World democracy is at a stake

WORLD DEMOCRACY IS AT STAKE

For the first time in the past ten years I feel much more interested in foreign political news rather than in domestic ones. I feel the way I felt in August 1968, when the USSR invaded Czechoslovakia - I can hardly think of anything but the aggression against Yugoslavia. Yes, aggression is the name of an attack against a sovereign state, no matter who has undertaken it and with what excuses. While saying this, I would right away like to inform the stern authorities that I maintain no contacts with the Yugoslav embassy. Not that it would have been wrong in some way, but this fact is an evidence it can get no credit at all for my attitude. The history of my position can be traced back to 1995 (a Socialist government being then in power), when it was for the first time that in the “24 Chassa” Daily I asked in public: ‘Why on earth are we antagonistic to the Serbs?’ What I meant was the official Bulgarian policy which, it is to be regretted, has ever since followed an increasingly deplorable course ending during the last several days in an absurd measure of inadequacy. This sort of inadequacy has been ‘given due merit’ - and I can affirm it as a professional social scientist - by the majority of the Bulgarian people, regardless of the massive media attack, both from abroad and at home, in favour of NATO and against the demonized Serbs. Which means that the ideological manipulation and the brainwash technique have not yet reached a hundred-per-cent efficiency. It means that common sense and independent thinking are still alive. Thank God.

I have mentioned Lord’s name, because the merit for the persistence of common sense and independent thinking so far definitely does not go to those who govern the nations and the media from California in the West to Anatolia in the East. You are dubious about it? Just listen then:

War is peace!
Freedom is slavery!
Ignorance is strength!

You remember this, don’t you? Those are the slogans of the bureaucrats in the nightmarish society described by Orwell in ‘1984’. Compare scrupulously the pleading arguments of the initiators and champions of NATO’s aggression with these slogans and you will see they boil down to the same thing. Almost one-to-one.

This sets quite alarmingly, in my opinion, the question about democracy. Not only about our country’s deformed, petty democracy, but about global democracy, about worldwide democracy on which Bulgarian democracy is also dependent. The generally accepted postulate that the United States is the only superior, super/hyperpower in the contemporary world, by some strange logic, is associated with another postulate - that it is entitled to meddling everywhere, and what is more, to even being obliged to do so without reckoning with its eventual opponents at that. This is taken to mean that the U.S. is creating a new world order. Nothing original - the author of the new order idea, as well as of the methods of realizing it, was Hitler. But, as is known, in Anglo-Saxon law, when resolving knotty cases, precedents play a major part. In this particular case, the precedent has obviously been kept close at hand. Yet, one might say that similar comparisons should not be made, because Hitler was evil, while the United States is good. The point is, however, that today the United States is a world dictator and, as even children know, within the boundaries of their dominion dictators have always been proclaimed to be the best, the smartest and, ultimately, the messiahs, the saviours. Again, everyone knows there are no good dictators and noble dictatorships. Why should we believe that the U.S. is and will be an exception. As a matter of fact, it certainly isn’t and won’t be. Monocracy is an enemy to democracy - both nationwide and worldwide. What is more - the American ‘founding fathers’ and revolutionaries of 1776 were convinced that the less the power of those who govern was, the greater democracy would be. The main thesis of these noble men is that democracy is a system which rests not on the leader’s being the smartest or the best one, but on the mechanisms and rules which shall not allow those who govern to do what they like, when and as they please. The year of 1776 is now very far back and only some academic-minded liberals may remember what its start was like. Nowadays too many people around the world are only able to repeat what Copola put in the beginning of his “Godfather’ - the words of the desperate loyal American citizens having come to beg for support from Don Corleone: I used to believe in America and its institutions...

In fact, in the present day Copola has been given a crying occasion for making ‘Apocalypse Now - 2’, and Wadley - his ‘Woodstock - 2’ as updated follow-ups of their films created in consequence of another American war. We know how it ended and we also know that the reason of defeat did not lie in the military, but in the moral deficiency of the United States. This makes me touch upon morality too, the more so as some views, given publicity in Bulgaria lately, have contemptuously neglected it. Of course, their presence is directly associated with the amorality of NATO and, particularly, of Clinton, Blair and Solana, who day after day have been making statements - each one more hypocritical, more savage and more arrogant than the other. There is, though, a purely indigenous vein, as well as some details significant from our local perspective alone. For example, the primitive line - it serves the Serbs right, because ‘do you know what nasty things they did to us?’. As if we ourselves never did the same to them.

