>Louis, > Which would suggest that the revocation of >autonomy by Milosevic is a legitimate action for >them to be upset about. They were upset before revocation. They were upset after it. They were upset by social and economic differences between Kosovo and the rest of Yugoslavia. Nothing could have been done to mollify them, once the spark of secessionism set in. >It is true that there was >preferential treatment of the Albanians in Kosmet >from 1974-1990, the period of autonomy. But I >would not say that there was ever particularly an >"atmosphere of tolerance and good will" between >the Serbs and Albanians in Kosmet. Yes, the Albanians seemed unwilling to treat Serbs, Montenegrins and other minorities decently. Although I thought there was no need for me to point that out. >The preferential >treatment was imposed from above by Tito. Certainly >there was a reasonably progressive attitude coming >from him, and one that was pretty aware of the subtleties >and difficulties of the situation in the region. I am preparing a longer article on this, but Tito's role is troubling, as one might suspect. During WWII, the fascist rulers of Kosovo expelled 100,000 Serbs but Tito refused to allow them re-entry once he took power. > Certainly what happened in Guatamala was naked >racism. But the Kurds are the same race as the Turks, last >time I checked. Barkley, the Kurds speak a different language. The brutality revolves around forced assimilation linguistically. > BTW, the Kurds are >getting repressed by all the nations in the neighborhood, >irrespective of their ideology, nominally socialist as in Syria >and Iraq, nominally Islamic capitalist as in Iran, or just plain >Kemalist state capitalist as in Turkey. Historical and politically >economic enough for you? >Barkley Rosser Sheer obfuscation. Kurds face discrimination everywhere they turn, especially working-class Kurds. Their traditional clothing, their language, their names mark them as outcasts. They suffer economically the way that American blacks do. That is why Kurdish nationalism is progressive, by the way. It has the same class dynamic as Irish and black nationalism. Louis Proyect (http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)
