Balkan Illusions

The Balkan countries are a clear example of naivete and blind faith in the benevolence of the New World Order. After more than 13 years they still believe in the good intentions of Washington and Brussels, in Euro-Atlantic integration as the solution for all their problems, and strictly follow their western mentors because they believe it is the only approach which will result in their acceptance into the European family. The infantile creatures which rule these countries still believe, after all their negative experiences, that they can find help and support only in the west, among the two biggest promoters of globalisation: the USA and the EU. Sometimes they even claim to the public that even if the negative role of the USA in the Balkans can be proved (such as the bombardment of a European capital for the first time since the Second World War, for example), there is still hope in Europe and its EU organization; which is said to represent the essential antithesis to American global hegemony. Let’s examine the truth.

Relations between Brussels and Washington

To understand the real essence of these organisations it is enough to look at their founding documents and the strategic plans which lead the Americans to support European unity and integration, and later on the creation of European economic co-operation in the early fifties and the first step toward the European Economic Community (EEC) and later the European Union (EU). In his comparative study, 'The Marshal Plan', American Michael Hoogan claims that the primary motivation of the Marshall Plan was "the creation of European Economic co-operation similar to the United States of America." During the period of its development, European integration became more independent and created some kind of political emancipation from Washington, but its fundamentals and its essence are deeply connected not only with direct American financial intervention after the war, but also with the structure of integration which reminds us more of an American form of integration (the United States of America) than a European imperial and traditional spirit within a political tradition. Because of that we can conclude that it is still difficult to talk about some kind of opposition between the EU and its approach to NATO and the United States of America. In the past few years this has become more specific in terms of Serbian politics, but also for the politics and public opinion of other Balkan countries attempting to create a clear distinction between NATO and the EU and even some kind of hostility in relations between these two organizations and their approach towards problems in the Balkans. During this discourse, NATO is represented like a military organisation which is generating the politics of violence and because of that does not correspond to our own interests, whilst the EU is represented as organisation which promotes economic co-operation and which has been contributing to the prosperity of its new members in the southern European states - Spain, Greece and Portugal - which were on a similar level of development to the former Yugoslavia. This kind of approach is ignoring one basic fact and that is that the fundamental element of politics isn’t based on the character of a particular state or organisation (be it military, economic or political) but on the political will which is expressed through concrete political acts on the world stage. The entire history of European unification is a clear indicator of the direction of further developments relating to integration, and this is the direction of economic trilateralism and political globalisation with an American monopoly of force as the basic guarantee for the conservation of world affairs.

The domain of Brussels

EU and NATO are organisations at the service of those Atlantist countries which gravitate around the centre in Brussels. This centre, which is at the same time is the capital of an artificial Belgium, was founded as a result of British attempts to secure an important stronghold in the heart of Europe and represents the very capital itself (a decision which is clearly no accident). It is the centre around which are gravitating the heartlands of the future transatlantic empire. NATO and the EU are two aspects of this future empire on the shores of the Atlantic. Like any other empire, NATO/EU has its centre and periphery, which means particular territory and constant politics with a main goal being the protection of the realm ruled by Brussels (or, in newspeak, the 'stabilisation of the region'). Also, of course, potentially spreading to new spaces and regions. This is the growth of the transatlantic empire or, according to the propaganda of Brussels, 'the spreading of European virtues'. Because Europe has been under the military protection of the USA for 50 years and European troops during this same period didn’t win any major wars without foreign help (except for the British success in the Falklands, but with crucial diplomatic and military assistance from the USA and Chile), the economic aspect is one of the rare elements of domination which has remained in the sovereign control of Europeans, but also supported by American plans, at first, immediately after the end of the Second World War, and then later on during attempts to create the world trilateral economy. That was the main reason for Europe's acceptance of this economy and her rejection of politics and militarism, because the fundamental weapon in the efforts to create a new Europe (instead of creating an answer to the American challenge) became the optimal approach to European problems within the realm of international politics. If we ignore the pacifist anti-military movements of the '70s and '80 and some pro-European orientated parties, both on the left and right, Europe was officially following Western politics in its relationship with the USSR. Only De Gaulle retreated from this strategy somewhat, but he did this as the chief of the French State and as a representative of Europe. He was searching for a revival of old French glory and he saw in European integration an instrument for achieving his aims. However, his actions did not have any real important influence - even in France - as far as creating some kind of alternative to Washington was concerned. He left the military structure of NATO but remained active in the political structure, and generally did not harm the French alliance with the USA at all. Because his politically and ideologically Gaullist descendent, Jacque Chirac (perhaps ironically), restored French membership within the military structure of NATO, the present-day conclusion we can draw from such events is that the strategy of De Gaulle ended without any visibly important results. Maybe the future will show us something more significant, but for now we cannot predict what it will be. The end of the Cold War didn’t establish any kind of emancipation from the EEC/EU, but a more effective participation in the process of globalization. Because the EU represents a kind of archetype, a type of proto-mondialistic project and because of that is typologically related to the artificial globalisation of the world, it is logical to expect that it will be incorporated within globalisation and not become any form of strong opposition to globalisation itself.