Or the pretentiously dull line - the Serbs are bad neighbours, because (!) when placed under isolation or embargo, or now bombing, it is we that suffer. That is to say, in order for our, otherwise prosperous, country not to be deprived of gains, the Serbs will have to accept unconditionally, and to their detriment too, a dictate from abroad. Yes, indeed, but they have interests of their own, as well as - I would like to stress it - dignity. They refuse to accept the dictate not only because it contradicts their national interests, but also in the name of certain lofty principles - both legal and moral. And when in this context the excessive Serb nationalism is being discussed in fervour, the high officials in Bulgaria brag of defending only and exclusively the Bulgarian national interests. I leave aside the question of how far this is true, but if so, it means that we are concerned with no other interests but our own. In the dictionaries, however, exactly this type of behaviour is defined as nationalism - an evil phenomenon, according to these same leaders who even assert they have already put it away. It is something that has been done in no other country - let alone the United States, which insists on having national interests in Kosovo among all other places in the world.

Furthermore, the problems in Yugoslavia have been identified with the person of Milosevic alone in a foolish (and insidious - on account of substitution of theses) manner. Nevertheless, even blind men could clearly see that the entire Serbian people stands behind Milosevic without reservation and with conviction. This is something his adversaries cannot be credited with. Milosevic has been blamed for the sufferings of his people. Indeed, he could accept the dictate and thus avoid the bombing, but would his people have forgiven him and should one abandon the high principles of law and morality? History shows that one should not. In 1939 Poland did not give in before Hitler’s dictate and was therefore ruined, but it saved its dignity and the world’s respect. This was a sacrifice but, simultaneously, a guarantee for future times. Two days after Poland was attacked, Great Britain, which was not prepared to engage, declared war on Germany, and on this occasion Prime Minister Churchill, addressed his compatriots in his remarkable words, promising them only plenty of blood, sweat and tears. In 1941 Serbia followed the same line of conduct and also proved its rightness. Why should now Milosevic behave in a different way? Because he is evil? Pooh, hardly so!

Quite a number of state leaders in today’s world are pronounced dictators, but no one even thinks of them, although they do by far nastier things than Milosevic. As for him, even his policy in Kosovo is in defence of his own country - and this is what each head of state is required to do. Else he will be brought to trial for high treason. Like Marshal Petain after World War II, for example, although he had become a national hero during W.W.I.

Actually, the key point here is that present-day Yugoslavia cannot fit in the US-created ‘new world order’. And as the Japanese saying goes, ‘when a nail sticks up, it should be hammered down’. Inasmuch as Yugoslavia is the only one that ‘sticks up’ in the Balkans, NATO’s hammer has pounded on it. It should be flattened down to be made even and equal with the docile fellows around. This is the true reason for the war. Everything else is only a pretext and enhancement of the immortal ‘Brezhnev doctrine’. Indifference to all other multiple ethnic conflicts in Europe and the rest of the world is sufficient evidence of this. Even though I have already got tired of repeating it, it is necessary to say again that the ethnic cleansing of Albanians was preceded by the ethnic cleansing of Serbs, and for precisely that reason was the autonomy of Kosovo taken away in the late 1980’s. In fact, the humanitarian disaster began in consequence of NATO’s strike - this has been stated explicitly by the Greek minister of Defence during his recent visit to Bulgaria.

In addition to all things mentioned above, I should like to say that the accusation that someone in Bulgaria is staging a pro-Serb propaganda is, may I say, puzzling. For what we see is a reaction of common sense against an all-out anti-Serb propaganda campaign. People do not want anyone to make fools of them. And what will happen to democracy, if those in power not only refuse to accept views differing from their own, but also accuse people holding different views of high treason and espionage? Obviously, it has already been forgotten that, not to give too many examples, two deputies to the Bulgarian National Assembly - Nikola Petkov and Traycho Kostov - were hanged on these same accounts. In that case, however, democracy was trampled on, while now it is triumphant, they say. And in order to provoke second thought in those who disagree with my viewpoint, I would like to refer to several lines from the diary of a German pastor, who met his death in a Nazi camp. They read roughly as follows:
When the Communists were taken away, I did not react, because I did not share their ideas.
When the Jews were taken away, I was silent, because they were strangers to me.
When the trade union activists were taken away, I kept silent too - I did not care about them.
When they came to take me away, there was nobody left to speak up in my defence.

That’s all.

Iliya Naoumov

Doctor of Sociology