Back to the Balkans

I was amazed and distressed to see Paul Hockenos back on your pages just a couple of issues after Diana Johnstone's and my critiques of his long review of books on the Balkans--critiques that Hockenos failed to rebut, and which showed that he had misrepresented Johnstone's position, dismissed a series of writers critical of NATO as "conspiracy theorists" or too pro-Serb, and revealed himself to be strongly pro-NATO. In that review, he declared that humanitarian motives were the "central" aim of the NATO enterprise, without a shred of evidence, and failed to deal with the massively inhumanitarian effects of the NATO policy before, during and after the war.

In his review and in his most recent article with Drago Hedl ("Leaving the Balkans Behind," November 27), Hockenos employs a quasi-racist "Balkanist" mode of thought. As Maria Todorova has explained in Imagining the Balkans, "Balkanism became, in time, a convenient substitute for the emotional discharge that orientalism provided, exempting the West from charges of racism, colonialism, Eurocentrism. ... The Balkans have served as a repository of negative characteristics against which a positive and self-congratulatory image of the 'European' and the 'West' has been constructed."

Progress for Hockenos and Hedl is approximating Western standards. Intriguingly, and exactly as I would expect, Hockenos and Hedl say nothing of the earlier Western support of the Tudjman regime. They do not mention the active U.S. complicity in Tudjman's anti-Serb actions, including the slaughter and expulsion of Serbs in Krajina. They do not mention that the United States sabotaged the International War Crimes Tribunal investigations of that ethnic cleansing. Nor do they ask why the West doesn't treat those expelled Serbs the same way they treated Kosovars expelled from Kosovo. This kind of apologetics is ingrained.

In short, In These Times doesn't seem to be bothered by Hockenos' misrepresentations and pro-NATO apologetics and seems bent on continuing his service as its principal Balkans commentator. Were we wrong in thinking that In These Times was going to offer its readers an alternative and different voice?

Edward S. Herman Philadelphia

Paul Hockenos replies: Edward S. Herman consistently misrepresents many of my positions. He seems incapable of comprehending subtle or complex arguments if they don't fall into the narrow categories with which he is familiar. Even in an article like the one on post-Tudjman Croatia, he insists that I repeat points that I've already made in previous articles if they serve to give the United States or "the West" a black eye, whether they are relevant to the topic at hand or not. For Herman, it's most important to repeat this mantra, ad nauseam.

For the record, I am neither a "NATO apologist" nor an enthusiastic supporter of the 1999 NATO military action against Yugoslavia. During more than 10 years of writing for In These Times about the Balkans, I have consistently condemned the Western failure--diplomatic, economic, political and military--to address the expansionist and essentially racist policies of the region's nationalist extremists.

As far as I'm concerned, the Western powers abetted the bloodshed that has drenched the Balkan region and destroyed centuries of ethnic coexistence, a prerequisite for democratic stability in the region. The West as good as gave green lights to the Bosnian Serbs to wipe out Srebrenica and the Croats to ethnically cleanse Krajina and Slavonia, all in order to prepare the map for an easy carve-it-up peace deal. Western policy has taken the path of least resistance at every turn.

The NATO bombing of Yugoslavia was the culmination of a decade of Balkan policy marked by ineptitude, lack of will and moral equivalence. At any one of dozens of points along the way, decisive Western policies and interventions of different kinds could have blocked the hand of nationalist radicals. It was the West's failure to engage and intervene constructively that cost the Bosnians so dearly.

By early 1999, the West (and indeed the entire international community) had waited too long again. The Yugoslavian army, local Serbian paramilitaries and the Arkan killer gangs were terrorizing and ethnically cleansing Kosovo, just as they had Croatia and Bosnia. The same elements acting with exactly the same rationale were operating in Kosovo that perpetrated the massacre at Srebrenica, among dozens and dozens of other atrocities.

The last possible chance to broker some kind of political solution to the Kosovo crisis was Rambouillet. But the Serbs refused to negotiate, convinced that the West was bluffing again and that the Kosovar Albanians wouldn't sign anyway. Colleagues of mine in Belgrade close to the Serb negotiating team at Rambouillet recently confirmed to me that the Yugoslavian diplomats there had been given a blank sheet of paper by French and Russian officials before U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright even showed up. They were asked to write down what they wanted, as a starting point for negotiations. The sheet came back blank.

In the end, after having procrastinated for so long, there was no choice but to bomb. I certainly had hoped that in the aftermath Kosovar Albanians would have shown more goodwill to the Serbs than the Serbs had practiced toward them. But they failed that test miserably. (See my "Kosovo Cleansed," December 12, 1999.)

I did not misread Diana Johnstone. She claims that one of the top motives of the NATO action was to position "the West" geostrategically to control access to Caspian Sea oil. I think that humanitarian considerations played a major role in the belated decision to move against Milosevic, as did the possibility of war spilling into Macedonia and Albania, the likelihood of thousands of Kosovar refugees streaming toward Western Europe and NATO's interest in creating a new legitimacy for itself in the post-Cold War period. A permanently destabilized Balkan region that disrupts trade routes and throws a wrench into the process of European integration benefits no one.

