which no sacrifice is too great – is to seize land from their neighbours. Kosova is a first step – the Macedonians are convinced – Western Macedonia is next, a civil war is imminent.Marginal efforts at reconciliation aside – the Albanians themselves did not make any special effort to assuage the fears of the Macedonians. Quite the contrary. Radical, young and nationalistic leaders abound. Rufi Osmani, the former Mayor of Gostivar, was jailed for his activities and pardoned by the President after the new government threatened a constitutional crisis. He and his associates demanded the right to use Albanian in official transactions with state and municipal institutions – which is a reasonable demand. But they also demanded the right to hoist the Albanian flag and sing the Albanian anthem rather than the Macedonian one. Then they disobeyed the rulings of the Supreme Court and instigated violent clashes with the Police (which resulted in deaths). The establishment of a Tetovo "university" in the Albanian language did not help matters much. Regarded by Macedonian as a hotbed of much nationalism but little learning – the Macedonians refused to accredit it. Riots and counter-riots ensued, culminating in violent demonstrations of Macedonian students in the streets of Skopje, the capital.The average salary in Macedonia is 200 Euro (=180 US dollars) a MONTH. There are c. 300,000 unemployed in a total working age population of 930,000. There is a constant balance of payments deficit of 8% of GNP. Macedonia is POOR – real poor, not relatively poor. It is poorer than any other country in Europe, with the exception of Albania. It is also insecure. Albanians and Serbs from within and from without threaten its very existence. It would do wisely to remain on good terms with Yugoslavia – not only because 50% of its trade is conducted with it – but also because Yugoslavia is THE big neighbour of the north. Long after Clinton is gone and perhaps NATO in its current form as well – Macedonia will have to deal with its perceived betrayal of Serbia. Serbs never forget and rarely forgive. They visit the sins of the battle of Kosovo (1389) upon other Moslems – 610 years later, in the same location. They are a dangerous, tenacious, resilient, ruthless and unrelenting foe to have. Macedonia is so small and helpless (no army to speak of) that it is terrified and caught between the NATO rock and the Serbian hard place. It feels blackmailed, used and exploited without real regard to its problems now and after the war is over. NATO showed its real face when it placed Macedonia (with Albania) in the last category of NATO applicants. Macedonia is a military base to NATO – here today, gone tomorrow. Who will protect Macedonia from Yugoslavia when the foreign media circus is engaged elsewhere? This is the age of the soundbite and the videoclip. It is the generation of expediency. Macedonia can – and will – easily be forgotten. Hence its refusal to allow ground warfare from its soil (a position shared by many, including, for instance, Hungary, a NATO member, with less to lose than Macedonia).And this is where Macedonia made a mistake. It did not manage its public relations properly. It absorbed as many refugees as Albania (10% of the population – the equivalent of 25 million Mexican refugees in the USA) and treated its refugees with reasonable decency – under hellishly impossible circumstances. The USA and the EU reneged on all their commitments: financial as well as humanitarian. It costs Macedonia (UNHCR figures) c. 300,000 US dollars a day in direct expenses to host the human outcome of the NATO blunder. That's 15,000,000 US dollars in direct costs since the war started – or almost 1% of the GDP. Add to this a drop of 50% in exports and 26% in industrial production and the costs are already at least 10-15% of the GDP. These are surreal, mind-boggling numbers. It is the equivalent of the Great Depression in the USA.Macedonia received hitherto 3 million US dollars (2 from Taiwan and 1 from UNHCR after a LOT of pressure). Oh, I forgot: and a gigantic pile of promises – to reschedule debts by one year (not to write them off, which would have constituted real help). The West lies through its teeth and when exposed it wags a moral finger at this poor, crumbling, neophyte of a country. It is a disgrace of unprecedented proportions.Albania behaved more slickly – perhaps because its government is more veteran and perhaps because it really empathized more heartily with its suffering kin. They made the right noises and posed to the camera using the right, complimentary, angles. It won much more help than Macedonia and is universally accoladed by the West.This is what Macedonia SHOULD have done. Open its borders in a great display of camaraderie and human passion. Wine and dine the bored, frustrated journalists on its turf, pose for the cameras, hair dishevelled, Tony Blair-like. Instead its leadership went about the business of absorbing a human wave of unheard of proportions while, at the same time, trying to defuse tensions from within and from without. No one informed them that in today's world it matters not what one does – as what one is SEEN to be doing. This is the vital lesson. Albania will rebuild its future on the back of the serendipitous refugees of Kosovo. Macedonia will pay the price of its lack of savvy.(Article published July 26, 1999 in "Central Europe Review"volume 1, issue 5)ReturnBlack Magic, White MagicManaging our FutureAn address given to the Council of the VMRO-DPMNE, Macedonia's ruling party, chaired by Minister of Defence and Former Prime Minister of the Republic of Macedonia, Mr. Nikola Kljusev on July 16, 1999Germany's economy collapsed following a reparations agreement, which sapped and consumed less than 10% of its GDP. America's economy collapsed, its unemployment soared, its stock exchange vanished and it entered a deflationary cycle, which necessitated the most pervasive federal intervention in its history – mainly because of multilateral trade restrictions.Macedonia has endured trade embargoes, international isolation, wars, and an influx of refugees – and still survives as an intact, functioning economy. There is no civil war, no hyperinflation, a stable currency and no famine. It is nothing less than a miracle. No textbook economist would have predicted this outcome.But Macedonia is trying to cope with its predicament in wrong ways. It is trying to change other countries, or to force or convince them to change their policies, or to engage in "Voodoo Economics". An economy cannot be run on the bases of promises, contingencies, gifts, aid and a Lotaria na Makedonija approach. Economic policy must not be based on the usual but rather on the normal. In politics, most magic is black and mostly bad things tend to happen. Macedonia is situated in an accident-prone area. It cannot and need not pretend (as Slovenia more successfully and Croatia with less success do) that it is part of Western Europe. This denial of the painful truth – that we are at the mercy of forces beyond our control in a region resembling a mental asylum – is at the root of our economic malaise. What if Montenegro erupts tomorrow?Macedonia cannot change other countries, nor can it influence them to change their policies. It is too small and insignificant and it has no policy options. Will it really deny NATO next time around if it does not receive the compensation it requested from it? Will the nature of its relationship with the EU change if the EU will not honour its promises and obligations? Macedonia is constrained to a very limited set of diplomatic and economic choices.Instead of changing others – we must change ourselves. We must force Macedonians to change and let ourselves be convinced to change our policies. We must, in other words, introduce magic – the magic of trust. Trust in our banks will encourage domestic savings and domestic investments. It will draw out 1-2 billion dollars from under mattresses and into deposits. This amount is equal to 5 years of aid or FDI (foreign direct investment). Trust in our courts will attract foreign investments. Trust in our government will end the current civil disobedience. Our citizens are rebellious. They don't pay their taxes, they do not collaborate with their own government. They don't trust it to do the good and the right thing.Macedonia is not perceived by the Europeans to be European. It is too poor to become a member of the EU, public relations exercises (the stability and Growth Pact) notwithstanding. It is too needy and donor weariness is setting in. Money will be harder and harder to come by. And our products compete head on with European products protected and promoted by the strongest lobbies in Brussels.And with these FACTS we have to live. A sound, prosperous economy is the result of minute, mundane, routine and boring activities – not the result of rabbits pulled out of a hat. Even if the rabbits are European.ReturnThe Friendly ClubCyprus, that beacon of political stability and financial rectitude, was invited to negotiate its membership. Bulgaria, the epitome of good governance and civil society as well as Malta the undisputed friend of the West (remember Qaddafi?) – were among the list of new candidates handed down in the Helsinki meet of the most desired economic club on earth: the EU. To these were added Romania and its collapsing economy. Macedonia was relegated to the "West Balkan" group – a revolutionary re-definition of historical affiliations. In this assemblage, it found itself rubbing shoulders with the disintegrating Albania and the pariah Yugoslavia. Croatia was ejected from this leper colony by virtue of the death of its megalomaniac autocrat and his replacement by ex-communists.Things have been very different only a few months ago, when the EU and NATO needed the good and naive services of Macedonia. It was a honeyed courtship. Macedonia was then virtually besieged by a flood of world-class politicians, all eager to make the acquaintance of the charming political class of the Balkans. Promises were doled out with abandon. Blair promised tens of millions. Clinton topped this by pledging hundreds of millions. And the grateful West offered billions. In the meantime, Macedonia's infrastructure was pulverized by heavy armour and light-footed refugees – a quarter of a million of them.The people of the Balkans are the off spring of broken promises. Their village shrewdness (which is not to be confused with worldly sophistication) predisposed them not to trust the kindness of strangers. Their in-bred paranoia led them to attribute prophetic foresight, sharp planning and intricate conspiracy to what were mere stumbling and bumbling on the part of the West and its mighty NATO. The disillusionment came fast and painlessly. To live in fantasy is often more rewarding than to have it fulfilled and many Macedonians were grateful for the intermission in their hundred years of solitude. The hangover, the bitter aftertaste, the sore muscles of the morning after – the Macedonians accepted all these with unusual grace.But as insults were added to injuries, a sense of betrayal evolved. They felt exploited and discarded, objectified and dehumanised by super-powers of mythical proportions. They felt abused and deceived. Used to getting the short end of every stick – this time there was no stick at all. Having been thus manipulated and largely unable to direct their anger at the veritable sources of their frustration – they turned upon themselves in internecine squabbling, disgraced and flouted. This was further exacerbated by incessant preaching and hectoring of the representatives of those powers, which thus forsake them. By the very people who reneged on promises. By countries and politicians whose own domestic politics and personal conduct were an object and abject lesson not to be emulated. Countries imbued with corruption preached to the Macedonians about good governance. Countries which suppressed their minorities in bloody campaigns reprimanded Macedonia for its treatment of its own minorities. Countries, which sold weapons to every despicable dictator in every corner of the earth – prevented Macedonia from trading with its neighbours.Of the money promised – very little materialized. The blazing trail of West European and American movie stars and presidents became a trickle of East European politicians and Brussels bureaucrats. Membership became association, association became new association and new association went nowhere as dates were postponed and dates kept were used as photo-opportunities by synthetic Western leaders.If anyone should have been invited to join the EU it is poor Macedonia. Poor – but not as poor as Romania, for instance. Any comparison of the two bespeaks volumes about the West's betrayal. Romania's official inflation is 40% – Macedonia's is around 1% and has been, on average, less than 3% in the last 3 years. Romania's depleted GDP is collapsing. Macedonia has survived the Kosovo crisis with its GDP intact and is poised to grow by 4-6% in the year 2000 according to the IMF. Romania's average wage is less than 90 dollars a month – Macedonia's is 160 US dollars. The lei is as unstable as Yugoslavia's denar was prior to the Kosovo crisis – Macedonia's currency held stable throughout the external shock-ridden last three years and is trusted by its citizens. Romania's governments change frequently and with little reason, often succumbing to the wishes of an ominously violent street. Macedonia's government has changed once in the last 5 years and that following a fair and democratic election. Admittedly, Romania's market is much bigger than Macedonia's and its location closer to the EU. But Macedonia is an important bridgehead to the Balkans and beyond (Turkey) and its web of trading agreements and arrangements makes it a virtual market of more than 110 million people.But Macedonia is friendless in the EU. It has no patron saint, no Germany (Croatia, Czech Republic), no France (Romania), no Greece (Cyprus). It is too small to fear and small enough to ignore comfortably. It is a peaceful and docile nation. It is co-operative. It is trustworthy and has proven its devotion to the idea of the West in times good and bad, mainly the latter. Perhaps these qualities disqualified it. Perhaps being taken for granted does not grant being taken. Whatever the explanation, the people of this tiny country grieve this short romance, so fleeting, so sweet, so dreamy and, as they are finding now, so surreal.