<nettime> Re: Open Letter to Slobodan Markovic

["Matthew Smith" <matt@fl.aec.at>]

>Stop making melodramatic gestures that are obvious rehearsals of
>martyrdom and your own death.

    When these careless words come from Bruce Sterling himself, it's
    even more sad... :-(

*It's not particularly sad if I say something careless.  But I am not
careless in this warning to you.  I will repeat it and amplify it.   The
"rehearsal of martyrdom" is something I know well, because I live 90 miles
away from the armed compound of the Branch Davidian religious cult.  You
should have seen those zealots singing and dancing as the American tanks
surrounded them.  As their isolation intensified, they grew ever more
righteous, unified and exultant.  They never betrayed or defied their
crazed leader.   It was the cult's apotheosis.  And then, at last, the
all-devouring flames broke out.  

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*I don't tell you  all this because I expect to change your convictions.
Nor do I want to merely scare you, gloat at your misfortunes, or hurt your
feelings.  Having read the work of people on the ground in Serbia, like
yourself (and the now-sadly-silent Insomnia),  I feel obliged to do this
from a sense of moral duty.  

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	this sounds very much like the NATOs reasoning when questioned 
	about moral obligations. this rhetoric is one of the problems
	for people dwelling in north america to deal with the foreign
	policy of the United States & its Allies. even if we (the US
	-NATO-EEC citizens) mean well, we cannot compare. percieved 
	prosperity has led us to feel safe & objective. also the Branch
	Davidians cannot be compared to the religous, political and 
	physical struggle that has ravaged the balkans for many hundred 
	years.	
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At the moment, your military is like a man with a pistol, surrounded by
nineteen men with rifles.


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	the truth is that the serbs, holding a handgrenade, are surrounded
	by 19 men with american rifles. 
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*I think, and I must repeat to you, that  the likeliest outcome here is
that the man with the pistol will kill the people he can reach.


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	i think that the man with the handgrenade will stand there until
	it blows up or he gets shot. then the owners of the rifles will 
	want them back and put their own guys in place. after that, it 
	starts all over again, just in a different location. most probably
	a little further to the east, toward the black sea...
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Do you think this prediction is unlikely?
Tell me why.

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	you tell me .-)
	
	matt




vehicle.aec.at---www.firstfloor.org---www.enemy.org---ur.creditcard.nr.here

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