________________________________________________________________________________ ===========================================[from: lop1912@iperbole.bologna.it]== Open letter to all the people active in '68 who today have the power to decide between war and peace The war that is being fought in Kosovo has been conceived and launched in the name of the ideals of '68. The leading cultural, political, even military powers that decided to resort to war are all children of '68: Joshka Fischer, Gerard Schroeder, Dani Cohn Bendit, Jorge Solanas, William Clark and even Clinton himself. The ideological genesis of this war can be found in the theories of Glucksmann, Henri-Levy, Finkielkraut: it is the product of a rethinking process that took place inside the conscience of '68 during the eighties and nineties. The utopian ideals of '68 which found a foothold in maoism have turned into a utopia which is no less noble but a thousand times more deadly. The utopia of '68 was an unarmed utopia. We may have acted irresponsibly at times but we were the ones who paid the consequences. This generation is now in power, again they are acting irresponsibly but today their utopia is armed with guns and bombs. The way in which today's war is being fought is no different from that of '68. The intolerable cannot be tolerated, so symbolic objectives are chosen and decisions turn into actions without worrying over much about the consequences. 31 years ago, when in May we took over the centres of almost every city in Europe, we had no concept of winning or losing. Our only aim was to hold aloft the banner of Justice and Freedom. Today, those same people, I am sure with the best of intentions, are acting in the same way, without realising that what they are doing may explode into a horrific war that will involve the whole Eurasian continent. The war in Kosovo will not stop at Pristina or at Belgrade, it is only the first tiny cog in a horrendous machine, that once in motion will not stop until the whole of western civilisation has been destroyed. If only these '68 revolutionaries would study the history and psychology of the Serbian nation, they would see that Serbian psycho-culture has been waiting for centuries to immolate itself on the altar of religious nationalism in a war against the rest of the world. This moment has now come. The problem is not only the intransigence of the Serb population, however. The problem also lies in the fact that the losers in this world (who incidentally, outnumber the winners by ten to one) have now discovered that the giant who towers over them is not as omnipotent as he seemed. First with Saddam Hussein, then in Somalia, then with Bin Laden and the Talibans and now with Milosevic, Arkan and Sesely, this list of butchers and mafia godfathers continue to prove how weak the West is. After all, it is common knowledge that bombs cannot crush mass psychopathy and the fact that bombs excite psychopaths is surely not news to anyone. Paul Watzklawicz, an expert in pragmatic communication disturbances, maintains that the best way to resolve an international or interethnic conflict is to close the leaders of both sides in a room and to have them perform a purely linguistic exercise. Both of them must recite to the other, the others grievances and motives and the exercise can only be concluded when they have both realised that the other is actually outlining their own point of view. According to the greatest communication psychotherapist of all time (Watzklawicz) the correct cure is not Rambouillet. However, we all know that there was nothing systematic about '68, it was not a psycho-relation or a communicative disorder it was dialectic. On one side right, on the other wrong, the good versus the bad. This is what Gluckmann had in mind when he wrote “The Art of War” celebrating the glories of Mao Tze Tung. Today, nothing has changed, his method is just the same, Gluckmann is an incurable fanatic, the difference is that now his fanaticism threatens the whole of humanity. Of all the probable solutions for the next century, the one that puts the American government in control seems to me to be the least dangerous. The United States is a society that has learnt more than any other how to assimilate ethnical and technological complexities. It would not be too much to ask for us to surrender our national identity (for what it is worth) in exchange for a pacifist government covering the entire complexity of the planet. Anti-Americanism is both rancorous and reactionary. Deprived of an alternative international prospective, anti-Americanism borders on fascism. In this war, however, the decisive factor is not what the chanters of thirty year old slogans would have us believe. The decisive factor is not the imperialistic drive of the United States (which does exist, it would be ridiculous to state the contrary). This is not an imperialistic war, as empires have other means of reaching their objectives: money, image, virtualisation. The decisive factor of this war is humanitarian fanaticism indifferent to the consequences of its actions. The consequences of these actions fired by fanaticism