FROM TERRITORY TO PEOPLE : NATIONS ADRIFT.
Louis Dalmas
Publisher and Editor-in-chief
Balkans-infos
(20/3 - 2/4/2001)
Our western political thought is being skewed by an odd
perversion. In the absence of anything more apt, it could be given a
somewhat
torturous definition as its own "ethnification" or
"ethnisitation." In the thought that dominates our Euro-american world,
with its Near Eastern and
African fringes, the focus is entirely on the component peoples,
their histories, their rights, their conditions and their claims.
The "right of selfdetermination" has his roots in anti-Colonialism
meant to break-up the huge British, French, German, and other empires
exploiting vast surfaces of the globe for their own profit. The
supporters of "selfdetermination" did not struggle for the freedom of
any specific
ethnicity. Instead, they sought to do away with the yoke on the
backs of all the populations under foreign occupation.
This is an important distinction. It is based on the difference
between Population and People, two terms all two often simply
interchanged. A
population is represented by the totality of inhabitants within a
given territory. It has nothing to do with kin ties or who "belongs" to
whom. Here
the only frame of reference is the soil (territorial dominance
after the Latin jus solis). When it comes to People the reference shifts
to ethnicity
-with its past, its culture, its language, and its uniqueness. As
is frequently reiterated, blood is here the defining element (from Latin
jus
sanguinus). It is an abbreviated construct devoid of felicity. It
induces dangerous value judgements about "purity" and "impurity". It
does,
however, have one advantage, namely its distinction from the soil.
The "right of self-determination" was attached traditionally to
territorial Populations as a right to freedom and independence. It was
not one
confined to particular Peoples in recognition of their
specificities. It is only in recent times, following the end of two
World Wars, and after the
dissolution of colonial empires, that this "right" became strictly
"ethnicised." It was no longer a right of oppressed Populations, not
even of
Peoples with boundaries hard to establish. It became instead the
right transferred clearly to well defined communities. The right of the
Peoples
transmuted into a Cult of Minorities.
Many things have contributed to this change. The war, with endless
processions of patriotic stimuli, dealt some terrible blows to the
humanistic
ideals of world citizenship. The fall of Communism undermined the
universality of the workers' international solidarity.
"Internationalism" once
perceived as a noble fraternal undertaking to harmonize the Planet
Earth, gave way to a financial neo-Colonialism of an American superpower
which engenders a variety of local resistances to its hegemony.
The progress of technology, combined with a virtual monopoly over
the means of communication and the requirements of economic domination,
served to accelerate social inequalities. In turn, this reinforced
the feeling of alienation and impotence in the common man. The net
result is an
increasing need to connect with "roots", to belong to a group, to
find one's identity within the anonymous mass. Defenders of the
Multinationals
and champions of Europe's unification continuously underrate the
diversity of langages which acts to consolidate social fragmentation.
Attempts
at Esperanto have all failed while the English language as yet to
conquer the totality of our universe. The ferment of separatist
semantics is all the
more active because well-intentioned imbeciles are promoting
revivals of idioms, dialects and folkloric patois which provide for yet
another
process of atomization.
The Great Religions have also had a role to play. The most
aggressive ones are on continuous proselytising missions seeking to
transcend the
spiritual space in order to enhance their temporal power. The
simplest way to attain this is to become The Religion of a particular
group. By
appropriating its cultural patrimony, the Great Religion
encapsulates it into a dogmatism of the Faithful as It jealously
protects against the
influences of infidel thought. All of this empowers a particular
ethnic group to the detriment of the broader humanity. To this must be
added an
item of cultural evolution, namely the Cult of Minorities.
Inspired and justified by respect for empowerment itself, it acquired
the right to be
different, the right to communitarianism. To put it another way,
this amounts to a moral obligation to subscribe to ethnic-subdivisions
of a
society. Having a preference for that which divides over a unitary
humanity is breaking-up into separatist islets, homogeneous and
impenetrable,
falling back ever more on the "ethnically pure" and imagined
themselves.
