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The
Criminal Race : The Demonization, Dehumanization and Criminalization
of the Serbian People.
Erin S. LaPorte - December
22, 1999
Florida State U.
Student (Sr.) - Tallahassee, Florida,
USA
"A whole nation and ethnic group -
men, women and children - appear to be incarcerated in a giant
prison. Western policy and the media campaign is such that ALL Serbs
are being economically and psychologically destroyed. The word
"SERBS" has been made synonymous with the word
"EVIL."
Dr. Raju G.C. Thomas, from his essay
"Dehumanizing a Nation: The Balkans Conflict and International
Reaction" (1993) p. 1.
CONTENTS
I. Introduction to Group Demonization and
Dehumanization.
Here, I use the work of Sam Keen (1986) to explain the basic
sociology of enemy creation through demonizing propaganda.
II. The “subhuman Serbs” as
NATO targets.
1. The role of modern mass communication in “national
interests.”
2. Human deaths as “collateral damage” and other NATO
propaganda.
III.
The “concentration camps” and “ethnic cleansing”
elements in anti-Serb propaganda.
1. The organized efforts to spread anti-Serb propaganda.
2. Making of the Trnopolje “concentration camp” and
those who were shamelessly fooled.
3. “Remember Srebrenica” themes and “Serb ethnic
cleansing” propaganda.
4. Elements of anti-Serb propaganda developed from the
“remember Srebrenica” theme.
IV. Denial of the Victimhood of the
Serbs.
V. The Hague Tribunal : The Tribunal
from Hell
1. The use of “international tribunals” to validate
labels.
2. Questionable proceedings of the Tribunal from Hell.
VI. Conclusion
VII. My Observations.
1. Racism in human rights activity in Kosovo and the
“international community.”
2. Some suggestions to the Serbian people.
3. . . . and this work isn’t done yet!
Footnotes and
references to this paper.
I. Introduction to Group Demonization and
Dehumanization.
Most human groups and nations create an enemy to create a sense of
social solidarity and membership. The function of war propaganda is
to build social solidarity, to unite a nation or group against
“the Other, evil incarnate.”
“In all propaganda, the face of the enemy is designed to
provide a focus for our hatred. He is the other. The outsider. The
alien. He is not human. If we can only kill him, we will be rid of
all within and without ourselves that is evil” (Keen 1986,
p. 16).
The stuff that creates a sense of tribal loyalty and patriotism is
paranoia. Paranoia is far from being an occasional pathology, but a
normal condition. We direct hate and suspicion to strangers and those
who are unlike us. The paranoid myth of “the threat”
involves the dualistic Us versus Them, Good versus Evil, we are good,
they are bad. This paranoid myth that unites the group and defines
it, also permits the killing of the immoral, nonhuman members of the
“them,” as well as the holy act of dying while killing the
“them” (Keen, 1986).
Humans normally don’t kill other humans. The humans that we
intend to kill, eliminate or commit genocide against must be
dehumanized. “The enemy” must be reduced to ugly creatures
that are less than animals with ideas that must be destroyed.
Propaganda of the mass media is employed to create “the
good,” us and “the evil”, the them. The mass media is
employed to justify the righteousness and piety of “us” and
the aggression and evilness of “the enemy.” This creates
the fog of paranoia that cannot be cleared, even when presented with
the truth about the true intentions and true humanity of “the
enemy” (Keen 1986).
The propaganda that is used to demonized and dehumanize “the
enemy” often portrays “the enemy” with similar images,
both visual and written. “The enemy” is often portrayed as
a beast or a stone age throw-back with turned down lips and ruff
facial features. He is wild and animal like, engaging in behaviors
and customs that are strange to “us.” In print “the
enemy” has been portrayed as dirty, crude, acting either under
the influence of home-made liquor or pure animal instincts (Stover
and Peress 1998), combined with the enemy’s “strange”
social customs, as in Eric Stover and Gilles Peress book The
Graves: Srebrencia and Vukovar. (1998) (1). These images are
replayed in many ways to create the negative stereotypes of “the
enemy” and only negative news about this demonized group is
covered in “the press” (Keen 1986, McCarus 1994). Speaking
of the portrayal of the enemy’s “strange social
customs,” Sam Keen (1986) stated: He will be portrayed as
rude, crude and uncivilized. More than likely he will be an
irrational, dirty member of a horde organized at best on the model of
an ant heap (p. 43).
Once demonized and stripped of their humanity, it not only makes it
easier for the battlefield solider to kill the “faceless,
non-human enemy,” it is also easier to indiscriminately kill any
member of “the enemy.” Civilians in the demonized group
become targets, often unable to fight back and are easy prey for
violence and persecutions. They are easy prey for violence and
harassment as a result of knee-jurk, American- patriotic racism
called jingoistic racism (2) ( Keen 1986; Burchfield 1997;
McCarus 1994).
Since a group stripped of its humanity is not seen as having human
worth, they have no human rights. Such a demonized, out-group is not
deserving of the protections that other human groups are entitled
under international law and conventions. Such a development helps
powerful governments and military alliances, and their media outlets,
to justify the bombing and killing of civilians, and the ignoring of
the human rights of the demonized group ( Burchfield 1997).
“They” may have been the victims of war crimes committed
against “them,” but war crimes against “them” are
justified.
Lastly, according to Miller and Levin (1998), the media project
images of a “hierarchy of victims,” that is, some victims
are more deserving of public attention, sympathy and out rage than
other victims. This projects the image that these “lesser
victims” lives’ are of no value and are therefore less
newsworthy.
Back to top.
Footnotes and references
II. The “subhuman Serbs” as NATO Targets.
1. The role of modern mass communication in “national
interests.”
The media play very important roles in portraying members of some
groups as normal and others as Other. In particular, films and
television programs use the power of visual images to create and
reinforce stereotypic images of Others as scary and different
(Zatz and Mann, 1998, p.8).
While the family and education have a role to play in the shaping and
transmission of the common culture, this role is falling more on the
shoulders of the media and the government. Government is playing more
of a role in the culture, shaping and supporting the cultural values
regarding civil rights, criminal justice and so on. The mass media
are a great influence on the transmission and reinforcement of some
times heavily biased, cultural values ( Burchfield 1997, Ranney
1993). The most influential impact of mass communications in
political communication and political culture is television because
of it’s visualness over radio, its visual and voice over
newspapers (Ranney 1993).
Journalists will seek out governmental and military officials when
there is some perceived threat to the “national interest.”
