Date: Tue, 28 Nov 1995 14:10:33 -0500 (EST)
From: "Bryan A. Alexander" <bnalexan-AT-umich.edu>
Subject: Re: The working class and the war in Yugoslavia


Watching Clinton last night was a fascinating exercise in rhetoric - the 
way he managed to use the images of agony in Bosnia to support his 
cynical adventurism was textbook quality.

Bryan Alexander
Department of English
University of Michigan
**********************

On Mon, 27 Nov 1995, Mauro junior wrote:

> At 11.23 17/11/95 -0500, you wrote:
> 
> >Second, the Bosnian experiment in multiethnic statism seems to me to have 
> >been the most fruitful for class revolt.  Its success made a 
> >nationalist-fascistic hijacking of workers' struggle less likely.  It was 
> >- and is - hardly nationalist.  Third, as for what to do now - all I can 
> >argue for is the usual massive international revolt against the elites 
> >now in charge of the states of the West Balkans.
> >	Thanks again for the intelligent post.  Hope we can talk again.
> 
> Mauro jr:
> maybe you got wrong informations about Bosnian rulers. De facto, they are
> not less reactionary and nationalists than the others. Every and any
> newspaper and radio not aligned with the government has been shut down; the
> "war-status" politics is dominating the civil life in Sarajevo and elsewhere. 

	This is misleading.  First of all, it's been damn hard to publish 
anything at all in Sarajevo or elsewhere do to appalling material 
conditions - where will you get toner when you can't get fresh water?  
Second, I've read many publications that were strongly critical of 
Izetbegovich, ranging from FAMA volumes to Sarajevo's leading daily.  I 
don't see what sort of nationalism is at work, since the very concept and 
practice of Bosnia is based on national plurality.

> A question arise: why they are apparently not-nationalist and
> pro-multiethnic? It's simple, for me: Itzbegovic, muslim, knows very well
> that they are a minority, strong as you want, but minority and to be for a
> mono-ethnic state would have worked very badly in the usual politics of such
> rulers: to keep the power they had as communits (of the Federal League) in
> the new forms they choosed.

	Hard to disprove this without supporting evidence - and hard to 
support, too.  Izetbegovic's books support multiethnicity, but this could 
be a cynical gesture as well.


 And perhaps he knows also that his "nation" is a
> ideological crime made by Tito, and it would have hardly gained the support
> of the "international concert".

	Which crime are you referring to?  I'm not sure I follow.

> The muslims are the Slaves of the South who embraced the religion of the
> Turcs when they ruled Bosnia, Montenegro and Macedonia. Have the occupant
> Turcs mantained in 4 centuries their ethnical presence in Bosnia? Don't
> joke. The very few Turcs, with pure Turc ancestry are some hundreds families
> in the most out-of-the way villages on the mountains; the other muslims are
> South Slaves with one of the three religions poisoning that people. Nothing
> more and nothing less. 

	Bosnian Muslims have had a clearly defined cultural idenity for 
centuries, with elements in architecture, painting, literature, dress, 
food, etc.   Again, I'm not sure I understand your point, so I'm trying 
my best.

> The orrible task of Tito was hard but just on the ideological, political
> ground of the solid (at those moments) Federation. (BTW, what have some
> subscribers to say about such progressive, market-socialist,
> democratic-socialist move by Tito?)

	Folks have said little.  Why don't you go ahead?  Dennis Rusinow 
told me he thought worker ownership in Yugoslavia had a chance at 
long-term success, but for the debilitating presence of the 
nomenklatura.  He's no Marxist, mind, but it is an opinion worth discussing.

> The task of building an independent Nation-State of Muslims would have been
> much more hard, and in any case, it would have been a three village state
> (Sarajevo excluded).

	And that's what we'll have now, a Serb Republic, a de facto Croat 
extension of the Croat Republic, and a splattering of Muslims.

> Do you agree?

Not in all things, clearly!
> rev. greetings
> 
> Mauro Junior
> Tel  (-39)02/35.51.275 fax (-39)02/33.200.101
> 

Thanks again -
> 
> 
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