runs against the concept of global American government. They only serve as the catalyst for a global war which multiplies all the present day fascisms and integralisms and leads to an increase in violence and nuclear armament. This is why I am writing to you friends, you who live in the longstanding spirit of '68. I share your desire for a world in which the universal principal of human dignity triumphs over that of national sovereignty, substituting the suicidal principal of national self-determination (after all, what is a nation, if it is not an entity that defines itself on the basis of its own aggression?). I share your ideals and aims and my own experiences bear witness to it. I have been persecuted by communists to a much greater extent than the Parisian intellectuals who are at present preaching the gospel of a sacred crusade against the evils of communism. However I am convinced that the way to put an end to injustice is not to take up arms against the Serbian criminals who hide behind men, women and children. Violence only leads to more violence and this we should have learnt by now in the thirty years that have passed since the days of '68. In those far off days we reasoned in terms of violence but we did not possess the squadrons of bombers, the world banks, newspapers and televisions that we do today. Moreover, in the days of ‘68 it did not take us long to realise that the violence we preached (even if it was unarmed and symbolic) could never bring justice, freedom or peace. So why are we so sure that the violence we are committing today, the violence that kills and maims and is no way symbolic, can do anything other than stir up a sea of inextinguishable hate. I must confess that in the first days of the war I thought that the West was right. That we were the champions of justice, the saviours of the persecuted Albanians. However, although I do recognise the intolerable nature of the systematic violence carried out by the Serbian nationalists (even if they are not the only culprits) and although I do recognise the superiority of universal principals over those of national sovereignty, the absolute absurdity and illegitimacy of this crusade launched by the western '68 idealists suddenly struck me on the day that the Macedonian government declared that they really did not have the facilities to deal with all the refugees that were flooding into their country. Please, they asked, please O Lords of the western world, can you not do something to help? Can you not organise an air evacuation of at least some of these people who are dying of hunger and disease? For a moment I thought: sure, that can be organised, we can fly out a hundred thousand to Italy, a hundred thousand to France, a hundred thousand to Canada and Australia. The illusion lasted no more than a day. For a couple of hours the possibility of flying the refugees out to the Guantanamo base in Cuba was discussed and then as one man, the western governments closed ranks and replied: shelter these refugees, shelter these poor bastards, that the glory of our humanitarian enthusiasm has thrust into the jaws of Arkan's tigers and the Serbian army? You have to be joking. Let the refugees that we are here to protect die in the mud. Let the people that our idealistic intolerance of nazi-communism has come to defend die of hunger. We cannot welcome these people into our own homes, that would be doing Milosevic a favour and rather than do that criminal a favour we would prefer to let a hundred thousand people die. That is when I realised that in this war, the guardians of Auschwitz speak two languages, one Serbian, the other English-French-Spanish-Geman-Italian. In a crescendo of hypocrisy, the Blairs, D'Alemas and Clintons of this world all declared that the Kosovites did not want to leave (quite how they found this out is not too clear, did they run up an opinion poll amongst the refugees?). Then psychological pressure began to be placed on the Albanians living in Europe to return home and fight for their motherland. Blood and land, either you fight or you are a traitor to your country. This bizarre party, the UCK suddenly became a NATO favourite. Thirty years ago, who would ever have thought that the grandchildren of Mao would one day become cannon fodder in an Anglo-American war? You hear some people ask: what else can we do if the Serbian nationalists have decided to exterminate the Albanians and to repeat the tragedy of Bosnia? What can be done? The solution is the exact opposite of the war to defend borders. Borders between aggressive nationalisms, borders between the West and poorer countries, these are the taboos that must be destroyed if we wish to escape the nightmare of planetary civil war. The solution is to open all borders. It is about time we began to make this voice heard: the solution is to open all borders, to give people the means to move, from Serbia, from Kosovo, from and to anywhere they like. Men and women have the right to move. Is it not a basic human right? Rather than launching a war, it would cost less (and it would be more humane, more original, more respectful of the well