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Sometimes I don't receive an answer to my request to publish a
letter and I don't know how to interpret it. So I've decided to
simplify things and not oblige readers to answer. WM
For the last year the number of visitors has increased steadily while the number of letters has tended to decrease. A paradox, isn't it? In order to keep the Communication Page alive, readers are invited to contribute their grain of salt. WM
Dear William:
Sorry, it is not only "the color of the walls". It is much more important than that.
We are being told that, for the purpose of national survival, we should all unite and stand as one: Serbian reds, Serbian blues and Serbian chartreuse alike. But this is fallacy, William.
How can the party that proclaims the inevitable historical end of all nationalities and ethnicities (and all patriotism, too) all of a sudden become a patriotic unity-builder?
How can a party that for almost a century professed decadence of bourgeois multi-party democracy be an honest participant in this grand national alliance of - gasp! - Serbian parliamentary parties ?
How can a party that for years oppressed, repressed, imprisoned, killed, crippled and maimed its opponents suddenly, as if by magic wand, become a patriotic force to be reckoned with?. And will it not again kill, cripple and maim is opponents at some point in the future if given a chance ?
How can a party whose lady-chairman went on a secret pilgrimage to Pol Pot's cremation spot in the jungles of southeast Asia represent an embodiment of patriotic virtue?
How can a political force which, in effect, continued the practice of Nazi concentration camps and Stalinist gulags for many years after the decline and fall of both Stalin and Hitler be perceived as a humane, benevolent force we should sign a non-aggression pact with?
How can a party that drew us into no less than five (5) wars in the past ten years alone, and which capitulated all but one of them (war against its own people), be seen as a serious ally of the Serbian people?
How can a party that ordered hundreds of thousands of security forces to repress peaceful protestors be patriotic?
How can a party which threw priests into dungeons, banned cyrilics and outlawed Serbian chants and hymns be viewed as pious, God-fearing part of the tissue of Serbian life?
How can a party whose Secretary-General's son spent quartet of a million Deutsche Marks building an amuzement park at the peak of bombing have any redeeming properties?
How can a party, whose chairman never once visited his own wounded fighters and soldiers at the frontline be anything but a heartless, brutal thug? And what kind of a role can such a thug play in this whole grand scheme of national survival and national salvation front?
Sheep and wolves can never be allies in anything. Communists are, were and will be a blunt foreign instrument in the body of Serbia. A stick we've been impaled on for the past 60 years. The communists are there for the sole purpose of inflicting pain and harming their host. Traitors, in other words. It's not "better dead than red", William. Rather, it's "better dead than being raped and killed by the reds."
Long ago, there was an American singer-songwriter named Phil Ochs (no relation to the Ochs and Sulzbergers of the New York Times). In his infinitely wise, radical Maoist vision, he graced the liner notes to his third album with no less than eight (8) poems by Chairman Mao. Alas, having undoubtedly seen the evil, inhumane side of communism, he committed suicide 25 years ago.
One of his most memorable tunes was "We ain't marching anymore".
Dear William, Serbs ain't marchin' anymore. Not to the beat of the communist drum.
I know that these are not the words that our left-leaning American friends expected to hear on this team. To the extent such words represent a rude awakening, I regret having to utter them. But, let's face it: Communism is dead. Good riddance.
Bob Djukic
(Look for my answer, "Which Freedom...", in this issue of Vagabond -- WM)
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William Markiewicz