(Article written on January 15, 2000 and published February 7, 2000in "Central Europe Review" volume 2, issue 5)ReturnThe Books of the Damned"I have gone into the outer darkness of scientific and philosophical transactions and proceedings, ultra-respectable, but covered with the dust of disregard. I have descended into journalism. I have come back with the quasi-souls of lost data."(Charles Hoy Fort in "The Book of the Damned")"Let me have the three major American networks and three leading newspapers for a year and I'll bring back public lynchings and racial war in the US."(Charles Simic quoting a Belgrade journalist)"We do not have censorship. What we have is a limitation on what newspapers can report."(Louis Nel, Deputy Minister of Information, South Africa)In the country of ex-Nazi officer Kurt Waldheim and current Nazi-sympathizer Jorg Haider, the xenophobic and anti-Semitic offering of local media come as little surprise. Austria, after all, contributed disproportionately to the Nazi death machine. But what seems to be a unique Austrian phenomenon is not. The media outlets in Central, Eastern and Southern Europe are easily interchangeable. In the same week of Austrian derision and paranoia, "Start", a trash weekly in Macedonia attacked the British Ambassador and the Americans for conspiring to dismantle Macedonia with the collaboration of its local, disloyal and haughty Albanian minority.The media in the countries in transition is taxonomically not dissimilar to its brethren in the West. It, too, can be divided to five categories of ownership and agenda. What sets it apart, though, is its lack of (even feigned) professionalism, its venality and its tainted ulterior motives. I wrote about it elsewhere, in "The Rip van Winkle Institutions":"And then there is the media – the waste basket of post communist societies, the cesspool of influence peddling and calumny. Journalists are easily bought and sold and their price is ever decreasing. They work in mouthpieces of business interests masquerading as newspapers or electronic media. They receive their instructions – to lie, to falsify, to ignore, to emphasize, to suppress, to extort, to inform, to collaborate with the authorities – from their Editor in Chief. They trade news for advertising. Some of them are involved in all manner of criminal activities, others are simply unethical in the extreme. They all have pacts with Mammon. People do not believe a word these contortionists of language and torturers of meaning write or say. It is by comparing these tampered and biased sources that people reach their own conclusions within their private medium."The commercial media – the likes on "Nova" TV in the Czech Republic – are poor people's imitations of the more visible aspects of American mass culture. Overflowing with lowbrow talk shows, freaks on display, malicious gossip which passes for "news" and glitzy promos and quizzes – these TV stations and print magazines derive the bulk of their income from advertising. While ostensibly politically innocuous, they exert a subtle and cumulative influence on the numbed and dwindling minds of their spectators and readers. By conditioning their consumers to ever lower fare of pulp common denominators, they set a standard of no holds barred and no standards observed. They are the opium for the masses that religion once was, diverting potentially dangerous attention from real events and personalities to the staged alarms of public enemies and the artificial crises of bingo lotteries. No less persecutory than any totalitarian regime, these mass media are ominous symptoms of the social malaise of disillusionment with the realities of life and with more institutionalized modes of expression. They are escapism embodied, a dreamland, a scape of fantasy, the vale of telenovellas. Whole nations are in thrall. In Macedonia, the protagonist of a servant's saga, "Kassandra", was given a hero's welcome upon her visit to this impoverished and bitter land. Whole families consume hours of this visual Ritalin, hypnotized by cheap scenery built to resemble unattainable riches.Then there is the mercenary media. These are groups of hired pens and keyboards – so called journalists who offer their services to the highest bidder. Their price is often pathetic: a lunch a month, one hundred deutschmarks, a trip abroad and a dingy hotel room. They collaborate with their editors and share the spoils with them. They are the whores of the profession, ever the hungry look, ever the hat in hand, ever the submissive and furtive glances of the serfs of capital. They often publish other people's self-serving communiqués without altering a word. I, myself, provided them with "interviews" which I, solely, have authored, questions and all. Too lazy to or embittered to invest in their profession, consumed by self-loathing and by general disdain – they let themselves be passively abused in the dirty intercourse of money and of influence.The mercenaries often work in brothels known as "business-backed media". These are TV stations, daily papers and periodicals owned by the oligarchs of malignant capitalism and used by them to rubbish their opponents and flagrantly and unabashedly further their business interests. This phenomenon is most pronounced in this land of depredation and depravity, in Russia, where virtually all the media is now identified with and digested by business, mafia-like interests. Despite their infamous one-sidedness, they still claim neutrality and objectivity but these spurious claims are met with revolt by a hostile population, long trained to distrust the printed word and even the broadcast image. Thus the art of "reading between the lines" is flourishing again and the very language is distorted by its media rapists (see: "The Magla Vocables"). This – the abyss opening between the people and their language, the demise of true communication and the ensuing rupture in the social fabric – are the veritable damages of enlisted journalism.Political vehicles are less pernicious in that their masters are well known and their itinerary clear. Always one sided, always half truthed, forever the righteous – these rags produce no riches and they preach to the converted, serving as bulletins and message boards rather than as media in any known sense. A rallying point, a flag, an emblem, a collective memory, the group's unconscious and conscience – these papers and TV channels are often widely read, even by rivals and adversaries. They are so self-absorbed, so narcissistic, so sickeningly partial that they make for fine amusement in dreary times. There are the coalition papers and the opposition papers, the left wing and the right wing and the centre ones. It is a colourful admixture of indignation and triumphalism, veiled threats and promises, trial balloons and drama, the daily equivalent of the romance.Thus, Central, Eastern and Southern Europe do have daily papers and magazines and periodicals and television. What they do not have is media even remotely resembling the Western ideal. In some countries, this ideal is disparaged as a Western manipulative ploy or, worse, naive idealism. In others, it is a kind of holy grail to be pursued only in myths and narratives. Yet others view it with envy and aspire to it, but without much hope. To them, it is an ever-receding mirage. Perhaps that other phantasmagoria, the Internet, is the solution. In it, budding, fresh beginnings of irreverence and courage seem to coalesce into recognizable – though virtual – media. The small number of web surfers currently limits both their outreach and their survivability. But if Western trends are anything to go by, this is a temporary state of affairs. The Internet, this immaterial and ethereal medium might yet spawn the first real media and a return to reality. It might yet liberate the prisoners of all the telenovellas, foreign and domestic. It might yet win.(Article written on February 5, 2000 and published February 21, 2000in "Central Europe Review" volume 2, issue 7)ReturnThe PCM TrailIt is a typical bar in a typical Balkan or East European country in a typical yellow haze, air-polluted, very late evening. The din of raucous and numbingly repetitive music reverberates through the smoke-enshrouded joint. It is an external pandemonium intended to silence internal ones and to obviate the silences of solitude. Sofas with shabby, mutilated upholstery in bordello scarlet. A dim, bawdy luminescence. Huntresses and prey study each other wearily over oily drinks. The former scantily clad in cheap imitations of haute couture, lips enclosed in heart shaped, provocative, lipstick, their make up invitingly gross. The latter – foreigners, owners of coveted passports, cars and money (PCM), a ticket out of hell, a path to paradise, a promise.In the near and paranoiac past of most countries in transition, terror-filled xenophobia was both a wise survival tactic and an indoctrinated instinct. Self-insulated and psychotically suspicious regimes quarantined their populations and portrayed all foreigners as carriers of the malaise of social disintegration and the perpetrators of espionage and sabotage. In a classic cognitive dissonance, foreigners were denounced by the people and women who befriended them were pronounced whores. Only a select few could interact with the capitalistic plague and these were especially trained to prevent contagion.These prejudices and perceptions changed fast with the dawn of the post transition purgatory. Economic collapse, massive unemployment, social dislocation, growing disparities between rich and poor, the educated and the unskilled – led to societies increasingly permeated by crime, drugs and prostitution. A grey cloud of hopelessness and neglect descended upon vast territories populated by zombie-like herds of people, eyes with extinguished light, adrift in the uncharted waters of a new, ominous reality. The physical deterioration of infrastructure and public services reflected the inner state of its ever more desparate consumers. Venality erupted like a giant suppuration. Everything was on sale, especially one's self.In this increasingly whorish atmosphere, the perception of foreigners was dramatically re-cast. With more of them around and with most of them on generous income – they constituted a tempting target, a prize, salvation embodied. Women everywhere made it a point to meet them, to work with them, to associate with them, to know them biblically and – above all other goals – to marry them and leave their country. All means justified these ends. Women studied foreign languages, applied to work for non-government organizations, hung out in the appropriate watering holes, learned to dress and talk assertively and to make their availability – their complete obtainability and accessibility – beyond doubt.Some set about securing the desired trophy methodically and scientifically, calculating each step in a tortuous and highly competitive environment. They invested years in graduating from the right faculties and in mastering the right languages. They watched films intently, read books, clipped magazine articles, surfed the internet, questioned well-travelled relatives and acquaintances, emulated more senior and more seasoned stalkers. Others relied on their good looks, their make up, their ruthlessness, their promiscuousness, their connections, or the exotic allure of their very differentness.But all of them pursued their prey doggedly and commitedly, with the quite perseverance and patience of the dejected, with the unflagging determination of the terminally ill in tracking a wonder drug. Often, they got pregnant, which in many local cultures would have brought on a marriage. Sometimes, they got raped, or dumped, or worse. But none of these dissuaded them – such was the ejecting power of the wretchedness of their lives. They knew that the foreigner they aspire to acquire will finally go away and carry them with him, a (sometimes white) knight on a shining vehicle. Vehemently committed to securing the future of their children and the present of their extended family – they ploughed on, ignoring diversions, never digressing, never wavering in the face of setbacks and defeats.Some of them grew old and bitter in their refusal to countenance a local, inferior, brand of husband. It time they so identified with their purported quarry – that they held their own kind in contempt. They disdained their kin, derided their customs, haughtily dismissed their own culture as backward and oppressive, worthy only of discarding. In their unmitigated effort to be worthy of their future saviours, they disowned their very selves, their society, their upbringing, their mores and their relations. Thus uprooted, they lost both worlds – rejected by those they rejected so condescendingly as well as by foreign men who found them to be embarrassing, clunky imitations of B-movie characters.But others went on to marry foreigners, to give birth to their children and, in time, to travel to far, affluent lands. They keep in touch, sending home photographs of sumptuous houses and shiny cars and of suburban lawns. From time to time, they wire some money or deliver gifts. They visit once or twice a year, clad in new, faddish clothes, their accents strangely inflected, their speech suffused by foreign words. They made it, the envy of their sisters, the objects of much adulation and emulation, lean and lustrous proofs that dreams come true. A sigh and then the chase goes on. Meticulous dressing, hours of make up, the right shine but not too vulgar, the flesh exposed but not repulsively, both offered and withdrawn, a little exercise of English and to the bar. The hunting grounds where smoke and alcohol and the occasional lascivious look or comment should do the trick. And often do.