By espousing terrorism the Cult of Minorities has created its own
"ethnicised" slippery slope. Initially, terrorist acts had social
content. Their
perpetrators recommended themselves as fighters against injustice.
They invoked the absolute necessity for violent and timely anarchy in
order
to change society. Incrementally, this social demand gave way to a
political claim as the struggle continues to secure recognition of a
group. The
terrorist themselves have become "fighters" perceived alternately
as criminals or heroes yet soldiers of an army. After the Israelis under
British
occupation, the Kurds, the Basques, the Irish, the Chechins, the
Palestinians and the Albanians have given terrorism a new face. It is
the face of
self-proclaimed representatives of a would-be impoverished People
that can only be heard through a resort to bombs. The braves of yore and
the Robin Hoods, all isolated marginals meting out selective
justice, have been replaced by militarised extremists engaged in a
clandestine war
put together in the name of patriotic objectives.
The risks involved in this "ethnisation" of modern geo-strategy
are obvious. The introduction and practical application of value
judgements tops
the list. In a world broken-up into ethnicities -especially when
these are confounded with religion- there is strong temptation to show
distinct
preference for some but downgrade others. Thus, molded by
politics, circumstances and opinions, the behaviour (and even the very
existence)
of certain ethnicities is contested while others are viewed with
favor. We are at the Gate of Racism taking roots in ethnicity. As soon
as there is
reference to a People, in essence a particular variety of
individuals issuing from the same collective "stock", it becomes
patently easy to qualify it
by attributing virtues and vices in accordance with specifics
interests and stands. Here, race comes to the fore. Chosen or
Persecuted, as the
case may be, it comes along with unacceptable excesses egged-on by
this type of conception. The collective guilt assigned to "the Serbs" is
a
case in point, trumpeted by the International Community since the
start of the Balkan crisis. This was the first large-scale manifestation
of racism
since the Jewish Holocaust.
The Cult of Minority's dominance within contemporary political
thought is in full view. Yet, one can also see that it can be
manipulated in turn.
Thus, for example, had the Cult been followed across the board in
ex-Yugoslavia, there would now be a mini-state of "Srpska Krajina."
Instead, more than 250 000 ethnic Serbs had been "cleansed" out of
Krajina in a single month, with both direct and indirect help of the
West.
Similarly, there has been much talk about severing completely
Kosovo from Yugoslavia in support of its ethnic Albanian minority's
"right to
self-determination." In contrast, hardly anyone in the West
advocates seriously a partition of Kosovo to accommodate its Serb
minority's "right
to self-determination" as well. Such asymmetries represent the
tell-tale sign of manipulation.
Religious fanaticism presents yet another danger. The very
isolation of religious communities increases among its members the need
to share in a
spirituality which bonds them. The common Faith becomes a cemented
shield for a group finding itself amid strangers, more often than not
hostile as well. This, in turn, leads to calls on Religion to
protect. Given its natural penchant for the conquest of power, the
Religion is only too
happy to oblige through its clergy and spokesmen. The result is
the identification with and inseparability of Religion and People. The
spiritual and
temporal controls of a community doubly endow its political claims
with combat on behalf of Gold, producing oftentimes the delirious
intensity of
Righteousness.
One last evil consequence consists of the inversion of values,
confusion of ideas and the imprecision of words. The last decade of
events in the
Balkans, especially in Yugoslavia, has been most revealing in this
respect. Here, the "ethnic" approach literally burned-up all the
analyses. There
was even an incoherent start with the beginning of the Nineties.
Initial secessions from The Yugoslav Federation were viewed uniformly as
Population movements (understood as "ethnic" ones). False finding.
The Slovenes, the Croats, the Bosnians (originally Croats or Serbs and
Muslims only through Religious espousal) and the Serbs -all being
Slavs- have been distinguishable solely by belonging to Catholicism,
Orthodox Religion or to Islam. Over-ridden by the prevailing dogma
of minority rights, this fundamental truth did not prevent the
International
Community from recognizing "new" nations in the same of justice
due to People in the process of gaining "freedom from Serb domination."