Many of these reporters rely on official sources, such as foreign
affairs offices and governmental employees. In order to cultivate
relationships with and “not offend” those “in the
know,” the reporter reports “facts” he is given, even
if he knows that they are lies. The most esteemed journalists are the
ones who are the most servile. Hearsay is transformed into “the
truth” (Sadkovich, 1998). Often, however, these “facts”
that military and governmental officials put out as “truth”
can be disputable and become part of the propaganda and the process
of demonization, or re-demonization (Sadkovich 1998, Keen 1986).
There is one vivid example of this “reporting of facts”
from the NATO Alliance during it’s rather questionable
“Operation Allied Force.” The Paris based group, Reporters
sans Frontieres (RSF) chastised NATO for what it said was the
Alliance’s “distorting the truth, attempts at
misinformation” and “impossible to check figures.” RSF
sited the example of the supposed wounding of ethnic-Albanian leader
Ibrahim Rugova, who then subsequently appeared healthy on Serbian
Television.
Air Commodore David Wilby had stated that the report of Rugova’s
demise was from a “very reliable source.” The “very
reliable source” that Air Commodore Wilby cited was a London
-based Kosovo Information Center, run by Kosovo exiles. Besides
(dis)information, RSF’s report points out the “other
features of Western communication are approximate figures, debatable
historical references and the use of vocabulary that has the aim of
making the adversay appear monstrous. ” (3)
2. Human deaths as “collateral damage” and other NATO
propaganda.
“When we know the Serbs did it, we say the Serbs did
it,” said a NATO official . . .who spoke anonymously to an
American researcher. “When we don’t know who did it, we say
the Serbs did it. And when we know the Serbs didn’t do it, we
say we don’t know who did it.” (4)
Recall in Section I the ideas of both Burchfield (1997) and Keen
(1986). Once a group of humans is stripped of its humanity, such as
the Serbs, this “out group” is seen as “not
worthy” of the same protections granted to “in groups.”
This includes the human rights and human worth of the demonized
group. Also, according to Keen (1986), the high tech weapons
eliminate much of the demonization process and make “the
enemy” even less human : The atrocities committed from a
high altitude by bomber crews, directed from afar by technicians are
not so much inhuman as ahuman ( p.86). So long as we want to
kill from a distance with clean hands, we must refrain from imagining
the consequences of our weapons, and must completely eliminate any
awareness of the enemy as human (pp.86-87).
NATO officials in Brussels were truly conditioned by their propaganda
to kill “the Other,” the “sub-human, ethnic cleansing,
Serbs,” and coupled with the distance from Brussels to Belgrade,
this insulated the Alliance from the carnage in Yugoslavia, making
bombing the civil population all the more sanitary.
The results of dehumanizing propaganda and sanitary killing of
“the Other” came out of one NATO official in at least one
press briefing during “Operation Allied Force.” During the
April 9th press briefing, CNN correspondent Patricia Kelly questioned
Air Commodore David Wilby’s lack of concern for the civil
population in and around a Yugoslav car plant : “. . .your
statement on the collateral damage to civilian property in Kosovo
seems to take no account of the fact that there are still Serb
civilians inside of Kosovo which NATO has also pledged to protect in
its early mission statements but the way you put the information
across makes it sound as if you are not particularly bothered about
their safety any longer.”
In his reply to the charge, Wilby answers with a well worn NATO
statement, but then continues to describe possible Serb civilian
causalities in non-human terms:
“. . .if I gave the impression that I was not
concerned about the loss of civilian life to the Serbian population,
you know that we have always said that we are not in any conflict
with the Serbian people and I am sorry if my emphasis came across
slightly wrong to you."
“In terms of the car plant. . .as I have said to you,
we would look very carefully into the collateral damage or damage to
civilians before we attacked that particular plant.” (5)
According to The White Book of NATO’s Crimes , there were
several civilian homes hit by missiles that day, as well as the car
plant that employed 30,000, but no injuries or deaths were reported
in this publication. (6)
In yet another example that lead to protests by historical experts
was Tony Blair’s (mis) use of the term “genocide” and
the characterization of Milosevic’s government to that of
Hitler’s. (7) The reasons for the NATO Alliance’s
questionable bombing campaign was the “humanitarian
disaster” of the ethnic Albanians that was created by the
“ethnic cleansing by the Serbs.” The common figure being
batted around was 100,000 dead, with one mass grave in Ljubenic said
to contain 350 bodies. ("Remember Srebrenica?! Why those 'nasty,
ethnic cleansing, rapist Serbs' were back to their systematic ethnic
cleansing plans!”)
What investigators found , or didn’t find ( November 1999) in
Ljubenic was not 350 corpses, but seven(8) and a mine shaft said to
contain lots of corpses of massacred Albanians held none (9).
Recently, teams of forensic experts from Spain and Italy have found
only about 200 graves or so with no signs of torture on those corpses
the did find.(10) People were leaving Kosovo because, like Serbia
proper, it was being attacked by NATO.(11) The NATO Alliance is
starting to look very much like an alliance of cheap, brutal war
mongers, using propaganda and outright lies as a justification for war.
However, during the NATO actions against the Yugoslav Serbs, the West
rehashed the same propaganda and old stereotypes of the Serbs as the
“butchers of the Balkans, ethnic cleansers” (Flounders
1998). The US and NATO used these past anti-Serb propaganda and anti-
Serb stereotypes in an effort to create the social solidarity
necessary to keep the NATO countries’ leaders and their publics
supportive of the Yugoslavia bombing campaign ( Keen 1986, Naslund,
1999).
These claims of the “systematic, ethnic cleansing and mass
murder plans” of the Serbs is not new. The anti-Serb propaganda
elements that were being recycled in the NATO action with regard to
Kosovo were the “remember Sreberinca” themes, which are
highlighted in the next section. There was alleged to have been 8,000
Muslim men “systematically massacred by the Serbs” in
Srebreinca, but only 460 bodies have been found (Kent 1998, Pumphrey
1998).
Some of the conscious in the West for the “bombing of
Milosevic” and the Yugoslav Serb civilian population was also
developed and maintained by sometimes concerted demonization and
dehumanization campaigns lead by American PR firms like Ruder Finn
Global Public Affairs(12) with “very important” clients,
like the Republic of Croatia.
Back to top.
Footnotes and references
III. The “concentration camps” and “ethnic
cleansing” elements in anti-Serb propaganda.
