April 20th, 1999.

Serbs - spite, bombs and victims

    After three weeks of such bombing that Europe has not seen since the mid-century, on one of the two fronts, scars are visible - dreadful ones - but there are no fissures. That's the Serbian side. On the other end there are no scars, but the gaps are deeper than the St. Andreas rift, threatening to demolish San Francisco.

    Americans don't worry about dead Serbs, nor are they too concerned about the war expenses. What troubles them (which can be seen in an increasing number of texts by their best commentators in the media) is the answer to the following question: where was Clinton mistaken in calculations that 600 airplanes would 'condition' Serbs and bring an answer to the Kosovo problem?

    There are two sources from which Serbs get the necessary energy to endure bombs, to cover up fear, to stay composed and sane at the thought that we are waging war with the rulers of the planet. However, before I name them, let me immediately say what they are not. The source in question is not genetics, for we are not Ancient Slavs, nor Ancient Serbs, who were both wiser and braver than we are. It is not conviction that Sloba is the reincarnation of Czar Lazar. Objectively, he is still not. And it is not, despite its wide exploit in the domestic propaganda, the Serbian struggle against New World Order. Namely, I am not certain whether any one Serbian father would willingly sacrifice his son just so that he could prevent the American planetary domination. It is true that we often suffer from the mania of greatness, but this mania would really be going too far.

    Opposing the whole world, practically - since there is not much use, for now, from the Russian, Chinese or Belarus story - results from the collective Serbian sense that the world caused this people injustice not so long ago. It was when the same world, with the present leaders, was coldly, with practically no reaction, watching the cataclysm of 300 000 Serbs who were retreating before the Croats, the new Balkan 'Prussians'. There was no protection for the weak, nor for the three hundred old people killed (according to Croatian resources) even months after the 'battle' for Krajina was over. The license that Tudjman was given, to banish all Orthodox Christians from his Croatania, despite the image the world had of the Serbian 'bad boys', turned the Serbian public from the west. The current bombing puts an end to the last remains of the 'Roman' civilization within this nation.

    This is the first source of mental strength: bitterness at the world's lack of objectivity. The other source, equally important, is the Serbian prevailing conviction that we - despite being labeled as aggressors - in all the conflicts following the division of Ex-Yugoslavia, in fact, were victims. This invasion especially refers to Kosovo, and the fact that for half a century, nobody, either in the rest of the world or in the leadership of the Great Yugoslavia of that time, said a word about the ethnic cleansing of Serbs in that region. That senselessness of other nations to the Serbian national affairs tore down - with a bang - our mutual country.

    At the same time, a debit account was opened between the Serbs and Albanians. What is now happening between the two nations is, regardless of what the historians, sociologists or politicians may think - an outburst of a festering flesh, an outlet to decades of holding back, false peace and dishonest parallel life.

    The second source of the Serbian strength lies in the awareness that the victim was portrayed as aggressor. It speaks, of course, of the period of 25 years when, even in Serbia itself, there was a conviction that we have no business in Kosovo considering the numerical disproportion with Albanians and their, sometimes sophisticated, sometimes knife pressure, to move out. A nation that is, on one hand in large part convinced in the lack of objectivity from the West, and on the other proclaimed 'redundant' in Kosovo, could not have done anything else but - faced with the ultimatum of the Rambulliet paper of the type 'take it or leave it' - choose the role of a conscious victim. No matter what I resent Milosevic for, he really does know where the majority of Serbia stands and was convinced in the willingness of the nation to pay for what we owe.

    The bill is terrifying. I don't know if there is anything in Serbia that General Clark has not shot down? But, on NATO's bill, on the other hand, there is not one single profit. Sloba won't sign Rambulliet; no other Serbs would, either, especially now. There is a shortage, they say, of 500 000 Albanians in Kosovo. The Serbian public, why conceal it, takes that fact as a sufficient payback for the demolishing debt. Yugoslav army has regained self-confidence, generals who have been searching for a commander in chief for two years, have finally found him, and are not hiding their joy over it.

    Perseverance of the Serbian people, that historically, goes as far as 'at any cost', seems illogical to the whole world.

    Essentially, the world is right; Serbs will, eventually, face a ruined land, in the world where dollar, deutsche mark, Clinton and NATO will still rule. I still find it hard to imagine ruble as the number one currency in the world. But, from Serbian point of view, nobody here doubts that the world is stronger, and that it is capable of leveling Sumadija. It is a different kind of competition: the world can never bring as much evil to the nation whose majority is convinced that it is suffering for the right cause, and is therefore accepting the role of a victim.

    Clark asked for 300 more airplanes last night. With the 600 he already has, that is almost one thousand combat machines. Once he has used them and the list of targets has dried out, he will find himself at the beginning: there is nobody here who will sign Rambulliet. Some because they know what it means, some out of fear, some out of shame. However, there is nobody. General Clark's options will therefore be very limited: total war with ground troops and the risk: even if he does manage to enter Belgrade, will he find anyone willing to sign any paper? Kosovo invasion, with the risk of creating a protectorate that even Americans would not know what to do with? Arming KLA and sending them back to Kosovo? As it has been seen, they have no chance in the clashes with the regular army. Risking a regional or a world war - I am not certain of their preparedness for such a thing. What remains then? If Clinton has not raised this to the level of a personal war with Sloba; if NATO does not take Serbian perseverance as a personal offense and attack to their integrity; if half a million Albanians in refuge (according to foreign sources) choose Serbia as their definite home country; if Russians consider Kosovo less of an affair convenient for the internal political duels between Yelcin and Duma; then the world must tear the paper from Rambulliet and sit at a table with Serbs to make a new agreement.

    Then let everything be put into play; from dividing Kosovo to the return to the Serbian system. Bombing without end will not train Serbs. As this is not World War II, Americans cannot insist on something that looks like unconditional surrender. This is something Serbs are not prone to. Nor can Washington expect that they can create a protectorate over ten million people in Belgrade, with three others they already existing in the Balkans: Macedonia, Albania and Bosnia. Knowing the proportions of American ignorance about Sloba, Serbs and Albanians, I expect ten terrible days for Serbia. Somebody will remain over, as the elders used to say. But this price that we are forced to pay - in order to admit that NATO is huge, that it has a thousand airplanes, that Kosovo should become a foreign protectorate, until it chooses independence in three years, that price presents a fire that Serbia has willfully laid itself upon. I wish that we didn't have to come to a situation where we have to experiment with our ultimate limits of suffering and sacrifice. But, I have no choice either!

Slavko

    On Easter Sunday, Slavko Curuvija was murdered. This man from Lika was founder of the first private newspaper in the Serbia; first owner whose paper was banned; first editor convicted to prison; first journalist killed in Serbia. That is a monument! He was a greater Serb from those who killed him. Serbs can kill on any other day except Easter.

Aleksandar Tijanic