"Sarajevo Daily" by Tom Gjelten [8]

[Sorry it's been such a long break--almost two full months--between posts. I couldn't give much free time to anything but graduate school.]

Chapter 6: Fighting Together, Falling Apart
Sarajevo was a cosmopolitan, multicultural city that was a bridge between different worlds--the East and the West; the capitalist world and the communist; Christianity and Islam; Orthodoxy and Catholicism. The population was mixed, and during the Yugoslav period the city had a very high percentage of mixed marriages between Serbs, Croats, and Muslims. The demographics of the city were very mixed. Therefore, the fact of Sarajevo presented a challenge to the Serb nationalists which was both pragmatic and existential. They wanted to divide this thoroughly mixed Sarajevo on ethnic lines for military reasons; they needed to divide the people of Sarajevo against each other in order to validate their own ideology.

Therefore, the siege of Sarajevo had a dimension beyond the military, because the Bosnian Serb Army wasn't merely trying to conquer the city but to destroy its social fabric. And as the war dragged on, the bonds which connected people across ethnic lines were tested frequently. Many thousands of Serbs stayed loyal to Bosnia and suffered along with their fellow Bosnians--and one absolutely cannot assume that a decision by all Serbs was a sign of support for the nationalist cause. Many, Ljiljana Smajlovic, had complex feelings about their Serb identity but did not join the nationalist cause. And human nature being what it is, many simply took advantage of the opportunity to escape. And some, it must be said, probably left because life as a Serb in besieged Sarajevo was not easy.

It was not easy for anyone, of course. But for Serbs who stayed, it was hard to escape suspicion, as some of their fellow Serbs had indeed betrayed friends, family, and neighbors to join the forces tormenting their own hometown. Senka Kurtovic wrote a piece for Oslobodjenje, an open letter to her ex-boyfriend turned Serb nationalist Dragan Aloric, which touched a nerve because so many in Sarajevo had felt the same betrayal. At the same time, in the early days of the war the militias which defended the city never shed their origins in the criminal underworld, and it was much easier to justify preying on "suspicious" Serbs when the inclination to loot and otherwise "acquire" goods took hold.

Many resisted the temptation to give in to sectarian fear and hostility. But as the siege dragged on, old loyalties continued to wither in the face of paranoia and suspicion fueled by nationalist propaganda and accentuated by every sniper's bullet, every mortar shell.

"Sarajevo Daily" by Tom Gjelten [4]

Chapter 2: A Time of Change

This chapter explains the changes at Oslobodjenje as it morphed from a party-line Communist party mouthpiece to a genuine, independent news organization which was the most respected paper in Yugoslavia (according to a poll of fellow journalists), and the third-most popular in the country as well. When the war broke out in Sarajevo in April of 1992, the paper had not only broken free of party control, it had also set itself up as independent of all three nationalist parties in the republic when elections were held.

Much of the background in this chapter is familiar, but interwoven in the context of the decline of Communism, the development of nationalist politics in the republics, the rise of Slobodan Milosevic, the increasing radicalization of Serbia and ethnic Serbs, and the outbreak of hostilities in Croatia we are also introduced to head editor Kemal Kurspahic, assistant editor Ljiljana Smajlovic, and reporter Vlado Mrkic. Kurspahic, a secular Muslim, had risen up to the top of the paper, and had led the move away from being a party organ to a professional, objective newspaper modeled on the American papers he had encountered while stationed in New York. Mrkic, an ethnic Serb, is a reporter's reporter--he abandoned a presumably more prestigious or lucrative job as editor because it didn't suit him and had returned to doing what he did best--going out after a story on his own.

Smajlovic, who like the other two was a product of the old system but relished the opportunity to do "real journalism" once it became possible, ultimately chose to leave Sarajevo when she found she couldn't be fully objective; while she didn't support the nationalist program, she found that she also could not stomach the idea of leading a struggle against "her" people--the Bosnian Serbs. Her parents had been devout Communists, but her mother turned around and embraced the Serb nationalist program. Ljiljana couldn't go that far; but she also couldn't bear to stay at Oslobodjenje. The moment of truth came in Croatia, when she was investigating Croat reports that Serbs had burned a local village. She was sure that the story was propaganda. When she discovered that the story was true, she found that she simply couldn't report the truth. Caught between her genuine disdain for ethnic violence and her new found ethnic loyalties, she left. Surely, many other Serbs who fled Sarajevo, or otherwise  implicitly sided with "their" people experienced a similar dynamic.

