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rfmcdonaldI first encountered the writings of Diana Johnstone through The Emperor's Clothes. Soon after the 1999 Kosovo War against Serbia began, I began searching for Internet information sites about the Yugoslav conflict, including the ones which challenged the conventional story of Serb misbehaviour. One of the most interesting was The Emperor's Clothes, a site full of articles critical of the NATO position, run by veteran leftist Jared Israel.
Diana Johnstone was a fairly typical writer, not only criticizing the NATO intervention from the persective of the left, but from the perspective of someone who doubted the entire moral basis for any sort of campaign against Serbia. A representative sample of her opinion may be found in her 1998 speech "Seeing Yugoslavia Through a Dark Glass". Here, Johnstone argued that the dissolution of multinational states like the Yugoslav was--besides being a misuse of the principle of self-determination--a tactic favoured by large, homogeneous, and powerful states like the United States and Germany in order to increase their relative power in the international system. At the same time, she argued that the proliferation of NGOs has to be seen in the context of their "need to adapt their causes to the mood of the times, in other words, to the dominant ideology, to the media[, . . . ] using appeals to sentiment rather than to reason[, . . . to steer] NGO activity in certain directions, away from political analysis toward sentiment." The principle of human rights, as enunciated by the international community, is in Johnstone's analysis politicized and no longer neutral, used as a potent political tool against smaller countries threatening by virtue of their independence. Their first victim? Yugoslavia.
Johnstone is quite correct to note that Yugoslavia was independent. Not only did it not belong to the Warsaw Pact, the Socialist and Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was easily "economically and politically by far the most liberal country" in Communist Europe, with near-western European standards of living, a comparatively liberal political climate, a vibrant popular culture, and--critically--open borders. Next even to such relatively liberal countries as Hungary, Yugoslavia was indeed paradisical.
Next to western European states, though, Yugoslavia was still a one-party dictatorship, with the Communist Party of Yugoslavia dominating political life via such means as the Goli Otok concentration camp in the Adriatic Sea and a secret police that contracted gangsters like Arkan to carry out overseas assassinations. Yes, Yugoslavians enjoyed a high standard of living in perhaps the most prosperous Communist country in the world alongside East Germany and Czechoslovakia, but their country's economy was hobbled by state control via Kardelj's theory of workers self-management and kept afloat in the 1980s only via remittances from immigrants and massive loans from abroad. Workers' self-management, a brilliant idea in theory, just didn't work in practice. Most critically for the country's future, the interethnic peace enforced under Tito began to fray after his death, as memories of the massacres perpetuated by the Independent State of Croatia and sundry other smaller atrocities reappeared. Yugoslavia needn't have fallen apart the way it did, but the conjunction of bad historical memories with difficult economic circumstances and existential questions of politics certainly left the possibility of mass conflict open.
In Johnstone's view, however, Yugoslavia was destroyed from without. More, she argues in her book Yugoslavia, NATO, and Western Delusions, reviewed and summarized by Louis Proyect at Swans, that the Serbs were discriminated against by the West, unfairly demonized. Serbian nationalism, she argues, is innately progressive, whereas other nationalist projects are flawed (the Slovenes' by greed, the Croats' and Albanians' by wartime fascism, the Bosnian Muslims by Islamic fundamentalism). The Serbs had the misfortune of being the only nation that the West couldn't co-opt.
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nhw has noted that Chomsky did defend Johnstone against accusations from the Swedish press--some fair, some unfair--in his open letter, citing a positive review in International Affairs as proof of bias. Going to the actual review by Caplan that Chomsky cites, though, one finds that although Caplan does grant that Johnstone does demonstrate that Serbs aren't the only sinners and were in fact sinned against, but concludes that in her book it is "often difficult to recognize the world that Johnstone describes." But going back to Emma Brockes' interview, it's difficult to see how Chomsky's views of Johnstone are in fact any different from the ones represented by Brockes.
Chomsky's definition of "serious, honest work," it seems, includes ill-supported and ill-reviewed works of political propaganda. I might want to pass this off as irrelevant, as something without consequences. The thing, though, is that Chomsky's support for Johnstone's revisionist history of Yugoslavia does have consequences. The presentation of the Yugoslav wars not as a series of succession conflicts aggravated at terrible cost by an aggressive Serb nationalism, but rather as a set of defensive wars waged by a democratic Serbia against the aggressive forces of Capital, isn't just a matter of symbolical inspiration to the left. It matters directly to the 25 million people in and of the former Yugoslavia, to the hundreds of thousands of dead, the millions of displaced, and all their kind and friends. More, the interpretation of the war is directly relevant to post-war politics throughout the former Yugoslavia, perhaps most importantly of all in a Serbia still caught up in the nationalism of the 1990s. Does Chomsky really think he's doing anyone in the former Yugoslavia a favour by lending his renowned name in support of someone who has their history critically wrong?
