Nebojsa Malic

Famous anarchist Emma Goldman once said, "If voting changed anything, they would make it illegal." Following last weekend’s presidential elections in Serbia, the party of the incumbent Boris Tadic must be wishing they had made voting illegal. It appears that "democratic moderate reformers" – epithets Western press routinely uses when describing Tadic and his followers … Continue reading “That Pesky Democracy”

Three days from now, citizens of Serbia will head to the polls and cast their ballots for their preferred candidate among the seven. Between the media and the pollsters, there is an expectation that no candidate will get the necessary majority in the first round, and that the second round will be decided between the … Continue reading “A Different Endgame”

The new year has hardly had time to properly start, but the Washington Post has already set the tone for things to come. In the January 2, 2008 issue, on page A13 (opinion), the Post carries an abridged article by Moisés Naím, titled “A Hunger for America.” Never mind the current disaffection with the United … Continue reading “Shilling for the Empress”

After several years of enjoying near-unchallenged world hegemony, in 2006 it began appearing as if the U.S. Empire had suffered a series of setbacks. The true extent of this "long defeat" became obvious in 2007, as the fruitless Iraqi occupation continued to produce death and destruction, a rickety economy collapsed on the home front, and … Continue reading “It’s No Longer 1999”

Another chapter of the Kosovo crisis was closed on December 19, when the UN Security Council accepted the report of the "troika" that negotiations between Serbia and the Albanian separatists in its occupied province of Kosovo had failed. As predicted, the U.S. and its EU allies moved to proceed along the lines of the Ahtisaari … Continue reading “The Die is Cast”

When in May 2005 the Bush apparatchiks officially adopted the Clinton policy towards the Balkans (until then, they merely allowed it to continue out of inertia), predictions were rife that independence for the occupied Serbian province of Kosovo would be just around the corner. After two and a half years of diplomatic, propaganda and political … Continue reading “The Final Assault”

There is one constant in the proclamations of those championing the independence of the occupied Serbian province of Kosovo: the more they claim it is "inevitable" and just around the corner, the less likely it becomes. The drive to officially sever the province – occupied in 1999 by NATO, following an illegal war, and administered … Continue reading “On the Brink”

The Coming Balkan Caliphate: The Threat of Radical Islam to Europe and the West by Christopher Deliso, Praeger Security International, 2007 For almost two decades, events in the Balkans have been described in the West as a simple consequence of “greater Serbian nationalism,” a phantom notion conjured to explain the complexities of a deeply conflicted … Continue reading “From Beneath You It Devours”

SARAJEVO, BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA – Winter came early this year in the Balkans mountains; the first snow of the season has come and gone, leaving the streets of the capital a soggy mess. As late as last week, Sarajevo’s thousands of cafés still had their summer gardens set up, as a spell of warm weather extended into … Continue reading “Sorrow’s Home”

Dozens of neo-Nazis were arrested in the northern Serbian city of Novi Sad on Sunday, as they rallied despite a government ban and clashed with a crowd of protesters. Western media hurried to make hay of the incident; the New York Times appended the two-paragraph report to the end of a story about the resurgent … Continue reading “The Phantom Menace”