For those that can recall or lived through this historical period, the recollection is unlikely to diminish with time. This was the period of my political awakening and, of the utmost greater significance, it was the year that the Serbian people were bombed ; intimidated, killed and maimed in the name of an ideal that was grotesquely conceived and implemented, in other words – in the name of a lie.
I would have been unsurprised if Serbs had wholly retained a deep animosity towards their persecutors. I would entirely understand if they were to be deeply hostile and incorrigibly prejudiced against a West that ganged up upon them and traduced their history. Against all expectations, the Serbian people do not bear a deep grudge against us. Remarkably, the Serbs remain open, friendly and bear little grievance against those powers- once their allies – who turned upon them.To their endless credit, a visitor to Serbia will be greeted with great warmth and cordiality.
In the mid to late 1990s an entire people was traduced and columnized by the treacherous, activist elites of the West. It was an epoch making event, though few nowadays nor perhaps even then recognise it as such. The actions of 1999 represent a chilling, textbook example of an axis of activist politicians aligning themselves with activist journalism to warp foreign policy. United in a common aim of annihilating a people by detaching it from its ancestral lands!
Prior to 1999 Serbs in Yugoslavia, that is Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo were involved in conflict with other groups. For the simple mindedly activist and ideological West the Serbs represented a monolithic evil that must be thwarted; no matter the complexity of the conflict and no matter the nature of the foes of the Serbs, the Serbian enemy is my friend was the maxim of the new West. Serbian actions needed to be thoroughly, without nuance nor context, denounced. Even their history was distorted to portray the Serbs as a people hell bent on conquest. To present such a whitewashed version of history of course, Serbian sufferings at the hands of the other combatants had to be ignored entirely- this was the full throttle application of the propaganda of omission, and besides, a strongly Christian people being persecuted was simply not the type of narrative that the Western media nor post Christian Western leaders wished to engage with.
Paradoxically, this anti-Serbian policy of realpolitik was generously cloaked in a veil of humanitarianism from the very beginning. This is perhaps the key to how the unholy alliance between the media and politicians retained its power. Never mind that the doctrine and application of humanitarianism led to unintended consequences such as wholesale, co-ordinated ethnic cleansing of Serbian civilians, terrorist outrages and atrocities, the bombing of civilians and the strengthening and endorsement of Islamism, all this was conveniently overlooked.
In anticipation of criticism of this article as woefully biased, I in no way suggest that in the civil wars of the former Yugoslavia Serbian military leaders did not engage in aggressions and atrocities, they did, these incidents occurred. This was a nasty civil war and, paradoxically or otherwise, civil wars tend to ignite a greater degree of internecine violence than other wars. The key term here however is civil war, what took place as Yugoslavia collapsed were a series of civil wars. There were armies and militias and groupings of all sides who indulged in horrendous actions- the media chose to single out only one side – Serbs
The media invariably portrayed the wars as the consequence of an almost incomprehensible Serbian aggression a la Nazi Germany, ( a most unhelpful and distasteful comparison considering the history of Serbian suffering at the hands of that regime and its allies.) According to a myriad of commentators of this war it was the only civil war in history in which only one side ever behaved in an aggressive and vicious way towards their enemies! . To paraphrase Rebecca West, “ eternally the massacrer and never the massacree “
The West has blithely, voluntarily repudiated all it once regarded as sacred and stable. It is restless, discontented, afflicted and ill at ease with its own traditions, in some cases vigorously alienated by its own traditions and history. It would be difficult to locate a cause or a belief that is widely regarded with veneration and devotion in Western countries. Pulverised by relativism, self loathing, unstoppable grievance led behaviour and a rootless meaninglessness one wonders whether the Serbian commitment to nation and location attracted the ire and antagonism of a NATO that longed for a new role. The contemporary West has divested itself of its own heritage and patrimony in the process of progress, devoid of stable core identity, bloated with dollars and Euros and weapons lashed out at what it saw as anachronistic and atavistic allegiances, Serbia was, in that sense the perfect victim the perfect scape goat. Perfect because the bloc of Islamist inspired states, NGOs and pressure groups wanted action for their Muslim brethren and the West saw its chance to appease this lobby and annihilate a problematic people. Paradoxically, the soi disant Muslim world still hates the West whereas the Serbs, our genuine victims, do not.
If the victims were Serbian, be this in Bosnia, Croatia or Kosovo there was an absolute absence of journalistic, reportage, curiosity and interest. Either the suffering and injustice was overlooked and airbrushed or, if it had to be acknowledged then they obviously got what they deserved, it seems, was the ethos. We do not wish to complicate matters nor permit the intrusion of awkward facts into our Hollywood-esque narrative.