The
ensuing conflict at Kosovo and the recent ripping apart of
Macedonia have had the effect of reinforcing this point of view and all
the more so
since it has been served as an "ethnic" confrontation between the
Serbs and the Albanians, two "enemy" Peoples "since times immemorial."
Various newscasters and commentators have not even been able to
grasp the inversion of their own values. They speak all the time of
pluralism
and multi-ethnicity as determining values without a sense of
reality which is precisely the opposite. Thanks to western policy, every
"People" its
to have is own country, what with : Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia
sub-divided into Rapublika Srpska and Croato-Muslim Federation (about to
split
in turn), Kosovo, a Serbia which may soon be severed from
Vojvodina and Sandzak, the Greater Albania of tomorrow, and a Macedonia
as a
moiety, without mentioning the Czech and Slovak Republics or the
dismantling of the Soviet Union -the Europe is witnessing the birth of a
bevy
of nations which are the most "ethnically pure" of the Continent.
Some furthers particular need clarification due to a confusion of
terms. A distinction has already been made between Populations and
Peoples.
It becomes necessary now to take a closer look at what are the
Nation, Nationality, Citizenship and State.
Let us start with nationality. Its ambiguity derives from the fact
that in contemporary usage it designates the belonging to a constituent
Nation. It
is thus said that one is "of French, or German, or Italian
nationality" to attest that one is a citizen of France, Germany or
Italy. This is an all too
facile use of language which fails to consider the particular
status of Nations and States, one which is at fault in assimilating
nationality and citizen
ship. As citizenship defines to which State one belongs,
nationality has a more blurred connotation. It can go as far as to
designate the belonging
to a Religion, just as in ex-Yugoslavia with an existing Muslim
State having its own nationals. Besides, within the Federal Yugoslavia
of
yesterday, hostilities between nationalities and republics were
exacerbated by the Great Powers to end in secessions with their own
grotesque
attempts at differentiation. Such has been the practice of
linguistics separatisms involving the Croat and Macedonian languages
severed from the
Serb. It reminds one of trying to separate French from the
Quebecois, the Bruxellois or the Valaisan.
With the "ethnicist" evolution, nationality has prevailed over
citizenship, evoking rather the People and not the State. There are now
Scottish,
Basque, Corsican, Catalan, Palestinian, Chechin or Kurdish
Nationalities. As of now, there is not much credible talk in France
about the
Proven�ale, Bretonne, or Savoyarde nationalities. These will not
be late in coming along, however. The principal reason behind the
"ethnisation"
of nationality is relatively simple : leaders of minorities that
labor at national promotions, as well as those who support them, know
that the
"ethnic" word evokes the idea of a Nation. By baptizing it as
nationality they anticipate the future of their community. Their
objective is to
transform it into a Nation. By labelling themselves as
"nationalists" they patent respectability.
The newly arriving nationalisms have encountered some rather
different estimations. In concert with their habits, their intellectuals
sublimate
mainly with the most distant aspects ; the politician praises
those who brings their voters who can elect ; the governments, on the
other hand,
encourage those obstructing other countries by repressing those
apt to spread troubles at home. In connection with the ex-Yugoslavia
there is
the need to mention, at least in passing, the role of bad faith
which has helped the International Community to support all of the local
nationalisms, from the Slovene separatists to the Albanian
terrorists. The sole exception relates to a falsely depicted.
"Greater-Serbia" Belgrade,
roundly condemned and "doomed to end in failure."