(Article written on February 8, 2000 and published February 28, 2000in "Central Europe Review" volume 2, issue 8)ReturnThe Mind of Darkness"The Balkans" – I say – "is the unconscious of the world". People stop to digest this metaphor and then they nod enthusiastically. It is here that the repressed memories of history, its traumas and fears and images reside. It is here that the psychodynamics of humanity – the tectonic clash between Rome and Byzantium, West and East, Judeo-Christianity and Islam – is still easily discernible. We are seated at a New Year's dining table, loaded with a roasted pig and exotic salads. I, the Jew, only half foreign to this cradle of Slavonics, four Serbs and five Macedonians. It is in the Balkans that all ethnic distinctions fail and it is here that they prevail anachronistically and atavistically. Contradiction and change the only two fixtures of this tormented region.The women of the Balkan – buried under provocative mask-like make up, retro hairstyles and too narrow dresses. The men clad in sepia colours, old-fashioned suits and turn of the century moustaches. In the background there is the crying game that is Balkanian music: liturgy and folk and elegy combined. The smells are heavy with musk-ular perfumes. It is like time travel. It is like revisiting one's childhood.The Serbs – a family – are tall and ruggedly handsome. He was a soldier in the para-military Serb militias that sprang from the ashes of the JNA (Yugoslav National Army) in 1991. As the disintegration of the uneasy co-existence that once was Yugoslavia became more painfully evident, he and others seized the weapons in the depots of the JNA. In the administrative twilight zone that ensued they fought in JNA uniforms against a growing army of Croats (wearing initially the same uniforms) and Moslem Bosniaks. It was surrealistic, a Bosch nightmare. "We were near victory in Bihac" – he says, his voice a wistful admixture of melancholy and anger. "Politics" – an old spark in his eyes and, for a moment, I can see the erstwhile fighter – "All politics. We lost the war because of politics, because our leaders sold themselves to the West." This myth has a familiar ring to it, the ring of knife-stabbed backs and war. It is the ground being prepared for the next round – the war was nearly won had it not been for the traitors and their Western masters. The sound of clicking heels and marches and creaking gates of concentration camps.And so? "Milosevic should go" – he is adamant – "we paid enough." He leans back and lets fatigue take over. His wife interjects: "He drives a milk truck. He collects milk from the villages and delivers it to Nis. The company he works for makes 1000 DM daily – and his salary is 80 DM monthly. How can you survive on 80 DM? I don't work. So, one has to steal." "There is nowhere to steal from" – I say. A moment of comic relief, bringing identical sad smiles to their faces. "During the war (he means the Kosovo conflict), I drove the truck – it is a big truck, you see – and was bombed from behind by NATO planes. It was like that every day, for more than three months but I had to deliver the milk to town." Matter of factly, he lights a cigarette, his hand unshaken."All the politicians benefited from these wars, except Arkan (the infamous militia military commander – SV). His son joined us and fought with us as our commander..." – the sentence tapers off among blue clouds of cheap smoke. "And what did NATO achieve?" – his brother in law (who is married to a Macedonian and lives in Skopje) asks. "NATO went in for a year and is stuck for a decade in Bosnia." "And that is the way it is going to be in Kosovo." "They (the West – SV) don't know what they want and they don't know how to achieve it, they have no plans, they stumble, only making matters worse among us. They are ignorant and ill-prepared."I sound incredulous: "Do you seriously think that there would have been no wars without NATO? After all, when Yugoslavia started falling apart, the West (with the exception of Germany) tried to preserve its unity. America was very unhappy and discouraged the independence of the constituent states." "Don't you believe it" – he is livid but not aggressive, there is more pain in his voice than threat – "Croatia would have never embarked on its war against us had it not been for the West. I was there, I know. And we were winning the war there when suddenly Belgrade ordered us to stop. The commander in chief of the whole front came to us, tears in his eyes, and said: I didn't give this order, I want you to know. It comes from above, from Belgrade, not from me.""But couldn't all this have been settled differently, without bloodshed?" – I wonder. "Of course it could, without the meddling of the West and its two puppets in the region (Milosevic and Tudjman – SV)." And then, somewhat incoherently – "They (the world – SV) should have let us fight it out. Winner takes all the territory, that's the only way to settle it. But Serbia has no friends anywhere in the world and we trust no one." "And Kosovo?" "Maybe that could not have been prevented" – he concedes – "because Milosevic regarded Kosovo as the cornerstone of his regime."We talk about nothing else. The wounds are too fresh and too prominent to politely ignore. We enter the New Millennium with the blood dripping baggage of the old one. He fought three years in Bosnia, in Sarajevo, near Banja Luka. He is a war criminal, wanted by the international tribunal in The Hague. "Milosevic determined our ultimate borders in Dayton" – he spits the words bitterly, a look of bewilderment in his eyes – "Who gave him the mandate to represent us? Someone else should have gone there, like Karadzic, maybe..." "But Milosevic gave you weapons and food and supplies. Without him surely you could not have survived as long as you did?" "No weapons" – he protests – "Weapons we appropriated, we took them ourselves, from the JNA depots, he deserves no credit for that. Food, maybe... But this does not give him the right to determine our borders and our future without as much as consulting us. He sold us to the West. Now look at the situation. I can't go back to my home in a town that was 100% Serb and now is 100% Moslem and the Moslems can't go back to their towns who are now 100% Serb. And all towns – Serb and Moslem alike – are deserted ghost towns, where no one lives and nothing grows. Now I have to live in Serbia."I don't ask him what he did to become wanted and hunted by the Hague tribunal. I can't imagine him murdering cold bloodedly or raping. He has a good face, the wrinkles of many smiles and kindly eyes. When he laughs softly, they light up in black fire and his handshake is warm and firm. Instead I say: "And now it's Montenegro's turn should they declare independence?"There is uneasy silence. The Serbs among us move in their chairs, glance warily at each other, as though co-ordinating an as yet unspoken answer. Finally: "There will be no war in Montenegro. The Serbs will not attack the Montenegrins – but there will be a civil war among the Montenegrins themselves, if they declare independence.""Today" – says the ex militiaman – "they are all better off than the Serbs in Serbia. The Slovenes, the Croats. Look what we achieved in a decade of 'Great Serbia' – shortly, only Belgrade will remain in the Federation, even Sandjak and Vojvodina will leave." "The problem is that we have no leadership. There is no one to replace Milosevic. Avramovic is way too old. Dzindzic and Draskovic we cannot trust..." "Political whores" – says someone – "Once with Milosevic, once without..." "...and who else is there? All the young, capable people are out and away, far far away as they can get..."Like in all the other countries of transition, they are adherents of the cult of youth. The belief that the old – old people, old culture, old institutions – have been so heavily corrupted that they must be discarded thoroughly and mercilessly. That all has to start over again. That only the young can cope with the timeless riddles that Balkanian sphinxes are in the habit of posing. That the young are the only bridge to the promised land of the zeitgeist of capitalism."And Macedonia?" – I ask."Macedonia" – a Serb chorus around the dinner table – "Every village wants to become a country. Macedonia cannot survive on its own, it is too dependent on Serbia, it is too tiny.""But only 17% of its trade is with Serbia" – I correct them, as gently as I can. "Including Kosovo?" – says one in great astonishment – "I see only Macedonian trucks in Serbia, it cannot be...""It cannot be" – they all conclude – "Macedonia is nothing without Serbia."As the clock strikes midnight, we kiss each other on wine flushed cheeks and shake hands solemnly. In the rest of the world, a new millennium may have dawned. But in the Balkans it is perhaps the end of the beginning – but hardly the beginning of the end.(Article written on January 8, 2000 and published January 17, 2000in "Central Europe Review" volume 2, issue 2)ReturnAfter theRainHow the WestLost the EastThe ECONOMYCentral EuropeThe New ColoniesMercantilism was the intellectual correlate of colonialism. The idea, roughly, was to physically conquer territories (colonies), subjugate their people, transform them into cheap labour, get hold of all the raw materials and ship them to the colonizer's territory, there to be processed to yield finished products. The beauty in the concept was the "closed circuit" logic. The inhabitants of the colonies (also known as "natives") had to consume finished goods and products. The colonial power forced upon them (through tariff and quota regimes or violence when needed) the finished products produced from their very own raw materials! Thus, the colonies were prevailed upon to sell cheap raw materials and to buy expensive finished goods.If it sounds like colonialism and has the same economic effects – it is colonialism. The relationship between the European Union and Central Europe is colonialism. Central Europe provides the European Union with raw materials and cheap labour. It buys from the European Union finished goods, products and services. In the process, it incurs enormous trade and balance of payments deficits. Incidentally, it also serves as the EU's dumping grounds for anything from toxic waste to shoddy or outmoded products.Let us examine the case of the Czech Republic. It is the assembly plant of Volkswagen and the export launching pad of other multinationals. And the workers are supposed to consume heavily subsidized agricultural produce (such as pork).For this the Czech Republic is to blame. The previous government did everything it could to alienate its natural allies in the Vysehrad Triangle. It did a good job of it. Instead of negotiating with the EU as a bloc of c. 70 million consumers – it ended up representing an ever-diminishing number of Czecho-Slovaks. Its haughty and corruption-laden behaviour did not acquire too many friends in the West, either.The approach should have been different. In the West, the client is always right. The Czechs are CONSUMERS. They are the clients of the huge corporation called EU. As a consumer club or group, they could have dictated terms, rather than be subjected to them. The current Hungarian government understands this. Consumers have a single, irresistible power: they can stop consuming. Imagine if 30-40 billion USD were to be deleted from the EU's books by angry consumers – it would have come begging and negotiating, instead of dictating and condescending. The EU does not hesitate to pull every lever – however illegitimate, ridiculous, or downright dangerous – in its negotiations with the new applicants. The new applicants did not assimilate yet their dual role as applicants (an inferior position) and as markets (a very superior position).This inferiority complex has to do with history. The Hussite Wars were perhaps glorious – but they were also irrevocably destructive. Not only were the Czech Lands physically demolished – they were also cut from the rest of Europe for centuries to come. The only times they were reincorporated into it were traumatic (the Nazi occupation, for instance). Having glimpsed the first real opportunity to become a part of the big west dream (and to be redeemed from the clutches of the wounded Russian bear to the East) – the Czechs lost all judgement, self-esteem, self-confidence and negotiating skills. So did all the other Central and Eastern (and Southern) European nations. It was security and safety they were after – not prosperity.This basic misunderstanding underlies the great European project. The EU's thinking was mainly economic and marginally geopolitical (though it was presented differently). The Czech's motivation was mainly geopolitical and marginally economic (though it was presented differently). The resulting malentendues are worthy of Moliere's pen.Moreover, the Czechs have always been a religious breed. True, they are the most vehement atheists in Europe – but this is because they adopted other deities. They have always been zealous, intellectual fanatics. One of my Czech friends calls many periods in his nation's history "intellectual terrorism". The swings some people made lately from being youthful communists to being vengeful ultra-capitalists are indeed breathtaking. Personality cults are supplanted only by fanatic ideologies, which are replaced only by religious zeal. This, of course, does not tend to enhance the realpolitik instincts of the nation. Czechs have always been a few years too early. They had their own reformation long before Luther. They had the Spring of 68 long before Gorbachev. Every such intellectual transition was followed by a Jacobin disposal and by purges of whole classes and elites. These "new religion-personality cult-purges" cycles were not absent from the Velvet Revolution.
