I told him that we are in a totally different situation. The place that was given to us is wonderful: romantic springs, somehow healthy winters, glorious summers, long mild autumns, forested mountains, thousands of green and sunny meadows and valleys, clear and navigable rivers, clean springs on every hill, deep lakes surrounded by forest, fertile soil, warm sea, sandy beaches, favosable winds, rare fogs, frequent rains... We really like the place where we live. But, I told my colocutor, others like it as well. We have been paying a price for that good location from the start. From the start, throughout all of our history, we have been protecting that place, day and night, from invasions of potential new owners.
It occurred to me a thousand times that it may have been better if we lived in a dark chasm, windy highland, at the edge of a desert, without water, with six months of scorching summer heat, with nights that start at five p.m., far away from any road, drenched with endless rains, buried under snows that never melt, without a single mine, with poisonous mosquitoes and soil that yields harvest every three years... Maybe in that case, foreign interests, invading armies and incessant troubles would have left us alone.
But, the interests because of which we have been attacked by foreign armies for centuries and suffered great calamities, were not only the consequence of the beauty of our land. With time, it was more and more because of everything that we have achieved, or at least have demonstrated the capability and desire to achieve, while living in that territory. Concerning both the material goods and relations between people. There was a possibility that out location become prestigious not only because of its natural beauty but also because of that created by man.
Thus, in order to steal the natural resources and destroy those created by man, the pressure on Yugoslavia intensified. During the last decade of the twentieth century it was almost institutionalized.
In the early 90's the former Yugoslavia succumbed under that pressure. This smaller Yugoslavia remained to resist the pressure. It has succeeded in that in spite of a series of strikes, each one of which was capable of shaking a giant. Was that great internal strength of a small nation, the superiority of its collective and individual being experienced as a gauntlet thrown in the invisible face of a powerful adversary? I believe so. There is no other way to explain the eruption of new blows to which this Yugoslavia was exposed once it became obvious that it had not succumbed to the previous blows and that she had started to recover as soon as the blows weakened, although some of them never stopped.
This spring, the Albanian separatism in Kosovo was incited. During the summer, it transformed into terrorism that Serbia had to fight during three hot summer months. Enormous amounts of arms for terrorists were shipped to Kosovo through Albania but also in other, to the public still unknown, ways. In some Western countries, those terrorists were trained and prepared for acts of sabotage. Tens of their newspapers in Kosovo are also financed from the Western countries. Finally, those western countries have sent a promise to the Albanians in Kosovo: thanks to their material, political, military and media support, starting with this fall, they will live in greater Albania. Whether as a part of Albania, or an independent state, or whether Kosovo would become a sovereign federal unit within FRY, that wasn't clear, but the Albanian people, who had spent most of the months of July and August in the surrounding forests awaiting the birth of their own state, didn't really care about that.
But, the summer has passed and the leaves are slowly falling in Kosovo forests, greater Albania has not been established and the Albanian refugees are returning to the Serbian province. I do not know to what extent these Albanian refugees are disappointed. I suppose they feel cheated, and that they are. But, the planners and financiers of their summer exodus to the Kosovo mountains are also disappointed. They have turned out to be bad strategists. Thus, they have decided to punish the Serbs. And all other citizens of Serbia, maybe even Yugoslavia.
For ten days already, the United States, Germany, Great Britain, France, the United Nations Security Council and NATO have been threatening to bomb Serbia. It is preposterous that the strongest countries of the western civilization are getting together to bomb a country of nine million inhabitants. Such an armada is not necessary for the bombing of a nine-million-people nation, half of whose inhabitants are women and children. For ten days already in all western capitals, day and night, spectacular conferences are held about the bombardment of Serbia. Special airplanes with the highest officials and diplomats have been lending on European and American airports. These diplomats and officials carry bags full of arguments for the bombardment of Yugoslavia. All the most important media in the Western Hemisphere are full of commentary, analyses and justification for the bombardment of FRY. For ten days already, the West has imposed to the whole world the bombardment of Yugoslavia as the main topic.
At first one would wonder why. The West rules the world, and the United States of America rules the West. In this world and this moment everything happens according to the will of the USA. She decides about the fate of countries larger than Yugoslavia and makes more important decisions than the one concerning the bombardment of our little country. Why then do they suddenly need all those international conferences, airplanes and airports, resolutions and Council, and humanitarian workers, and television, and support, and coalitions, final decisions on Thursday, the last meeting on Friday, an agreement where they previously had not sought one, the pacification of those who had been ignored in the past...
Maybe in order to appease their guilty conscience. Since it is necessary to bomb a country exhausted by sanctions, full of refugees, famous because of its freedom loving history and heroic past. It is necessary to bomb one of the oldest European nations, hundreds of young soldiers, women and children in the middle of Europe and at the end of the twentieth century. It is necessary to destroy tens of the oldest medieval monuments of the Slavic culture, several European civilian and military airports. Electricity, water and roads must be denied to the people who had an empire at the time when the country from where the bombers are coming did not even exist.
One needs to sleep at least somewhat peacefully after such a crime. And avoid spending the rest of the life on a psychiatric couch or an insane asylum. That is hardly possible. Even with the acquiescence of the whole world.
As far as Yugoslavia is concerned, this will not be the first time. Yugoslavia has been attacked by the greatest European powers from the start. Especially Serbia. She was attacked because of geostrategic, economic, political and ideological reasons. And from every war, always forced upon her by somebody else's will, she came out defending itself, as a moral and frequently even an absolute victor. That is our history.
The Serb people knows that it has paid dearly hundreds of times for its prestigious geostrategic position, that it has been a permanent target of numerous armies because of its natural resources, that is has been an object of revenge because of its progressive, freedom loving ideals and achievements. It knew that its geographic position, natural characteristics, historic reputation and civilizational leanings have a price. And it has always been prepared to pay, hoping that at some point in the future a time will arrive when the destiny will finally decide that we have paid our debt to history in human lives.
Hold on, Yugoslavia! If you give in, our hope for freedom will disappear from history for a long time, the idea of equality will loose, all efforts of ordinary people will be defeated, swallows will fly away from the Balkans, those who started on a long journey will slow down their progress toward the next day.
But, if bombs fall on Yugoslavia, that will be the beginning of an end of on order that will never become a world order nor will it be long-lasting, and all of that because of its bloody start.
It is unjust that Yugoslavia is destined to announce the beginning of that downfall with human victims, as if she had not given enough to the world already. It is unjust, not because our lives are worth more than the lives of other people, but it is unjust because we live in the place where "intellect can take revenge on injustice".