Date: Wed, 11 Mar 1998 20:45:01 +0100 From: Hugh Rodwell <m-14970-AT-mailbox.swipnet.se> Subject: M-TH: Burying the dead -- still a live issue in Kosova The arrogance and brutality of the Serb chauvinist thugs -- already revealed in complete clarity in Bosnia, with systematic mass rape, torture and murder of Muslims and other opponents -- is repeating itself in Kosova. In the light of our discussions of Greek drama on the list we can link some of the actions and implications thousands of years back to the conflict between an arrogant state represented by Kleon and family rights represented by Antigone. This area of Europe has a fanatical attachment to family honour, vendetta, blood feuds and so on. In neighbouring Macedonia there are still festivals in honour of the dead where the family gathers on the grave and eats in ritual nourishment of the dead. I know this very well because a friend I made on a bus trip back from Belgrade to Stockholm -- a young, handsome, well-built, curly-headed Swedish DJ -- told me about his adventures in Bitola. Everyone went to the graveyard with picnic baskets, and there was intense competition among the matrons to get him to join their group so they could stuff him with goodies. Why? He was a proxy for the dead -- his health and appetite were imparted to the shades. So what do the Milosevic' butchers do? They throw the bodies of their victims in plastic sacks into a shed -- men, women and children -- and tell the villagers that if they don't claim the dead and bury them at once they'll dump them in a mass grave. Now the living have two reasons to hate the butchers for this. One is the risk of arrest on claiming the bodies, as everyone is insolently inspected by the goons. The other is the wish for an impartial post mortem to be performed on the bodies so that justice can be wreaked on the perpetrators of the massacre. Who gets to dispose of the bodies as they think fit?? Today's version of Antigone comes to us courtesy of Greater Serb nationalism in the true master race tradition. Stop the killing! Serbian troops out! No imperialist involvement -- No EU, No UN, No NATO! Full national rights for Kosova! For a constitutional assembly! Hugh --- from list marxism-thaxis-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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