When interviewed by the Bosnian press, Chomsky protested that Brockes' interview made him seem like a monster.
Since I don't want to get into his long history of highly dubious flirtations with any number of figures and movements, I'll grant him that. What this entire affair does show is that he doesn't care about the consequences of his actions. As with the Faurisson Affair, abstracted by him into a matter of free speech and an act of defiance against the repressive reactionary media consensus he criticizes so fervently, Chomsky has demonstrated with his defense of Johnstone that he doesn't care who he allies with so long as his ally is equally anti-systemic. Chomsky is no monster. He is, however, a moral idiot, someone who does freely give himself over to the defense of people and movements responsible for crimes against humanity just so long as theirs are politically convenient crimes against humanity.
None of this matters, of course, for as Wikipedia correctly notes, Chomsky is a figure of global import.
It doesn't matter what Chomsky writes, or who Chomsky defends, or what Chomsky ends up doing. Why? To borrow the immortal words of Chomsky's fellow mind Paris Hilton, he's hot. Morality and reality are so out.
Diana Johnstone was a fairly typical writer, not only criticizing the NATO intervention from the persective of the left, but from the perspective of someone who doubted the entire moral basis for any sort of campaign against Serbia. A representative sample of her opinion may be found in her 1998 speech "Seeing Yugoslavia Through a Dark Glass". Here, Johnstone argued that the dissolution of multinational states like the Yugoslav was--besides being a misuse of the principle of self-determination--a tactic favoured by large, homogeneous, and powerful states like the United States and Germany in order to increase their relative power in the international system. At the same time, she argued that the proliferation of NGOs has to be seen in the context of their "need to adapt their causes to the mood of the times, in other words, to the dominant ideology, to the media[, . . . ] using appeals to sentiment rather than to reason[, . . . to steer] NGO activity in certain directions, away from political analysis toward sentiment." The principle of human rights, as enunciated by the international community, is in Johnstone's analysis politicized and no longer neutral, used as a potent political tool against smaller countries threatening by virtue of their independence. Their first victim? Yugoslavia.
Yugoslavia, a country once known for its independent approach to socialism and international relations, economically and politically by far the most liberal country in Eastern Central Europe, has already been torn apart by Western support to secessionist movements. What is left is being further reduced to an ungovernable chaos by a continuation of the same process. The emerging result is not a charming bouquet of independent little ethnic democracies, but rather a new type of joint colonial rule by the IC, enforced by NATO.
Johnstone is quite correct to note that Yugoslavia was independent. Not only did it not belong to the Warsaw Pact, the Socialist and Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was easily "economically and politically by far the most liberal country" in Communist Europe, with near-western European standards of living, a comparatively liberal political climate, a vibrant popular culture, and--critically--open borders. Next even to such relatively liberal countries as Hungary, Yugoslavia was indeed paradisical.
Next to western European states, though, Yugoslavia was still a one-party dictatorship, with the Communist Party of Yugoslavia dominating political life via such means as the Goli Otok concentration camp in the Adriatic Sea and a secret police that contracted gangsters like Arkan to carry out overseas assassinations. Yes, Yugoslavians enjoyed a high standard of living in perhaps the most prosperous Communist country in the world alongside East Germany and Czechoslovakia, but their country's economy was hobbled by state control via Kardelj's theory of workers self-management and kept afloat in the 1980s only via remittances from immigrants and massive loans from abroad. Workers' self-management, a brilliant idea in theory, just didn't work in practice. Most critically for the country's future, the interethnic peace enforced under Tito began to fray after his death, as memories of the massacres perpetuated by the Independent State of Croatia and sundry other smaller atrocities reappeared. Yugoslavia needn't have fallen apart the way it did, but the conjunction of bad historical memories with difficult economic circumstances and existential questions of politics certainly left the possibility of mass conflict open.
