Syndicate: being able to say neither/nor

[florian schneider <fls@ibu.de>]

BEING ABLE TO SAY NEITHER / NOR
Cynthia Cockburn (WIB London)

A group of us in London co-ordinate occasional actions as 'Women in
Black'. Although I am actively involved I do not speak 'for' Women in
Black London. What follows is no more than a few personal thoughts. Just
as Women in Black has no formal membership or spokes-people, neither can
it really be said to have a line. But from all the occasions women have
demonstrated together under this name on the streets of many different
countries it is possible to work out what we are standing against and
standing for.
First, Women in Black is against the whole continuum of violence, from
male violence against women, to militarism and war. It is for justice
and peace. It is clearly for multi-ethnic democracy. It is for
non-violent, negotiated, means of resolving differences. And there is an
implicit analysis that a certain kind of masculinity fuels and is
fuelled by militarism and war, and that this is harmful not only for
women but also for men.
At the time of writing, as the ethnic aggression intensifies in
Kosovo/Kosova and as NATO bombing shows no signs of ending, a situation
has arisen in which there is very little space indeed for this kind of
politics by women. Even less than usual. The little space that is
sometimes there has closed right down, not just in Yugoslavia, but in
the UK too. What is happening is polarization, a kind of 'either/or'
politics.
Take, for example, the big demonstration on Sunday April 11 called by
the Committee for Peace in the Balkans, largely framed by the Socialist
Worker Party, at which the speakers included many well-known names from
the British Left. Some of us took the Women in Black banner along. Many
of the Women in Black network in London want to oppose NATO bombing. Our
opposition (I feel safe in saying) is not to protect Serb nationalist
extremism but precisely because we would see the bombardment as
strengthening not weakening it. For that reason we have been holding
vigils in London. But, on April 11, even as the march assembled on the
Embankment, I was feeling uneasy. Because there was this ocean of
pre-planned Socialist Worker placards that simply said 'stop the NATO
bombing'.  Any messages opposing the ethnic aggression of the Milosevic
regime were overwhelmed by this uniform and singular demand. Then we
reached Downing Street, where the march was joined by a strong
contingent of Serb nationalists and their supporters. We were surrounded
by the Serb national flag, the characteristic three finger salutes, and
many people wearing the new 'target' symbols that have been adopted in
Belgrade since the bombing.
At the bottom of Trafalgar Square things got very confrontational. To
the left, held back behind barriers, was a militant Kosovan
counter-demonstration supporting the bombing.  And shouting back from
'our' side of the road were angry Serb nationalists, some of them
carrying a scaffold with an effigy of Clinton. At that point I took down
and folded up the Women in Black banner. It seemed the wrong place to
have it. Some of us women decided that we wanted to go and meet people
on the Kosovan demonstration. We wanted to find out whether they were
all Kosova Liberation Army, to see what other groups might be
represented there behind the macho front, and talk with them. We wanted
at least to let them know that there were some people on the main march
who, although you wouldn't know it, not only opposed bombing, but also
opposed Milosevic and what his regime was doing in Kosovo.
The police tried to stop us crossing to the other side of the road. And
one of them said 'You can't change your mind now, you chose this
demonstration, you've got to stick with it. Don't you know which side
you're on?' That seemed to epitomise the situation.
We went over there anyway. What was worse, though, was that the same
kind of message we were getting from the police was also coming across
from the speeches in the Square.  It was clearly a difficult situation
for the speakers to deal with, addressing an audience in which the thing
mainly visible was Serb flags. One woman speaker on 'our' platform did
criticize Milosevic. She got boo-ed by the crowd. Perhaps this warned
off the other speakers. I did not hear the word Milosevic mentioned
again. The impression given was that there was one 'enemy' and that was
NATO. People spoke of 'the humanitarian disaster in Kosovo' but, since
Milosevic was not named, the implication could have been that it was the
result of the bombing. Nobody that I heard speak acknowledged the
presence of the Kosova demonstration across the road, or expressed any
discomfort in being separated in this way from the victims of 'ethnic
cleansing'.
Instead, the speakers dwelt on the bombing, referring to the Second
World War blitz of London and to our wartime alliance with valorous
Serbs. It seemed to me (although I know views are divided on this) that
the organizers allowed the rally to be hi-jacked by Serb nationalism.