The chapter ends with Ljiljana explaining that she realized that she was in the war, not outside of it; this statement parallels Gjelten's own observations earlier in the chapter that people in Sarajevo felt that the turmoil in Kosovo and the war in Croatia didn't really concern them directly. Just as Ljiljana discovered that nationalism could shatter her sense of remove, so would  the people of Sarajevo learn that their proud heritage of cosmopolitan tolerance was vulnerable.

"Nationalism and Ethnic Violence" by Greenhaven Press [8]

Chapter 4: Should Nations Intervene in Ethnic Conflicts? [continued]

Nations Should Not Intervene in the Balkans

There are only three essays in this section. The second is actually the transcript of Senator John McCain being interviewed by reporter Major Garrett. The general tone of McCain's argument--and his superficial knowledge of the situation--can be garnered from his answer to the very first question:

"Garrett: You oppose limited U.S. military involvement in the Balkan civil war. Tell us what you hope will be the result of following the policy you support. What do you hope U.S. action or inaction will have accomplished?

McCain: I hope the result would be the civil conflict in what was Yugoslavia that has been going on for at least 700 years will be at a very low point, that the boundaries will have been stabilized, and that sanctions, embargoes and other measures will bring about a dramatic reduction in the slaughter. That's what I hope would happen. I am by no means convinced that that would be the case."

Well, what is there to say? "700 years" Senator McCain? Really? That's your "analysis" of the situation.

But in fairness to McCain, we all know that this line of "ancient hatreds" was the excuse of first resort for so many Western policy makers during the Balkan wars. It was just sad that so many in the media swallowed this line without complaint. 700 years, of course, is the maximum time one could say that Islam has been in the Balkans, so one wonders if the implication is that the Bosniaks brought their troubles onto themselves by becoming the 'other'. Were Croats and Serbs getting along famously before then? And who were the Bosniaks prior to conversion anyway, Senator McCain?

These are rhetorical questions of course, because I presume all regular readers of this blog not only have answers, they also have some understanding of how problematic the premise is--who were "those people" seven centuries ago? These are lazy assumptions, easily dismantled, and it's depressing that for the most part, the media allowed politicians and military "experts" to use such facile reasoning as an excuse to duck our moral and international legal obligations.

The third essay is by Misha Glenny, and is entitled "Foreign Military Intervention Would Fail." While his tone is fairly reasonable through most of the essay, and he approach to the issue is to consider the political and military realities as they existed in May of 1993 (I can't blame him for not being able to see ahead in time to the forced Croat-Bosnian Government alliance, so his claims that the logistics of actually arming the Muslims cannot be dismissed as a cop out), it is hard to shake the nagging sensation that he is simply playing Whack-a-Mole with any possible scenario. He never once suggests a possible remedy for any of the complications he has cobbled together. Nor does he suggest any alternate to military intervention; his only "solution" is to write in favor of the UN "safe areas" which he freely acknowledges is hardly a noble or just solution. But, he seems to say, absolutely nothing can be done; Clinton does not have a coherent policy for intervention, so why try and formulate one? It's hopeless! The neighboring countries are worried about wider instability? It's hopeless! And my favorite--the Serbs are not cowards just because they've been waging war against unarmed civilians with heavy artillery. No, no--they're extremely tough and fearless killing machines; you don't want to mess with those guys!

Which leads up back the first essay, a truly loathsome work of paleoconservative libertarianism from Murray N. Rothbard, in a piece ("Don Non Intervene Against the Serbs") that is not nearly as clever or insightful--or anywhere near as amusing--as the self-regarding author seems to think it is. It is, however, a dandy example of how inadequate Libertarianism is as a guide to foreign policy, and a helpful reminder that paleoconservatism is, at heart, anti-democratic and racist. To the core.

Rothbard is not subtle; he begins his critique of intervention by claiming that modest steps--such as bombing--won't work, so therefore it will only be a matter of time before Clinton nukes Belgrade. If case you're wondering how somebody this dense gets published, I should point out that Mr. Rothbard writes for the Rothbard-Rockwell Report. Why the editors chose to include this piece of drivel is beyond me.

Why will any Western military intervention fail? Because:

"...the Serbs are a magnificently gutsy people, a "primitive" folk who don't give a tinker's dam for "world opinion," the "respect of the international community," and all the rest of the pretentious can that so impresses readers of the New York Times."

