Being Wrong Among Friends

In the mid-1990s, I participated in a panel at Colorado College about human rights and the breakup of Yugoslavia. The panel took place around the time that Serbian hardliners like Vojislav Seselj were saying that if the world did not understand Serbia's point of view, it was "us against the world." At the time, I posited a "Law of Minimal-Percentage Coalitions." It is undoubtedly true that the U.S. and major powers control both the dictionary and the rulebook of international power. If a state or people seek to put an alternative definition on the table, they must assemble a coalition of at least 10 or 12 percent of the concerned global audience, preferably closer to 20 percent, to give their argument some legitimacy. Otherwise, they fall victim to the law of sanity and large numbers. If 95 percent of the people on the planet think your cause is baseless and your position insane, you become insane by definition. And if you lash out as though you are a threatened idea or ideal being pushed to the wall, you will be destroyed, utterly and simply. Maybe not today, but the numbers work against you.

Obviously, the numbers rule does not apply to the small nonviolent group that always operates through voluntarism, without seeking to impose beliefs. Today's cults and small discussion groups provide tomorrow's political movements. But once violence or forced solidarity enter the equation, everything changes. Even the enforcement of values within one's own group can run afoul of human-rights standards, as honor killings show in gruesome fashion. The decision by many European nations to ban the Church of Scientology, for example, demonstrates that a faith group that operates through fraud and violent intimidation can no longer claim the protection of freedom of religion.

I thought about that after seeing the front-page article in the New York Times Jan 4 on Ugandans insisting on the death penalty for homosexuality. The most troubling aspect of the story was not the involvement of U.S. evangelicals, as they seemed to have no real part in suggesting a death sentence for being gay. The scary aspect was the defensive nature of Ugandans encouraging this hard line, saying they didn't care if they lost all foreign aid and the support of most people.

The attitude is similar to that of Salafists and Wahhabists demanding death to infidels who stand in the way of rebuilding a Third Caliphate. What happened to the notion of falling on your own sword if your ideas are outdated, wrong, or unacceptable to 95 percent of the people on the planet? Certainly, a minority culture should have a freedom of expression, provided other groups are not threatened, and provided that the value or concept gains some minimal acceptance in the world culture at large. But if your rulebook or dictionary -- or your holy book -- seeks a violent imposition and is deemed offensive to the vast, vast majority of human beings, and you cannot assemble that double-digit percentage, then it is time to change your most cherished value systems and become a different type of human being. The only alternative is to see your "us against the world" bravado slowly and inevitably crushed and snuffed out, as is only right and proper in a global, consensually-determined culture.

Doha and Dolts

No, I'm not making pro- or anti-WTO commentary here, just pointing out that the lack of media coverage or comprehension of the final collapse of Doha July 29 was astonishing in its ignorance. The attitude of western developed nations had all but guaranteed a failure for the Doha round anyway, but the participants got tantalizingly close to a partial compromise, only to see everything fall apart. And only the obvious NY Times and Wall Street Journal noticed. As WTO director-general Peter Lamy said, this is a "massive blow to confidence in the global economy," and will have far more lasting effect on citizens in every nations than 5.4 earthquakes in Los Angeles or kidnapped babies in Florida. But duh sells.

After all, we can't expect US media to pay attention as the Turkish constitutional court narrowly decides against throwing out the government, despite the massive impact this will have on the EU and on secular-Islamic relations. We only saw the Serbian nationalist protests covered because of blood, tear gas, bandanas, and fire. Cheer up! We'll always have plenty of takes of Amy Winehouse vs. Duffy on the soulful singer-stringer front, we'll always have Nancy Grace picking apart the latest blood crime signifying nothing, we'll always have Glenn Beck warning us that the wily Mexicans are out to gun us down with their poison jalapenos. We have a right to be uninformed. As Walking Wounded would say, I'm "saddled by idiots."

Fraud by Consensus in Kosovo

Those stupid Serbs, acting like brats again, burning down the U.S. embassy in Belgrade, whining about Kosovo independence when everyone, including the U.S. government and all major EU nations, think it's a great thing. When the majority of nations are cheering, they must be right, right? Wellllll.........

I want to distinguish myself from some Western Marxist-oriented thinkers who tend to cheer on the Serbs simply because they're slavic pals of the Russkies - writers like Edward Herman, for example. I'm not one of them. I think that far too many Serbs followed nationalist rabid dogs like Milosevic and Seselj in the 1990s who deserved the moniker of fascist. But everything that happened in southern Serbia from 1999 on was a fraud concocted by the U.S. and NATO to preserve Western military dominance.

I'm grateful to the Globe and Mail in Canada for being a rare voice of reason amidst all the Western self-congratulation. To put it bluntly, this is all about "getting back" at the Serbs for their dalliance with Milosevic. I am offended by the way many Serbs acted in the Croatia and Bosnia crises, yet there was no "ethnic cleansing" or "genocide" in Kosovo prior to NATO bombing in 1999. Clinton merely decided to draw a line in the sand, ignoring the fact that the KLA was led by terrorists and drug-dealers, and sent Madeleine Albright to Rambouillet with a mission of giving the Serbs "negotiation" terms that amounted to "How would you like to have your ass kicked?" Since the bombing ended, the main goal of the UN mini-state has been to protect the vast U.S. military base, Camp Bondsteel. UN insiders say there is no way to make Kosovo a viable state. Yet we all cheer, and watch violence erupt in Belgrade and say it must be due to Serb fascist hotheads. Thank goodness for people like Diana Johnstone who tell the truth about this crazy world-turned-upside-down.