Internal Contradictions
This blog was originally posted at http://leninology.blogspot.com/2006/05/footnote.html
Lenin, apologies for this-out-of -context post. You wrote elsewhere words to the effect that if I really believed that NATO intervened in Kosovo to save its ethnic Albanians then I was outside the realms of rational debate. Really? How extraordinarily arrogant and silly of you. What then did you think was the purpose of the intervention? And more importantly, were you against the action taken by NATO? If so, you must then have been in favour of the genocide of the Muslim Albanians. What would the green part of your red-green alliance think of such extreme Islamophobic views? I suspect you were against the intervention because it brought down the last remaining nominally Leninist regime in Europe. You are probably also rather partial to Milosevic's wicked Marxist witch of a wife.
Incidentally, I visited the Federal Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia many times in the 1980s, and was quite shocked at the racist, anti-Albanian views of many well-educated Serbs. They had a visceral hatred of the "Shqiptars" that was quite distressing to hear. On one occassion when I was there (circa 1982) there was a news report that an entire Albanian family had crossed over from the People's Socialist Republic of Albania (aka Hoxha's hell-hole) and had sought political asylum in Yugoslavia. My Yugoslav hosts said they would have no qualms in sending them back (this would have meant certain death) because they already had enough Shqiptars in Yugoslavia and they "bred like rabbits annyway". I also encoutered the same anti-Albanian attitude in Greece, where Albanians were described as "peasant types". (I had a fascinating encounter with one Albanian fugitive from Hoxha's socialist utopia in Athens who spoke the most impeccable English learnt by listening to the Voice of America on radio, but I'll keep that story for another time, provided you don't ban me for being a "reactionary twat" beforehand.) Perhaps the writing was on the wall then for the approaching Balkan tragedy.
Lenin, apologies for this-out-of -context post. You wrote elsewhere words to the effect that if I really believed that NATO intervened in Kosovo to save its ethnic Albanians then I was outside the realms of rational debate. Really? How extraordinarily arrogant and silly of you. What then did you think was the purpose of the intervention? And more importantly, were you against the action taken by NATO? If so, you must then have been in favour of the genocide of the Muslim Albanians. What would the green part of your red-green alliance think of such extreme Islamophobic views? I suspect you were against the intervention because it brought down the last remaining nominally Leninist regime in Europe. You are probably also rather partial to Milosevic's wicked Marxist witch of a wife.
Finally, I am disappointed you agree that a member of the SWP was correct in telling me to "F*** Off" in the street when I said I supported the NATO action in Kosovo. Abusive and aggressive behaviour like that is puerile and not clever.
posted by The Count of Monte Cristo in a Bubble Car at 11:51 AM
2 Comments:
I am aware of the significance to the Serb nation of what happened on the "field of blackbirds" (Kosovo Ploije ? - I'm working from memory for the spelling) in 1389. I know that the Serbs fell under the Ottoman (i.e. Muslim) yoke for centuries following this, and their historical suspicion of Muslims does have some justification. But the national hero of the Albanians, Skandeberg, also fought against the Turks (i.e. Muslims), and for one brief period liberated Albania from their rule. What I am saying is that you can't lump the Albanians and Ottomans together. After all, some Serbs became Muslims (today's Bosnian Muslims?).
I suspect from your name that you might be of Serbian descent (but is that me being presumptious?) and you must know that most Albanians are really only nominally Muslim. They are not, by nature, a religous people. They are, after all, enthusiastic consumers of alcohol, and for decades lived in the only truly atheistical country the world has ever seen. The real religion of Albanians, if you'll permit me to quote Enver Hoxha, is Albanianism.
Lord Byron wrote (And I'm honestly quoting this from memory):
Land of Albania!,
Let me bend my eyes on thee,
Though rugged nurse of savage men,
The cross descends and thy minarets rise,
And the pale crescent sun sparkles through many a cypress grove within each city's ken.
I remember the collapsed pyramid scheme and the riots that ensued. But all countries have had their riots. Britain, for example, has had a long tradition of political riots. France even more so.
As fellow Muslims living in a Muslim land, I know that they would have got special privileges (lower taxes than Dhimmis (i.e. non-Muslim subjects), but the benefits can't have been that great. Albania was the poorest quarter of the Ottoman empire. I remember reading Edith Durham's book "High Albania" recounting her travels through 19th Century Albania and Kosovo. In it, she describes the terrible poverty and isolation of those places, but also points out the warmth and humanity of the Albanian people she met.
With regard to Albanian scheming, well I certainly am aware of the scheming of Enver Hoxha, Mehmet Shehu and the other communist reptiles who terrorised that country for several decades. I suppose having "Nato" steal one's country pales into insignificance in comparison to anything they did to it.
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