Financial Times (London) May 3, 1999, Monday USA EDITION 2 The Milosevic legacy: PERSONAL VIEW DOMINIQUE MOISI: The Serbian president cannot win the war against an alliance of Nato and Hollywood. And in defeat he may become a reluctant founding father of a reconstructed Europe "The world must be made safe for democracy . . . the right is more precious than peace." President Woodrow Wilson's words to the US Congress in April 1917 sound more modern than ever. A month into the military operations against Serbia, one thing is clear: Nato may not have won the battle on the ground, but Slobodan Milosevic has already lost the war of images. The Yugoslav president is fighting not only Nato but Hollywood, from Stephen Spielberg to Roberto Benigni. The millions of western viewers who have seen Schindler's List or Life is Beautiful cannot bear to watch, live and direct on CNN, images of suffering in the Balkans. An American friend of mine with a senior job at the state department in Washington summarised for me the feelings of most Americans: "My folks in California may not place Kosovo on a map, but in Europe in 1999 they do not want to see people forced into sealed trains." Historical memories refreshed by the power of cinema and reinforced by lingering guilt have created strong public support for the pursuit of the war in spite of the unfortunately unavoidable numerous "collateral damages" taking place. We may not know what we are doing, but we are doing it together. Bill Clinton, Tony Blair and Jacques Chirac may disagree on tactics but increasingly they use the same words to define the conflict: "The struggle between democracy and barbarism." The west is united by common values and emotions, which transcend traditional concerns over sovereignty in the case of France or a reluctance to use force in the case of Germany. This consensus is strong and is likely to last. But there are limits to it. The same images that mobilise opinion constrain the way we conduct the war. Mikhail Gorbachev's warning in 1989 to Erich Honecker, the East German president, on the eve of the fall of the Berlin wall - "He who comes late is punished by history" - could well apply to Mr Milosevic. Shrewd and brutal tactician though he may be, he is a figure from the past moving from defeat to defeat. Compared with the Soviet Union under Stalin, Mr Milosevic's Serbia is a minor threat: but it is nevertheless a great evil and a real challenge, one that is difficult to explain to non-westerners. They are quick to denounce what they perceive as selective moral outrage. What was the west doing when massacres were taking place in Cambodia or central Africa? Is the life of a European, even if he is a Moslem, more precious than that of an Asian or an African? Yet selective emotions are preferable to universal indifference or cynicism. The war in Kosovo is not only a metaphor for the 20th century, an accelerated summary of our history; it constitutes for the US, for Nato and above all for Europe, a defining moment. What price is the US willing to pay to maintain its status as the sole international superpower? Can an alliance such as Nato, with its global ambitions, afford to fail to solve regional problems? For Europe, the challenge is even more fundamental: the war in Kosovo is transforming our perception of ourselves and our vision of our future - and not only in geographic terms. Europe hoped the birth of the euro would slowly give it a sense of identity, but Kosovo may prove more important. Bereft of the Soviet threat, unable to respond as one to the challenge of American hegemony, could Europe find in the Balkans what it is looking for: an emotional rallying point, a test of its democratic ideals? Impoverished, chaotic Albania has become more part of Europe than many of its more developed, modern or democratic neighbours. Suddenly, Brussels' economic criteria seem temporarily irrelevant. A Europe of values is emerging. Emotion and politics on a grand scale, forces discarded as superfluous, if not dangerous, by our politicians and bureaucrats, once again dominate the agenda. To be European has taken on a new, yet familiar, meaning: namely, the refusal to tolerate ethnic cleansing on our continent. The Serbs have total control over the lives of thousands of Kosovars and, acting on the dark impulses of their romantic nationalism, they have abused their rights. But we should see them as victims -of their own delusion, of the Milosevic regime and of their past. Europe will end up with the Serbia it deserves, much as in 1945 it defeated, then had to find a way to reintegrate, Germany. After the second world war, the US led the physical and moral reconstruction of Europe, and as we enter the 21st century Washington continues to play a decisive and positive role. But the European Union, a junior partner in the war for military reasons, will have to take the lead in the diplomatic, moral and economic reconstruction of a post-Milosevic region. Moscow must be closely involved too, but a legitimate concern for Russia should not be mistaken for an excuse to do nothing. So let us not delude ourselves: we will win, with or without ground troops, because this is a war we cannot afford to lose and because the Serbs deep down must know they cannot triumph as long as the west, convinced of the justness of its cause, remains steadfast and united. Perhaps Mr Milosevic will one day be remembered as an unwilling and perverse founding father of Europe. The author is deputy-director of the Paris-based Institut Francais des Relations Internationales and editor of Politique Etrange're. He writes here in a personal capacity. © 1999, LEXIS®-NEXIS®, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All Rights Reserved. At 04:05 PM 5/18/99 -0700, you wrote: >>Further doubt cast on US claims of genocide in Kosovo >> >> By Martin McLaughlin >> 18 May 1999 >> >>Hillary Clinton, during a visit to Kosovar Albanian refugees in >>Macedonia, said their suffering reminded her of Schindler's List and >>Sophie's Choice, both of which concern the Nazi mass murder of the >>Jews. > >Pop culture definition of suffering: sitting through a boring movie. >Pop culture definition of genocide: sitting through two boring movies. > >regards, > >Tom Walker >http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/covenant.htm > Louis Proyect (http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)
