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AMERICA'S WAR AGAINST MUSLIM TERRORISTS
A WAR THAT THE ORTHODOX SERBS HAVE BEEN FIGHTING FOR YEARS
by
Sandy Marquette
September 23, 2001
Imagine what it must
be like now for Serbian-Americans and American Serbs. I can and have often
in the past 10 years. Now, with the issue forced for real on American
soil, the Serbian issue takes on even deeper meaning.
I love this
country, America. I love it more now, and appreciate it more now, than
ever before. I've grown less and less tolerant of Anti-Americanism over
the years, despite my education and some of those around me teaching and
preaching at me that America is flawed and that she does not deserve the blind
faith and allegiance she has been afforded for so long by so many of her
citizens. The last ten years have put American Serbdom in an especially
difficult dilemma, for when America turned against her one loyal and true ally
in the Balkans, loyalties and faith became tested and challenged.
Two years ago, American
led NATO began bombing the Serbs, after years of sanctions and demonization and
lies and punishments leveled against the Serbian people. Years
after the undercutting and undermining of sincere Serbian efforts to do the
right thing by their people and their country, and in many cases, by their faith
and by God. Suddenly, being an American Serb or Serbian American
posed a very real problem. It was as if suddenly you had to take
sides, and no matter which side you took there was the guilt of being a
betrayer. The NATO war against the Serbs in the former Yugoslavia was
a war against people like me, too. And now there is the irony of America's
war not against the Serbs, but those very same enemies the Serbs have been
struggling against for years.
Two years ago, I sat at a
desk in the office where I worked and listened to a co-worker, a young man who'd
been in the American military, tell his friend on the phone that what
America needed to do was "carpet bomb" them, the Serbs...to level Belgrade....to
finish the job. And I listened to him remark about Madeleine
Albright and how great she was, because she knew how to get the job
done. I couldn't take it. I told him that I'd love to see him get
sent over there, to Muslim territory in Yugoslavia and see how he'd like
it...that these Muslims he was supporting would be more than happy to lay him
out on the grill and have a picnic....
My boss at the time, a
young man who didn't much care about Bosnia or Kosovo or Serbs or much of
anything else over there, recognized that there was a problem in his office and
called his lawyer. After the talk with the lawyer, he called a meeting of
the entire staff of the office and informed us that this issue was not to
be discussed in his office ever again, not on company time or on company
property. My fellow employees, some of whom had suddenly come to see
me as a "foreigner" who was impinging on their "American civil
rights", listened as he dictated the new rules. One spoke up, and
while looking directly at me, reminded my boss that this was America and
couldn't people say what they wanted? My boss answered with: "This may be
America, but this right here is my office and those rights don't apply."
I would not have to listen
to fellow employees talk about what America should do to the Serbs to "finish
the job" anymore after that. But it was in the air. And the
next day, a few of the guys, to make their own statement in their own way,
brought little American flag lapel pins and placed them on the desks of everyone
in the office, except for me. I was no longer an "American" in their
eyes.
That same Spring of 1999, the
Spring of the bombing, a Serb who was looking to get citizenship in this
country, America, by hook or by crook and using whatever means he could
manipulate to get that privilege, challenged me when I protested his vitrol
against the Americans. Here he was, a Serb who had manipulated his
way into America and who had manipulated his way into staying
here after coming within a hairsbreadth of being deported back to the
homeland he had escaped from, now suddenly laying down the line about
loyalty. He yelled, "Are you an American or a Serb!" It was
then that it was brought home to me. To hear an American beating down the
Serbs made me a Serb. To hear a Serb beating down the Americans made me an
American.
Now, two years
later, though I knew what the Serbian reaction would inevitably be upon the
tragic events of September 11, 2001, when the heart of America learned firsthand
about what was in the heart of the Muslim terrorists, I also knew that I would
not accept any Serbian reaction that celebrated that day. I did
not, nor will I ever want, to hear any Serb saying that America got what was
coming to her and that she deserved it on account of what had been done to the
Serbs. That would hurt too much and would make me too
angry. Angry enough to forget all about that fact that it was completely
understandable given what had been done to the Serbs all these years, and
so unrighteously so. I guess then that this makes me an
American.
What I am thinking now is
that somehow I hope the Americans realize that the war they are now waging is
the very same war the Serbs have been waging. The Serbs recognized who the
bad guys were on their own soil and they tried to do something about
it. Unfortunately, unlike the Americans, they did not have so much
of the world on their side and all the resources and means at their
disposal to get the job done. Instead, not only did the Serbs have to
struggle against the enemy and fight them under the harshest of circumstances,
those who should have been their allies in that struggle turned against them
instead and punished them for their efforts.
I hope this will be the wake up
call. I hope that America concedes that the Muslim terrorists they
have been aiding and abetting in the former Yugoslavia are the same Muslim
terrorists who have been aided and abetted by the Osama bin Ladens of the
world, and for whom bin Laden is not the villain, but the hero. I
hope the Americans realize just how badly they screwed up in taking sides
against the Serbs. I hope they realize that the Serbs have been fighting
the very same war against the very same enemy that America now finds itself
facing down.
I'm no fan of Slobodan
Milosevic. He's not a victim in my eyes. But an injustice has been
done, and wouldn't it be funny now if suddenly Milosevic was released from the
Hague. For all of his flaws, Slobodan Milosevic understood who the enemy
was, and he tried to do something about it. And he was right in what
he was trying to do. Maybe now, America will think about that in
determining her policy towards the Serbs and the Albanians and the Bosnian
Muslims, and recognize that maybe, just maybe, Milosevic was fighting this very
same war that America is now faced with. He was fighting this war,
however, on Serbian land, where instead of specific targets being
decimated, the desecration was perpetrated on churches, monasteries, homes, and
civilians throughout the land.
I can almost see it now. They
are recognizing that Osama bin Laden got a whole lot of help from the Bosnian
Muslims and the Albanians, and that they got a whole lot of help from him in
their war against the Serbs. In light of all this, it isn't so
farfetched to imagine that come one day soon, it will be determined that there
"just isn't enough evidence" against Mr. Milosevic or any of the other Serbian
fighters who now await trial for "crimes against humanity," and that these
"Serbian war criminals" will be released. I don't know. Maybe it is
farfetched, because then the Americans would have to face the world with
the admission that they made a huge error in judgment. That they took the
wrong side.
I am an
American. I'm getting worse in my patriotism. I tolerate
Anti-Americanism less and less. I can only hope that doesn't make me less
of a Serb. And though it is wrong and ignorant of me, I am glad that now
the world is taking a whole new look at who the "bad guy" is, and that it is the
Muslims who are having to concern themselves with demonization and prejudice and
the consequences of being a certain nationality or religious faith, and with
being the target of world condemnation. I can only hope
that this attitude does not make me less of an American or a Christian.
Right or wrong, good or bad,
there is one thing I know to be true, whether as an American or as a Serb.
The Serbs knew who the bad guy was.
Copyright Sandy Marquette 2001
Chicago, IL U.S.A.
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