My compatriot and frequent contributor of valuable material to this site, François, often differentiates between Serbian National(Social)ists (who he prefers to call "false-nationalist" or "pseudo-nationalist") and non-Nationalist Serbs by referring to the latter as "'normal' Serbs". Even though it seems at times like the National(Social)ist ones are on their way to becoming the "norm" in Serbia (witness the last parliamentary elections), the fact is that there are Serbs who are willing to actually take a public stand for decency, true morality, and bringing their country and their fellow Serbs into the 21st century, instead of letting them languish in dreams of a lost 14th. I just gave one example in my latest post. Here are a couple more.
One such is the Serbian branch of the woman's peace group Women in Black. Despite opposition, these brave ladies quietly stood up against the cults of Milosevic, National(Social)ism, and for peace and justice for all. Another example is the brave civil rights advocate Natasha Kandic, who stood by the Albanians of Kosova and tried to defend their rights against the brutality of Milosevic and his henchmen, despite police harrassment and threats.
Of course, these are only two examples-there are many, many others as well. We need to be hearing more about and from them, and less-FAR, FAR less-from the Haters.
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For better or for worse, I am not your "compatriot". I am neither Albanian nor American, I am French; I don't even know of any of my ancestors who wasn't.
I am the kind of person the Serb pseudo-nationalists, with their tribal notions of "truth" and "justice", cannot understand: someone who decided 15 years ago to fight outrageous lies from a faraway former short-time ally of my country for no other reason than they were just that -- outrageous lies in the service of criminal aggression, which too many of my compatriots were believing.
I call them "pseudo-nationalists" to remind them that their policy has only had catastrophic consequences for their own people; that the "national interest" they purport to serve is no less imaginary than the "Kosovo" of their myths.
Too bad others had to pay for their fantasies.
Francois,
No offense intended-I meant "compatriot" in the looser sense of someone engaged in fighting more or less the same battle as I am fighting. Sorry if that was not clear. :)
And as you probably have noticed, I point out on the main page of the blog that I am not Albanian in the conventional, "by blood" sense (a concept I put little stock in to begin with)-in fact, the bulk of my ancestry in that sense is French (paternal grandmother was from Limoges). And I most definitely do *not* identify with the bulk of commercialised American pseudo-culture, even though I was born here and have lived here all my life.
In any case, even if the origins of our motives for being involved in this struggle are different, we are still in it together, fighting the "good fight". And that's what matters, IMO.
To be sure, I have sometimes used an Albanian pseudonym as I posted comments on some websites. But I also used a Croatian, a Swedish or a Finnish one… :-)
And I can't really write in Albanian.
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