being and safety of the refugees) to fly out five hundred thousand people to the richer western countries. Is the creation of a Kosovo City in Canada, Australia or Basilicata a utopia? A utopia, more utopian than the bombing of Belgrade? The West is conducting a war against the economical and demographical redistribution that global immigration demands. The redistribution of the wealth that is concentrated in the hands of a tiny minority of humanity and global class, can only take place through the liberal movement of citizens of poorer countries towards the wealthier ones. In order to block this movement (which in the long term will prove impossible) western countries are ready to wage a planetary civil war. This war, however, will not be won. It is destined to last for years, or tens of years and it may well devastate the entire world that we have lived with for the past fifty years. The scandalous nature of this iniquitous division of wealth will be attacked from every side and perhaps this scandal will be responsible for destroying our entire civilisation. This is the real background to the war in Kosovo. The '68 idealists (Clinton, Blair, Joshka Fischer, Shroeder, D'Alema and Cohn Bendit) raise their fists with the same irresponsibility that they once did when shouting “Long Live Marx, Lenin and Mao Tze Tung”, but then their utopia knew nothing of weapons. It was a noble affirmation of imaginary horizons, whereas their present day, armed utopia of humanitarian fanaticism causes only disaster and the suffering of hundreds of thousands of people. The shrewd, old foxes of international politics, starting from Henry Kissinger, have all argued against this mad war and even Pat Buchanan, the representative of the integralist, republican right wing has asked for an immediate withdrawal of American forces from Kosovo. At the moment they are in a minority, but how long will this American idealistic impetuosity last if the war begins to spread, and then what will happen? Our friends of '68 have called up demons much greater than themselves. These leaders have not stopped to consider that the great migrations of human peoples, the great anthropological and social changes of history are not commanded by the cold voice of Reason. They are brought about slowly, by infinitely complex, patient mechanisms, they are the changing nature of minds, bodies and language. Just as it has devastated the lives of men and women throughout the twentieth century, the tyranny of ideas may this time be responsible for the death of us all. ================================================================================ ======================================================[from: Newmedia@aol.com]== Dear Open (Borders): << Open letter to all the people active in '68 who today have the power to decide between war and peace I was active in the anti-Dow Chemical demonstrations in Madison, Wisc. (the Berkeley of the Midwest ) in '68, perhaps I qualify . . . << The war that is being fought in Kosovo has been conceived and launched in the name of the ideals of '68. The leading cultural, political, even military powers that decided to resort to war are all children of '68: Joshka Fischer, Gerard Schroeder, Dani Cohn Bendit, Jorge Solanas, William Clark and even Clinton himself. This is a fine beginning for trying to understand the remarkable paradoxes we now must all confront. How could the anti-war generation, my generation, organize and relentlessly pursue and direct a world-threatening war? Is this just power corrupting? Is war beyond human control? Are people blinded by their own "ideals"? Or, it there something else going on here? Something paradoxical? << The ideological genesis of this war can be found in the theories of Glucksmann, Henri-Levy, Finkielkraut: it is the product of a rethinking process that took place inside the conscience of '68 during the eighties and nineties. The utopian ideals of '68 which found a foothold in maoism have turned into a utopia which is no less noble but a thousand times more deadly. Noble? As in "aristocratic"? Could the leaders of NATO possibly think of themselves as a new, "natural" aristocracy? History teaches us that the social role of aristocracy is war. How did my generation become "aristocrats"? Noble? To grasp the paradox you are introducing (or any other), you must be willing to question the presumptions which lie underneath it. You must be willing to question whether utopia is *ever* anything but deadly. Ever. Utopia=death? Hmmm . . . is the paradox beginning to sink in? <<(snip) 31 years ago, when in May we took over the centres of almost every city in Europe, we had no concept of winning or losing. Our only aim was to hold aloft the banner of Justice and Freedom. Ah, but now you are confusing the soldiers with the generals. Those streets were also filled with very real representatives of communist and other governments. Other agendas. Agent-provocateurs, hardened social-revolutionaries, battle-tested demogogues -- everyone was there -- all in the mob. (Or, as we used to call it, the MOBE.) Now, you need to question your presumptions about how the "demos" -- the "people", the populace, the crowds -- functions. Therein lies another great paradox. <> Thanks for concluding so forcefully. Ideas -- if by this you mean "ideology" or fixed points-of-view -- continue to destroy and de-humanize, that's undisputable. Now we see it again, right before our eyes. So, you might consider getting beyond point-of-view. Grasp the paradoxes of the good-guy/bad-guy duality trap. For it is beyond these paradoxes where some small measure of understanding may lie. Yes, the truth may lie. Especially, those truths you never dare to question. Lie paradoxically, of course. Best, Mark Stahlman ================================================================================ ===================================================[from: porculus@wanadoo.fr]== what a mess in your revelation and permit i read it as a not so bad snap of italian procastination and delaying in this war rather a good point of view of what you want to analyse. i don't jeer at you and to be a so closed neighbor of this war is not a so confortable place, that one could envy you and first i would say. but first you have right it's always the fucking fathers who make war, some have been even nazi no so long time ago, but yes good joke to call it nazi generation, is fascist generation sound good to your ears? anyway i notice that 'Paul Watzklawicz', 'an expert in pragmatic communication disturbances' had find what all africa call palaver for centuries, and i am not against this idea that europe delegate its power to kabila and to a siberian staretz kinda rasputine to decide in balkan, after all it could be good and deep justice : i say that without irony, honnis soit : i remind rasputine was among the rares who were against the war, and he could be assassinate a bit more easy for that. cause also really when you speak about baby boomers war and post 68 utopic intellectual who would make this war it's... a sheer delirum. especially with your examples : when i read 'The ideological genesis of this war can be found in the theories of Glucksmann, Henri-Levy, Finkielkraut' the epitome is that may be you have right but exactly in the reverse of the way you said : this guys are kantian moralists, prefect liquidating of spirit of 68, the 2 first, 2 minus habens who know how to use of 'french aura of intellectual', the last? just an honest right centrist who remember of final solution and wouldn't want his child accuse him to be a vacuous pacifist. and about cohn bendit ? all his supporter begin to be -a bit- irritate by his position. except for camembert and godard this guys are good atlantist you know, solanas ? yes the pacifist solanas also.. how many times he has said that usan are the only one who win ww1 and 2 ? how many times he said usan came only for rescue europe from itself ? keep cool head hombre : my opinion is it pointless to said that a politician could be a psychopath, cause what it is aimed when you said that is simply the politic, as in hollywood movie, but when dirty harry said 'the political ? all bullshit' harry as a good supporter of nra hold his gun for making his own one, then you, you are just quite ok for calling usan cavalry for making some order in your country in looking at usan by shooting movies, but if b52 eliminate to much kinda barbaric indians so close of you, you said it's a bit scandalous... make the sound louder hombre, adriatic kinda rio grande? you know my opinion : may be the nra have some good hidden raesons to make war against soros, and if the nra would be the last democratic and popular justification of the pentagon ? no joy no job but a gang and a gun and 'pride to be born in america' for may be making a good GI ?. and if soros want guns only for pentagon ? and america only for him ? is it not an epitome this guy become the righter of wrongs in the greeeatest democratie of the world ? really the usan preachers are not so good as they were, is it not america needs of kabila and rasputine too ? hold on tigh the politc as a crablouse clings the hair of the ass hombre, moral is most of time just slippery shit, and when somebody tell about moral during a war be sure he had just something to sell When primo levi went out in the courtyard of his concentration camp during allied bombing, he knows these staline's bombs were not sent for save and rescue him, as all those of the other allied, he knows he was just near a war aim, he knew better to protect him under his couchette, just and only him and his fellow prisoners knew why they were under staline's bombing as a spring rain. All the rest is revisionism you know hombre, we were not booooorn in america, our gun is logos, may be a more lethal one, yes may be, but don't let father soros to steal it. ================================================================================ =============================================[from: michael.benson@pristop.si]== Dear "lop1912", whoever you are, in Bologna. I don't belong to the generation that you address, but I read your compelling, articulate post to nettime, "the baby boomers at war", anyway. I understood and even sympathized with many of the things you