Against the Occupation of the Mind

Three years ago, I wrote about a "mental occupation" that Serbia is under - a perfidious, soul-sucking cloud of self-hatred and contempt, generated by the ruling caste of Communist heirs, globalists, oligarchs and media magnates (often mistakenly called the "elite"). That was itself inspired by a 2007 post about cowardice, resulting from an essay by Julia Gorin (I wasn't the only one it inspired, either).

Since then, I've been trying to break those mental chains through persuasion, satire, contempt, mockery, and any number of other techniques available to a writer that I could think of. I honestly don't know to what extent this has been my doing, and to what extent it was simply people adding two and two and coming up with four instead of "European Union," but Serbia has since developed a significant intellectual resistance to "elite" oppression, and is well on the way to throw off the mental chains - as well as the physical chains of their quisling government, in a not too distant future. It hasn't been easy, or pleasant, or simple - but it was needful, and remains worth doing.

I recently came across the writings of Daniel Greenfield. I've just posted a translation of his essay concerning the demographic demise of both Cold War empires (h/t Mightiest of the Nine). Today, I discovered another, this time concerning the self-hating Jews. Therein, he gives the following description of mental occupation, which I consider particularly relevant:

"Being right isn't enough. the left is rapidly metastasizing into its final genocidal form. Its occupation of the minds of civilized men has become a disease that is consuming the host. And like a mosquito deadening the nerve endings of the skin of its victim, the first symptom of the disease is an inability to recognize the problem. Its final symptom is to state that the problem is not the mosquito drinking blood, but the amount of blood that hasn't been drunk yet.
This is the point of view of the mosquito, of the Israeli left, the American left and of every left. It is Code Pink, the ACLU, Not in Our Name, Women in Black, J Street, Jews Say No, Please Kill Us Because We Raped the Planet and Don't Deserve to Go On Living.
The optimist says that the glass is half empty [sic]. The pessimist says that it is half full [sic]. The left says that it should be completely empty and you should feel ashamed that there is any water in it at all. And that if you had any humanity and decency, you would pour out that water right now. If you don't, then you're fair game. And if you do, you're fair game, because you didn't do it quickly enough. And if you do it quickly, you're fair game because you are descended from people who didn't pour out their own water quickly enough.
This is the occupation of the mind. It has a surface logic over an utterly irrational mindset. Its goal is to convince you to kill yourself. Its goal is to convince you to say, No, or at least, Maybe."

Bear this in mind when next you hear an impassioned activist for something. Is he (or she, as it may be) trying to persuade you to fight for your survival, or trying to talk you into suicide? And once you've figured it out... what are you going to do about it?

Israel Gets Serbed

I don't normally deal with Israel here, or the whole Middle East question (one emotionally charged intractable conflict is plenty, thank you), but what happened the other day does have a fair bit to do with things I've been writing about for the past decade or so.

It should be obvious by now that the "Gaza flotilla" was a trap. Israel walked right into it. Fortunately for the Israelis, they too were filming the whole thing, and knew how to use blogs and YouTube, so they may have even come out ahead in the propaganda skirmish that followed. But there is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that the whole flotilla operation was designed from the start to be a propaganda stunt. The "activists" (is that what they are called these days?) aboard those ships were armed and ready. They wanted to be stopped and boarded, so they could scream to high heaven about being abused by the Israeli "pirates" on the high seas. It almost worked, too.

As I said over on Ilana Mercer's blog earlier in the week, the entire strategy employed by Hamas seems to be a reprise of Sarajevo. So the Israeli presence on its borders becomes a "siege", the legitimate blockade of a hostile polity becomes "strangling", and Israeli raids in response to missiles fired from Gaza become "terror." Israel is dubbed an occupying power even though it unilaterally retreated from Gaza in 2005, leaving it as a de facto independent city-state. And Israeli inspections in international waters, though legal, become "piracy."

Hamas routinely fires missiles from Gaza at Israeli civilians across the border. They see nothing wrong with this - remember, to Hamas, Israel has no right to exist, and needs to be obliterated. But if Israel retaliates, whether by assassinating Hamas leaders or sending tanks into Gaza to destroy missile launchers, or by enforcing a perfectly legal blockade to deny Hamas weapons and ammunition, while allowing food and other civilian supplies in - ah, that's nothing short of "genocide," then!

Israel has a powerful conventional army, navy, air force, and most likely even nuclear weapons (though not officially acknowledged). It has defeated Arab armies on numerous occasions in open warfare, and has successfully fought terrorism and insurgency through special operations. So those who wish it destroyed came up with a way of turning that strength into a weakness: cast themselves as innocent, unarmed, helpless victims and howl as loud as possible about being abused by that very Israel whose strength no one can dispute.

There are two recent examples of this approach being enormously successful. In Bosnia, the government of Alija Izetbegovic (revered in the Muslim world as an ideologue of jihad and Islamic revolution, but still believed in the West to have been a multicultural democrat) provoked an armed confrontation with the Serb and Croat populations, then raised hell in the media about being a victim of "aggression" and "genocide." European and American public were steadily bombarded with the most outlandish claims of atrocities, courtesy of legions of "advocacy journalists" stationed in Sarajevo, who somehow never saw thousands of armed Muslim troops in the city, or their artillery, but only "helpless civilians." Likewise, they never saw any of the Serb civilians killed by Muslim fire on the other side of the line; oh no, every Serb in Bosnia was a drunken, bearded savage with a machine gun in one hand, a bottle of brandy in the other, and a bloody knife in his teeth.