The State itself is an administrative and political entity
incorporating its members as citizens. This basic definition of
principle does not contain
even the slightest hint of ethnicity. The citizens can be of
different nationalities reflecting a variety of Peoples. Inversely, a
federated Nation can
envelop all the citizens of States in the Federal structure,
irrespective of their ethnic origins. The method of making such a
structure possible is of
rather slight consequence. Its essential feature is that the State
and the citizens merge (or should merge) collectively into an
undifferentiated and
purely juridical system of governance in which the same Law
applies to all. That at least, is the theory. In practise the
solidification of minorities
(perceived as the discovery of "self" by some and as subversion by
others) has been instrumental in introducing discriminations within the
citizenry as an integral part of the ways in which certain States
actually function. As a result, the fundamental neutrality of the system
of
government goes out of the window. As our premier and most beloved
comic of France, Coluche, used to say, "We are all equal but there are
some who are more equal than others." The State is confounded with
nationality or a single People to the detriment of a segment of its
constituents. It is sad to have to note that the actual
"ethnicist" evolution thus impels the State to betray its mission.
Finally, the Nation is a collective shaped by history, geography
and culture which are its flesh while the State provides the bones
alone. The
richer the Nation's past, the less it is prone to see itself
reduced as a representation of a single People. That has been the case
of all the Great
Nations of Europe, including Yugoslavia, that have been able to
reassemble their diversities within a Population consisting of various
ethnicities
occupying the same territorial space. In this arrangement it is
the soil that acquires primacy over the blood. State structures can be
different :
Confederations, Federations, Centralist States, Regional
Autonomies. Yet these are all reunited in a single enabling construct
which
agglomerates, integrates and assimilates through a common language
and shared values. The differences are confined to a nook instead of
being
paraded where everyone can see them in spades. The real Nation is,
in effect, a "melting pot" and not a mere assembling of specs.
Such a concept of a polymorphic Nation is contrary to the
prevailing "ethnicist" tendencies. It provides the only barrier against
racist ferments
which generate the abusive cult of Peoples or minorities. This is
so on the sole condition that it upholds its essence, expressed through
total
indifference to origins. The slightest shortfall in this absence
of discrimination immediately justifies all the ethnic claims while
betraying the national
calling which defangs them through a rigorous respect of equality.
If a Nation and a State, as its legally mandated repository, know how to
treat,
without exceptions, in exactly the same manner, all of the
component ethnicities willing to enter into the covenant to insure the
order required for
the very existence of a Nation and State.
All of the already discussed definitions of principles seem to be
reasonably clear on paper but it becomes more difficult to discern them
in the
real world. There are two basics reasons for this, namely
manipulations through propaganda and contradictions in the testimonies.
The most
powerful shaper of public opinion today happens to be unabashed
disinformation. Through progress in technology and communications, it
has
reached the proportions of a totalitarian assault on human
conscience. Given the veneer of "political correctness" it has become
virtually
impossible to recover even a small fragment of truth from the fog
caused by outright lies. We have some idea of this here, at "the
Balkans-info"
journal that this author has kept alive for some five years so
far. It has been a publication devoted to combat the boggling of the
mind in
connection with the drama of the Balkans. During the years as a
professional journalist, I have never seen so many stage-managements,
such
distortions of even basic facts, the high elevations of poison in
both the audio-visual and scribal media, the myriad fakeries and the
parades of
untruths. With total scorn for ordinary decency, "the Serbs" have
been satanized while their adversaries were endowed with virtual
sainthood.
All sorts of pretexts were advanced in order to dismantle
Yugoslavia, to implant military colonies in Bosnia and at Kosovo, and to
bomb Serbia
itself. At the point when the political regime changed hands in
Belgrade, with the lavish support of American dollars, the wretched of
yesterday
became the saints of today. Simultaneously, the West's former
Albanians allies became worrisome as a disruptive element through a
parade of
information items doctored as much in this new sense as they had
been tampered with previously in the older one.
How does one get to some proximity to truth ? Were the Kosovo's
Albanians marginalized, according to their own claims, by the
monopolizing
Serbs ? In order to advertise their presence, did they do right to
boycott the helping hand tendered officially by Belgrade ? Did they
really need
to unleashed a civil war in order to secure their freedoms ? Or,
as the Serbs counter-claim, did they not enjoy the same rights, the same
access
to positions at work and advantages, to the same education at
identical levels of learning ? Were they a deprived minority or a band
of rebels
always more demanding, accepting nothing less than an independence
which would lead, in its wake, to the expulsion of everything considered
"alien" ?
