Et tu, Brute!
By S. Krishnamoorthy Aithal

      In his article, "Kosovo's Cruel Realities," (The Washington Post, August 4) Salman Rushdie describes Tony Blair's ideal of a multi-ethnic Kosovo as an unattainable dream. He characterizes the British Prime Minister's idealism as starry-eyed and the Prime Minister's hope of bringing about reconciliation between ethnic groups in Kosovo as indicative of a failure of imagination.
      According to him, it is impossible to protect the Serbs of Kosovo who have chosen to stay behind after the war, and nothing can stop the inevitable now from happening--the emergence of an Albanian Kosovo. The purpose of his article is to recruit Mr. Blair and his colleagues for the construction of this new nation.
      It beats me how Salman Rushdie, of all people, can write that there is no way of stopping what may sometimes seem inevitable. Is it possible that he has so soon forgotten that, when a good part of the Muslim nation was thirsting for his blood for his reckless ridicule of the Prophet, the British government accomplished the impossible--protect his head from falling off from his shoulders?
      If the British government resigned itself to the inevitable course of events, Salman Rushdie would be writing to us today from the netherworld, while a criminal would be counting his dollars on the earth above and dreaming of the greater joys to come in heaven.
      Who would deplore Mr. Blair's lack of Salman Rushdie's power of imagination that enables him to see that an Albanian Kosovo is a historical inevitability? As long as Mr. Blair believes that there may be good and innocent Serbians in Kosovo who must be protected and that those fourteen farmers, some children and women among them, who were slain while cutting hay in their fields, didn't deserve that cruel fate, he would certainly receive the world's praise.
      With the knowledge and experience of protecting an immigrant's life in England from the fury of the immigrant's brethren around the globe, Mr. Blair and his government may yet again be able to pull this one too--frustrate Salman Rushdie's newly found friends in their Albanian Kosovo construction work.
      Interestingly, Salman Rushdie makes it seem that his Prime Minister--a good-hearted, high-minded, decent gentleman, no doubt,-- alone is foolishly fighting for a multi-ethnic Kosovo and chooses to air his views, not in one of British newspapers, but in an American newspaper.
      Surprisingly enough, he makes no mention of President Bill Clinton, who has spoken of a multi-ethnic Kosovo, times without number. I guess he intends to talk about President Clinton's starry-eyed idealism and lack of imagination in an article in The London Daily.
      Throughout the article, he talks about Albanian Kosovo, and not Albanian Muslim Kosovo. Salman Rushdie has surely learnt to be careful what he says, and how and where he says it.
      Salman Rushdie would probably gain solidarity among his people by championing the cause of an Albanian Muslim Kosovo. He is welcome to volunteer his services. The world will understand the personal reasons behind his actions.
      It will, however, not forgive him for his contemptuous dismissal of persons and ideals to whom he owes his life and for his call for international help for the construction of an Albanian Kosovo.

      S. Krishnamoorthy Aithal.