This distortion of reality went so far as to actually exaggerate the military strength of the Serbs, in an effort to make them seem even more formidable (and their enemies that much more innocent/unarmed/endangered). In this kind of 4th-generation warfare, weakness was an asset, and strength became a liability.

Not only was the Muslim (and Croat) version of the war propagated as gospel truth in the West, the Serbs were prevented from saying anything in their own defense through the second-worst regime of UN sanctions in history (the worst being what was imposed on Iraq). By the time the sanctions were officially lifted, the Serbs had been so thoroughly demonized, few dared question the official story when NATO attacked Serbia itself and occupied one of its provinces in 1999. Once again, the world was told of the Evil Genocidal Serb Aggressors wantonly killing and abusing innocent "Kosovarian" civilians, which was obviously so egregious that it required NATO to violate its own charter and that of the UN to launch a "humanitarian" intervention.

Here was identity politics brought to its logical extreme: a situation in which the designated victim could literally get away with murder (Izetbegovic, the KLA) yet be seen as innocent and virtuous, while the designated culprit (the Serbs) could be slandered with impunity, and anything they did would be perceived as purely evil. It isn't just about delegitimizing one's means of defense, but delegitimizing one's right to exist at all.

The problem with trying to explain this to people is that this sort of demonization has so far been practiced only against the Serbs. Even Iraqis, who have suffered horrifically, were not singled out as a nation (rather, the hatred was focused on the persona of Saddam Hussein, and the odium largely dissipated after his execution). Only a few careful observers have seen it as a general trend, applied beyond the Balkans. As a result, no one in the world really believes they could one day get "Serbed" (for lack of a better term) themselves.

But as we see from the flotilla incident, some folks have taken the lessons of Bosnia and Kosovo to heart, even if no one else has. Not surprisingly, the organizer of the propaganda stunt is a Turkish "NGO" first formed to provide aid to the Bosnian Muslims. Among the "activists" detained on the ships were a Syrian with Bosnian citizenship and the "President of Muslim Forum of Kosova" (sic). There are Balkan connections all over - all but guaranteeing that the mainstream press in the West won't say a word about any of them. Because, as we know, the Balkans is a sacred cow and the pure, innocent victimhood of "Bosnians" and "Kosovars" must and shall not be brought into question. Ever.

Why, even the Israelis won't say anything about it, so as not to hurt their own cause. Can't allow oneself to be associated with those Evil Serbs, right? That's how thorough the demonization has been. But if it can happen to the Serbs, it can happen to anyone. The real question is, who is next?

Serbs, Enemies of Allah

From a 2006 BBC report on the trial of Abu Hamza al-Masri, charged with soliciting murder, stirring up racial hatred, and possession of terrorist materials:

He went on to tell his audience that there was no liquid loved more by Allah "than the the liquid of blood".

"Whether you do it by the lamb, or you do it by a Serb, you do it by a Jew, you do it by any enemies of Allah," he said.

That drop of blood "is very dear."

This is from the sermon Abu Hamza gave in October 2000.

He was convicted in 2007 and is currently in British prison. Odd how nobody has picked up so far on this inclusion of Serbs into the lofty ranks of "enemies of Allah." Hardly news to me, of course, but there's still plenty of people (including many Serbs) in denial. But there we have it, from the horse's mouth. Good to know.

Domination and Discrimination

My Antiwar.com column last week dealt with the decision at the European Court of Human Rights that the Dayton Constitution discriminates against minorities in Bosnia, and I also had a live guest appearance on RT about the story as well.

Not surprisingly, I said the same thing in both venues: yes, the Constitution shortchanges Bosnians that do not belong to the three constituent communities - Serbs, Croats and Muslims ("Bosniaks"), and that obviously ought to be fixed. However, this should not be used as an excuse to tear down what little is left of the Dayton accords, because there exists no viable alternative to the 1995 armistice. The fundamental problem of Bosnia - the fact that its three main ethnic communities disagree whether the country should exist in the first place, let alone how it ought to be organized, and that there is little trust between them, if any - remains just as acute today as it was in April 1992 when it spiraled into bloody ethnic warfare.

This doesn't mean I endorse second-class citizen status for Jews, Roma, or anyone else. But there has to be a better way to ensure one's civil rights than playing into the hands of people like Haris Silajdzic, who hide their agenda of making everyone a second-class citizen behind the rhetoric of "citizen state" and multiethnic multiculturalism. One way or another, the three principal communities in the country have to agree to live together - or separately, if it comes to that - in a way that doesn't trample the rights of anyone, including minorities. If there's a better way to do so than Dayton, by all means let's hear it.

But the real problem for Jews in Bosnia isn't that Jakub Finci can't run for President. Once there was a vibrant Jewish community in Sarajevo. Then came the Independent State of Croatia, with its ideas about "Serbs, Jews, Gypsies and dogs" and support of the "community of European nations" led by Nazi Germany. The descendants of those that survived packed up and left when the civil war broke out in 1992, and never came back. Sarajevo is now over 90% Muslim. There's barely a handful of Jews left, so few that a rabbi has to fly in from Israel to hold services at major holidays.

Somehow I doubt that's the fault of the Dayton agreement.