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Email this citationCIAO DATE: 07/04
Back To The Future: Milosevic Prepares for Life After Kosovo
June 28, 1999
Abstract
On 28 June 1989, Slobodan Milosevic stood on the site of the ancient Serb battleground of Kosovo Polje and delivered the speech that was to propel him to prominence and the leadership of Yugoslavia. Ten years on, Milosevic remains firmly entrenched in power. He has survived three Balkan wars in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo, economic sanctions, 78 days of NATO air strikes, and an indictment on charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes.
Milosevic managed to survive the recent NATO onslaught in part by parlaying resentment against NATO into a wave of public support for his dictatorship. Adept at manipulating popular culture, the regime used such fortuitous events as the timing of the NATO action, coming only weeks before the anniversary of the Nazi bombing of Belgrade in the Second World War, to link the Western alliance with fascism in the public mind. Television programming gave prominence to heroic tales of WW2 partisan fighters, suggesting to the public how they might interpret NATO action. Any Western popular culture, from film to music to television, that degraded Western values or painted the West in a negative light also received wide play, and was clearly aimed at showing the decadence of the Alliance.
