"Violence, Historical Lessons, and Hegemony in the Balkans"
by Dragan Milovanovic
Department of Criminal Justice
Northeastern Illinois University
Chicago, Illinois, USA 60625
April 19, 1999.
These are sad days to witness the degree of escalating violence in the
Balkans, especially increasingly so in the name of "humanitarianism" or
more crudely, "national interest." And all this against international law,
the US War Powers Act, and other international pacts. Many of us who saw
the escalation that led to the Vietnam catastrophe have also seen many
parallels. Many of the baby-boomer decision-makers who did not experience
Vietnam seem to be the most voiceful for more violence. Have we forgotten
history? Some of us, including myself, who fought, committed but naively
so, for our country's goals in Vietnam subsequently saw how convoluted the
rationale was. And we also have seen the US, under the banner of "national
interest," support brutal dictatorships as in Central America and other
countries. And then we more recently saw a million people slaughtered in
Rwanda, and thousands more in Sudan, hundreds of thousands in Cambodia, and
other areas of the world. Where was our "humanitarian" effort at that point?
>We turn the TV on, CNN especially, and we see eager military men and
politicians paraded before us, advocating even further involvement with
ground forces and even more military strikes. We see few images, words, or
others who seek more peaceful ways. If they appear, they are drowned out.
We see escalation. We see images and are told stories about what is going
on, much of which, given the US foreign policy, self interest, and
manipulation is questionable. I only recall on my participation with the
Sandinista revolution visiting a supposed "secret mig base," according to
the New York Times, being built in Nicaragau, only to find at the
coordinates a large, very rough, empty field. Hardly the truth ("all the
truth fit to print"). And from my Vietnam days, as company point man of my
unit near the Cambodian border somewhere northwest of Saigon, I only recall
how we would inflate the "body count," surpassed only by the inflated body
counts of higher officers and officials, so that when we received our
official military newspaper, Stars and Stripes, we were reported to have
killed over 100 where in fact it may have been just a handful with
sometimes similar casualities of our own. But the public needs to be
presented with good images, with good kill-ratios, with good information
about how effective our policies were! It took me three months recovering
in a hospital from serious injuries in Vietnam, another two years at
college raising my consciousness, and a very supportive partner who helped
me through these difficult self-reflections to realize the lies,
distortions, and fabrications that our government is capable of.
>And then we turn on the TV, read the newspaper headlines, check out the
images presented, and we ask ourselves "what truth does in fact exist in
all this?" The military parade in front of the TV, especially CNN, all
eager for more battle, more bombing, more killing, ground troops...legions
of politicians are similary pounding the war drums...and even the national
"weather station" now regularly shows the weather over Kosovo and
Yugoslavia, the weather people often regretting "overcoast skies in the
Balkans." One watches all this, one watches the continued demonization, the
politicians and military people squirming to explain away their "errant"
bombing of a train, a Kosovian convoy, and other areas where scores of
innocent people have been killed in the name of the "humanitarian" effort,
and the attempts to deny that the majority of the exodus of human people,
suffering human beings, from Kosovo, appearing predominantly after the
bombing began...these are sad days.
>After every thing is said and done, undoubtedly atrocities will be
verified from several sides. And perhaps the atrocities being committed by
the US in the name of "humanitarianism" and "national interest" will go
down in history, as was the case in Vietnam, as one of the biggest war
crimes. Yes, Clinton will have his place in history.
>Yes, many of us would vehemently disagree with Milosovic and his zealous
policies, as many of the more liberal folks in Yugoslavia have in the past.
The many mass demonstrations in Belgrade in the past attest to this. But we
also have seen that the Serbs have united to protect their homeland, as
they did under the occupancy of the Nazis and the Ottoman Turks. And i'm
sure, with the introduction of ground troops the Serbs will be as motivated
to fight as were the Vietcong we confronted in Vietnam, often a force of
"pajama" clad individuals with simple weapons, but who were more than a
match for the US's military might. Ask any combatant about "Sir Charles."
>In many ways we are seeing parallels with our destructive criminal justice
system. In both cases violence has been employed to reduce violence. When
one reflects on the math of this: add violence to violence and what does
one get? Where is the math of the military and politicians? The discourse
of violence - might makes right, deterrence, retribution, etc. -
articulated at the State level surely has drowned out the discourse of
social repair, reconciliation, reconstruction and this stabilized ideology
surely increasingly becomes the backdrop to the resolution of everyday
interpersonal conflict. One feeds the other in a constitutive dance which
knows only further violence. In an increasingly complex and diverse world
which has become smaller too, surely peacemaking is the way. Surely
creative solutions should be emphasized. Any one who understands even the
minimum about the history in the Balkans (as is also the case with the many
conflicts in everyday life, some of which escalate into violent outcomes)
knows that there are extremely complex issues here. Violence does not
answer these complexities. Surely there is another way. Surely an
alternative discourse and imaginary can evolve. Let us all stand tall and
reject the various forms of violence inflicted from the many sectors in the
Balkans as well as NATO's and especially the US's quick answer on how to
deal with it. Let us subvert repetition. Surely, for starters, the United
Nations would be a beginning point for discussion. Surely a solution could
come about which respects the various interests, ways of life, and outlooks
of the various peoples directly involved within the geographic area of the
Balkans. Surely those from Kosovo may, should, and will return to their
rightful homeland in peace. And surely social and individual repair
processes would then have to be initiated.