Sherlock Holmes used to say:"When you eliminate the impossible, what remains, however improbable, must be the truth."And what remains is a secret deal. A hidden agenda. A missing protocol. It is a wild reconstruction of bizarre events. It is improbable. But Milosevic's surrender was impossible – so it must be the truth or a close approximation thereof.
I think that the only reasonable explanation to this week's events is the following:
Milosevic agreed to withdraw from Kosovo and to turn it over to NATO for a limited period of time.
NATO (not too eager to remain in the province and police it forever) agreed to disarm the KLA and transform it into a docile police force cum political party. It agreed, in other words, to do Milosevic's bidding and dirty work.
The KLA agreed not to pursue its anti-Serb, pro-independence strategy. Coming from Rugova, such a policy would have been judged treasonable. The KLA was the only force, which could have delivered the climbdown.
Serbia agreed to recognize the KLA as THE legitimate force in Kosovo once demilitarised and converted. It actually agreed to support the KLA against the now discarded Rugova. The KLA needed Serbia, a natural ally in the absence of others.
The KLA and NATO agreed to let Serbia back into a KLA-dominated Kosovo later. The exact form of the final political-military arrangement has not been made clear. But it always was evident that it must – and will – include Serb sovereignty and military presence in the province. Kosovo's political future remained undetermined: a province? An autonomy? In a federation? A confederation with Serbia and a more independent Montenegro? No one knows, not even the main players. But the Serbs and the KLA and NATO are in cahoots. There is more to the "capitulation" than meets the eye.
Macedonia – informed about these backstage accords – hurried to establish good neighbourly relations with the real winners of the war: with the KLA. In this it served as both Serbia's AND NATO's long arm. A perfect venue and communication channel, Macedonia established itself as the arena of future reconstruction and future political negotiations. Incidentally, it also secured its own territorial integrity. A happy KLA in a self-governed Kosovo will have little incentive to re-engage in subversive activities in Albanian-populated Western Macedonia.
All the participants in this tragicomedy are now going through the motions. The Serbs are withdrawing. The KLA is taking over. NATO half-heartedly tries to disarm the more flagrant KLA units. Serbia is biding its time. In a few months, it will be asked to re-enter Kosovo by both NATO and the KLA. A political phase will then begin which will result in final status negotiations. Macedonia will host, convey messages between the parties, apply pressure together with Albania and its own Albanian politicians, make promises, hold secretive meetings, and diplomatically gesticulate. If all goes well – everyone will emerge victorious. If not – all the parties are steeling themselves for a second Kosovo war, much more inevitable than the first one.
(Article published June 21, 1999 in "The New Presence")
Return
The Deadly Antlers
NATO, the EU and the New Kids on the Block
The Irish elk roamed the earth 10,000 years ago. They had the largest pair of antlers ever grown – 3.6 meters (12 feet) across. Every year they grew new antlers from nubs prominently displayed on their heads. They were awesome to behold. They fought ferociously. They seemed eternal.
Then the weather changed. The earth shed its forests for new Tundra attire. The Irish elk ignored this creeping revolution. It continued to grow its antlers and, by doing so, to deplete its own reserves of calcium and phosphorus. Drained of vital minerals, unable to find enough food to restore themselves they died out, their magnificent antlers intact.
NATO has emerged from its Pyrrhic victory in Kosovo shell shocked and riven by internal strains. The European Union (EU), in the name of "Euro-Atlantic Structures", hurries to join NATO in the minefield it so unwisely occupies. Both are in danger of growing antlers too big for their own survival. There are three pairs of lethal antlers involved:
a. Europe and Uncle Sam
The misnomered Operation Allied Force employed little force (much less than during the Gulf War) and tore the alliance apart. NATO has split into a nascent European military structure (the former defunct West European Union which was officially absorbed by the EU a fortnight ago) – and an American (rather, an Anglo-Saxon) avuncularly benevolent umbrella. Europeans have yet to recover from the detached, callous and off-handed manner of the mismanagement of the whole crisis by the amateurs in Washington. Their trust in America's insight, foresight and sagacious hindsight has been shattered by American strategic mistakes, intelligence errors, diplomatic gaffes and internal squabbling in a poll-orientated administration. The Europeans emerged with a "never again" pledge. America is not likely to be invited to Europe's parties any time soon. Europe is too much of a China shop and America – whether Republican or Democratic – too much of an elephant. As it were, there was no love wasted between these two constituents of NATO. Now they are effectively divorcing or, at least, going through a phase of not so amicable separation.
To this one should add the conflicting interests of members in this uncomfortable ménage a 19. Greece (aided and abetted by Iran) is already fighting proxy wars with Turkey throughout Central Eastern Asia (the Asian Republics of the former USSR), in Cyprus and in the former Yugoslavia. France is uneasy with the German-British Third Way and what it regards as a rapprochement between the two, which threatens its privileged status in the EU. The poorer countries and the EU regional aid beneficiaries (not always the same group) are dead set against EU enlargement to the east. The list is very long.
b. Central Europe
Disgusted by what they regarded as a superfluous and unnecessarily brutal war – the Central Europeans had the rudest awakening imaginable. They were forced to participate in a war effort within what they believed to be a defensive alliance. They joined NATO the introverted giant – and woke up to NATO the agile, hyperactive and violent neighbourhood cop. Hungary was forced to risk its ethnic kinfolk in Serbia's Vojvodina region. The Czechs engaged in bruising internal verbal fistfights. It was not a seemly sight. The new Central European entrants joined the likes of Greece and Italy and recoiled from assisting the war effort in any meaningful way. The shock waves are likely to reverberate for longer and transform NATO's commitment in Central Europe. It is not inconceivable to end up with a two-tier NATO: the fighting goons and the battle-shy, logistics-only allies.
This uneasy co-existence is made even less cosy by the clear reluctance of the EU to absorb the poor relatives to its east and south. Entry deadlines are habitually postponed, bureaucratic hurdles gleefully presented, sadistic reports about the Central Europeans' lack of progress periodically issued. No wonder the six eternal candidates feel rejected and abused. This humiliating misbehaviour on the part of the EU resulted in a turning of the tide. Opinion polls show growing opposition to the idea of Europe (in the Czech Republic, for instance) – unthinkable just two years ago. The countries of the Balkan area – the "New Associates" – constitute ominous competition for funds, attention and orientation, as far as the current future members are concerned. The Lucky Six (the Visegrad Trio, Slovenia, Cyprus) are likely to be relegated to the backburner now that the EU found a new toy, the Balkans. This will engender great bitterness and enmity between the EU and Central Europe and between Central Europe and the Balkanians. Hardly a recipe for orderly transition, for democracy, or for market economy.
c. The Balkan Sore
The EU is known for its verbal pyrotechnics, its unlimited pool of enticing vision and its great spinning and marketing techniques. This arsenal is fully employed now to bedazzle the Balkan natives into happy submission to the seductive harmonies of the common market. The EU is dangling a cornucopian promise of eternal economic bliss in front of the bleeding, limb-torn statal rumps, which comprise the former glory of Yugoslavia. But the targets of this brainwashing will do well to look to their Central European neighbours for an antidote. The "New Association" status offered to the likes of Macedonia, Albania, Bulgaria and Romania and, later, Montenegro and perhaps, post-Milosevic Serbia is an ingenious piece of camouflage, a fata morgana, devoid of content. It is an evocation of hitherto repressed desires and it leads to self-delusion but it will amount to no serious attempt at integration by the EU.
The economic disparity between the aspirants and the current members is numbing. The average GDP per capita in Macedonia is c. 2000 USD per annum. This is the GDP produced by a Slovenian in 10 weeks, by a Greek and Portuguese in 8, by a German in 3 weeks. There is no convergence to talk of – the gap is increasing, not decreasing, especially following the Kosovo debacle. The legal system in these countries is biased against the individual, antiquated and totalitarian. Human and civil rights are foreign implants, inflammatorily rejected by the body politic. The economy is corrupt, nepotistic and cronyist. Crime organizations constitute a big part of the trading activities and maintain a heavy grip upon the political class. The media is mostly government-owned and manipulated. The Balkan simply is not European. It is Byzantine, Ottoman, Eastern, and Orthodox. It belongs to Turkey and the Middle East, not to Frankfurt and Paris. It is closer to Moscow than to Leningrad. It will never be successfully subsumed by the West. Turkey has been trying for decades now and has been consistently (and perfunctorily) rejected by the EU. And Turkey is an important member of NATO and a country much more developed than the likes of Macedonia or Albania.
As these unpleasant truths emerge, the bitterness, resentment and disillusionment will grow and a backlash will develop. It might wear the guise of internal strife, of isolationist policies, of wounded retreat, of terrorism – all weapons of the deceived and trampled upon underdogs. It was wrong of the EU to promise what it can never deliver and couch it in deceptively ear soothing phrases. It will pay the price in added instability and ruin.
The Euro-Atlantic structures are evolving, assuming ever more ambitious and comprehensive goals, and growing ever more impressive antlers. They roam the whole earth, administering human rights and free marketry. They impose their will. They are awesome to behold. But from within they are being depleted and consumed by their very own incoherence. It is the eternal cycle of prowess and vanquishment. NATO, struggling to redefine itself and perpetuate its totally superfluous existence. The EU struggling to secure peaceful markets to its east and south. Europe struggling to assert itself. The USA struggling to secure its superiority in an emerging multi-polar, multi-ethnic, fractured world. All are fighting losing battles, wagging their antlers to and fro.
(Article written on June 22, 1999 and published June 28, 1999
in "Central Europe Review" volume 1, issue 1)
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The Treasure Trove of Kosovo
Nothing like a juicy, photogenic human catastrophe to enrich corrupt politicians and bottom-line-orientated, stock-option-motivated corporate executives. The Balkan is teeming with both these sad days. Even as the war was raging, shortages of food and other supplies led to the dispensation of political favours (in the form of import licences, for instance) to the chosen few. Bulgarian, Greek and Albanian firms, owned by ruthless criminals and criminals-turned-politicians benefited mightily. Millions were made and shared as artificially high prices were maintained by various means while cronies and crime controlled firms shared the spoils. This orgiastic intercourse between the corrupt and the criminal was not confined to one country. The whole region partook in robbing the most impoverished populations in Europe by "legal" means.
