Geneva J. Anderson on 12 Oct 2000 16:55:04 -0000


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Re: <nettime> re: No Nazis


Michael Benson wrote:

> Serbia and the rest of the republics of the former Yugoslavia will never,
> repeat never, be able to achieve a sense of closure and go back to being 
> 'normal' societies if war criminals responsible for hundreds of thousands
> of deaths are walking freely around unpunished. Croatia is also going through
> a society-wide upheaval as its new leadership proceeds on that basis. It's
> beyond stupid to argue anything else, in fact it verges on being complicit.

I agree.  I've gotten flack from people about my recent reply to your post
which argued in favor of prosecuting Milosevic to the full extent
of the law...basically i've either been cast in a bundle with Americans and
the duplicitous West or some have pointed to the inconsistency in my
supporting an int'l system whose main emphasis is not on preventing such
crimes but rather on enabling them and then prosecuting them
post-facto.

I can easily envision any number of int'l systems better than the one we now
have...we all can..
and we should..but we in this case, we have to work with what we have.  If
Milosevic is tried in Serbia, it's likely going to focus on economic plunder 
not genocide. Is that enough?
Who decides what is enough?  That's where the tension resides.
I believe that Serbia will never heal until it gets honest with itself over
the extent of its complicity.  How will that happen?
There's a saying that some issues can't be resolved, they are just survived.
I think to survive you have to resolve.
Following regime collapse, several of the former east regimes made various
and symbolic gestures for themselves, not in capitualtion to the West but
attempts to draw the line between past and present.  Were they effective?
That's what should be discussed by those pouding off rude mails. This type
of discussion is hopefully going to be productive.
Geneva Anderson

----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Benson" <michael.benson@pristop.si>
To: <nettime-l@bbs.thing.net>
Sent: Wednesday, October 11, 2000 4:40 AM
Subject: Re: <nettime> re: No Nazis


> A relatively brief response, as real life inevitably takes over, taking
> large amounts of time...
 <...>

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