said, and I believe I got most of the thinking behind it as well. You obviously have a compassionate and moral mind, and you've clearly done a great deal of thinking about these issues. And yet I don't agree with you. I don't agree with the larger frame of your argument; I don't agree with the solutions you appear to be offering, either. In fact, I would go further and say I think your conclusions (despite being compelling, articulate, etc.) are simply incorrect. I would even say that they're dangerous. Despite your obvious attempt to point out the dangers you sense. Let me explain -- I hope without giving offense. Like you, I believe that this Kosovo face-off is far more important than we are currently capable of seeing. I don't think I'm going too far in saying that it's a kind of ongoing crucible, these very weeks and months now -- a place where the future course of humanity, or I should say, *humanism*, will be forged. I don't mean to sound pompous here! Which way will we go? Will we permit the horror and carnage created by this criminal regime to continue to take place, to succeed -- and *precisely when that same '68 generation* which you write about now has the levers of power in the west? Or will we fatalistically, cynically, and self-destructively allow this barbarism to continue? A barbarism which, I'd guess, we've already had more than enough of during the last decade? Too much to stomach, in fact -- to the point where even your typical contemporary post-modern left-leaning urban subject has had enough (and here I'm talking about one from the decades *after* '68, when the failure of that incipient revolution -- not to mention its precursor evaporated Maoist and Stalinist utopias -- only fuelled an elaborated, skeptical disengagement). Yes, even millions in this disengaged generation seems to agree that *something* has to be done about this dismal Balkan tide of bodies, about these rooms and burned-out buildings stuffed with corpses. I mean, this inexcusable wave of mass murder was, and is, caused by readily identifiable policies and personalities! And they were easy to identify for many years before last week's Hague indictment made it "official." I don't mean to sound too emotional here. But I find a danger in the very essence of your argument, which implicitly says that all those ideals -- ideals of human rights and dignity, of the right of people to live as equals, without racism and sexism, without being beaten, raped, oppressed, killed -- are in fact useless, impotent, and hopeless to act on. It's a view decisively affected by that same defeat of '68 idealism and hope which permeates your letter! It seems to be saying, fatalistically: if we couldn't "take" Europe in '68, what's the use of our deploying that same hope for humanity now -- that instinct to mobilize for one's ideals -- thirty years later? Rather than saying, with conviction: now, after all this creeping time, this is our moment -- this is where those ideals and beliefs should be put into effect, and allowed to flower? Yeah, I guess you could say: both flower and power. I'm from the next generation, I was only six in '68. I was watching moon-launches, ignorant until years later about the idealism and radical conviction that somehow went up into orbit along with those flights in the collectively euphoric atmosphere of the '68 generation. I ask now: how is it that the following generations, mine and later ones, shouldn't now see that idealism and hope actually fought for, and embraced, and laid claim to, and acted on? Now that it's crucially necessary to do so? And again, now that your generation actually is in power? The reasons you put forward for not seizing this moment of crises, and with full determination to put those ideals into force, *with force if necessary*, seem to be nothing more than an awareness of the failure of such idealism in the past. As if force wasn't necessary to get to the point where we could say: "No more Auschwitzes, ever again!" We could only speak in that way because Auschwitz was safely in the past, specifically *due to* the use of force! Forgive me, but this seems a failure of your imagination, thirty years after your youthful idealism, and nothing more! And it bothers me, because it throws more than ash on the ash-heap of history -- it actually denies the ideals that (from the tone, and some of the content, of your letter) apparently even you still embrace. So, your reasoning seems to go: if utopia crashed once, twice, three times, therefore it must always crash. As if it didn't take a lot of trial and error before Orville and Wilbur actually could take off, in a miraculously hand-engineered levitation, and fly -- although they were heavier than air! (Well, maybe it's a banal comparison, but we write via sophisticated computer networks directly on the other side of the century from them -- so why not?). It took centuries of trying, in fact, before human "levitation" became real; but it really happened, and you can go down to the local travel agent and buy your ticket. Isn't it possible that those ideals which you yourself spell out in some detail are worth fighting