In Johnstone's view, however, Yugoslavia was destroyed from without. More, she argues in her book Yugoslavia, NATO, and Western Delusions, reviewed and summarized by Louis Proyect at Swans, that the Serbs were discriminated against by the West, unfairly demonized. Serbian nationalism, she argues, is innately progressive, whereas other nationalist projects are flawed (the Slovenes' by greed, the Croats' and Albanians' by wartime fascism, the Bosnian Muslims by Islamic fundamentalism). The Serbs had the misfortune of being the only nation that the West couldn't co-opt.
nhw has noted that Chomsky did defend Johnstone against accusations from the Swedish press--some fair, some unfair--in his open letter, citing a positive review in International Affairs as proof of bias. Going to the actual review by Caplan that Chomsky cites, though, one finds that although Caplan does grant that Johnstone does demonstrate that Serbs aren't the only sinners and were in fact sinned against, but concludes that in her book it is "often difficult to recognize the world that Johnstone describes." But going back to Emma Brockes' interview, it's difficult to see how Chomsky's views of Johnstone are in fact any different from the ones represented by Brockes. Chomsky lent his name to a letter praising Johnstone's "outstanding work". Does he regret signing it?
"No," he says indignantly. "It is outstanding. My only regret is that I didn't do it strongly enough. It may be wrong; but it is very careful and outstanding work."
How, I wonder, can journalism be wrong and still outstanding?
"Look," says Chomsky, "there was a hysterical fanaticism about Bosnia in western culture which was very much like a passionate religious conviction. It was like old-fashioned Stalinism: if you depart a couple of millimetres from the party line, you're a traitor, you're destroyed. It's totally irrational. And Diane Johnstone, whether you like it or not, has done serious, honest work."
Chomsky's definition of "serious, honest work," it seems, includes ill-supported and ill-reviewed works of political propaganda. I might want to pass this off as irrelevant, as something without consequences. The thing, though, is that Chomsky's support for Johnstone's revisionist history of Yugoslavia does have consequences. The presentation of the Yugoslav wars not as a series of succession conflicts aggravated at terrible cost by an aggressive Serb nationalism, but rather as a set of defensive wars waged by a democratic Serbia against the aggressive forces of Capital, isn't just a matter of symbolical inspiration to the left. It matters directly to the 25 million people in and of the former Yugoslavia, to the hundreds of thousands of dead, the millions of displaced, and all their kind and friends. More, the interpretation of the war is directly relevant to post-war politics throughout the former Yugoslavia, perhaps most importantly of all in a Serbia still caught up in the nationalism of the 1990s. Does Chomsky really think he's doing anyone in the former Yugoslavia a favour by lending his renowned name in support of someone who has their history critically wrong?
When interviewed by the Bosnian press, Chomsky protested that Brockes' interview made him seem like a monster.
“Although the poll of magazine Prospect was largely a joke, she called attention to the name of Naom Chomsky to thousands of people who otherwise would have never heard of him. However, everybody who reads the article by Emma Brockes in the Guardian can reach only one conclusion on Chomsky. Concretely, that he is an idiot – raging, strange fanatic, who gives himself the right to deny an obvious crime against the humanity. This is one of the most shocking hoaxes that we have ever seen – and we were shocked and flabbergasted many times in the past”, Chomsky told Fena.
Since I don't want to get into his long history of highly dubious flirtations with any number of figures and movements, I'll grant him that. What this entire affair does show is that he doesn't care about the consequences of his actions. As with the Faurisson Affair, abstracted by him into a matter of free speech and an act of defiance against the repressive reactionary media consensus he criticizes so fervently, Chomsky has demonstrated with his defense of Johnstone that he doesn't care who he allies with so long as his ally is equally anti-systemic. Chomsky is no monster. He is, however, a moral idiot, someone who does freely give himself over to the defense of people and movements responsible for crimes against humanity just so long as theirs are politically convenient crimes against humanity.
None of this matters, of course, for as Wikipedia correctly notes, Chomsky is a figure of global import.
Chomsky's popularity has become a cultural phenomenon. Bono of U2 called Chomsky a "rebel without a pause, the Elvis of academia." Rage Against The Machine took copies of his books on tour with the band. Pearl Jam ran a small pirate radio on one of their tours, playing Chomsky talks mixed along with their music. R.E.M. asked Chomsky to go on tour with them and open their concerts with a lecture (he declined). Chomsky lectures have been featured on the B-sides of records from Chumbawamba and other groups. Many anti-globalization and anti-war activists regard Chomsky as an inspiration.
Chomsky is widely read outside the US. 9-11 was published in 26 countries and translated into 23 foreign languages; it was a bestseller in at least five countries, including Canada and Japan. Chomsky's views are often given coverage on public broadcasting networks around the world- a fact supporters say is in marked contrast to his rare appearances in the US media. In the UK, for example, he appears frequently on the BBC.
It doesn't matter what Chomsky writes, or who Chomsky defends, or what Chomsky ends up doing. Why? To borrow the immortal words of Chomsky's fellow mind Paris Hilton, he's hot. Morality and reality are so out.