If the Albanians'autonomy was real, if their citizenship was
co-equal, the Serbs had every right to defend themselves against
assassinations and
suppress a terrorism without a leg to stand on. And, in such a
condition, the International Community had no right to intervene under
an
humanitarian pretext of its own making, designed to justify its
bellicose action. Even if the Serbs had not been completely innocent of
the
anti-Albanian bias they were tarred with, there was nothing around
to authorize anyone to wage an illegal war against the Serbs for the
would-be purpose of "re-establishing peace."
Besides, it is worth observing that the realities we had described
throughout the years at "Balkans-info," realities disengaged from a wave
(more
aptly, a Tsunami) of manipulated information and contradictory
testimonies do serve to obviate the unilateral demonization of the
Serbs. More
than that, our findings have obtained a posteriori verifications.
Macedonia is defending itself today against the same Kosovo Liberation
Army
(KLA or UCK in Albanian) that had attacked the Serbs. The only
difference is that the International Community is now allowing to
Skoplje
what it had refused to Belgrade. The would-be heroes of the
national liberation of Kosovo did not transform themselves, between just
yesterday
and today, into dangerous assassins. This is precisely what they
have always been. In turn, this fact reveals that the Serb Army and
police were
absolutely justified to attempt a KLA wipe-out.
It is unfortunate that, again, the ethnic approach brings in its
perverted effects. After championing the causes espoused by the
Slovenes, Croats
and Bosnian Muslims, and after destroying the multi-ethnic
Yugoslav State, the very same Western sorcerer's apprentices have
mounted the
Albanian horse. They never even came to ponder the fact that
Yugoslavia was a model of pluralism. Even at the peak of the
anti-terrorist
repression at Kosovo, the Serbs had not come to denigrate
"Albanity" itself as they pursued the murderers. This is in sharp
contrast to the hate
constantly expressed toward "Serbianity" by the same men. It
cannot be stressed enough that Serbia of today continues to be a refugee
haven
for dozens of different nationalities.
It is probable that the Balkans tragedy of the last decade could
have been avoided with its hundreds of thousands of the dead and the
displaced.
The victims of pillages and expulsions could have been spared the
agonies through a pre-condition. Instead of honoring the pretensions of
the
self-styled Peoples in need of independence, the International
Community needed to take a firm stand at the very start of the
intra-Yugoslav
discussions by declaring that it would not tender its recognition
to any secessionist State of ex-Yugoslavia. Its failure to so do was due
to a
blindness caused by the adulation of minorities.
Having said that, it is necessary to probe a little deeper. If
many of the political heads in the West happen be notoriously
incompetent, especially
in matters affecting foreign affairs, one should not conclude that
all the damages they had caused were involuntary or accidental. Without
bringing-up the fiction of secret cells created by the
all-powerful plotters out to control the world, there remains the
necessity to disconnect from
such a scenario the actual existence of quite real occult plans
and non-admitted goals. Among them, "ethnisation" is not the fruit of
stupidity on
the part of our leaders. Its corresponds to a desire and the will
to bring about regionalisation and tribalization meant to weaken certain
national
centralisms and thus undermine the very structure of a Nation.
In this game, at once secret and formidable, Germany first, with
the United States right behind, hold the top place. In the April 1997
issue of
"Balkans-info," General Pierre Marie Gallois, one of the best
geostrategic specialists, revealed the existence of a "European Center
for the
Study of the Lot of Minorities," financed by the Bonn Government.
It is but one of the agencies which engender and fund special missions
to
various countries of the Continent to gratify Germany's
will-to-power as ruler of Europe and implement it by supporting the
centrifugal forces
among the potential opponents of Germany's Continental hegemony.