>And, as i write this note, the pounding on the war drums for ground troops
has risen to a higher level. We have forgotten Vietnam. We must stop this
escalation of violence. There must be resurected the good will in all of us
to revert to peacemaking rather than to further violence. We need a
transpraxis invigorated with a discourse of social repair, reconciliation
and reconstruction.
>There surely are environments and occassions that can be created where
good human spirits can find creative solutions. Let me provide a personal
story from Vietnam. My unit, a helicopter assualt unit doing "search and
destroy" missions near the Cambodian border had sent my squad out for a
patrol. We had taken a beating for a month (30 wounded, 2-3 dead in our
infantry company which was only about 95 in total; perhaps another dozen
were inflicted with malaria and were pretty well walking zombies) and had
worked ourselves into a frenzy of human destruction, where human value
diappeared. At any rate, my squad had just stoped in the dense jungle for a
rest and we were approached by a small contingent of local villagers
selling coke-a-cola, rice, and other things. One young Vietnamese, who said
she was visiting her parents, who was a university student in Saigon who
also spoke English sat down with us, the trained killers that we had
become, and chatted...We started to exchange pictures, share stories,
exchange good feeling, questione what we were doing...and we momentarily
saw and experienced real human beings, not "gooks." For those moments we
were no longer caught up with the violence but were human beings with love,
care, concern, passions, yearnings, contradictions, and affection for the
other, our very hated enemy, who we saw as a homogenious enemy, who had
inflicted huge losses on us over the last month. But sitting there and
having a warm, caring discussion with a Vietnamese all of a sudden brought
home, for the moment, what we had done, where we were going, what we had
become, and how outrageous all this was. Similar stories are told by
combatants during cease fires for mutual holidays.
>I relate this story, because, after the villagers left, the very next day,
we were again engaged in setting ambushes, doing search and destroys,
combat assaults ("charly alphas" - helicopter attacks)...we had reverted to
the destructive selves we are sometimes capable of being. We had become
excessive investors in violence.
>Can we interrupt all this violence in the Balkans? Can we raise ourselves
beyond the violence and find another way? Surely we can, surely there are
moments in which better reason can prevail. Let's all work for those
moments. But let's all do what we can to stop the bombing, stop the exodus
of refugees, stop any atrocities, stop the human suffering on all sides,
stop demonizing the other. Let us undermine the excessive investors of the
world, drain the energy that sustain them.
>Surely, in this complex, diverse and often conflictual world the call for
mediation at all levels of otherwise conflict escalating events should be
the way, whereby the unique imaginary and symbolic constructions of diverse
peoples are respected and are the basis of authentic discussion and
possible resolution. Unilateral impositions such as the NATO plan does not
suffice, for, as we know from our history, those forced to agree to the
plan will surely rise again in their resentment. Surely we can devise
humanistic strategies whereby even with diversity, complexity, and
contradictions mediation efforts can be developed whereby the moment itself
becomes the basis in which plans, be they of the "contingent universality"
form (Judith Butler), can emerge which respect human difference but yet
commonality of the authentic human being in search of a place in the sun.
This is not a call for universality, consensus, but recognition of
differences that can find accommodation, a "peaceful co-existance." This is
not a discourse of violence but of social repair and reconstruction.
Differences, we know, can be the basis of solidarity, vibrancy and the new.
The call for critical criminology is the call for developing vistas for the
development of social justice at all levels. Suredly, the Balkan experience
is showing us the worse that conventional epistemology, politics, and
praxis has to offer. And the dominant policy continues: the US has already
spent over 2 billion dollars and today is calling for 6 billion more. How
many schools, day care centers, hospitals, programs for the elderly, social
services, summer job programs, mediation institutions, and other
constructive initiatives could be done with these monies? How much of the 6
billion could be spent on re-building Kosovo and other bombed areas instead?
Dragan Milovanovic, Ph.D
Professor
Editor, International Journal
for the Semiotics of Law
Department of Criminal Justice,
Sociology and Social Work
Northeastern Illinois University
5500 N. St. Louis Ave
Chicago, Illinois. USA 60625
Work phone: (773)794-2629
Maintained by: Jim Thomas - critcrim@sun.soci.niu.edu