“Regrettably, that behavior (ethnic cleansing) is not
unprecedented in Balkan conflicts, and to say that it is a peculiarly
Serb behavior says more about the observer than the Balkans”
(Charles G. Boyd 1995, p.3).
Several groups have been demonized through the use of propaganda
during the 20th Century. Most notably, the Jews, Germans and Japanese
during the Second World War, the Russians during the Cold War, the
Arabs and Muslims during the 70’s and the Gulf War. The newest
victims of Western, war- motivated propaganda are the Serbs (Keen
1986, McCarus 1994, Kent 1999, Flounders 1998). There have been a few
intense media blitzes stemming “from the need to punish”
the Serbs for their insolence against the West and Washington (Kent
1999).
1. The organized efforts to spread anti- Serb propaganda.
Unlike the cartoons and posters of the previous wars, the “media
war” against the Serbs, as many have put it, is a sometimes
concerted, high tech one, incorporating mass communication technology
and public relations firms to demonize and dehumanize and the entire
ethnic group. The current concerted propaganda campaign against the
Serbs began back in the early ‘90’s when the Western world
media heated up it’s anti- Serb campaign with its portrayal of
Serbs as barbarians, drunken bandits and murders, even Nazi fascists.
Current political cartoons portray the Serbs as pigs, hyenas and
neo-Nazi monsters. (Thomas 1993, Flounders 1998, Deichmann 1998, Kent
1999). There is now even an anti-Serb propaganda book, Stover and
Peress’ The Graves , being use in the classroom of Florida State
University in a course on “human rights investigations” and
this author is finding that anti-Serb propaganda books with the
“remember Srebrenica” theme are becoming common place.
The current Western/NATO propaganda against the Serbs is an organized
one, involving public relations firms. Charly Reese of the Orlando
Sentinel wrote, “. . .the Serbs were and are up against
powerful American public relations firms, western intelligence
agencies and biased or incompetent Western reporters.”
Reese cited an interview by French Two Television of James Harff of
Ruder Finn Global Affairs, the public relations firm that was
representing the Muslim side. Harff, who is Ruder Finn’s
director, boasted of getting the American Jews on the side of Muslims
after the Bosnian concentration camps hoax (Also Deichmann, 1998,
Flounders 1998). The public relations firm capitalized on the high
emotional content of the ITN “concentration camp” hoax for
the benefit of its clients, the Republic of Croatia, the Republic of
Bosnia-Herzegovina and the parliamentary oppsition in Kosovo. The
Washington based firm shows how the corporate media engages in a
modern propaganda campaign and demonstrates one of the concerted
efforts to demonize the Serbs :
Speed is vital. . .it is the first assertion that really counts.
All denial are ineffective. In a single move we were able to present
a simple story of good guys and bad guys which would hereafter play
itself. We won by targeting the Jewish audience. Almost immediately
there was a clear change of the lanague in the press, with use of
words with high emotional content such as ‘ethnic cleansing,
concertration camps, etc., which evoke images of Nazi Germany and the
gas chambers of Auschwitz. No one could go against it without being
accused of revisionism. We really batted a thousand in full”
(qtd. in Flounders 1998, pp.54, 55).
2. Making of the Trnopolje “concentration camp” and
those who were shamelessly fooled.
In his essay “The Picture that Fooled the World” (1998)
Thomas Deichman describes the “concentration camp” hoax in
detail. The now famous picture came from a video shot by Penny
Marshall of ITN of a refugee camp in Trnopolje on August 5th, 1992.
In fact, Deichmann has looked at the rest of the footage Marshall and
her team shot that contained the picture. What was used in the
Marshell report - and what wasn’t - is revealing. What
wasn’t in the report was the openness of the camp, the holes in
the fences that Marshell and her crew went through and that the
refugees were free to leave anytime they wanted (Dechmann, 1998).
What became the picture that Mike Jeremy of ITN pegged “one of
the key images of the war in the former Yugoslavia,” (qtd. in
Deichmann, p. 170) was, in fact, presented as to the Western world as
something it was not, a concentration camp. The focus was on Fikret
Alic, who’s protruding rib cage behind a fence conjured up
images of Nazi death camps. This “death camp” was a crude,
sick lie and Fikret Alic, who survived the war, was disturbed about
the use of his image.
Through the use of camera angles, editing and the focus on one rather
emaciated fellow, the images of a “concentration camp” were
constructed for Western, anti-Serb propaganda consumption, especially
to the delight of the Ruder Finn PR firm (Deichmann 1998, Flounders
1998).
James Harff of Ruder Finn shows his more of his “pride” in
getting the Anti-Defamation League and other Jewish organizations on
the side of Muslims using the “concentration camp “ hoax:
“At the beginning of July 1992, New York Newsday came out
with the article on Serb camps. We jumped at the opportunity
immediately. We outwitted three big Jewish organizations - the
B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation League, The American Jewish
Committee and the American Jewish Congress. In August, we suggested
that they publish an advertisement in the New York Times and organize
demonstrations outside the United Nations.
That was a tremendous coup. When the Jewish organizations entered
the game on the side of the [Muslim] Bosnians, we could promptly
equate the Serbs with the Nazis in the public mind. Nobody understood
what was happening in Yugoslavia. The great majority of Americans
were probably asking themselves in which African country Bosnia was
situated”
(qtd. in Flounders 1998, p.55).
Those that were duped- and continue to be duped - are the American
Jewish groups, such as the Anti- Defamation League that, according
Thomas (1993) : “Using the Jewish Holocaust as their
exclusive domain and forgetting the holocaust of the Serbs, the
American Jewish Congress has gone overboard in their calls to bomb
the Serbs” ( p. 2)
Thomas points out strongly that the American Jewish community is
actually participating in the genocide of Serbs. Promoting
dehumanizing anti-Serb propaganda is a horrible step by most
victimized ethnic group of the 20th Century- the Jews- to promote
violence against another ethnic group- the Serbs.
3. “Remember Srebrenica” themes and “Serb ethnic
cleansing” propaganda.
“Srebrenica provides an unexpected way precisely what is
wrong with both the media and the constant spreading of hate against
the Serbs” (Kent 1999, p.9).
“Ethnic cleansing” is more often, and falsely, attributed
to Serbs, while at the same time Serb victims of ethnic cleansing,
including at Srebrenica, are forgotten. Serb victims of ethnic
cleansing are either misidentified as another ethnicity or not
identified by an ethnicity. Often the fact that Serbs are also
victims of ethnic cleansing is downplayed or never reported. ( Kent
1999, Dragnich 1995, Boyd 1995, Rohde 1997, Thomas 1993). Section IV
extensively covers denial of the victimhood of the Serbs by Western
governments and media.