With friends like these, the ten million-plus individual human beings in this world who happen to be Serb don't need enemies.

At any rate, one of the things Rothbard admires so much about these mythical primitives he fantasizes about is their disdain for "world opinion." Which is another way of saying they are the farthest thing from being a cosmopolitan people. Which, in Rothbard's dingy little world is a great compliment.

His rant about the situation in Bosnia--and the actions of the "pro-war Left" (the fact that humanitarian liberalism was liberal makes it a de facto evil in the paleoconservative world)--is little more than incoherent rambling laced with a healthy degree of ignorance. I won't insult the readers intelligence by dealing with the specifics, but suffice it to say that the old "Bosnia is an artificial country/Bosniaks are not a real nationality" is front and center.

But Rothbard at least has integrity--he explicitly states that the Greater Serbia project is "perfectly reasonable." And he assures the reader that "ethnic cleansing" just sounds bad in translation--after all, the Serbs don't want to kill the Muslims and other non-Serbs on the land they're taking, they just insist that they leave and never come back--what could be more "perfectly reasonable" than that.

Rothbard also dismisses the atrocities of mass rape by noting that "..I don't want to disillusion any tender souls, but almost all victorious troops through history commit systemic rapin' and lootin' of the vanquished." Yes, the apostrophes are in the original. I guess that's his way of making a "tough point." The systemic nature of the rape camps in Bosnia means nothing to him.

Also, forget trying to understand this situation, fellow Americans:

"American meddling is made even more futile by the fact that it is impossible for Americans to understand, not only those fierce rivalries, but the tremendous sense of history they all possess. How can Americans, who have no historical memory whatever and scarcely remember when Ronald Reagan was president, possibly understand these peoples of the Balkans, to whom the great 15th century battle against the invading Turks is as real, nay more real, than yesterday's dinner?"

One feels dirty just reading this anti-humanist sludge. I feel civilization shaking under my feet when I read such collectivist, tribalist, racist nonsense. And it gets even worse--Rothbard not only repeats the discredited belief that the Bosniaks are descended from the Bogomils, he even claims that the Bogomils were truly evil heretics and--and we're getting into "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" territory here:

"...there is much evidence that the Muslims still practice their Bogomil rites in secret, engraving its symbols on their tombstones."

What, no blood of Christian babies in their cevapcici?

Throw in the usual canards about the Serbs failing to be good Nazis, unlike the Croats and the Bosniaks in World War II, and that about wraps up this despicable piece of proto-fascism. Rothbard concludes by gloating, with bloodthirsty relish:

"Frankly, in any kind of fair fight, my nickel is on the Serbs. Every time. And, by the way, if you were caught in an ambush, wouldn't you love to have a few Serbs on your side?"

Serbs--the Rottweilers of the human race, brought to you by Murray Rothbard.

Shame of the editors of this volume for bringing this piece of filth to a wider audience. Shame on Greenhaven for lending legitimacy to such an obviously hate-filled windup. This was not an essay, it was a provocation, and a poorly written and woefully uninformed one at that.

"Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict" from Greenhaven Press [3]

Chapter 1: Is Nationalism Beneficial?

This chapter is evenly split--five 'pro' articles and five 'con.' One implicit theme in this section is the ambiguity not only of how we define nationalism, but also whether or not there are different types of nationalism. In general, it seems that the writers in the 'pro' camp believe that there can be positive, even liberal, strains of inclusive nationalism, or that nationalism can be a positive oppositional ideology for an oppressed or disenfranchised group--even as they acknowledge the possibility that nationalism can have negative and destructive consequences.

On the other hand, the 'con' writers seem to recognize only the most negative, xenophobic, and reactionary forms of nationalism; there seems to be little room for a concept of liberal nationalism in the essay by Ernest Erber, which concludes with this paragraph:

"AS we come to the end of the 20th century, the democratic left should see the nation-state, separatist self-determination and nationalism as road blocks to the progress, if not the survival, of humanity. We should begin with fierce opposition to all forms of nationalism--theory, doctrine, politics, and movement. It has outlived whatever usefulness it had and, like an unburied corpse, its continued presence contaminates the body politic wherever it is tolerated."

