The top winner in the contest for the greatest blunder of 1998 was a Latin-American patriotic terrorist who sent a bomb letter to a US consulate in order to protest against the American interfering into the local politics. As a conscientious citizen, he wrote on the envelope his return address; however, he did not put enough stamps on it, so that the post returned the letter to him. Forgetting what he put in it, he opened it and blew himself to death - a perfect example of how, ultimately, a letter always arrives at its destination. And is not something quite similar happening to the Slobodan Milosevic regime with the recent NATO bombing? It is interesting to watch in the last days the Serbian satellite state TV which targets foreign public: no reports on atrocities in Kosovo, refugees are mentioned only as people fleeing NATO bombing, so that the overall idea is that Serbia, the island of peace, the only place in ex-Yugoslavia that was not touched by the war raging all around it, is not irrationally attacked by the NATO madmen destroying bridges and hospitals... For years, Milosevic was sending bomb letters to his neighbors, from the Albanians to Croatia and Bosnia, keeping himself out of the conflict while igniting fire all around Serbia - finally, his last letter returned to him. Let us hope that the result of the NATO intervention will be that Milosevic will be proclaimed the political blunderer of the year.
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What is critical thought for you?

One can give two senses to the notion of critique: a sense one could call Kantian, in the lineage of the philosopher of Königsberg, which refers to the evaluative examination of categories and forms of knowledge in order to determine their cognitive validity and value; and a Marxian sense, which trains the weapons of reason at socio-historical reality and sets itself the task of bringing to light the hidden forms of domination and exploitation which shape it so as to reveal by contrast the alternatives they thwart and exclude (recall Horkheimer’s definition of “critical theory” as theory that is at the same time explanatory, normative, practical, and reflexive). It seems to me that the most fruitful critical thought is that which situates itself at the confluence of these two traditions and thus weds epistemological and social critique by questioning, in a continuous, active, and radical manner, both established forms of thought and established forms of collective life – “common sense” or doxa (including the doxa of the critical tradition) along with the social and political relations that obtain at a particular moment in a particular society.
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Slavoj Zizek: Too Much Democracy?       

Interestingly enough, there is at least one case in which formal democrats themselves (or, at least, a substantial part of them) would tolerate the suspension of democracy: what if the formally free elections are won by an anti-democratic party whose platform promises the abolition of formal democracy? (This did happen, among other places, in Algeria a couple of years ago, and the situation is similar in today's Pakistan.) In such a case, many a democrat would concede that the people was not yet "mature" enough to be allowed democracy, and that some kind of enlightened despotism whose aim will be to educate the majority into proper democrats is preferable.
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A është me të vërtetë bota ekonomike, siç do të na bindë diskursi dominant, një rend i pastër dhe perfekt, që shtjellon sistematikisht logjikën e pasojave të veta të parashikueshme dhe duke përndjekur me saktësi çdo devijim nga rregullat e veta përmes ndëshkimeve që ajo ushtron, qoftë automatikisht, apo në raste të veçanta, përmes agjentit të vet të armatosur, FMN-së (Fondit Monetar Ndërkombëtar) dhe OECD-së (Organizatës për Bashkëpunim dhe Zhvillim Ekonomik) dhe politikave drastike që ato imponojnë – zvogëlimin e çmimit të punës, reduktimi i shpenzimeve publike dhe një treg ‘fleksibël’ pune? Çka nëse kjo do të ishte, në realitet, thjesht implementim i një utopie, atë të neo-liberalizmit, të transformuar në program politik, por një utopi e cila, me ndihmën e teorisë ekonomike në të cilën ajo mbështetet, arrinë ta shoh vetën si përshkrim shkencor të realitetit?
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Radovan Karaxhiqi është kriminel famëkeq lufte, i kërkuar nga Gjyqi Ndërkombëtar i Hagës. Por ai gjithashtu është psikiatër dhe poet. Bota shpesh hamendet se si një poet mund të shndërrohet në kriminel lufte. Kjo disi mund të jetë e kuptueshme për psikiatrin, ashtu si për ndonjë bukëpjekës, mjek ose zdruthëtar – por poeti? Edward Limonov është më pak i njohur se Karaxhiqi, por edhe ky fitoi famë të keqe me granatimin e Sarajevës nga kodra mbi këtë qytet dhe kështu tërhoqi vëmendjen e gjithë mediave botërore. E tepërt të thuhet – edhe ky është poet.
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