Editors often suppress “pro-Serb” stories, but allow a few
favorable words to be said to give the appearance of “fair
play” (Kent 1999). These stories are often hidden or near the
bottom, but then it is accompanied by demonizing, anti-Serb text (
Kent 1999).
The “Serbophobes,” as Kent (1999) calls them, not only
portray the Serbs as dirty, drunken, neo-Nazi monsters, but
suppressed stories defending the Serbs, including false charges and
grand exaggerations of alleged “genocide” (Kent 1999,
Thomas 1993, ). Western reporters and the Eric Stover types,
according to Thomas (1993), go into a frenzy over alleged
“genocide” by Serbs and numbers of Muslims or Croats killed
are often inflated and amount to lies. The same ilk could care less
when the victims of ethnic cleansing and mass murder are Serbs. What
the Western propaganda machine drags up constantly are the alleged
atrocities by Serbs in the town of Srebernica (Kent 1999). This is
one of the towns in Eric Stover and Gillies Peress’ The
Graves : Srebernica and Vukovar (1998) .
In this book, the Serbs are not only portrayed as a race of dirty,
drunken, animal, ethnic cleansers, but the mainly photojournalistic
work hides the victimization of the Serbs, as well as portrays the
Serbs as drunken, animalistic killers. Stover writes, “ . . . the
shelling of towns and villages, mass deportations of Muslims and
Croats and the systematic destruction of their cultural property. . .
what the Serb leaders were intending to accomplish in Bosnia”
(p. 137).
However, a good - and shorter than an entire book - example of this
method of anti-Serb stereotype reinforcement is also in the March
25th, 1996 issue of the New York Times article by Alan Cowell.
Cowell’s story was regarding the indictments by the
International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) of
three Bosinan Muslims and a Bosnian Croat for involvement in a
alleged “rape camp” in which Serbs were the victims. One
would not know that this is an article about Serb victims and
indictments issued for crimes committed against Serbs by reading the
article:
These are the first individuals indicted for crimes against
Bosnian Serb victims,” the tribunal’s spokesman, Christian
Chartier said. The indictment was “the first of its kind,”
it said.
The tribunal’s investigations have been dominated by
inquires against Serbs, who investigators say pursued a systematic
drive to purge entire regions of Muslims and Croats, using murder and
rape as weapons in this process of ‘ethnic cleansing.’
The tribunal has charged that many of the Serbian atrocities
reflected deliberate policies of the Bosnian Serb leadership, as
opposed to being crimes by rouge individuals . . . ”
Even as today’s indictments against the Serbs’
adversaries were made known, the United States’ chief delegate
to the United Nations, Madeleine Albright, was visiting the site of
suspected mass graves near the central town of Srebrenica, where
thousands of Muslims are believed to have been massacred by Serbs
last July.” (13)
Was Cowell’s story really about the ICTY indictments of
non-Serbs, or was the purpose of Cowell’s article really about
something else - like anti-Serb stereotype reinforcement?!
4. Elements of anti-Serb propaganda developed from the
“remember Srebrenica” theme.
In Faces of the Enemy (1986) , on page 46, Sam Keen has eight
elements of decivilizing rhetoric he identified as being used by
former President Ronald Reagan to paint the image "Soviet
savagery." I have noted that much of the “remember
Srebrenica” theme was, and still is, being used as elements of
anti-Serb propaganda. Borrowing on Keen’s idea of identifying
elements of decivilizing rhetoric, and Eric Stover’s Serb
bashing text in The Graves as a main sources, I have created a
list of elements in anti-Serb propaganda :
What is also clear from Stover and Gilles’ book is that Bosnian
Muslims are human beings, with human traits of concern for family,
have feelings of love and anger, suffer hunger and cold. Contrast
that to the animalistic Serbs who, in this obviously propaganda book,
are cold, cruel, unfeeling, and unmoved by the tears and fears of the
Bosnian Muslim human beings . The Serbs, as a group of human beings,
have their humanity ripped and stripped from then in The Graves.
Eric Stover and Gillies Pervess’ The Graves : Sreberinca and
Vukovar is an excellent book for those who want get a good taste
of what anti-Serb propaganda and dehumanization is all about.
Closely related to the “remember Srebrenica” spin of
anti-Serb propaganda is the denial of the victimhood of the Serbs,
including and especially in Srebrenica, at the hands of Eric
Stover’s “charismatic - 25 year old leader,” Naser Oric.
Back to top.
Footnotes and references
IV. Denial of the victimhood of the Serbs.
“Massacres committed by Serbs are genocide, but not
massacres committed on Serbs. Ethnic cleansing by the Serbs is
genocide, but not that committed by the other side against Serbs”
( Thomas 1993, p. 5).
Part of the demonization and dehumanization of the Serbs is not only
labels created through propaganda against them, but also the removal
of their victimhood. The funeral of a Serb girl was reported as that
of a Muslim and the rape of a Serb woman was reported as that of a
Muslim (Kent 1999, Thomas 1993).
“When pictures of Serbian victims are shown, their ethnicity
is not identified so as to give the impression that these are Muslims
or Croats. One American newspaper even took the picture of a Serbian
rape victim clearly identified in a caption in a Canadian newspaper,
then reprinted that picture under a caption identifying her as a
Muslim victim” ( Thomas 1993, p. 2 ).
Or the fact that the Serbs have also been victims of ethnic cleansing
is often never reported in Western media. According to Raymond Kent,
“For
almost a year before the Serbs took Srebrenica. . . its Bosnian
(Muslim) government forces routinely raided the rural Serbs in the
surrounding countryside, committing all kinds of war crimes without
any fear that the T.V. screens of the outside world could be even a
silent witness” (p. 9 ).
On thing is for certain is that journalist and forensic
anthropologist Eric Stover and photojournalist Gilles Peress were not
there. In fact on page 117 of The Graves , Stover treats Naser Oric,
the local Bosnian Muslin leader suspected of burning over 200 Serbs
villages and brutally and beastly murdering Serbs in raids around
Srebrenica (Kent 1999, Rohde 1997) as a “charismatic, twenty -
five year old policeman” and the brutal, murderous raids as
“the success of these local raids.” In the book Endgame
(1997)
David Rohde paints a picture of Srebrenica’s Serbs living in
fear :
Srebrenica’s Muslims and Naser Oric had played the United
Nations beautifully in 1993. When the Serbs were on the verge of
taking the town, they had tricked the West into saving them. The safe
area was a joke. For two years, the UN had fed the Muslims, sold them
weapons and done nothing as Naser Oric launched raids from a town
that was supposed to be “demilitarized.” Serb villagers
within 30 miles of Srebrenica lived in constant fear, waiting to hear
the voices in the night and then smell smoke. Dozens of civilians had
been burned alive in their homes by Oric’s men (p.15).
