IMAGINARY RAPES IN KOSOVO
She just loves this subject, doesn't she?
I'm glad to report--this is the final section of part 3 ("The Uses of Rape"). It's also only two pages long. Given the insubstantial nature of this section, two pages is probably overlong.
By this point in her manuscript, Johnstone probably had a macro ready to go; pick some early reports that were either inaccurate or at the very least not more fully documented later, add a quote or two from a Western "expert" (funny how she does this consistantly even while decrying Western naivete about the Balkans) she finds handy, and avoid any first-hand testimony like the plague.
Once again, this section mostly focuses on the media. It also focuses on quantitative issues only; while out to prove that the numbers of rapes were not as high as reported, her claim that the systematic nature of rape crimes in the Yugoslav wars was falsely reported requires her to ignore specifics. She cannot report what those women actually said happened to them, because to do so would be illustrate the deliberate use of rape as a weapon of terror. She needs her reader to think that all the stories of mass rape were concocted by credulous Western reporters from inflated figures; she cannot afford for her audience to be privvy to the details. The rape victims must be silenced.
3 comments:
I just want to say I support what you are doing.
Good luck and keep doing a great job!
Amen!!
BTW, I'm not sure if you are aware of this, but there is a link to your Johnstone analysis on the Balkan Witness Website page dealing with denial and combating that denial.
Good job!
Thanks bytygis for the compliment and support. Thank you Shaina for the heads-up. And Owen, that's great idea. I'm on track to finish my review sometime in December or January if I keep up the pace--around then I should start to go through the footnotes and bibliography and begin the cross-referencing.
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