for, more than once or twice or three times -- they're worth fighting for until they are actually realized? But no, now you come along years later and say: none of this is actually worth fighting for -- we should withdraw back into our well-lit, well-fed meditations, our safe ruminations. But how long will they stay safe, given the circumstances? Just to be clear, I don't mean to advocate some revival of Utopia in the dictionary definition of the term, OR in the definition spelled out in human blood during the course of this wretched century. I'm not embracing totalitarian definitions, I mean it as an expression to signify the protection of those people, and their being given the chance to return to their homes, a real chance to count their dead, mourn, and (hopefully) heal under the trees their ancestors planted in their gardens. Farms that they've owned, in somecases, for more than a thousand years! *That's* utopia enough -- I mean, for the 1.6 millions of dispossessed, both in Macedonia and Albania and the estimated 500,000 people on the run in Kosovo right now. Even as we write these things to each other in a virtual realm! You say, "The war in Kosovo will not stop at Pristina or at Belgrade, it is only the first tiny cog in a horrendous machine, that once in motion will not stop until the whole of western civilization has been destroyed." I say: you may well be right about what is at stake here, and you paint a very real picture of the possible consequences -- but that very western civilization which is in question will be destroyed *if the ideals on which it is supposed to be founded aren't defended.* That is, if we haven't become so decadent, self-satisified and abstracted that we don't recognize that they still *need* to be defended. Because if Slobodan Milosevic isn't opposed, finally, and defeated, then the ethnic cleansing virus which he has been incubating with a very great deal of success for a decade will definately continue to spread. Appeasement of Milosevic, it's seldom pointed out, started *within* the borders of the former Yugoslavia -- with the acquiescence of the other republics to the Serbian demand that Kosovo be stripped of its autonomy. "Maybe if we give him what he wants now, he'll be satisfied, and things will cool down", the other republics said to themselves in 1989 --very uneasily. Shades of Munich! Understandably enough, the Yugoslav republics were apprehensive at this revival of a "lebensraum" nationalism which, in their context, was like a madman playing with matches in a very dry powder keg. And then later, as the body-count escalated, we saw the procession of craven western politicians arriving in Belgrade, month after month, year after year, asking Milosevic kindly, gently -- with all the nuances and niceties and bells and whistles of diplomatic practice -- won't you please stop this carnage? Can't you please -- just stop? If you do, we will reward you! Well, as with Munich, it didn't stop. And it's not going to stop now, unless it's stopped, because the essential mechanism of the collective psyche of Milosevic and his strategist Mirjana Markovic is: we want *more.* And we intend to get it no matter how many bodies and destroyed bridges we have to walk across. You say, "...how weak the West is. After all, it is common knowledge that bombs cannot crush mass psychopathy and the fact that bombs excite psychopaths is surely not news to anyone." By this logic, a murderer or rapist must not be opposed in what he is doing, because the weapon of the cop will only excite that person. No, better to tiptoe away and hope for the best! I won't comment on your problematic assertions that it would be better if we all lived under American hegemony. Or your citation of experts on "pragmatic communications disturbances." I long ago gave up fantasies in which Milosevic and Tudjman were locked in a room to resolve their differences with word games (instead of spilling the blood of an entire generation). But you veer palpably into irrationality when you equate the two sides in this conflict, saying that "the guardians of Auschwitz" speak both languages -- Serbian and "English-French-Spanish-German-Italian." You seem to be saying that this is so because the western countries are not accepting as many refugees as they could or should -- this when international relief agencies are finding it hard even to convince those same refugees to move away from the dangerous Kosovo border and further into the country (let alone board jets for distant locations). You blame the predicament of close to two million people on NATO's "humanitarian enthusiasm" -- as though the campaign against them hasn't been underway since last spring. Astoundingly, you write about the creation of "Kosovo City's" in Canada and Australia. Well, apart from the price we will all pay if this madman wins, what do you think will happen then? Will Milosevic simply stop creating these crises that he relies on for his own political survival? How many thousands more dead bodies are we prepared to ignore, as we build ethnic ghettoes filled with those lucky victims he chooses to leave alive, all