While I am not condoning any actions that may have been perpetrated
by the Bosinan Serb side, the marked difference between Naser Oric
and Ratko Mladic is that the latter has never been indicted by the
ICTY (Kent 1999) . On of the most grave injustices of Stover and
Gilles’ The Graves is that it hides and denies
Srebrenica’s other victims, the Bosnian Serbs, and implies that
a “politically correct” war criminal is a hero.
Currently, much of the coverage of “humanitarian efforts”
in Kosovo are often one-side, almost flat out ignorance the human
rights and war crimes violations by the Kosovo Albanian population,
especially the KLA ( the Kosovo, so-called “Liberation Army
“) against the Kosovo Serbs. The ICTY is doing little to
investigate and indict KLA and other Kosovo Albanians for their war
crimes and ethnic cleansing against the Kosovo Serbs and other
minorities(14). In the fashion of “remember Srebrenica”
there were accusations of “Serbian ethnic cleansing” that
are now, once again, turning out to be false(15). Also, as in Bosnia,
when Serbs are the victims, who cares.
As stated by Miller and Levin (1998) the mass media project a
“hierarchy of victims” in which some victims are more
deserving of attention and public outrage than others. The Serbs are
quite noticeably at the bottom of this hierarchy, if they are even on
the chart at all. When a mass grave is made up of Muslims and
non-Serbs, the Western mass media flock to it like vultures(16). When
the mass grave is made up of Serbs - who cares. When the Serbs are
victims of ethnic cleansing - who cares. The Serbs are subhumans - so
who cares (Thomas 1993).
The above is commonly called “racism” and those involved
are commonly called "racists."
Denial of victimhood of the Serbs and treating war crimes against
them as if they are less deserving of investigation and international
attention is reflective of racism in the “international
community,” the ICTY and the “human rights
Serbophobes”
(Kent 1999, p.8). The cameras were out and rolling to catch Ratko
Mladic - but not Naser Oric (Kent 1999). Being very concerned with
the human rights and humanitarian needs of one ethnic group, while
flat out ignoring the human rights violations against and the basic
human needs of the other, as is current in Kosovo, is RACIST, to say
the least.
Back to top.
Footnotes and references
V. The Hague Tribunal : The Tribunal from Hell.
1. The use of “international tribunals” to validate
labels.
“A problematic individual or group is classified as an
instance of human refuse; the validity of the label is tested and
confirmed in public hearings or tribunals conducted by experts
certified in making defamatory pronouncements: legends are then woven
by mythmakers to ‘explain’ the necessity for the evil party
being as it is : these legends are passed on . . . as ontological
truths, and received by an audience which, not present during the
initial steps, is unable to fathom the fabricated nature of the evil;
finally, the truth of the myth is recognized (re-known) through its
ritual dramatization in armed engagements, domestic and foreign,
against the evil object” (Aho 1994, pp.114-115).
In his book, This Thing of Darkness (1994), James Aho
discusses how this “evil” is created through imagery,
validated and made the stuff of myth and “common knowledge about
‘the them.’ “ In this way, the “evil” is
socially constructed. This is how criminality, delinquency, and even
“war crimes” and “crimes against humanity” are
brought to life, made reality and confirmed.
The first step is naming or labeling. “Persons, acts or
situations are neither good nor evil. They come to be seen as such
when. . .they are so defined” (Aho 1994, p.28). The labels
of “ethnic cleansers” and “genocidal” are
attributed to Serbs almost exclusively by Western media (Thomas 1993,
Kent 1999, Flounders 1998), including by both NATO and the ICTY.
However, the label of “ethnic revenge” and not “ethnic
cleansing” is fixed to Kosovo Albanians engaging in similar acts
of violence and ethnic cleansing that the Serbs are almost
exclusively accused of by NATO and the West. In this way, the Western
media can have its label of “ethnic cleansers” to safely
affix to the Serbs to once again demonize them at sometime in the future.
The next step that Aho (1994) discusses that is of interest here is
the legitimization of the labels : “It is one thing to
malign others; it is another for such labels to ‘stick.’ If
labels are to adhere to the intended party, they must be validated.
One vehicle for effecting this is the public degradation ceremony.
This is a formal hearing, trial, inquisition or tribunal . . .”
( p. 29). The purpose of the ICTY Tribunal from Hell - it’s
“official hearings, investigators and panels of experts” -
the mindlessly, bloody Richard Goldstone ilk- is not justice, not in
the least bit, but as stated by James Aho (1994), to make the labels
of “ethnic cleansers, war criminals and mass murders” stick
to the Serbian people.
2. Questionable proceedings of the Tribunal from Hell.
. When NATO and the Bosnian Muslims kidnapped Djordje Djukic and
another Yugoslav army officer, and spirited them to the Hague, it was
not about “justice.” It was not about “justice”
to interrogate this seriously ill man, who was being denied basic
medical care for cancer, for up to 20 hours a day. It was not about
“justice” when the tribunal’s judges laughed at the
profession of innocence from Djordje. The cruel and indifferent
treatment of Djordje at the hands of the ICTY Tribunal from Hell, was
not about “justice” (Cavoski 1997, Rubin 1996, Kent 1999).
Djordje Djukich was a non-combat, logistics officer and most likely
innocent of “crimes against humanity.” The “trial”
of him, as a Bosnian Serb, was actually a trial of all people of
Serb descent. The “derogation ceremony” served to validate
Western mass media propaganda labels of the Bosnian Serbs as
“genocidal, ethnic cleansers and mass murders” (Kent 1999,
Rubin 1996, Aho 1994, Flounders 1998).
James Aho (1994) demonstrated how labels against “problematic
groups” are validated through a “derogation ceremony,”
that is courts, trials, public hearings - or - in this case - an
international tribunal. The ICTY Tribunal from Hell performs this
function. According to Kent (1999) and Thomas (1993), who wrote his
essay as the ICTY was being formed:
What is being set up is nothing more than an ‘Ad Hoc
International Kangaroo Court’ decked with the frills of
respectability to pacify the historical and revengeful demands of an
American-lead, Western lynch mob. There appears to be no higher court
of appeal for the Serbs. In the minds of the Western and especially
American media, Serbs have already been tried and found guilty. They
will accept no other verdict. The international ‘legal
process’ is a FORMALITY (p. 4).