Their more refined and perfumed Western brethren were never far behind in taking advantage of American largesse on the one hand and re-emerging alarmist tendencies, on the other. Thus, American, German, Greek, French and Italian firms enjoyed funds allocated to international humanitarian aid by the likes of the US government, the United Nations, the World Bank, the IMF and other long arms of the American octopus. Defence contractors and the dubious characters known as weapons intermediaries stoked the atavistic fires of war in securing defence contracts. And aid workers resided in six star hotels, driving the latest sports utility vehicles and brandishing futuristic laptop computers as they went about the business of dispensing aid. In the meantime, at least one half of all aid money was pilfered – not to use a harsher term. Aid rations were freely available in Macedonian, Albanian, Greek and Bulgarian markets – offered at a discount by aid workers who stole them from their supposed recipients. The refugees were never given mattresses, were short of blankets, water, showers and toilets (I visited the camps – this is an eyewitness account). Only bread was abundant.
Now that the war is over, some people are counting their dead – while others are counting their blessings. But this has all been a prelude. It is the next wave of aid, which is the main course in this bacchanalia. Outlandishly feverish numbers are tossed around. Kosovo's immediate reconstruction (housing and infrastructure) will require well over 2 billion US dollars in the next 2 years. Of this, 1.5 billion dollars has already been raised. A further 2 billion USD is slated as direct aid to the shattered economies of Macedonia and Albania. But the real booty lies in Serbia. A minimum of 10-13 billion dollars will be required simply to restore Serbia's infrastructure to its former, inglorious self. To resuscitate the whole languishing area, a staggering 30 billion dollars is touted as the minimal bill.
Rest assured that at least one third of this generous cornucopia would end up lining the pockets of the rich and mighty. At least 1 billion dollars will end up festering in Swiss, Cypriot, South African and Israeli bank accounts. The politicians know it, the "grupirovki" (business cartels controlled by mafia-style organizations) know it, and Western governments know it. This is the REAL stability pact. Financially inebriated politicians are better motivated to maintain peace and stability, or so the thinking goes.
The history of the Balkans will play a major role in determining the topography and geography of this flood of cronyism, nepotism, criminality and vice. The Balkan is composed of states run by crime organizations and crime organizations run by states. Old alliances last long (as opposed to the Middle East where alliances, dune-like, shift with the winds). Bulgaria and Macedonia, for instance. Serbia and Greece. Albania and Kosovo. And now Albania and Macedonia. Meetings of regional "leaders" in the Balkans were always reminiscent of scenes from "The Godfather". The dons, uncomfortably clad in expensive business suits and wearing golden rings, deciding life and death and a jovial yet vaguely menacing atmosphere. Only the leaders of the New Balkans are much younger, less experienced, more prone to superstition, extremism and moodiness. The old tensions are bound to re-emerge, this time in the employ of business interests. Expect a flare up of animosity between Greece and Macedonia. Despite its Bulgarophile regime, expect uneasy moments between Bulgaria and Macedonia. And expect an unholy alliance of business interests between Mr. Thaci and his sprawling business empire and the governments of Albania and Macedonia. If not assassinated before, Thaci is definitely the Man to watch. Young, well educated, ruthless, involved in business (read: corrupt to the core) – an aptly dangerous man in dangerous times.
The problem is that everyone holds high expectations. This is a poor recipe for an amicable carving of the cake of international funding. Macedonia expects to lead the reconstruction effort of Kosovo. It was offended greatly by the decision to base the Kosovo reconstruction agency in Pristina. Greek and Italian firms expect to snatch profits out of the jaws of their near treacherous behaviour during the war. Turkish firms except to be rewarded for the loyalty of Turkey during the same. American and German firms expect to exclude all else in gaining access to American and German (=EU) funds (as they have done in Bosnia). These all are mutually incompatible expectations and they will lead to mutually exclusive behaviour. Expect some very ugly scenes, including spilt doses of this cheap, red liquid, blood.
Albania, already governed by the ungovernable crime gangs it spawned in the last few years, has formed an alliance with the KLA, never a moral standard-bearer. This expanded amusement park of drug trafficking, prostitution, weapons smuggling, contraband and much worse is now threatening to take over its more virtuous (though by no means virginal) neighbour, Macedonia. A flare up of hitherto unimaginable brotherly love has indicated this sacrilegious rapprochement. The Macedonian Prime Minister – encumbered by a demanding Albanian coalition partner – has met Thaci and the encounter had all the trappings of a state visit. Soon after senior Albanian politicians started talking about a Macedonian recognition of an independent state of Kosovo and an Albanian language university (the reason for student riots just two years before).
To a large extent, the Kosovo war was gang warfare. The Serb criminal organization known as Yugoslavia against the Albanian gang known as the KLA. It was a war over turf and lucrative businesses. In what used to be the Third World and more so in the post-communist countries in transition, criminal activities often accompany "wars of liberation". In Congo, in Sierra Leone, in Chechnya, in Kashmir – wars are as much about diamonds, oil and opium poppies as about national aspirations. Kosovo is no exception but it was here that the West was duped into intervention. NATO was called upon to arbiter between two crime gangs. There is no end to the mischievous irony of history.
Perhaps the following incidents are more telling than any learned analysis:
In late April, the Albanian telecom switched off the roaming facility of cell phones in Albania. Foreigners – including aid workers – had to pay the company 1000 dollars for a special roaming-enabled chip.
Rumour has it that the post of the Chief of Police in the Tirana Airport was "sold" at the beginning of April for an undisclosed amount (presumably 250,000 US dollars). The reasons: all shippers (including NATO and aid organizations) have to pay enormous kickbacks to airport and customs officials to release their goods.
Most Albanian families charged refugee families an average of 500 DM a month for their accommodation in subhuman conditions. Refugees who could not pay (or who had no relatives in Germany and Switzerland to pay for them) were evicted, often cruelly.
As Serbs were murdering their supposed brothers in Kosovo, Albanian crime gangs laid an oil pipeline (through Lake Shkoder) to Serbia and supplied the Serb army with the oil it was deprived of by NATO.
Welcome to the Balkans.
(Article written on June 27, 1999 and published July 5, 1999
in "Central Europe Review" volume 1, issue 2)
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Lucky Macedonia or Macedonia's Serendipity
The Good Fortune of Neighbouring a Human Catastrophe
In October 1998, the unreformed communists of the SDSM – the Socialists – lost the elections in Macedonia by a wide margin to an improbable coalition. It consisted of the VMRO – fervent nationalists with Bulgarian roots, headed by the poet-politician Ljubco Georgievski – and the Democratic alternative (DA). The latter was a hastily assembled party headed by Vasil Tupurkovski, a pro-US former member of the old Yugoslav nomenclature. DA enjoyed grassroots support especially by young professionals, businessmen and liberals. It imported Western campaigning techniques and made bold promises to revitalize and energize the economy.
When the news of the unequivocal victory of the VMRO-DA coalition arrived, the nation was swept by an unprecedented wave of enthusiasm, optimism and joy. Unprecedented because the young nation's history (its independence was declared in 1991) provided it with very little reason to be joyful. Its main trading partners were either boycotted by the world (the rump Yugoslavia) or themselves boycotted Macedonia – Greece in the wake of outlandish dispute regarding Macedonia's official name (hence the impossible FYROM) and Bulgaria because it refused to allow the use of the Macedonian language in bilateral documents. The economy collapsed, unemployment soared, investment all but vanished, corruption erupted and the Albanian ethnic minority became restive.
Macedonia was laid to economic waste by powers beyond its control. Its entrepreneurial inhabitants – fresh from 500 years of Ottoman training followed by 50 years of communism – resorted to smuggling (from Greece to Serbia through the Vardar river) and established a reasonably functioning underground economy. The IMF and the Central Bank maintained macro-economic stability (following years of hyperinflation) at an excruciating social cost. Trade was liberalized, inflation tamed, the currency was made freely convertible and the exchange rate eerily sustained (rather, suspended).
But under-currents seethed below the tattered facade. Disenchantment with the ruling classes and their mafia-like structure increased dramatically. Intricate webs of village and family loyalties were tested to the limit in affairs such as TAT, the collapse of a savings bank in a pyramid scheme in which some top level officials were implicated. Cronyism and nepotism led to the legalized robbery of the assets of the state through bogus privatisation schemes. Some people grew exceedingly rich – others became inordinately poor. The tension was palpable. The youth felt trapped, facing a dead end future. Many emigrated.
Albanian nationalism was introduced into this explosive vapour in 1997-8. It existed long before (the KLA, for instance, became a force to reckoned with as early as 1993). It constituted the main concern of the ethnic Macedonians (of Slav extract). People spoke ominously of an Armageddon to be waged between the two ethnicities.
The two communities exist separately. There are no inter-marriages, very few common business ventures and the Albanians either live in ghettos within the main cities – or in Albanian dominated cities of their own (such as Gostivar and Tetovo) in western Macedonia, across the border from Kosovo. The ground was shaking long before 1997. The mutual hatred, loathing and, above all, fear of domination and cultural subjugation were real and under a very thin veneer of civility. The inclusion of a national Albanian party (there are three) in the government was greeted as a welcome omen and respite. But this was not to be.
The ethnic Macedonian's main fear is that the Albanians are aiming to recreate a "Greater Albania" comprising the current Albania, Kosova and Western Macedonia. A natural Islamic axis (Albania-Bosnia-Central Asia) would then form and threaten the Slav peoples wherever they are (Serbs, Russians, Bulgarians). What started as the normal friction between two ethnic groups in close physical proximity ended as a mythical re-enactment of the Islamic (Ottoman) invasion of Europe in the 14th century. A nightmare revived fraught with the fears of an economically languishing Christian-Orthodox, Slav, Byzantine civilization. A very concrete issue of land and autonomy assumed the dimensions of a cosmic clash between the titans of religion.
Officially, the Albanians constitute 23% of the population in Macedonia. But Albanian did not take well to what they regarded as coercion: the population census. They refused to be counted and evaded the census takers – to their great detriment. As a result, their numbers are severely understated. It is safe to say that well over ONE THIRD of the population was of Albanian origin long BEFORE the wave of refugees swept over this 25,000 square kilometres country. Should one third of the refugees be absorbed by Macedonia – another 80,000 Albanians – the Albanian population stands to constitute more than 40% of the population. The Albanians marry younger, have double the number of children of the ethnic Macedonian (it is a much younger population) and almost never divorce. Their families are very cohesive and tend to stick together geographically. In the year 2015 – the majority of the population in Macedonia will be of Albanian origin, if this trend continues unperturbed and one third of the refugees remain. In 1912 Kosovo had a sizeable Serb majority. In 1972 this was no longer true.
The ethnic Macedonians are appalled by this demography. They are scared. They do not believe that they can co-exist with the Albanians. Stereotypes abound: the Albanians are backward, criminal elements, illiterate, violent and expansive, say the Macedonians. And their main goal in life – for which no sacrifice is too great – is to seize land from their neighbours. Kosova is a first step – the Macedonians are convinced – Western Macedonia is next, a civil war is imminent.
Marginal efforts at reconciliation aside – the Albanians themselves did not make any special effort to assuage the fears of the Macedonians. Quite the contrary. Radical, young and nationalistic leaders abound. Rufi Osmani, the former Mayor of Gostivar, was jailed for his activities and pardoned by the President after the new government threatened a constitutional crisis. He and his associates demanded the right to use Albanian in official transactions with state and municipal institutions – which is a reasonable demand. But they also demanded the right to hoist the Albanian flag and sing the Albanian anthem rather than the Macedonian one. Then they disobeyed the rulings of the Supreme Court and instigated violent clashes with the Police (which resulted in deaths). The establishment of a Tetovo "university" in the Albanian language did not help matters much. Regarded by Macedonian as a hotbed of much nationalism but little learning – the Macedonians refused to accredit it. Riots and counter-riots ensued, culminating in violent demonstrations of Macedonian students in the streets of Skopje, the capital.