You had the feeling they were thinking: 'One thing at a time. You can't
oppose bombing AND oppose Milosevic in the same breath.' But all the
time I was thinking: there must be people here in Trafalgar Square from
the democratic opposition to Milosevic.  There are sure to be some men
here in the crowd who have deserted from the Yugoslav National Army.
They, like us, must feel silenced by this atmosphere. What are they
feeling?
Nor was the problem only one of polarization. There was a parallel
problem of homogenization. In bombing 'the Serbs', NATO are effectively
being racist about Yugoslavia. It is as if they think the 'pure Serb
nation' is a reality in Yugoslavia in the way Milosevic would like it to
be. Governments' failure to see beyond ethnicism is one thing, but the
organizers of this demonstration, called to oppose governments, seemed
to fall into the same trap of talking as though the people beneath the
bombs are 'Serbs'.
In reality, the Yugoslavia that Milosevic governs is not much more than
60% Serb. There are twenty other nationalities living there, Hungarians,
Romanies, Croats, Sandjak Muslims, Montenegrans. There are people of
mixed marriages and mixed parentage. Probably many of these were present
in Trafalgar Square on April 11 too. What were they feeling about being
addressed as if all of them were holding Serb flags?
By now I was full of doubt and confusion. We had folded up the Women in
Black banner.  But should we be here at all? I remembered a message I
had a few days before from a (so-called Serb) woman friend living in
Canada. She had written, 'The stage is set right now as if anti-NATO is
for ethnic cleansing, Milosevic and radical nationalism. And that is
very dangerous'. Because of this, she said, 'many people have problems
with protesting'. I was beginning to see what she meant.
So if there was not any space for our politics here with the Left in
Trafalgar Square, then where? And with whom? And I began to think about
the women we work most closely with in Yugoslavia: the Women in Black
group in Belgrade. They have demonstrated against the Milosevic regime,
in rain and shine, in Republic Square once a week since 1991. Now what
rains on them is bombs. And I went home after the demo and read through
the many e-mail messages we had had from them in the preceding weeks. I
did it to recover a sense of direction and belonging. I remembered that
during the equally dark days of the Bosnian war, when we had had
difficulty unifying women in London (who were not only British but also
from every Yugoslav ethnic group), the one thing we had always been able
to agree on was supporting the women peace activists in Belgrade. And
what follows is what I read. I cannot use the women's real names, but I
shall give a date for each of their messages.
First, I read how they have persisted, against increasing odds, in
keeping in daily contact with our women colleagues in Pristina, Albanian
Kosovans, and have tried to keep supporting them. March 28: 'My moral
and emotional imperative (no matter how pathetic it sounds) is to spend
hours and hours trying to get a phone line to Prishtina.' They passed on
to us news of how ordinary Serbs and Albanians there are still trying to
befriend each other.
April 1: 'In some buildings, in a few cases, neighbours speak, Serbian
and Albanian. They have agreed: "If the police come we will speak up for
you", say the Serbs who stay. And "If the KLA comes, we will speak up
for you", say the Albanians.'
On March 27 I heard from a (so-called Serb) friend who has now fled the
country. She was not thinking of her own situation so much as that of
Kosovans. 'What disturbs and terrifies me most is the news that the most
prominent Albanian intellectuals are being taken away and nobody knows
what is happening to them... Is that how the NATO air strikes are
supposed to protect the lives of innocent Albanian (and Serbian)
civilians in Kosovo?'
April 9, more news from the women in Belgrade. 'I talked to 'X' two days
ago (a women's human rights worker in Prishtina). She is in Skopje with
her family, sixteen of them and they have gone through inferno for six
days and six nights and now she is a little recovered and called me and
told me some part of her story. And I told her that I am so thankful
that she called because we were worrying every day. And she said "I knew
you and 'Y' will worry. It was my duty to call you to tell you we are
all alive and healthy". And I had tears on my face, because those words
meant so much among the horrible hatred against Albanians that is going
on in the last fifteen days, and much more than before. Thanks for
support.'
The women of Women in Black Belgrade are opposed to the bombing, but
they have it in perspective. April 1: 'All those bombs don't bother me
so much because I see the problem of it in smaller terms than the Kosovo
problem.' They see the bombs as bad not because they are an aggression
against Serbs but because they weaken the opposition to Milosevic.