The Western mass media, the Eric Stovers and Gillies Pervess of the
world, are rather selective about the mass graves they cover,(17)
much in the way the ICTY indicts “war criminals.” That is,
the ICTY investigators essentially work for the prosecution looking
to indict and convict persons of a single ethnicity. This
“court” issues almost daily accusations to the world mass
media against leaders of one ethnicity and religion in a civil war
with three sides. (Thomas 1993, Kent 1999). The ICTY seems to depend
on the mass media and anti-Serb propaganda to feed and validate its
existence, and the example below is strong evidence of this dependency.
On one night of drunkenness, reporter and author Nebojsa Jevric was
asked by an American reporter who he would nominate as the worst
rapist of Muslim women. Jevric nominated Gruban of Bijelo Polje. The
American counterpart then forwarded Gruban’s name to the
“right places.” Soon, the world was flooded with wanted
posters of “Serbian war criminals” with the names of
Radovan Karadzic, Ratko Mladic and Gruban. Gruban al>
Transfer interrupted!
ge : unknown - nationality : unknown - description :
unknown - address : unknown.
With no description, how then were NATO’s troops going to find
this notorious Serb war criminal who had raped so many Muslim women?
They weren’t. Gruban of Bijelo Polje was actually a character
from the famous novel, “Hero on a Donkey,” by Miodrag
Bulatovic.(18)
With lots of egg on its face, the ICTY withdrew the indictment
against Gruban.(19)
Another questionable act of the ICTY that served to validate the
Serbs as a “evil, genocidal people” was the issuance of an
indictment for “war crimes and genocide” against Slobodan
Milosevic, President of Yugoslavia, during NATO’s “Operation
Allied Force.” (20) This indictment- and the timing of it -
served to validate - once again - the Serbs as an “evil
people.” It derogated the Serbian people as an ethnic group in
need of “collective punishment” by NATO bombs (Naslund
1999). The current revelations now coming out of Kosovo are that
there was no “systematic policy of mass murder or genocide.”
(21)
The ICTY Tribunal from Hell is really is part of the portrayal of
“the Other,” the Serbs, as the “evil, human
refuse.” It is not only the demonstration of the
“justness” of the cause of NATO and the West, but serves to
validate anti-Serb propaganda. The ICTY, it’s derogation
ceremonies aimed almost exclusively at Serbs, serves the function of
validating the “evilness” of the Serbs as a subhuman group
and the “need” for Western/NATO intervention ( Keen 1986,
Kent 1999, Thomas 1993, Binder 1996).
Some unfortunate Serbs, like Djordje Djukich, are kidnapped and
turned over to NATO’s troops to be “processed to the
Hague.” (22) (Of the people indicted by this "court"
46 are Serbs, 8 Croats and one a Muslim.(23) )
“Even
if innocent, the accused is contaminated - his guilt, insanity,
addiction, subversives, or apostasy ‘confirmed in the eyes of
the masses’ ” (Aho 1994, p.29). The ICTY is the
“legitimization” process whereby the interest is not
justice - hardly - but the validation of damning labels (Aho 1994).
These unearned labels of Serbs as “genocidal murderers”
have now become “common knowledge” of modern society (Aho
1994) and it has now been woven and accepted as fact are that the
Serbs are “Nazi-like, ethnic cleansing, rapist, mass
murders” (Flounders 1998).
The Serbs that are now, have been, and will be in the future,
subjected to this Tribunal from Hell , the ICTY, have been relegated
to this cruel and inhuman role for the sake of validating Western
propaganda and demonizing labels by going through the James Aho’s
(1994) “legitimization” process.
Back to top.
Footnotes and references.
VI. Conclusion
“When Milosevic gets up in the morning, he is counting his
losses. . .” (24)
No, Jamie Shea, actually it is the civil population of Yugoslavia
that is counting its losses, including the losses of friends, family
and co-workers (Naslund 1999, International Action Center 1999). In
the minds of NATO officials, like Jamie Shea and Air Commodore Wilby,
they truly were “bombing Milosevic.” The process of
demonization of the Serb population to a deserving mass of
“subhuman, rapist, ethnic cleansers” was easy for the NATO
Alliance, for these push button warriors painted the face of Slobodan
Milosevic, an “indicted war criminal,” on the face of every
person living in Yugoslavia. Therefore, the entire population of
Yugoslavia stood indicted in mass as “war criminals and ethnic
cleansers of Kosovo," having been indicted along with the FRY
President by that instrument of label validation and Serb derogation
- the ICTY Tribunal from Hell.
Any support for the current Western/NATO Balkans missions is built
and maintained through the use of anti-Serb propaganda. As the
Western propaganda spin goes, the West has a “holy mission,”
(an ethnocentric one), to bring “the bad” in line with
“the good ,” and doing what where it desires in the name of
“democracy, peace and security.” To accomplish this, the
main strategy of Western propaganda was “good vs evil,” and
“aggressor vs. aggrieved” (Kent 1999; Boyd 1995). Much of
the motivation for NATO’s attack on Yugoslavia was to stop
“the evil aggressors” in the name of “higher moral
standards,” even if it ment playing dirty (Naslund
1999). These self-righteous hypocrites the demonized an entire ethnic
group, attempted to force them to sign a “non- negotiable
agreement,” (25) labeled its leaders as “war
criminals,” and then set out on a criminal campaign of
“collective punishment” by bombing an innocent, civil
population “back into the Stone Age” ( Keen 1986, Naslund
1999).
In the opening pages of this essay I demonstrated the basic sociology
of how a human group like the Serbs can be dehumanized through the
use of demonizing propaganda. I used authors James Aho (1994) and Sam
Keen and his classic Faces of the Enemy: Reflection of the Hostile
Imagination (1986) to demonstrate how one human group defines
“the Other” and paints “the Other” as with
sub-human qualities through the used of negative images: propaganda.
Using the work of Sara Flounders and Thomas Deichmann I demonstrated
how the anti-Serb propaganda campaign is a concerted one directed by
chiefly the American public relations firm Ruder Finn Global Affairs.
Ruder Finn jumped on Penny Marshell’s and ITN’s
“concentration camp” hoax and is quite boastful of fooling
American Jewish Organizations, like the Anti- Defamation League.