Brussels is binding her economic domain with a legislative and unique political will. There are similar roles at work here, like in many other systems, from ordinary economic co-operation to complete federal or unitaristic states. The heart of European Union is the territory of the ancient Frankish State. With the dissolution of this state came France, the northern Italian states (united as Italy in 1861) and the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation which was restored as the Second Reich in 1871. These countries, together with Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg were creating the fundamentals of European unification. Around this centre and during the process of European integration and the spreading of European Economic co-operation were gravitating many different countries from Denmark and Ireland to Greece and Portugal. But the process of integration didn’t have the same effects in different countries. It is enough to take a look at the contemporary monetary integration and to get a clear picture of the whole situation. Less developing countries accepted the Euro without any major objections. In fact the acceptance of joint Euro currency represented the success of the economies of those countries. The only less developed country that didn’t enter in European Monetary Union from the beginning was Greece, but not because of the political will of the government in Athens, but because it didn’t have the necessary monetary criteria. The other developed countries, the Protestant north - Britain, Sweden and Denmark - are not showing any political will to join the Euro. Denmark even refused the Maastrict Agreement during her referendum of 1992, whilst Britain had opportunist attitudes toward European integration and her participation. The latest refusal of the Euro in the Swedish referendum is another step in this process.

It is not easy for the centre to impose its will on the developed parts of its domain, because it doesn’t have any real important influence there. The influence of the centre (the economic centre, which consists of the German, Benelux, French and north Italian economies and which are mostly gravitated toward Germany) is dominant towards the less developed southern parts of the EU (it has dramatically altered Spanish, Portuguese and Greek society). But its influence is very small, even negligible, in the developed parts of the EU. These parts with their own subventions and also with their political and cultural influence are giving more to the EU than they are taking from the centre for themselves. Or, in more simple terms, sometimes they have inflicted more damage then benefit. Because the essence of EU relations can still be described more as co-ordination than as subordination, it is clear that Brussels - which represents the administrative outpost of the European Economic centre - cannot force upon England and Sweden the same political, legislative and monetary decisions which can be forced on the Portuguese and Greeks.

With the fall of the Berlin Wall the economy became the forerunner of all other Western penetrations in the East. We can talk about the spreading of Western political culture in line with the development and restoration of pluralism, the multi-party political democracy and civil rights and liberties. We can also talk about the spread of the military but only with NATO integration and the de facto occupation of south-eastern Europe which has taken over a decade and which still isn’t finished. But the roots of economic penetration can be localised in the late-eighties. The European economy (led by Germany) after the fall of the Berlin Wall used the German Mark to penetrate the vaults of all Eastern European countries.

Economic experts in the guise of government advisors overwhelmed East European capitals, whilst East European countries were not in a position to offer their own original economic models different to Euro-Atlanticist integrations and the space of Eastern Europe felt totally under the domination of the EC centre. Because Eastern Europe is made up of areas with a totally different outlook to those in the EEC (the planned economy, for example) and that the fundamentals were immediately destroyed, it was clear that the position of these countries is much worse than the position of Portugal or Greece. Because there was not any serious protective mechanisms it was easy for the EU to establish its full economic domination over Eastern Europe, which was enough for the economic pseudo-empire of the EU to begin dictating political and legislative terms to Eastern Europe. Today, Eastern European countries are de facto parts of the European economic domain, and the only difference between them and the other countries or members of the EU is their status. The borders of the Brussels domain today are in the Ukraine and Turkey. An inability to force its economic domination upon Turkey is one of the reasons for Brussels' refusal to accept Turkey as a member-stae of the EU, not the fact that Turkey is a Muslem country or has not made any improvements as far as respecting human rights is concerned. If Brussels successfully involves Turkey in its economic domain, which is the very object of its persistence, these problems will become marginal and the problems concerning the unification of Turkish and European legislature would be soluble with the will of Brussels and easily realised, in the same way as in Eastern Europe today. The relationship between Brussels and the German-French-Italian centre and the East European periphery could be compared to the relationship established in the past between Washington and some parts of the USA in the process of conquering the West and also in the relationship between the centre and the colonies in the age of the colonial expansion of Europe. American (or Washington) authority was eventually spread de facto in many areas in theWest and throgh many contemporary states like Arizona, for example, which didn’t have the status of the federal state for some time. It had a territorial status and was part of the USA but with far less privileges then the federal states. This status was mainly a characteristic for the less developed south-western parts of the state, in contrast to the northern and more developed parts which had status from the beginning and were representing the cradle of the USA. The other example is those of the former colonies. They were all under de facto rule of the centre - the colonial power - but some of them had the status of being overseas territories with important self-rule, some of them were protectorates and classical colonies with great restrictions in terms of their fundamental rights and liberties. There was some evolution, but it depended on the will of the real master - the colonial centre. In our case, the real master, or the centre, is positioned in the heart of the EU, the cradle of European integration, whilst Eastern Europe is an under-developed periphery under the rule of a centre which realises the nature of its particular legislative projects and is changing the status of these countries according to its present interests. Instead, a more appropriate analysis of this integration was described by the American dissident, Noam Chomsky, in his book 'What Uncle Sam Really Wants'. This is the process of re-activating colonial relations between Western and Eastern Europe. The West and Eastern Europe were, in the past, involved in semi-colonial relations. The Russian opposition and her refusal to play in accordance with the rules of the West were the reasons for the beginnings of the Cold War. According to Chomsky, the defeat of Moscow during the Cold War would re-activate the semi-colonial status of Eastern Europe.