The screwiest of Herman's charges is this "Balkanist" bit. It is utterly ludicrous to put me in the category of those people who imply that through some kind of ingrained or innate character the peoples of Southeastern Europe are historically fated or genetically driven to butcher one another. I have reported on pro-democracy student movements in Serbia, punk scenes in Slovenia, multicultural bastions in Bosnia and many, many other examples of tolerance and political creativity in the region. I am convinced that the wars in Bosnia and Croatia were among the most absurd ever fought. The peoples of Southeastern Europe have in the past and must in the future coexist peacefully with one another. I am convinced that they are fully capable of doing this, and that the international community through conflict prevention and crisis management mechanisms, like the work of the OSCE, can aid them in this endeavor.

At the same time, there is a virulent strain of nationalism and a certain mentality that recently have manifest themselves in the Balkans as nowhere else. By this, I refer to a propensity to buy into howling conspiracy theories, to justify one wrong with another, an obsession with historical myth, and a blind, often xenophobic loyalty to the nation. These unfavorable qualities are not restricted to the peoples of the Balkans nor do they apply to every person who happens to live between Ljubljana and Thessaloniki. Nevertheless, it is impossible to understand the recent conflicts in this area without understanding something of this side of the regional character, call it what you will. Whether I use the term "Balkan" or not doesn't affect my analysis in the least.

As to the charge of a pro-Western bias, I have to plead guilty. Yes, the countries in the Balkans would be more stable, prosperous and happy were they to develop democratic political cultures complete with the rule of law, respect for human rights, independent media and civil society. These are the values that underpin the European Union and have contributed to five decades of peace and economic development in Western Europe. The single most critical long-term goal of the international community must be to integrate the states of Southeastern Europe into these structures as soon as possible. This is one of the tasks of the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe, the brainchild of Germany's Green Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer.

I am at a complete loss to imagine the alternative that Herman poses to this scenario or what he considers to be progressive non-Western values in the Balkan region. Perhaps he sees some enduring value in the Cold War Communist systems or something mystical and unique in ethnic nationalist ideologies that is worth preserving against the dreaded "homogenizing" EU bureaucracy that far-right and old-school ex-Communist parties rail against.

Most Green and Social Democratic parties across Europe enthusiastically support some version of Fischer's radical vision of a federalist Europe--from the Atlantic to the Urals. It is far-sighted, imaginative strategies like Fischer's that constitute a progressive politics today in Europe.

Just the Facts?

Out of a deep respect for who Paul Krassner used to be, I have refrained from responding to his ill-conceived, ill-advised and factually inaccurate mishmash of a review and article about my film Steal This Movie ("Steal This Review," October 2.)

However, enough is enough. How dare Krassner reply to Stew Albert's letter by citing facts and making up quotes from me ("Letters," November 27). There is no possible way I would say to him that I showed Anita Hoffman "significant parts of the film ... in Toronto when she visited." We were still filming, and significant parts of the film were not even edited. I never sent her "sections for her pleasure," since her health was failing and she requested I not do so. I resent the distortion of the truth.

I am a longtime supporter of In These Times. But what happened to basic fact-checking? Among the numerous factual errors in the piece:

1. Krassner says Gerry Lefcourt is portrayed as defending Abbie at the Chicago Seven Trial. What movie was that in? There clearly is an actor portraying William Kunstler, the quote is from a Kunstler speech, and the actor is credited as playing Kunstler in the credits.

2. Krassner makes reference to only five defendants at the Chicago Seven Trial. Wrong. Look at the film and try counting.

3. Krassner's comments about lack of distribution convey a total ignorance about how the process works. Independent films are often filmed and finished before screening for distributors in order to protect the creative and political integrity of the film. That was the case here, and frankly Krassner's comments are embarrassing in their ignorance about how independent films work.

4. The repeating of gossip that I was trying to cut Johanna Lawrenson out of the film is untenable. Why then hire a wonderful actress like Jeanne Tripplehorn? Why have scene after scene with her and Abbie? Why have her helping to save Abbie's life? And why credit her in the end of the film as continuing to work on the Hoffman foundation? I admire tremendously the work Johanna has done and wish her the best in future efforts.

Finally, and most importantly, I find it disgusting for Krassner to attack my film as a marketing plan because I was able to get the distributor to screen the movie for more than 30 progressive groups around the country that used the film to raise funds and awareness. These are real groups, struggling with real issues, not sitting on the sidelines as Paul has chosen to do, firing bullets because they were not given their appropriate mention in the movie.

I have made numerous social/political films, from The Burning Bed to movies about Amnesty International, teen-age pregnancy and the juvenile justice system. I will continue to do so. But it saddens me when such a terrific publication like In These Times gives such extensive space to a personal attack without any political elements. Like the movie, hate the movie, but deal with the issues that the film raises, not sulking because certain people weren't included.

Robert Greenwald
Culver City, California

Agreeing to Disagree

I have to tell you that I am very impressed by your publication and have relied on it for years.

I am a former Marxist-Leninist who has moved way beyond that worldview and strongly opposes it today. However, it is not nostalgia that keeps me as a subscriber. Nor have I traded any youthful zealotry for weary cynicism. I genuinely find In These Times to be the most insightful of all the so-called leftist publications. Despite frequent disagreement with In These Times' worldview and analysis, it still provides new perspectives, new angles, new ways of looking at an issue that do not come from mere hidebound ideological rants.

In These Times contributes to a national dialogue, and I do learn from it. Salim Muwakkil's recent assessment of the changes taking place with the Nation of Islam is an especially thoughtful and useful report ("We Are Family," November 27). It is that analysis, in particular, that prompts me to let you know that you are sincerely appreciated, even in the most unexpected of quarters.

Peter Signorelli
Morristown, New Jersey