How does Nick Cohen get away with writing such tripe? In the Observer today there's a typically silly and
factually incorrect piece in which he talks of 'sectarian leaders from the Slobodan Milosevic mould ..... exploiting the double antipathy of race and class'... From the what mould Nick? Of the mould of the man who said 'Socialism in particular, being a progressive and just democratic society, should not allow people to be divided by national or religious identity' ? Ludicrously, Cohen accuses Milosevic's Yugoslavia of stirring up antipathy towards the Croats. When I organised a demonstration and petition signing outside the British Embassy in Budapest to protest at the NATO aggression against Yugoslavia in 1999, the first two people to sign my petition were Croats who had lived in Serbia for many years. They told me that they had never encountered any discrimination and had lived happily in Milosevic's Yugoslavia, unlike the hundreds of thousands of Serbs and gypsies who had been expelled from Franco Tudjman's Croatia.
Tudjman, you may recall was a man who once said that he would never allow a Jew, Serb or Gypsy to marry into his family. Cohen is from a Jewish background- and you might have thought he would mention the anti-semitic Tudjman and not the pro-Yugoslavia, socialist and anti-racist Milosevic in his article. But of course, for pro-war, B52 liberals like Cohen, a bit of unintelligent- and unsubstantiated Slobo-bashing is par for the course.
Sunday, October 30, 2005
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5 comments:
Leaving Nick Cohen out of this, what's to like about Slobo, Neil?
Well he is an apologist for Slobo, so what do you expect?
I don't see why an article with the briefest mention of Slobo was a reason to defend him again, but there you go.
Why open comments if you're not interested in a dialogue?
I am always interested in dialogue Raoul, unlike certain neo-conservative bloggers I could mention. What's there to like about Slobo? Quite a lot actually.
How about his loyalty to the cause of a multi-ethnic and independent Yugoslavia, his rejection of chauvinism and extremism- and the brilliant and courageous way he has exposed the lies and deceit of the New World Order at The Hague?
For getting in the way of The Empire's plan for military and economic hegemony in the Balkans- Slobo has had to endure over a decade of demonisation. Yet still, he refuses to yield.
There's certainly a lot more to like about Slobo than your wretched namesake in Montenegro- a man who and dined in London with the very people who, at the same time, were bombing his own country. What words can you use to describe someone capable of that? Quisling just isn't strong enough.
Thanks for the reply. I'm not convinced of Slobo's loyalty to anything much other than his own appetite for power, to be honest.
Are you sure you're not just projecting your own views onto him because of his latter-day fulminations against Western imperialism?
What's so inspiring about his brand of crony capitalism?
Don't get me wrong - I think Yugoslavia had a lot more going for it than what happened next. But the idea that Slobo was defending a socialist nirvana is a little far-fetched don't you think?
As for Milo the Marlboro Man, may he yet meet his match across the Adriatic. Shame they dropped those charges in Naples.
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