The Western Balkans

The Balkans are part of the joint European Economic space, just like the rest of Eastern Europe. The wars of Washingtonian plutocracy in these territories during the 'nineties are not wars against the EU and European integration, but they are indeed wars against Europe. During the aggression against Serbia in 1999, Tony Blair wrote in his article 'The New Generation Marks The Line', that here we have the new form of war in which we are fighting for new values, for the new internationalism in which the brutal repression of ethnic groups would no longer be tolerated. If we ignore the hypocrital attitudes about the repression of ethnic groups which not be tolerated, it is clear that he was speaking about the war which brings new values, new internationalism; this time from the West and its globalist vision.The aggression accelerated the process of globalisation itself, and the promoter of this process in Europe is the European Union. Consequently, the military presence and guardian of globalization and trilateralism - the USA - is securing the economic power of the European centre. This centre successfully realised its domination of ex-Yugoslavian territory during the 'eighties, before it succeeded in any other Eastern European country. Using the weakness of the country and the impotence of the political pseudo-elite to find solutions to the political, economic and military crisis, the EU (or, during that period, the European Economic Community) used its own dictates to install globalist politicians within the governing institutions of the former Yugoslav republics, including Serbia, and to start the new phase of development - the creation of the multhi-ethnic states in the ruins of Yugoslavia. The EU still does not have enough courage or political will to begin this experiment in other, more stable, countries of Eastern Europe, and because of that it is realising these dreams in the most undeveloped part of its economic domain: the former Yugoslavia (or, in EU terminology, the'Western Balkans').

We can now ask this question: is it possible for the EU to have an anti-European agenda? Maybe this question would seem absurd to the average European, but it is not absurd to us with the experience of having lived in the proto-mondialist creation of Yugoslavia. In fact our own experiences are putting that question to us and gives us an answer full of arguments.

What was the nature of the political agenda of the Socialist Republic of Serbia or Socialist Yugoslavia? Did it have a Serbian or anti-Serbian agenda? In the 'eighties, when most of our people were still dreaming their Yugoslav dream, it was absurd even to mention this kind of question. Today, we all know the answers and they are more than tragic.

The mondialism and multhi-ethnicity are by their own essence anti-national in the same way as proleterian internationalism and its practical realisation in the form of Yugoslavism or Sovietism. In the same way Belgrade was experimenting with the creation of artificial nations in Yugoslavia, in Macedonia, Montenegro and Bosnia (including the invention of 'muslem' nation in Bosnia which is a unique example in the world as far as establishing a nation with an exclusive religious base is concerned), and offering maximum autonomy to the Albanians in Kosovo, and in all these cases in the less developed southern parts of the country which were under the full authority of Belgrade and didn’t represent any challenge to the authority of the centre, which wasn’t the case with north-western developed republics (Slovenia and Croatia). Similar to this, today Brussels is beginning experiments in the most backward part of its own economic space in an attempt to pose as a bigger Catholic than the Pope himself (or, in translation: a bigger mondialist than its own master and ideological model on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean). These proletarian and internationalist experiments, together with the experiments of creating new nations, ended with the most tragic consequences for their creators in Moscow and Belgrade. From Chechnia and Moldavia to Kosovo and Bosnia we saw the final results of 'the successful solution to the national question in communist countries'. In the future we will see similar results of these solutions which are now proposed by Brussels in resolving the problems of multhi-ethnical or multi-cultural communities. The new internationalism of Tony Blair is no less a danger than the old one of the Communist International, and again the biggest victims will be the objects of the new multhi-ethnic experiments - the people of the Balkans, but also the people in other European multhi-ethnic (or multi-racial) regions.