I would like to say- most strongly to those American Jewish
groups(26) that allowed themselves to be duped- and who continue to
be duped - by the likes of the Ruder Finn PR firm and are supportive
of the dehumanizing and violence against the Serbian ethnic group,
SHAME
ON YOU - SHAME ON YOU- SHAME ON YOU! (To say this does not
make me anti-Semitic, but places blame where blame is due!)
Besides PR firms and major newspapers, there are now books pushing
anti-Serb propaganda. They often have “remember Srebrenica”
themes. One such book that does a fairly good job of painting the
Serbs as subhuman, smelly, drunken, ethnic cleansing animals is Eric
Stover and Gillies Peress’ The Graves : Srebrenica and Vukovar
(1998). I use this book as a model of anti-Serb propaganda throughout
this essay.
I also used James Aho’s work This Thing of Darkness : A
Sociology of the Enemy (1994), along with that of Raymond Kent
(1999), Raju G.C. Thomas (1993), Kosta Cavoski (1997) Alfed Rubin
(1996), and Maria Naslund (1999) to demonstrate the true purpose of
the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY)
: Serb demonization and the validation of anti-Serb labels and
Western/NATO mass media propaganda through the use of this
“official court in the Hague” as a “derogation
ceremony” against the Serbs.
At the ICTY in the Hague - the Tribunal from Hell - justice is the
last thing this judicial devil is seeking. It is set up to solely
seek out and indict Serbs for the purpose of validating anti-Serb
stereotypes and labels like “ethnic cleaners.” The cruel
treatment of individual Serbs indicted by this Tribunal from Hell and
kidnapped by NATO is to indict and “put on trial” ALL
persons of Serb descent.
NATO carried out the “collective punishment” of the Serbs,
rehashing “remember Srebrenica” elements of anti-Serb
propaganda, as well outright lies of “ethnic cleansing in
Kosovo” to bomb the Yugoslavian population. The “collective
punishment” of the Serbs now continues in Kosovo through the
excuse of Kosovo Albanian “ethnic revenge” against the
Kosovo Serbs. The Kosovo Serbs and other minorities are now the
victims of Kosovo “Liberation Army” ethnic cleansing, and
the NATO and the ICTY could care less because the victims of this
“ethnic cleansing” are the deserving Serbs.
Lastly, please remember Srebrenica! Srebrencia is the
birthplace and hometown of many of the elements of current anti-Serb
propaganda. The propaganda elements of the Serbs as “ethnic
cleansing, mass murders and drunken, genocidal animals” were
born in Srebrenica. Please remember Srebrenica, as this is where,
according to Kent (1999) and others, the “Big Lie” about
“Serb ethnic cleansing” was born.(27) Also remember that
there are Serb victims at Srebrenica, and elsewhere, that the Western
mass media, NATO, the ICTY and the rest of the Serbophobic world
ignores in a racist manner.
Back to top.
Footnotes and references.
VII. My Observations
Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and
inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the
foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world. Preamble,
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948).
It is startling how much this does not apply to the Serbs. According
to Maria Naslund (1999) of the Transnational Foundation for Peace and
Future Research, there is an increasingly “politically
correct” human rights activism unfolding in the
“international community.” Currently there is more
attention placed on the returning ethnic -Albanians to Kosovo than on
the future of the 11 million people inside Serbia. More people may
have died under NATO bombs than were killed by Yugoslavian and KLA
units (Naslund 1999).
1. Racism in human rights activity in Kosovo and in the
“international community.”
What I find the most offensive and anger provoking aspect of
anti-Serb propaganda, its resulting dehumanization, including the
shady activity of the ICTY , is the devaluing of the human rights of
the Serbs as compared to other Balkans ethnic groups, especially
Muslims. The Serbs are also the “less deserving victims” in
Miller and Levin’s (1998) “hierarchy of victims,”
whose lives and suffering are less deserving of outrage and public
outcry when war crimes and ethnic cleaning are committed against them
by the Kosovo Albanians and the KLA.
What I have noted from the websites of “humanitarian” and
“human rights” organizations currently active in Kosovo is
an almost complete lack of equal value for the human rights of Kosovo
Serbs and other minorities as compared to that of Kosovo Albanians.
Little is currently being discussed with regard to this anti-Serb
racism in the human rights community, but Raymond Kent (1999) called
these “concerned human rights activists” working in the
Balkans, especially in concert with the ICTY, “human rights
Serbophobes” (p. 8).
Also noteworthy from these “human rights” web sites are the
descriptions of “Serb atrocities” as compared to atrocities
committed on the Serbs. Recall that I demonstrated that there is a
denial of the vicitimhood of the Serbs as being on the receiving end
of ethnic cleansings and a concerted effort to portray the Serbs as
having a monopoly on “ethnic cleansing.” However,
descriptions and accounts of alleged Serb violence on other ethnic
groups highlights the ethnic labels of all the groups involved, with
“Serb atrocities” on other groups being described in
intricate detail.
On Doctors Without Boarders’ web site
(www.dwb.org/missions/kosovo.htm). There are lots of stories related
to DWB’s work with Kosovo Albanian refugees, including a study
on the Kosovo Albanian refugees, but little about the plight of
Kosovo Serbs.
The Doctors Without Boarders' Kosovo webpage presents a good example
of this one sided concern for all humans in Kosovo in a statement by
an Austian physician in June 1999 who seemed to really not know, or
care, about the plight of the Kosovo Serbs and other minorities from
THEIR homes: “After working for months with Kosovar refugees
and knowing how much they have suffered, it the best feeling that you
can have to see them coming back to their country.”
This racist tendency to place more concern on the humanitarian needs
and more value on the human rights of one ethnic group over another
is highly offensive. I have noted that on the web sites of these
“human groups” in the “international community”
there are more stories, regarding the return of Kosovo
ethnic-Albanians than to the ethnic cleansing and murder of Kosovo
Serbs and other Kosovo minorities. There is an obvious value by the
“international community” with the human rights of Kosovo
Albanians, but there is not the same value being placed on the human
rights of the Serb population. As in Stover and Gillies’ The
Graves
, the Serbs are non- humans and not worthy of the same human rights
as Bosnian Muslims. Being concerned with the human rights of Bosinan
Muslims, Croats and Kosovo Albanians, while ignoring the human rights
of the Serbs is RACIST, plain and simple!
