Anti-Western sentiment dominant among popular masses
The last Serbian elections showed a net polarisation. On one side there are the anti-Western forces led by the Radical Party (SRS) which remains by far the strongest party. Then there is still the Socialist Party (SPS) which could once again surpass the 5% threshold. Together they represent the popular classes. On the other had there is the pro-Western governmental so-called “Democratic” bloc which led the counter-revolution against the Milosevic government in the interest of imperialism. The main result of the election was that within the Western bloc the completely pro-Western Democratic Party (DS) gained to the detriment of the bourgeois nationalist Kostunica.
The profiteers of neo-capitalism and neo-colonialism – and those who hope to become it – do not want to continue Kostunica’s double game between the lines. They want a full submission to the West in order to become a normalised part of imperialist Europe like the rest of Eastern Europe.
The point of crystallisation of the popular opposition is the national question of Kosovo and the Serbian-populated territories in the other former republics of Yugoslavia. But behind this insistence on the right to self-determination is hidden an opposition against neo-colonialist plunder and savage capitalism. While not clearly articulated, national sovereignty is connected with the vague wish of a development model different to the one imposed by imperialist capitalism.
Both the Socialist Party of Milosevic as well as the Radical Party of Sjeselj are continuously being denigrated by the West and its media machine as ultra-nationalists and Serbian chauvinists longing for a Greater Serbia and oppressing all the other nationalities. Actually their demands were not different to those of the other nationalities, namely the right to self-determination. Why Croats get conceded this right and Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia are denied this right?
There is only one reason: Serbia inherited the tradition of Yugoslavia which was a product of an anti-imperialist revolution! While all the other nationalities allied itself to imperialism, the Serb people remained defiant. Everywhere around the world those who resist imperialism are being punished and slandered.
Unfortunately this has not been understood by most of the resistance movements and mainly the Arab-Islamic one. For them it remains and inexplicable enigma why the West supported the Muslims of Bosnia.
The problem of Bosnia
We do not want to deny the atrocities committed. What we categorically deny is that the clear attribution of guilt to the Serb side. As it was a war for territorial control in a completely mixed society it necessarily had to lead to what was called ethnic cleansing. Why the Croat and Muslim claim was more legitimate than the Serbian one? From a democratic point of view they must be equal. So the problem is the concept of territorial self-determination supported by the West. Despite the communitarian conflicts the Yugoslav concept of a common state of all nationalities and confessions was and still is the only viable.
Some derive the legitimacy of the Croat and Muslim claim for independence from being oppressed. We doubt that their status could be called oppressed in comparison with really oppressed people like the Palestinians by Zionism or the Kurds by Turkish chauvinism. Fair enough, oppression is something subjective and it is true that by the successive dismantlement also the multi-national and multi-confessional character of Yugoslavia damaged tending towards a Serb one. But this has got mutual reasons and there is no clear oppressor-oppressed relation.
Meanwhile the prime fact is evident: the main obstacle for liberation is imperialism. So only those movements for self-determination who fight against imperialism are genuine ones. This is why the anti-imperialists across the world who strive for the unification of all the resistance movements had to support first of all Yugoslavia and later the Serb people’s struggle against NATO.
Gordian knot Kosovo
The situation in Kosovo is similar as the province used to be populated by the completely mixed up Serbs and Albanians for centuries. From a democratic point of view both people are entitled to the same rights. Thus a historically sustainable solution can only be conceived of Yugoslav type with an entity with two titular nations.
There remains, however, the fact that the Albanians affiliated with NATO volunteering to become imperialism’s cannon fodder while the Serbs fought against the common enemy of the oppressed. Therefore the Serb popular resistance to surrender Kosovo got an anti-imperialist character and it is not by accident that it is Serbia where one can find the strongest popular opposition against Western imperialism throughout entire Europe (maybe with the exception of the Basque country).
Serb popular mythology draws a straight line from the struggle against the Ottoman, the Habsburg, the Nazi and now the US empire. Actually in this respect there are even right. Their problem is to associate this secular struggle with the defence of “Christian Occident”. In today’s global context this means nothing less than to claim affiliation to imperialism and its crusade against Islam. This is doubtlessly a chauvinist aspect which we cannot support.
The former Yugoslavia exemplifies the contradictions at work between the focuses of the anti-imperialist popular movements. It is the task of the global anti-imperialist movement to help to build a bridge emphasising the universal principles within the struggle against the common enemy which is popular power and social justice.
Anti-imperialist Camp
February 2007
