The return of the Kosovo Albanian refugees to their villages, and the corresponding flight of Kosovo Serb civilians out of theirs, provides occasion to reflect on an illusion held by many people of a leftist persuasion.
This is the notion that those who have been involved in a revolutionary struggle against persecution and injustice are made more benevolent by their experiences, and are therefore likely to create a humane and egalitarian society if only given the chance. Perhaps we can call it the "Mandela" fallacy; the belief that liberation movements will contain a far larger number of magnanimous Nelsons than murderous Winnies.
This kind of thinking lies behind the romantic Third Worldism that still retains its hold over many intellectuals. Radical movements that supposedly act for downtrodden peoples are invariably subject to far less critical scrutiny than they warrant, particularly if they attack capitalism, denounce the West, and include the word "liberation" in their name or objectives.
Many truly nasty organisations and regimes have benefited from this mind-set over the years, and long after their vicious nature has become obvious to everyone else they will still have strong advocates in the universities and other bastions of unreality. America's Black Panthers, a homicidal bunch of thugs who learnt to speak to the fantasies of radical academics in the late 1960s and early 70s, are a wonderful example, and they are still being celebrated.
At first glance, the Kosovo Liberation Army seems to fit the bill for such a warm embrace from the left. Its name pushes all the right buttons, a number of its leaders are marxists, and it promotes itself as the representative of people who have unquestionably had appalling experiences at the hands of Serbian forces.
But interestingly, there appears to be a considerable reluctance by the left to crown the KLA as the Viet Cong or Sandinistas of the late 1990s. University students are not forming KLA solidarity groups and chanting at police while they demonstrate in support of Kosovo's liberation. And leftist unions are not levying their members to provide financial assistance for the "heroic struggles" of their "brothers and sisters" in the KLA.
Indeed, a number of left-wing groups, such as the Communist Party of Australia (yes, it still exists) and the Socialist Equality Party have flatly refused any backing for the KLA, and have condemned the "demonisation" of Serbia's President Slobodan Milosevic. Even the leftists who approve of the KLA's goal of independence for Kosovo usually express some reservations about the organisation itself.
Certainly, the KLA is not the kind of group that could be endorsed by anyone who believes in democracy and tolerance. Writing in the current issue of the respected American journal Foreign Affairs, Chris Hedges, a former head of the The New York Times' Balkan bureau, explains that the KLA is actually split between two totalitarian ideologies.
One faction is made up of old Stalinists. These are people who were once financed by the former communist dictator of Albania, Enver Hoxha, in the hope of expanding the geographical reach of his own state, and to create trouble for his old enemy Yugoslavia. Most of these individuals were students at Pristina University in Kosovo during the 1970s and 80s, where they were influenced by a number of militant Albanian professors, and given a solid grounding in revolutionary texts.
The other faction is just as bad, composed of the heirs of the fascist militias and Nazi collaborators who fought the Allies and Tito's partisans in the Second World War. Though bitterly divided on virtually everything else, the two sides agree on the need for ending Serb rule in Kosovo, after which they are likely to concentrate on tearing each other apart.
Other observers have warned that the KLA has followed a practice favoured by a number of revolutionary and "national liberation" movements, trading in drugs to help finance its operations. European police say that Albanian criminal groups with strong links to the KLA hold a large share of the heroin market in a number of countries in western and northern Europe.
So it would be satisfying to think that the left's caution about glorifying the KLA represents a new scepticism born out of years of disillusionment, as one radical "national liberation movement" after another has replaced a moderately nasty regime with an even worse collection of gangsters. Maybe the left is recovering an awareness once common amongst its forebears -- that there can be a very dark side to the politics of ethnic difference and self-determination that have been so carelessly promoted in recent times.
Or even better, perhaps it is coming to realise that being on the negative side of an unequal power relationship is more likely to provoke a desire to lash out at one's tormentors and anyone else who gets in the way, rather than a longing to make the world a nicer place for everyone.
Some on the left may well have arrived as such understandings, but I suspect that the KLA's real misfortune is that it is seen as being too closely linked with the actions of NATO and the Americans. No doubt this perception will whither in time. All the indications suggest that NATO peacekeepers will have to remain in place for a few years, and the KLA is likely to become increasingly annoyed with NATO soldiers and European attempts to create a multi-ethnic liberal democracy in Kosovo.
Then, as has happened more than once before, the Western nations will be accused of being colonialists and imperialists by the very people whom they have helped bring close to power. The idea that there might been any humanitarian considerations behind NATO's intervention will be ridiculed.
In this way, the KLA will be able to redeem itself to the left. And from this time on, whatever crimes and excesses it commits will be ignored or excused as it is admitted to its rightful place in the radical's pantheon of liberation movements.
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