The average salary in Macedonia is 200 Euro (=180 US dollars) a MONTH. There are c. 300,000 unemployed in a total working age population of 930,000. There is a constant balance of payments deficit of 8% of GNP. Macedonia is POOR – real poor, not relatively poor. It is poorer than any other country in Europe, with the exception of Albania. It is also insecure. Albanians and Serbs from within and from without threaten its very existence. It would do wisely to remain on good terms with Yugoslavia – not only because 50% of its trade is conducted with it – but also because Yugoslavia is THE big neighbour of the north. Long after Clinton is gone and perhaps NATO in its current form as well – Macedonia will have to deal with its perceived betrayal of Serbia. Serbs never forget and rarely forgive. They visit the sins of the battle of Kosovo (1389) upon other Moslems – 610 years later, in the same location. They are a dangerous, tenacious, resilient, ruthless and unrelenting foe to have. Macedonia is so small and helpless (no army to speak of) that it is terrified and caught between the NATO rock and the Serbian hard place. It feels blackmailed, used and exploited without real regard to its problems now and after the war is over. NATO showed its real face when it placed Macedonia (with Albania) in the last category of NATO applicants. Macedonia is a military base to NATO – here today, gone tomorrow. Who will protect Macedonia from Yugoslavia when the foreign media circus is engaged elsewhere? This is the age of the soundbite and the videoclip. It is the generation of expediency. Macedonia can – and will – easily be forgotten. Hence its refusal to allow ground warfare from its soil (a position shared by many, including, for instance, Hungary, a NATO member, with less to lose than Macedonia).
And this is where Macedonia made a mistake. It did not manage its public relations properly. It absorbed as many refugees as Albania (10% of the population – the equivalent of 25 million Mexican refugees in the USA) and treated its refugees with reasonable decency – under hellishly impossible circumstances. The USA and the EU reneged on all their commitments: financial as well as humanitarian. It costs Macedonia (UNHCR figures) c. 300,000 US dollars a day in direct expenses to host the human outcome of the NATO blunder. That's 15,000,000 US dollars in direct costs since the war started – or almost 1% of the GDP. Add to this a drop of 50% in exports and 26% in industrial production and the costs are already at least 10-15% of the GDP. These are surreal, mind-boggling numbers. It is the equivalent of the Great Depression in the USA.
Macedonia received hitherto 3 million US dollars (2 from Taiwan and 1 from UNHCR after a LOT of pressure). Oh, I forgot: and a gigantic pile of promises – to reschedule debts by one year (not to write them off, which would have constituted real help). The West lies through its teeth and when exposed it wags a moral finger at this poor, crumbling, neophyte of a country. It is a disgrace of unprecedented proportions.
Albania behaved more slickly – perhaps because its government is more veteran and perhaps because it really empathized more heartily with its suffering kin. They made the right noises and posed to the camera using the right, complimentary, angles. It won much more help than Macedonia and is universally accoladed by the West.
This is what Macedonia SHOULD have done. Open its borders in a great display of camaraderie and human passion. Wine and dine the bored, frustrated journalists on its turf, pose for the cameras, hair dishevelled, Tony Blair-like. Instead its leadership went about the business of absorbing a human wave of unheard of proportions while, at the same time, trying to defuse tensions from within and from without. No one informed them that in today's world it matters not what one does – as what one is SEEN to be doing. This is the vital lesson. Albania will rebuild its future on the back of the serendipitous refugees of Kosovo. Macedonia will pay the price of its lack of savvy.
(Article published July 26, 1999 in "Central Europe Review"
volume 1, issue 5)
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Black Magic, White Magic
Managing our Future
An address given to the Council of the VMRO-DPMNE, Macedonia's ruling party, chaired by Minister of Defence and Former Prime Minister of the Republic of Macedonia, Mr. Nikola Kljusev on July 16, 1999
Germany's economy collapsed following a reparations agreement, which sapped and consumed less than 10% of its GDP. America's economy collapsed, its unemployment soared, its stock exchange vanished and it entered a deflationary cycle, which necessitated the most pervasive federal intervention in its history – mainly because of multilateral trade restrictions.
Macedonia has endured trade embargoes, international isolation, wars, and an influx of refugees – and still survives as an intact, functioning economy. There is no civil war, no hyperinflation, a stable currency and no famine. It is nothing less than a miracle. No textbook economist would have predicted this outcome.
But Macedonia is trying to cope with its predicament in wrong ways. It is trying to change other countries, or to force or convince them to change their policies, or to engage in "Voodoo Economics". An economy cannot be run on the bases of promises, contingencies, gifts, aid and a Lotaria na Makedonija approach. Economic policy must not be based on the usual but rather on the normal. In politics, most magic is black and mostly bad things tend to happen. Macedonia is situated in an accident-prone area. It cannot and need not pretend (as Slovenia more successfully and Croatia with less success do) that it is part of Western Europe. This denial of the painful truth – that we are at the mercy of forces beyond our control in a region resembling a mental asylum – is at the root of our economic malaise. What if Montenegro erupts tomorrow?
Macedonia cannot change other countries, nor can it influence them to change their policies. It is too small and insignificant and it has no policy options. Will it really deny NATO next time around if it does not receive the compensation it requested from it? Will the nature of its relationship with the EU change if the EU will not honour its promises and obligations? Macedonia is constrained to a very limited set of diplomatic and economic choices.
Instead of changing others – we must change ourselves. We must force Macedonians to change and let ourselves be convinced to change our policies. We must, in other words, introduce magic – the magic of trust. Trust in our banks will encourage domestic savings and domestic investments. It will draw out 1-2 billion dollars from under mattresses and into deposits. This amount is equal to 5 years of aid or FDI (foreign direct investment). Trust in our courts will attract foreign investments. Trust in our government will end the current civil disobedience. Our citizens are rebellious. They don't pay their taxes, they do not collaborate with their own government. They don't trust it to do the good and the right thing.
Macedonia is not perceived by the Europeans to be European. It is too poor to become a member of the EU, public relations exercises (the stability and Growth Pact) notwithstanding. It is too needy and donor weariness is setting in. Money will be harder and harder to come by. And our products compete head on with European products protected and promoted by the strongest lobbies in Brussels.
And with these FACTS we have to live. A sound, prosperous economy is the result of minute, mundane, routine and boring activities – not the result of rabbits pulled out of a hat. Even if the rabbits are European.
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The Friendly Club
Cyprus, that beacon of political stability and financial rectitude, was invited to negotiate its membership. Bulgaria, the epitome of good governance and civil society as well as Malta the undisputed friend of the West (remember Qaddafi?) – were among the list of new candidates handed down in the Helsinki meet of the most desired economic club on earth: the EU. To these were added Romania and its collapsing economy. Macedonia was relegated to the "West Balkan" group – a revolutionary re-definition of historical affiliations. In this assemblage, it found itself rubbing shoulders with the disintegrating Albania and the pariah Yugoslavia. Croatia was ejected from this leper colony by virtue of the death of its megalomaniac autocrat and his replacement by ex-communists.
Things have been very different only a few months ago, when the EU and NATO needed the good and naive services of Macedonia. It was a honeyed courtship. Macedonia was then virtually besieged by a flood of world-class politicians, all eager to make the acquaintance of the charming political class of the Balkans. Promises were doled out with abandon. Blair promised tens of millions. Clinton topped this by pledging hundreds of millions. And the grateful West offered billions. In the meantime, Macedonia's infrastructure was pulverized by heavy armour and light-footed refugees – a quarter of a million of them.
The people of the Balkans are the off spring of broken promises. Their village shrewdness (which is not to be confused with worldly sophistication) predisposed them not to trust the kindness of strangers. Their in-bred paranoia led them to attribute prophetic foresight, sharp planning and intricate conspiracy to what were mere stumbling and bumbling on the part of the West and its mighty NATO. The disillusionment came fast and painlessly. To live in fantasy is often more rewarding than to have it fulfilled and many Macedonians were grateful for the intermission in their hundred years of solitude. The hangover, the bitter aftertaste, the sore muscles of the morning after – the Macedonians accepted all these with unusual grace.
But as insults were added to injuries, a sense of betrayal evolved. They felt exploited and discarded, objectified and dehumanised by super-powers of mythical proportions. They felt abused and deceived. Used to getting the short end of every stick – this time there was no stick at all. Having been thus manipulated and largely unable to direct their anger at the veritable sources of their frustration – they turned upon themselves in internecine squabbling, disgraced and flouted. This was further exacerbated by incessant preaching and hectoring of the representatives of those powers, which thus forsake them. By the very people who reneged on promises. By countries and politicians whose own domestic politics and personal conduct were an object and abject lesson not to be emulated. Countries imbued with corruption preached to the Macedonians about good governance. Countries which suppressed their minorities in bloody campaigns reprimanded Macedonia for its treatment of its own minorities. Countries, which sold weapons to every despicable dictator in every corner of the earth – prevented Macedonia from trading with its neighbours.
Of the money promised – very little materialized. The blazing trail of West European and American movie stars and presidents became a trickle of East European politicians and Brussels bureaucrats. Membership became association, association became new association and new association went nowhere as dates were postponed and dates kept were used as photo-opportunities by synthetic Western leaders.
If anyone should have been invited to join the EU it is poor Macedonia. Poor – but not as poor as Romania, for instance. Any comparison of the two bespeaks volumes about the West's betrayal. Romania's official inflation is 40% – Macedonia's is around 1% and has been, on average, less than 3% in the last 3 years. Romania's depleted GDP is collapsing. Macedonia has survived the Kosovo crisis with its GDP intact and is poised to grow by 4-6% in the year 2000 according to the IMF. Romania's average wage is less than 90 dollars a month – Macedonia's is 160 US dollars. The lei is as unstable as Yugoslavia's denar was prior to the Kosovo crisis – Macedonia's currency held stable throughout the external shock-ridden last three years and is trusted by its citizens. Romania's governments change frequently and with little reason, often succumbing to the wishes of an ominously violent street. Macedonia's government has changed once in the last 5 years and that following a fair and democratic election. Admittedly, Romania's market is much bigger than Macedonia's and its location closer to the EU. But Macedonia is an important bridgehead to the Balkans and beyond (Turkey) and its web of trading agreements and arrangements makes it a virtual market of more than 110 million people.
But Macedonia is friendless in the EU. It has no patron saint, no Germany (Croatia, Czech Republic), no France (Romania), no Greece (Cyprus). It is too small to fear and small enough to ignore comfortably. It is a peaceful and docile nation. It is co-operative. It is trustworthy and has proven its devotion to the idea of the West in times good and bad, mainly the latter. Perhaps these qualities disqualified it. Perhaps being taken for granted does not grant being taken. Whatever the explanation, the people of this tiny country grieve this short romance, so fleeting, so sweet, so dreamy and, as they are finding now, so surreal.