Recall the ideas of Miller and Levin (1998). Mass media project the
image of a “hierarchy of victims,” whereby some victims are
seen as being “more deserving” of outrage and public
attention than other, “lesser victims.” Crimes against
“lesser victims” are deemed less newsworthy and the lives
of “lesser victims,” in this case the Serbs, are not valued
as much as Bosnian Muslims and Kosovo Albanians. I have noted a
tendency to explain the violence of Kosovo Albanians on their Serb
neighbors as “ethnic revenge” for “Serbian ethnic
cleansing” of Kosovo.
This “ethnic revenge” is also used to explain attacks on
Serb elderly and children, non- combatants who probably had nothing
to do with any Serb on Albanian violence in Kosovo during NATO’s
bombing campaign. How could an elderly Serb couple murdered in their
apartment in Prizren - during KFOR occupation of Kosovo - have
anything to do with an alleged policy of Slobodan Milosevic? This
racist devaluing of the human rights of Kosovo Serbs and the
acceptance of “ethnic revenge” against ALL Kosovo Serbs is
clear evidence of the racist “collective punishment” aspect
of NATO and the West’s policy toward the Serbian ethnic group
that Maria Nasland touched upon in one of her two papers on NATO
intervention (28).
What I strongly suggest that those of us concerned with racism in
"the international community, human rights and humanitarian
groups," is to use the principle of "equal concern for
the human rights and human needs of ALL groups equally" as a
measuring rod to weed out those practicing racism. With this, we
will find the human rights and humanitarian hypocrites!
I strongly believe that the making of anti-Serb propaganda,
demonization and dehumanization by Western PR firms had, and still
has, a lot to do with the anti-Serb racism in “humanitarian aid
and human rights” and neglect of the human rights of the Serbs.
As an American I am ashamed and highly offended that my government is
allowing foreign governments to hire American PR firms like Ruder
Finn to make and spread the hate of an ethnic group. What if the Ku
Klux Klan decided to hire Ruder Finn Global Public Affairs to spread
its message through out the world?! Something needs to be done,
perhaps legislatively, about allowing groups and governments to hire
American PR firms to create ethnic hate through dehumanizing
propaganda. This concerted spreading of anti-Serb demonization, which
lead to the dehumanization of the Serbian ethnic group, had a strong
part to play in the acceptance of the bombing of the Yugoslav civil
population, especially described as “the Serbs” and
“bombing Milosevic,” in Washington, London and Brussels.
2. Some suggestions to the Serbian people. First of all, the
Serbian people need to realizing that they are fighting a concerted
effort to demonize them and dehumanize them. They need to be prepared
to mount a counter- concerted efforts against this hate propaganda,
but there are also things the individual Serb living here in the West
can do. Some of the following was also done by Arab-American groups
in the face of anti-Arab propaganda.
A. Get into the classrooms and get involved in schools and
colleges!
Find out just what kind of books and materials are being used in
classes on “human rights, world affairs, international studies
and ethnic conflicts.” This also includes the reading and use of
newspaper articles, since Western newspapers are the biggest spreader
of anti-Serb propaganda.
Read the materials and ask : “What kind of image is being
painted about my people in this book?” Look very close at
how the material is worded and how much attention is given to various
situations. If a book, such as the anti-Serb propaganda book The
Graves: Srebreinca and Vukovar , is being used in a classroom as
required reading, as at Florida State University, this gives this
book legitimacy, including the images of Serbs as drunken, smelly,
mass- murdering animals. (29)
B. Get into the libraries and find out what is there and
donate Serbian cultural materials. This allows people in the
community to be able to have the chance to learn positive aspects of
the Serbian culture. Donate books on Serbian epic poetry, history and
culture and food. Put up websites devoted to educating people about
the Serbian culture.
C. Start an international Serbian Student Union.
This will help combat the use of books such as The Graves in
classrooms. It will help bring Serbian culture studies and Slavic
studies into more prominence on college campuses. It will encourage
more Serbs into higher education.
D. Start defining the unequal valuing of human rights of
Serbs by the “international community” as what it really is
: RACISM. It is racist to place an unequal
value of the human rights of one ethnic group over another. Here in
America, we refer to the devaluing of the constitutional rights of
minority - Americans as compared to white - Americans as
“racism.” The devaluing of one ethnic group’s human
rights over another on the international level ALSO needs to be
called just what it is : RACISM! Human rights are for ALL humans! Human
rights are not “granted” by ANY government or military
alliance and are not for sale!
E. Start an organization for human rights for Serbs.
We need to form an organization that will speak up for the human
rights of the Serbian people. It would not only address the lack of
concern for the human rights of the Serbian people, but address
racism in “human rights activism” and the
“international community.”
This type of organization would demand that the “international
community” address its anti-Serb racism and demand that the
human rights of the Serbian people be valued just as much as the
rights of Bosnian Muslims and Kosovo Albanians.
3. . . .and this work isn’t done yet!
After all these pages of bring together authors and scholars in this
research project, this labor of love, to expose the offensive and
outright inhuman anti-Serb propaganda working of the West, NATO and
the US, this is only the beginning! There are separate papers and
books that can and have been written on the Tribunal from Hell’s
role in anti-Serb label validation, the “remember
Srebrenica” theme to anti-Serb propaganda, the denial of the
victimhood of the Serbs, and propaganda in NATO’s Balkan missions.
There will be future additions to this work (and maybe someday a
book, God willing) when I find and add still more sources, authors,
scholars and writers. This is only a start in exposing the rather
extensive and organized efforts to demonize, dehumanized and lessen
the human rights of the Serbian people.
To be addressed later in next additions :
1. The exportation of Western ideas, and I don’t mean democracy!
I mean the idea of some groups’ human rights being of less value
than other groups. Yes - NATO has exported the ideas of ethnic
inequality and racism to the Balkans! Why is it that the human
rights of Kosovo Serbs are of less value than Kosovo Albanians? Well,
I will be addressing this in the future.
2. The idea of a “hierarchy of victims” and the Serbs as
being “less deserving” victims than other groups, namely
Muslims. It is OK for Muslims to kill Serbs, but not OK for Serbs to
kill Muslims.(30) While Miller and Levin (1998) was speaking of
American minorities, namely African-Americans, the “hierarchy of
victims” can be applied to the Serbs as being “less
deserving” victims than Muslims.
3. The notion of “ethnic revenge” being used to describe
the Kosovo Albanian’s ethnic cleaning and their communities of
their Serb neighbors. “Ethnic revenge” is a Kosovo Albanian
policy that is of racist manner, as it is against ANY Serb, including
children and elderly, not just those who might been part of police
and army units.
Back to top.
Footnotes and references.
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