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Wednesday, July 4, 2001
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Enjoying the sight of a merciless tyrant brought low By Michael Luhan So bye-bye, jailbird, and always remember: What goes around, comes around. If you're looking to beef up your defense team, Jiri Dienstbier may be available, and I can't think of anyone who is more bullish about your record than the former UN special rapporteur for human rights in the Balkans. That the extradition came on Vidovdan, the day Serbia commemorates the historic loss of Prince Lazar to Turkish-led forces in the battle of Kosovo Polje in 1389, adds rich texture to the irony. As laid out in convincing detail by Oxford historian Noel Malcolm in A Brief History of Kosovo and in other works of recent vintage, the battle was not a loss at all but an inconclusive draw, brought about partly by treachery in Lazar's ranks. The Turks required several more decades to subdue the Serbs. However, Malcolm writes, Orthodox scribes desperate to maintain Serbian religious identity under Muslim rule elevated the battle to a heroic defeat that saved European Christianity, a Christ-like sacrifice that in turn confirmed the Serbs' mythical identity as God's chosen people. One might accept this perversion of history as an expedient means to a worthy end. The problem is, 70 years after the fall of the Ottoman Empire and restoration of their nationhood, Serbs continued to believe it, and a lot of other hokum as well. Milosevic played on the myth like a violin: He launched his political career in 1989 at Kosovo Polje with a stirring pledge that "no one will dare to beat" the Serbs again, and led them to defeat and ruin. The question now is how Serbian historians will portray this day to future generations. Will it become the Feast of St. Slobo, commemorating a latter-day Lazar sacrificed to save the nation? Or as a day of national shame, when Serbian dignity was sold out to Western imperialists by lesser and treacherous men? Hopefully they'll get it right this time, and for all time. Hopefully they will recognize that no national paradigm built on lies can lead to good, and will establish a new paradigm built on truth and historical responsibility. Hopefully they will duly record the judgment of The Hague tribunal without editorial comment and let that speak to the children for itself. Lighten up But personally speaking, after more than a decade of Milosevic-inspired wars and moral outrage, I think it's time for everybody to lighten up a bit and enjoy the wicked delight of seeing a merciless tyrant who has finally been brought low. There are already many comic moments to savor, beginning with Slobo's retrieval from his prison in Belgrade. One source told the Reuters news service that the warden entered his cell and said, "Mr. Milosevic, you have to go on a trip," like a teacher informing pupils of an impending school treat. When asked where to, the warden answered, "To the Hague," at which point Slobo packed up his bedroom slippers to keep his toes warm during the proceedings. One can imagine him "acclimatizing" to his new digs at Scheveningen, copping a cigarette off a fellow inmate on his first morning in the yard. Inmate: So what are you in here for, Hedgehog? Slobo: Crimes against humanity and violations of the laws and customs of war. Inmate: Say what? Slobo: Mass murder, basically. Inmate: Uh-huh ... Well, you just keep walking, OK? Reports say the stoic family man is worried for his kinfolk, and with good reason. Son Marko, a playboy cum mafioso who dodged his obligatory military service and delighted in having his bodyguards pistol-whip the hapless homeboys in Pozarevac, caught the first plane out when papa got bagged last October and hasn't been seen in public since. Since daughter Marija relinquished ownership of her radio and television station in Belgrade, which was second to none in churning out rabid propaganda for papa's genocide machine, she appears to have gone around the bend altogether after taking pot shots at Yugoslav officials who arrested the old boy. As for beloved wife Mirjana, aka Mira -- who resembles Lady Macbeth on her sunny days -- I think astrologer Robett Tkoch got her right when he posted this assessment on his StarCenter Web site in August 1999: "Whereas Mr. Milosevic has a chart full of high potential, Mirjana's chart is somewhat common and weak. Yet she has the power to confuse her man, and thus to derive a personal power through him. ... She is very sexual, very playful, knowing well the wiles of womanhood ... This woman unwittingly dreams destructive conditions into being. Unconsciously, she remembers ancient scenes of terrible times, and then she re-enacts those times through her present expectation. She lives by finding a strong man to whom she can cling, playing with his strengths, manipulating him through his agreeableness to her game. ... In time, she weakens her man completely, turning him into 'mama's little boy.'" And now, Mira, the bell tolls for thee. -- The writer worked in the Balkans for four years and is director of institutional and program development for the Prague-based People in Need Foundation. Klima reflects on Klaus By Ivan Klima The nation that sings the blues Postview editorial Learning how to talk to a gas fire in Czech E-male |
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