(Article written on January 15, 2000 and published February 7, 2000
in "Central Europe Review" volume 2, issue 5)
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The Books of the Damned
"I have gone into the outer darkness of scientific and philosophical transactions and proceedings, ultra-respectable, but covered with the dust of disregard. I have descended into journalism. I have come back with the quasi-souls of lost data."
(Charles Hoy Fort in "The Book of the Damned")
"Let me have the three major American networks and three leading newspapers for a year and I'll bring back public lynchings and racial war in the US."
(Charles Simic quoting a Belgrade journalist)
"We do not have censorship. What we have is a limitation on what newspapers can report."
(Louis Nel, Deputy Minister of Information, South Africa)
In the country of ex-Nazi officer Kurt Waldheim and current Nazi-sympathizer Jorg Haider, the xenophobic and anti-Semitic offering of local media come as little surprise. Austria, after all, contributed disproportionately to the Nazi death machine. But what seems to be a unique Austrian phenomenon is not. The media outlets in Central, Eastern and Southern Europe are easily interchangeable. In the same week of Austrian derision and paranoia, "Start", a trash weekly in Macedonia attacked the British Ambassador and the Americans for conspiring to dismantle Macedonia with the collaboration of its local, disloyal and haughty Albanian minority.
The media in the countries in transition is taxonomically not dissimilar to its brethren in the West. It, too, can be divided to five categories of ownership and agenda. What sets it apart, though, is its lack of (even feigned) professionalism, its venality and its tainted ulterior motives. I wrote about it elsewhere, in "The Rip van Winkle Institutions":
"And then there is the media – the waste basket of post communist societies, the cesspool of influence peddling and calumny. Journalists are easily bought and sold and their price is ever decreasing. They work in mouthpieces of business interests masquerading as newspapers or electronic media. They receive their instructions – to lie, to falsify, to ignore, to emphasize, to suppress, to extort, to inform, to collaborate with the authorities – from their Editor in Chief. They trade news for advertising. Some of them are involved in all manner of criminal activities, others are simply unethical in the extreme. They all have pacts with Mammon. People do not believe a word these contortionists of language and torturers of meaning write or say. It is by comparing these tampered and biased sources that people reach their own conclusions within their private medium."
The commercial media – the likes on "Nova" TV in the Czech Republic – are poor people's imitations of the more visible aspects of American mass culture. Overflowing with lowbrow talk shows, freaks on display, malicious gossip which passes for "news" and glitzy promos and quizzes – these TV stations and print magazines derive the bulk of their income from advertising. While ostensibly politically innocuous, they exert a subtle and cumulative influence on the numbed and dwindling minds of their spectators and readers. By conditioning their consumers to ever lower fare of pulp common denominators, they set a standard of no holds barred and no standards observed. They are the opium for the masses that religion once was, diverting potentially dangerous attention from real events and personalities to the staged alarms of public enemies and the artificial crises of bingo lotteries. No less persecutory than any totalitarian regime, these mass media are ominous symptoms of the social malaise of disillusionment with the realities of life and with more institutionalized modes of expression. They are escapism embodied, a dreamland, a scape of fantasy, the vale of telenovellas. Whole nations are in thrall. In Macedonia, the protagonist of a servant's saga, "Kassandra", was given a hero's welcome upon her visit to this impoverished and bitter land. Whole families consume hours of this visual Ritalin, hypnotized by cheap scenery built to resemble unattainable riches.
Then there is the mercenary media. These are groups of hired pens and keyboards – so called journalists who offer their services to the highest bidder. Their price is often pathetic: a lunch a month, one hundred deutschmarks, a trip abroad and a dingy hotel room. They collaborate with their editors and share the spoils with them. They are the whores of the profession, ever the hungry look, ever the hat in hand, ever the submissive and furtive glances of the serfs of capital. They often publish other people's self-serving communiqués without altering a word. I, myself, provided them with "interviews" which I, solely, have authored, questions and all. Too lazy to or embittered to invest in their profession, consumed by self-loathing and by general disdain – they let themselves be passively abused in the dirty intercourse of money and of influence.
The mercenaries often work in brothels known as "business-backed media". These are TV stations, daily papers and periodicals owned by the oligarchs of malignant capitalism and used by them to rubbish their opponents and flagrantly and unabashedly further their business interests. This phenomenon is most pronounced in this land of depredation and depravity, in Russia, where virtually all the media is now identified with and digested by business, mafia-like interests. Despite their infamous one-sidedness, they still claim neutrality and objectivity but these spurious claims are met with revolt by a hostile population, long trained to distrust the printed word and even the broadcast image. Thus the art of "reading between the lines" is flourishing again and the very language is distorted by its media rapists (see: "The Magla Vocables"). This – the abyss opening between the people and their language, the demise of true communication and the ensuing rupture in the social fabric – are the veritable damages of enlisted journalism.
Political vehicles are less pernicious in that their masters are well known and their itinerary clear. Always one sided, always half truthed, forever the righteous – these rags produce no riches and they preach to the converted, serving as bulletins and message boards rather than as media in any known sense. A rallying point, a flag, an emblem, a collective memory, the group's unconscious and conscience – these papers and TV channels are often widely read, even by rivals and adversaries. They are so self-absorbed, so narcissistic, so sickeningly partial that they make for fine amusement in dreary times. There are the coalition papers and the opposition papers, the left wing and the right wing and the centre ones. It is a colourful admixture of indignation and triumphalism, veiled threats and promises, trial balloons and drama, the daily equivalent of the romance.
Thus, Central, Eastern and Southern Europe do have daily papers and magazines and periodicals and television. What they do not have is media even remotely resembling the Western ideal. In some countries, this ideal is disparaged as a Western manipulative ploy or, worse, naive idealism. In others, it is a kind of holy grail to be pursued only in myths and narratives. Yet others view it with envy and aspire to it, but without much hope. To them, it is an ever-receding mirage. Perhaps that other phantasmagoria, the Internet, is the solution. In it, budding, fresh beginnings of irreverence and courage seem to coalesce into recognizable – though virtual – media. The small number of web surfers currently limits both their outreach and their survivability. But if Western trends are anything to go by, this is a temporary state of affairs. The Internet, this immaterial and ethereal medium might yet spawn the first real media and a return to reality. It might yet liberate the prisoners of all the telenovellas, foreign and domestic. It might yet win.
(Article written on February 5, 2000 and published February 21, 2000
in "Central Europe Review" volume 2, issue 7)
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The PCM Trail
It is a typical bar in a typical Balkan or East European country in a typical yellow haze, air-polluted, very late evening. The din of raucous and numbingly repetitive music reverberates through the smoke-enshrouded joint. It is an external pandemonium intended to silence internal ones and to obviate the silences of solitude. Sofas with shabby, mutilated upholstery in bordello scarlet. A dim, bawdy luminescence. Huntresses and prey study each other wearily over oily drinks. The former scantily clad in cheap imitations of haute couture, lips enclosed in heart shaped, provocative, lipstick, their make up invitingly gross. The latter – foreigners, owners of coveted passports, cars and money (PCM), a ticket out of hell, a path to paradise, a promise.
In the near and paranoiac past of most countries in transition, terror-filled xenophobia was both a wise survival tactic and an indoctrinated instinct. Self-insulated and psychotically suspicious regimes quarantined their populations and portrayed all foreigners as carriers of the malaise of social disintegration and the perpetrators of espionage and sabotage. In a classic cognitive dissonance, foreigners were denounced by the people and women who befriended them were pronounced whores. Only a select few could interact with the capitalistic plague and these were especially trained to prevent contagion.
These prejudices and perceptions changed fast with the dawn of the post transition purgatory. Economic collapse, massive unemployment, social dislocation, growing disparities between rich and poor, the educated and the unskilled – led to societies increasingly permeated by crime, drugs and prostitution. A grey cloud of hopelessness and neglect descended upon vast territories populated by zombie-like herds of people, eyes with extinguished light, adrift in the uncharted waters of a new, ominous reality. The physical deterioration of infrastructure and public services reflected the inner state of its ever more desparate consumers. Venality erupted like a giant suppuration. Everything was on sale, especially one's self.
In this increasingly whorish atmosphere, the perception of foreigners was dramatically re-cast. With more of them around and with most of them on generous income – they constituted a tempting target, a prize, salvation embodied. Women everywhere made it a point to meet them, to work with them, to associate with them, to know them biblically and – above all other goals – to marry them and leave their country. All means justified these ends. Women studied foreign languages, applied to work for non-government organizations, hung out in the appropriate watering holes, learned to dress and talk assertively and to make their availability – their complete obtainability and accessibility – beyond doubt.
Some set about securing the desired trophy methodically and scientifically, calculating each step in a tortuous and highly competitive environment. They invested years in graduating from the right faculties and in mastering the right languages. They watched films intently, read books, clipped magazine articles, surfed the internet, questioned well-travelled relatives and acquaintances, emulated more senior and more seasoned stalkers. Others relied on their good looks, their make up, their ruthlessness, their promiscuousness, their connections, or the exotic allure of their very differentness.
But all of them pursued their prey doggedly and commitedly, with the quite perseverance and patience of the dejected, with the unflagging determination of the terminally ill in tracking a wonder drug. Often, they got pregnant, which in many local cultures would have brought on a marriage. Sometimes, they got raped, or dumped, or worse. But none of these dissuaded them – such was the ejecting power of the wretchedness of their lives. They knew that the foreigner they aspire to acquire will finally go away and carry them with him, a (sometimes white) knight on a shining vehicle. Vehemently committed to securing the future of their children and the present of their extended family – they ploughed on, ignoring diversions, never digressing, never wavering in the face of setbacks and defeats.
Some of them grew old and bitter in their refusal to countenance a local, inferior, brand of husband. It time they so identified with their purported quarry – that they held their own kind in contempt. They disdained their kin, derided their customs, haughtily dismissed their own culture as backward and oppressive, worthy only of discarding. In their unmitigated effort to be worthy of their future saviours, they disowned their very selves, their society, their upbringing, their mores and their relations. Thus uprooted, they lost both worlds – rejected by those they rejected so condescendingly as well as by foreign men who found them to be embarrassing, clunky imitations of B-movie characters.
But others went on to marry foreigners, to give birth to their children and, in time, to travel to far, affluent lands. They keep in touch, sending home photographs of sumptuous houses and shiny cars and of suburban lawns. From time to time, they wire some money or deliver gifts. They visit once or twice a year, clad in new, faddish clothes, their accents strangely inflected, their speech suffused by foreign words. They made it, the envy of their sisters, the objects of much adulation and emulation, lean and lustrous proofs that dreams come true. A sigh and then the chase goes on. Meticulous dressing, hours of make up, the right shine but not too vulgar, the flesh exposed but not repulsively, both offered and withdrawn, a little exercise of English and to the bar. The hunting grounds where smoke and alcohol and the occasional lascivious look or comment should do the trick. And often do.