across the "free" world? Finally, under the momentum of your own detour into weird theories, you say Kosovo is the first round in a "planetary civil war" and identify this crises as follows: "The West is conducting a war against the economical and demographical redistribution that global immigration demands." (!!?) As though these two million displaced people are immigrants -- not refugees! I'd say that, from your vantage point in Bologna, you seem to be confusing the Kosovars with the Albanian boat people -- people fleeing *Albania*, not Kosovo -- who swamped Italian ports a couple years ago during the crises in that country. You are confusing the very real issue of how to deal with the huge press of people seeking to immigrate to more prosperous countries -- and the present human tide created by the forced expulsion of more than a million people. "Our friends of '68 have called up demons much greater than themselves", you write. "These leaders have not stopped to consider that the great migrations of human peoples, the great anthropological and social changes of history are not commanded by the cold voice of Reason. They are brought about slowly, by infinitely complex, patient mechanisms, they are the changing nature of minds, bodies and language." But this situation is NOT about anthropological changes which shift inexorably over generations, like creaking tectonic plates. This is not a faceless, inexplicable crises propelled by the weather patterns of History. We're not facing "infinitely complex, patient mechanisms" -- though we ARE dealing with is the "cold voice of Reason", specifically, Milosevic's cold voice of reason, well armed and exceedingly ruthless, which decrees that Kosovo has to be cleared of its Albanian population! Could it be that it's the (unwitting and inadvertent) tyranny of *your* ideas -- and that of many others relapsing into a comforting distancing mechanism of abstract intellectualism -- that "may this time be responsible for the death of us all"? Just asking. Because your argument, in the end, amounts to a sophisticated plea for more appeasement -- possibly in the hope that "maybe if we give him what he wants now, he'll be satisfied, and things will cool down." Back when Sarajevo was still under siege, Czeslaw Milosz wrote a poem named after that city. It was published, of course, but not really very widely noticed. Who really notices a poem, in western culture anyway? Only a small clique. But later, he republished "Sarajevo" in his book *Facing the River* -- only this time with a short prefatory sentence, which went as follows: "Perhaps this is not a poem but at least I say what I feel." Well, it happens that in this poem he also speaks directly to that same 1968 generation which you are addressing-- *your* generation. Only Milosz writes from the vantage point of an *earlier* generation; the one from 1939. The one that watched Warsaw burn. Maybe both of us should listen to the voice of that experience-- more applicable to the current crises than either yours or mine. It goes like this: SARAJEVO Now that a revolution is really needed, those who once were fervent are quite cool. While a country murdered and raped calls for help from the Europe which it had trusted, they yawn. While statesmen choose villainy and no voice is raised to call it by name. The rebellion of the young who called for a new earth was a sham, and that generation has written the verdict on itself, Listening with indifference to the cries of those who perish because they are after all just barbarians killing each other And the lives of the well-fed are worth more than the lives of the starving. It is revealed now that their Europe since the beginning has been a deception, for its faith and its foundation is nothingness. And nothingness, as the prophets keep saying, brings forth only nothingness, and they will be led once again like cattle to slaughter. Let them tremble and at the last moment comprehend that the word Sarajevo will from now on mean the destruction of their sons and the debasement of their daughters. They prepare it by repeating: "We at least are safe," unaware that what will strike them ripens in themselves. --- Czeslaw Milosz ================================================================================ ==============================================[from: a.s.ambulanzen@rolux.org]== 33 - 45 + 68 / 89 @ 99 ------ = 00 ================================================================================ # distributed via nettime-l : no commercial use without permission # is a closed moderated mailinglist for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@desk.nl and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # URL: http://www.desk.nl/~nettime/ contact: nettime-owner@desk.nl ________________________________________________________________________________ no copyright 1999 rolux.org - no commercial use without permission. is a moderated mailing list for the advancement of minor criticism. more information: mail to: majordomo@rolux.org, subject line: , message body: info. further questions: mail to: rolux-owner@rolux.org. archive: http://www.rolux.org