Free Speech in an Age of Racism and Violence... posted by Richard Seymour

Yer man/woman over at Socialism in an Age of Waiting has an interesting piece on David Miller's Voltairean defense of free speech in yesterday's Guardian. The author of this site is no fan of mine, because I'm a member of the SWP, but I'm sure if I say nice things about the site I can seduce him/her into reciprocating.

On the other hand, I do have to take issue with this, on the current crisis in Kosovo:

"Considering how the Kosovar Albanians were routinely treated when they were a minority within Serbia, it is no surprise at all - though it is certainly regrettable, and inexcusable - that some of them are behaving intolerantly and violently now that they feel that they belong to a majority."

"Intolerantly"? Sorry, SIAW, this is certainly not about the "intolerant" behavior of "some" Kosovars, but about the nationalist inspired attempts at ethnic cleansing by a politically motivated section of the nascent Albanian state there. And, although it partially owes itself to years of Serb oppression (of varying degrees), it does have an autonomous political weight of its own. It is also the necessary and logical outcome of attempting to create a state whose premiss is the dominative majority of one ethnic group. The solution to the violent dissolution of Yugoslavia with its nationalist hatreds, bigotry and ethnic cleansing is the socialist revitalisation of pan-Yugoslav solidarity, not the creation of seperate statelets to contain each specific ethnicity. I don't know how much SIAW would agree with this, but given the link to the AWL I would guess not a great deal at all.

My own piece on the current crisis in Kosovo can be reached here .