(Article written on February 8, 2000 and published February 28, 2000
in "Central Europe Review" volume 2, issue 8)
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The Mind of Darkness
"The Balkans" – I say – "is the unconscious of the world". People stop to digest this metaphor and then they nod enthusiastically. It is here that the repressed memories of history, its traumas and fears and images reside. It is here that the psychodynamics of humanity – the tectonic clash between Rome and Byzantium, West and East, Judeo-Christianity and Islam – is still easily discernible. We are seated at a New Year's dining table, loaded with a roasted pig and exotic salads. I, the Jew, only half foreign to this cradle of Slavonics, four Serbs and five Macedonians. It is in the Balkans that all ethnic distinctions fail and it is here that they prevail anachronistically and atavistically. Contradiction and change the only two fixtures of this tormented region.
The women of the Balkan – buried under provocative mask-like make up, retro hairstyles and too narrow dresses. The men clad in sepia colours, old-fashioned suits and turn of the century moustaches. In the background there is the crying game that is Balkanian music: liturgy and folk and elegy combined. The smells are heavy with musk-ular perfumes. It is like time travel. It is like revisiting one's childhood.
The Serbs – a family – are tall and ruggedly handsome. He was a soldier in the para-military Serb militias that sprang from the ashes of the JNA (Yugoslav National Army) in 1991. As the disintegration of the uneasy co-existence that once was Yugoslavia became more painfully evident, he and others seized the weapons in the depots of the JNA. In the administrative twilight zone that ensued they fought in JNA uniforms against a growing army of Croats (wearing initially the same uniforms) and Moslem Bosniaks. It was surrealistic, a Bosch nightmare. "We were near victory in Bihac" – he says, his voice a wistful admixture of melancholy and anger. "Politics" – an old spark in his eyes and, for a moment, I can see the erstwhile fighter – "All politics. We lost the war because of politics, because our leaders sold themselves to the West." This myth has a familiar ring to it, the ring of knife-stabbed backs and war. It is the ground being prepared for the next round – the war was nearly won had it not been for the traitors and their Western masters. The sound of clicking heels and marches and creaking gates of concentration camps.
And so? "Milosevic should go" – he is adamant – "we paid enough." He leans back and lets fatigue take over. His wife interjects: "He drives a milk truck. He collects milk from the villages and delivers it to Nis. The company he works for makes 1000 DM daily – and his salary is 80 DM monthly. How can you survive on 80 DM? I don't work. So, one has to steal." "There is nowhere to steal from" – I say. A moment of comic relief, bringing identical sad smiles to their faces. "During the war (he means the Kosovo conflict), I drove the truck – it is a big truck, you see – and was bombed from behind by NATO planes. It was like that every day, for more than three months but I had to deliver the milk to town." Matter of factly, he lights a cigarette, his hand unshaken.
"All the politicians benefited from these wars, except Arkan (the infamous militia military commander – SV). His son joined us and fought with us as our commander..." – the sentence tapers off among blue clouds of cheap smoke. "And what did NATO achieve?" – his brother in law (who is married to a Macedonian and lives in Skopje) asks. "NATO went in for a year and is stuck for a decade in Bosnia." "And that is the way it is going to be in Kosovo." "They (the West – SV) don't know what they want and they don't know how to achieve it, they have no plans, they stumble, only making matters worse among us. They are ignorant and ill-prepared."
I sound incredulous: "Do you seriously think that there would have been no wars without NATO? After all, when Yugoslavia started falling apart, the West (with the exception of Germany) tried to preserve its unity. America was very unhappy and discouraged the independence of the constituent states." "Don't you believe it" – he is livid but not aggressive, there is more pain in his voice than threat – "Croatia would have never embarked on its war against us had it not been for the West. I was there, I know. And we were winning the war there when suddenly Belgrade ordered us to stop. The commander in chief of the whole front came to us, tears in his eyes, and said: I didn't give this order, I want you to know. It comes from above, from Belgrade, not from me."
"But couldn't all this have been settled differently, without bloodshed?" – I wonder. "Of course it could, without the meddling of the West and its two puppets in the region (Milosevic and Tudjman – SV)." And then, somewhat incoherently – "They (the world – SV) should have let us fight it out. Winner takes all the territory, that's the only way to settle it. But Serbia has no friends anywhere in the world and we trust no one." "And Kosovo?" "Maybe that could not have been prevented" – he concedes – "because Milosevic regarded Kosovo as the cornerstone of his regime."
We talk about nothing else. The wounds are too fresh and too prominent to politely ignore. We enter the New Millennium with the blood dripping baggage of the old one. He fought three years in Bosnia, in Sarajevo, near Banja Luka. He is a war criminal, wanted by the international tribunal in The Hague. "Milosevic determined our ultimate borders in Dayton" – he spits the words bitterly, a look of bewilderment in his eyes – "Who gave him the mandate to represent us? Someone else should have gone there, like Karadzic, maybe..." "But Milosevic gave you weapons and food and supplies. Without him surely you could not have survived as long as you did?" "No weapons" – he protests – "Weapons we appropriated, we took them ourselves, from the JNA depots, he deserves no credit for that. Food, maybe... But this does not give him the right to determine our borders and our future without as much as consulting us. He sold us to the West. Now look at the situation. I can't go back to my home in a town that was 100% Serb and now is 100% Moslem and the Moslems can't go back to their towns who are now 100% Serb. And all towns – Serb and Moslem alike – are deserted ghost towns, where no one lives and nothing grows. Now I have to live in Serbia."
I don't ask him what he did to become wanted and hunted by the Hague tribunal. I can't imagine him murdering cold bloodedly or raping. He has a good face, the wrinkles of many smiles and kindly eyes. When he laughs softly, they light up in black fire and his handshake is warm and firm. Instead I say: "And now it's Montenegro's turn should they declare independence?"
There is uneasy silence. The Serbs among us move in their chairs, glance warily at each other, as though co-ordinating an as yet unspoken answer. Finally: "There will be no war in Montenegro. The Serbs will not attack the Montenegrins – but there will be a civil war among the Montenegrins themselves, if they declare independence."
"Today" – says the ex militiaman – "they are all better off than the Serbs in Serbia. The Slovenes, the Croats. Look what we achieved in a decade of 'Great Serbia' – shortly, only Belgrade will remain in the Federation, even Sandjak and Vojvodina will leave." "The problem is that we have no leadership. There is no one to replace Milosevic. Avramovic is way too old. Dzindzic and Draskovic we cannot trust..." "Political whores" – says someone – "Once with Milosevic, once without..." "...and who else is there? All the young, capable people are out and away, far far away as they can get..."
Like in all the other countries of transition, they are adherents of the cult of youth. The belief that the old – old people, old culture, old institutions – have been so heavily corrupted that they must be discarded thoroughly and mercilessly. That all has to start over again. That only the young can cope with the timeless riddles that Balkanian sphinxes are in the habit of posing. That the young are the only bridge to the promised land of the zeitgeist of capitalism.
"And Macedonia?" – I ask.
"Macedonia" – a Serb chorus around the dinner table – "Every village wants to become a country. Macedonia cannot survive on its own, it is too dependent on Serbia, it is too tiny."
"But only 17% of its trade is with Serbia" – I correct them, as gently as I can. "Including Kosovo?" – says one in great astonishment – "I see only Macedonian trucks in Serbia, it cannot be..."
"It cannot be" – they all conclude – "Macedonia is nothing without Serbia."
As the clock strikes midnight, we kiss each other on wine flushed cheeks and shake hands solemnly. In the rest of the world, a new millennium may have dawned. But in the Balkans it is perhaps the end of the beginning – but hardly the beginning of the end.
(Article written on January 8, 2000 and published January 17, 2000
in "Central Europe Review" volume 2, issue 2)
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After theRain
How the West
Lost the East
The ECONOMY
Central Europe
The New Colonies
Mercantilism was the intellectual correlate of colonialism. The idea, roughly, was to physically conquer territories (colonies), subjugate their people, transform them into cheap labour, get hold of all the raw materials and ship them to the colonizer's territory, there to be processed to yield finished products. The beauty in the concept was the "closed circuit" logic. The inhabitants of the colonies (also known as "natives") had to consume finished goods and products. The colonial power forced upon them (through tariff and quota regimes or violence when needed) the finished products produced from their very own raw materials! Thus, the colonies were prevailed upon to sell cheap raw materials and to buy expensive finished goods.
If it sounds like colonialism and has the same economic effects – it is colonialism. The relationship between the European Union and Central Europe is colonialism. Central Europe provides the European Union with raw materials and cheap labour. It buys from the European Union finished goods, products and services. In the process, it incurs enormous trade and balance of payments deficits. Incidentally, it also serves as the EU's dumping grounds for anything from toxic waste to shoddy or outmoded products.
Let us examine the case of the Czech Republic. It is the assembly plant of Volkswagen and the export launching pad of other multinationals. And the workers are supposed to consume heavily subsidized agricultural produce (such as pork).
For this the Czech Republic is to blame. The previous government did everything it could to alienate its natural allies in the Vysehrad Triangle. It did a good job of it. Instead of negotiating with the EU as a bloc of c. 70 million consumers – it ended up representing an ever-diminishing number of Czecho-Slovaks. Its haughty and corruption-laden behaviour did not acquire too many friends in the West, either.
The approach should have been different. In the West, the client is always right. The Czechs are CONSUMERS. They are the clients of the huge corporation called EU. As a consumer club or group, they could have dictated terms, rather than be subjected to them. The current Hungarian government understands this. Consumers have a single, irresistible power: they can stop consuming. Imagine if 30-40 billion USD were to be deleted from the EU's books by angry consumers – it would have come begging and negotiating, instead of dictating and condescending. The EU does not hesitate to pull every lever – however illegitimate, ridiculous, or downright dangerous – in its negotiations with the new applicants. The new applicants did not assimilate yet their dual role as applicants (an inferior position) and as markets (a very superior position).
This inferiority complex has to do with history. The Hussite Wars were perhaps glorious – but they were also irrevocably destructive. Not only were the Czech Lands physically demolished – they were also cut from the rest of Europe for centuries to come. The only times they were reincorporated into it were traumatic (the Nazi occupation, for instance). Having glimpsed the first real opportunity to become a part of the big west dream (and to be redeemed from the clutches of the wounded Russian bear to the East) – the Czechs lost all judgement, self-esteem, self-confidence and negotiating skills. So did all the other Central and Eastern (and Southern) European nations. It was security and safety they were after – not prosperity.
This basic misunderstanding underlies the great European project. The EU's thinking was mainly economic and marginally geopolitical (though it was presented differently). The Czech's motivation was mainly geopolitical and marginally economic (though it was presented differently). The resulting malentendues are worthy of Moliere's pen.
Moreover, the Czechs have always been a religious breed. True, they are the most vehement atheists in Europe – but this is because they adopted other deities. They have always been zealous, intellectual fanatics. One of my Czech friends calls many periods in his nation's history "intellectual terrorism". The swings some people made lately from being youthful communists to being vengeful ultra-capitalists are indeed breathtaking. Personality cults are supplanted only by fanatic ideologies, which are replaced only by religious zeal. This, of course, does not tend to enhance the realpolitik instincts of the nation. Czechs have always been a few years too early. They had their own reformation long before Luther. They had the Spring of 68 long before Gorbachev. Every such intellectual transition was followed by a Jacobin disposal and by purges of whole classes and elites. These "new religion-personality cult-purges" cycles were not absent from the Velvet Revolution.