It was incumbent upon Serbs to play the part of the incorrigibly evil, merciless, baddies. Likewise, it was incumbent upon the politico- media axis to churn out steadfastly a persistent and unwavering story of evildoers and victimhood. The Bosnian Muslims were almost a Rousseauesque, state of nature, pure people inhabiting an Eden like state of nature land that was besmirched by Serbian violence and machinations. That this Eden invited and welcomed and sustained infamous Islamic terrorists did little to tarnish the innocence of Serbian opponents in the eyes of an intellectually malnourished media. The presence of incipient Al Queda terrorists on the same side as the Bosnian government only served to emphasise how the Muslim forces had been so violently victimised that they were forced to seek help from these people because the West was not bombing Serbs sufficiently! It is fascinating that whereas the media, to my knowledge incessantly scrutinised and criticised the war against Iraq in the Gulf War there was very little overt criticism of the campaign against Serbs- aside from to criticise the lack of military action.
This whole anti-Serbian outlook and policy culminated in Kosovo in 1999. NATO once again went to war against Serbs, once again egged on by a stridently anti Serb media, an action which once again culminated in the expulsion of Serbian families from their ancestral homes. The only difference being that in 1999 NATO opted to deepen their nefarious work by permanently detaching territory from a sovereign state and beginning the process of manufacturing a shiny new, mono ethnic national entity; safe in the knowledge that the troublesome, recalcitrant Serbian minority would inevitably be conveniently cleansed, and the West would have a clean sheet for its mono ethnic state of Kosovo. This Kosovo intervention, allegedly fought to uphold international standards for treatment of ethnic minorities resulted in the overt persecution and expulsion of an ethnic minority. A disturbing fact that seems to have eluded the policy makers and architects of this action.
The flawed but genuinely multi ethnic state of Yugoslavia is no more. Kosovo is no longer multi ethnic, nor is Krajina nor Sarajevo and other districts of Bosnia. Moving to more recent times we witness that in 2015 Kosovo yielded an impressive number of volunteers for ISIS in Syria, as did Bosnia. Therein lies a deep gratitude. Whereas, the bombed Serbs never resorted to any form of terrorism or assassination against their persecutors, the beneficiaries of the Western “ humanitarian “ action were infinitely more inclined to join a genocidal organisation that wished for all non-Muslims to be eradicated. But this was a successful and humanitarian intervention.
Concerning the Balkan contingent of ISIS it is conceivable then that when the USA did launch air strikes against ISIS it may have been bombing the very people its own policy of the 1990s was intended to nurture, namely, their anti-Serbian Islamist allies! The verminous and pusillanimous media of course chose to place the blame upon- you guessed it- the Serbs ! Serbian violence was so severe, Western inaction so shameful that some Mulsims simply had no choice, no capacity to resist the blandishments of a genocidal cult that was sadistic and sickening. Of course, had the media had any intention of covering the conflicts in Yugoslavia in depth, with objectivity, in the manner that decent journalism requires, then the atrocities inflicted upon Serbs in Bosnia would have been highlighted as classic examples of Islamist terror- beheadings of Serbs, and a foretaste of what was to come later in Syria and beyond. But this was not particularly noteworthy nor newsworthy so best to avoid the topic, retain a polite silence and ensure that we only have one baddy in this war.
The forcible detachment of Kosovo from Serbia was the equivalent of an act of piracy, moreover it was conceived and implemented in the name of an ideology against a Christian people. The clear intention was the demoralisation of a small but powerfully devoted nation. The West has for some time now been baffled or hostile to any nation who continues to embed its identity within its Christian faith and the actions against Serbia saw the consequences of that hostility. The West dislikes history. The West fears and seeks to convince Islam of its own rectitude. Here was an opportunity to strike co-ordinated blows against a country that would send out a very clear and unambiguous message to the world on all of those scores. We do not align ourselves with Christians, look, here is the proof, we are prepared to bomb and maim a Christian people in favour of a Muslim people- now respect us please. It didn’t work.
NATO can remove peoples and overturn history, a Christian inspired and maintained, nationality based loyalty can be overtly attacked and ruined. Centuries old allegiances and devotions can be replaced, historical narratives can be distorted and desacralized – this is what the post Cold War West can do. Kosovo was peevish and malevolent. In 1594, to punish recalcitrant Serbs, the Turkish colonial rulers burned the bones of St Lazar to teach the Serbs a lesson- it was designed to induce pain and humiliation. The cruel act failed, the Turks failed. 1999 was NATO’S act of collective punishment and once again Serbia, though seemingly beaten, has not capitulated.