It is not a novel enterprise since Nazi Germany had already sided with
the
Breton and Flammand separatists in the course of its occupation of
France. The New Germany pre-empted everyone else in saluting the
Yugoslav secessionists and induced, by its own example, the
international recognition of "new nations" in the process of devouring
the Yugoslav
Federation. During the war in Bosnia, Germany equipped and armed
the Serb adversaries and did exactly the same with the "Kosovo
Liberation Army" (KLA). The lasting nature of German ambition is
self-evident. By helping Peoples to orbit out of Nations, Germany can
decidedly weaken all the rivals. This strategy has undergone a
magisterial and most detailed depiction in a remarkable book penned by
Pierre
Hillard and just published by Fran�ois-Xavier de Guibert. As its
preface-writer Paul-Marie Couteaux describes the contents, they deal
with
"what could well become one of predominant themes in the next few
years." The key here is the Awakening of Ethnic Irredentisms all over
Europe with consequences of a potentially huge reach. All of it is
due to the patient and consistent work of Germany everywhere, so as to
bring
them to life, to fortify and use them for its political aims.
The United States hardly hide their intention to dominate the
World. Their hegemonist policy of Economic and financial Imperialism
emanates
from their current as the sole remaining super-Power. The pillars
supporting this type of Imperialism lead directly into such
internationalized
entities as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the
OSCE, NATO and the Criminal Tribunal at the Hague. It must be admitted
that this lethal American strategy, underpinned, to boot, by the
stupidity and cowardice of its European accomplices, finds itself at the
moment in
a state of complete success in the Balkans. Yugoslavia, the only
state capable of inconveniently standing in its way, has been
dismembered.
Serbia, as the last stumbling-block, has been tossed into the pot
with the rest of Yugoslavia's ex-members, and, one might add, through a
change abundantly subvented by the outgoing Clinton
Administration. All the others have been reduced to the level of
colonial protectorates or
orbiting satellites heavily dependent on the U.S. financial aid.
The new candidates for membership in NATO, that is to say into
supervised
docility and compliance, are slated to enrich America's munitions
and arms makers, by having to deflect and spend financial fortunes in
order to
attain the "NATO standards." The environmental and economic harm
done has already opened up gigantic markets for reconstruction but one
payable in dollars only. New avenues for the transport of oil have
been opened, along with new military bases (like the huge Camp Bondsteel
at
Kosovo), and the encirclement of Russia is now complete. In fact,
Washington rules today over a field of ruins. It will be allowed to
vegetate,
with the acquiescence of Germany and Great Britain, even if this
"partnership" may not be of long duration as rivalry develops between
Germany and the United States.
The most acute angle of this "ethnicist" optic has just been
cleared in connection with the conflict exploding in Macedonia. It
forces our Oracles
into some diversionary acrobatics. For example, Lord David Owen,
who has had a major role in drafting several plans designed to resolve
Yugoslavia's problems, has sounded a clarion call with an article
published in Le Monde (23/3/2001). Under the heading of "Redesigning the
map of the Balkans," he advocates border re-adjustments within the
Balkans Peninsula to coincide with irredentist claims. He has been
closely
seconded by Fareed Zakaria in the Newsweek (2 April 2001) where he
proposes, with cold-blooded detachment, the following devolution :
"It is high time for NATO to come to grips with transfers of power
to every single (ethnic) community that demands it, in Bosnia and
Kosovo,
and perhaps persuade, privately the Macedonian Government to do
the same. The Albanian enclave in Macedonia can easily be detached to
form its own Entity. If, thereafter, the Albanians at Kosovo and
Macedonia wish to unit or stay separate, well, that is their own
business. If the
Bosnian Serbs wish to join Belgrade, good luck. If the Croats wish
to join the New Croatia, mazeltov. From the moment on when all this
takes
place, through negotiation and without bloodshed, what importance,
if any can be attached to all the small statelets bound to surface. The
desirable outcome is that there will be some more seats at the
United Nations." (1)
It is entirely clear where the blind support of Peoples has led so
far. There are now rump States, ethnic "mini-nationalities" and Great
Nations in
a state of degeneration. That was the goal pursued and the result
obtained. Is it at all possible to cope with the present-day mess that
promises
nothing but troubling tomorrows ?