April 1: 'The bombings are installing Milosevic as king for life, not
just president. Kosovo will, with a large amount of victims, get an
international protectorate or state. But Serbia will be in shit for the
next thirty years. That's what pisses me off and what I can't deal with.
Talking to other activists these days I realized that some of them are
frustrated that their whole work, life project, whole peace orientation
is falling apart.' The atmosphere in Belgrade is getting more and more
sexist and misogynist. The women write that there are many placards on
the streets saying things like 'Fuck you Chelsea' (of Clinton's
daughter), and endless references to Monika Lewinsky, calling 'Come back
Monica', so that Clinton might 'screw her instead of Serbs'. And so on.
The little space there was for active and autonomous women is narrowing
down, along with tolerance of any other kind of counter-culture.
March 28: 'This conspiracy of militarism - global and local -
dangerously reduces our space, and soon there won't be this space. How
to denounce global militarism if we don't denounce the local? How to
denounce bombing if we don't denounce the massacres, the repression?
With the horror the people of Kosovo are living through with this NATO
intervention, they are paying a price even greater than before. NATO in
the sky, Milosevic on the ground'. The writer added, 'At the moment our
human ghetto functions well, with mutual support. Your support
strengthens us, it means a real lot. I embrace you with the deepest
friendship and tenderness.' As the bombing ended its second week, things
were clearly getting tougher for women and other peace activists in
Belgrade. On April 9: 'Our problem here is that we cannot say a word
anymore, all human rights are suspended. Only anti-NATO appeals can be
published. So Women in Black Belgrade have decided not to make any
appeal, at least for the time being, because we cannot as well state
that we are against Milosevic... So I live with a mask on my face, if I
talk to other people. Everything changed here, and fear is everywhere'.
But here in London we do not have to wear that mask. We can speak out
both against the bombing AND against the Milosevic regime without any
kind of risk or fear. On the demo on Sunday April 11 that was not
happening. One statement had been allowed to silence the other. And I
really think we have to keep both clearly there together. Even if it
seems contradictory. There is a saying that 'the first casualty of war
is truth'. I am feeling that another casualty in this war, right now, is
the willingness to live with ambiguity and contradiction, to say 'not
this (not ethnic cleansing), but not that (bombing) either'. Another
casualty is the ability to say 'I don't have an answer'. Preparing for
Women in Black vigils in London we are having a lot of difficulty just
now knowing what positive demands we can put on our banners and
placards. But maybe we have to admit that we can't have very concrete
answers at this moment, because the mistakes were begun years ago.
There are political principles we can suggest, of course. The trouble is
these things do not translate easily into short, snappy slogans. I have
felt the temptation to sloganize too. We have sat up all night wondering
how on earth to write, all on a couple of pieces of cardboard, 'work
through the United Nations, support genuine international peacekeeping
and strenthen independent monitoring'. But the thing I most feel I want
to do is just keep listening to the women who are there, the ones who
are taking the risks, and whose political judgment we have by now got
eight years of knowing we can trust. And the things they do clearly
model for us is: keep talking, keep the channels open, cherish mixity,
believe we can live together, refuse military solutions. And choose a
way of doing things that ridicules and counteracts all the sexist,
masculist posturing that goes with militarism on every side.
Women in Black was started in Israel in 1988 by women protesting against
Israel's Occupation of the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza. It was they
who established the characteristic form of action, of mainly silent
vigils, by women standing alone as women, wearing black, in public
places, at regularly repeated times. There are Women in Black groups now
in many different countries, and an e-mail network is developing in
Spanish and English (the address in Spain is roal@nodo50.ix.apc.org and,
in the UK, jane@gn.apc.org).
In recent years Women in Black London have demonstrated against bombing
and sanctions in relation to Iraq and the Gulf War, against US/British
bombing of Sudan and Afghanistan, and against ethnic aggression in the
former Yugoslavia. To be included in the WIB London mailing list please
send your street and e-mail addresses and phone number to WIB c/o The
Maypole Fund, PO Box 14072 London N16 5WB.


--
Break the logic of war! Desert! Open the borders!
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