The dream of Universality is now encapsulated in an
internationalism of the New World Order or, to put it differently, in an
Empire of the banks,
the multinationals and American money. Its mirror image is to be
found in an industrialized and monetarised Europe which totally neglects
the
social aspects of imposing such a Continental Union. One possible
opposition to this "Summit Internationalism" is already on its way
through
basic anti-Globalisation movements which are spreading beyond
their mainly local points of response. At the moment, they are corporal,
poorly
organized and politically confused. They do not grasp as yet that
Bov�'s enemies are those of Milosevic as well ; that these are the same
individuals who decide to impose embargoes, who embellish with
poetic license their (military) interventions and diktats and who have
already
bombed Belgrade. Yet, the sheer potential of these contesting
movements is very real. Above all, they have the advantage of being able
to cut
horizontally into the vertical which reflects the people, to
re-discover the separateness of labor and capital. In a word to replace
the ethnic with
the social. It happens to be a moment in time when every communal
body, with its strata of the privileged, comes to disregard the gap
between
those who exploit and the exploited, comes to realise that the
social strata leap across frontiers and puncture the bloated
communitarianism and
its false and conniving attachment to blood. If these movements
can modernize the living tradition of an earlier international
solidarity, if they can
focus on putting the fight against economic injustice ahead of
defending minorities, and if they target imperialism itself, they can
indeed come to
provide serious hope for a better future.
While awaiting for this response to the New World Order to gel,
the safest pillar to rest the resistances on amount to what can be
called an
open concept of the Nation. It is a concept enriched in France
over several centuries through the respective additions of the Monarchy
and the
Revolution. It is the same concept that belongs to ex-Yugoslavia
(one still extant) and which, incidentally, renders the betrayal of
friendship
between the two countries even more reprehensible. If I evoke
France, there is no need to search in this act some sort of patriotic
vanity. The
France of Enlightenment, of equality among her citizens, of a land
open to strangers, guaranteeing the right of sanctuary, the freedom to
secularism, enjoying the structure of a homogenous republic and
the integrity of her natural frontiers - that was, for a long time, a
France that
inspired, as a model, not a few nations. It is a modern concept of
life together which must not be deprived of its vitality either through
chauvinistic phobia against immigrants or the chilly protectionism
of another Era, or, yet, by a blind acceptance of Globalization and the
abandonment of a sovereignty which is essential to independence.
The path between self-enclosure and a too obliging openness is indeed a
narrow one. But, it must be found because this form of a Nation,
with a common patrimony and beyond discrimination, in any form, is the
most
desirable antidote to "ethnisation" and racism. The undertaking
itself will be a difficult one, to be sure. It will be absolutely
necessary to resist at
the same time the sirens of financial internationalism and the
insisting on communitarian claims, to be concerned more with conditions
of life
within Populations than with the interests of particular Peoples.
In short, to favor the Social to the Ethnic desiderata.
It is a price that must be paid in order to prevent a decline. If
countries other than France alone, follow this pattern of renewal,
Europe will have
an entirely different face. It will be the face of an assemblage
of civilized nations unified by the tradition of cultural osmosis and
equality of its
citizenry. It will not be a collection of tribes obsessed by their
singularities and run by chieftains devoured by their own petty
ambitions. It will be
the face of a Humane Continent.
(*) With tenacity and fairness, Louis Dalmas, a French journalist
of long standing, and his "Balkans-info" have refused to capitulate to
the
Western propaganda mills as these sought to impose a contemporary
"history" of the Yugoslav fratricidal drama. It is clear, in retrospect,
that
"Balkans-info" will become an essential research repository for
anyone interested in finding an approximation of truth. (added by R.K.
Kent)
Serbian News Network - SNN
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.antic.org/