This seems to be a progressive and enlightened statement of cosmopolitan inclusiveness; but the harsh realities of the world as it is have a way of throwing ideological certainties out of whack. While I may hope for a world without borders, that hopeful future is some distance away and in the meantime the nation-state--hopefully increasingly bound by an international body of law intended to hold states responsible for the human rights of its citizens--remains the least-worst socio-political entity we've managed to successfully implement. The proper purpose of the state is to defend the economic interests of the citizens of the polity, to defend and respect their human rights, their property rights, and so on. The nation-state is not perfect, and the "nation" like all conceptions of human groupings is limited and far from universal; but it is far superior to any tribal notions of defining 'us versus them', nor does nationalism need to be as reductive as any purely ethnic or 'racial' definitions of inclusiveness.

Considering the totalitarian aspects of most universal social conceptions (whether religion or Communism), the nation-state is about the best we've been able to come up with so far. Once considered against the imperfect reality of the human condition today, Erber's uncompromising stance begins to look less like staunch idealism and more like unforgiving dogma.

"Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict" from Greenhaven Press [1]

In 1994, as part of its ongoing "Current Controversies" series, Greenhaven Press brought out a volume of essays and articles under the title Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict.

The Foreward stated:

"The purpose of the Current Controversies series is to explore many of the social, political, and economic controversies dominating the national and international scenes today. Titles selected for inclusion in the series are highly focused and specific."

This is true; the series included other titles as specific as "Police Brutality" and "The AIDS Crisis." The editors also promised that the contemporary material would be supplemented with historical documents and other data, in an effort to ensure that the volume would not quickly go out of date but would rather provide a useful research tool for years to come.

This was an admirable project (and Greenhaven continues to produce several series along the same lines to this day), and one can only applaud their commitment to help readers to "sort through the plethora of opinions accompanying today's major issues, and to draw one's own conclusions".

But in the case of Bosnia, and the Yugoslav wars in general, this is a problem, because as we know there is a concerted campaign of distortion regarding the historical record, and a great deal of confusion--some of it honest, some of it contrived--surrounding the entire period. Unfortunately, there is not a "Bosnia consensus", not to the degree that there is about many other conflicts and historical events.

Therefore, it will be interesting to see how the editors dealt with this particular issue; given the publication date, there is little surprise that Bosnia took up much of the attention in this volume.

"Heavenly Serbia: From Myth to Genocide" by Branimir Anzulovic [8]

CHAPTER FIVE: A VICIOUS CIRCLE OF LIES AND FEARS [continued]

The Fear of Vanishing

Anzulovic begins this section with this important observation:

"The Serbs' aggressiveness inspired fear, which was a source of their aggressiveness. This fear reflected the insecurity of a people dominated by a foreign civilization for five centuries, who enjoyed their own full sovereign nation-state for only forty years between the Congress of Berlin in 1878 and the entry into the ill-fated Yugoslav union in 1918."

The Serb fear of being controlled by an "other", it must be remembered, is rooted in actual historical experience even if contemporary forms of this paranoia are often irrational. There is nothing more pathetic than a self-pitying bully, but Serb nationalist distrust of foreign control was not created out of whole cloth.

This section discusses reactions among Serb intellectuals and academics to such events as the downfall of Rankovic and the decentralization of the 1974 Constitution. Anzulovic notes that the "fear of Serbia's demise became a prominent theme of Serbian intellectual life in the 1980s." Acclaimed author Milorad Pavic repeatedly called for a pan-Orthodox alliance of "Byzantine" countries.

As the world becomes "smaller" through improved communications technologies and travel opportunities, people often fear losing their identities and cling to exaggerated differences between them and "others."

The Academy Memorandum

A brief discussion of the infamous 1986 "Memorandum" by the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, and of the role author and dissident Dobrica Cosic played in this intellectual validation of nationalist hysteria.

The Church Identifies the Devils

This section is a relatively extended consideration of the role the Serbian Orthodox Church has played in developing and disseminating the myths that drive and reinforce the worst aspects of Serbian nationalism. The anti-Catholic, anti-Western, and anti-Semitic nature of the church is discussed, as is its tendency to support autocratic rulers and accept sinister conspiracy theories. The Serbian Church often takes the lead in propagating the line that Serbia is and has been for five centuries the bulwark valiantly defending Europe from Islam, even as it disparages the non-Orthodox, non-Byzantine nature of the Europe Serbs allegedly are defending.

The traditional rejection of ecumenical dialog and cooperation by the Church has been articulated and defended by the most prominent theologians of the 20th Century church. The tendency of Serbian nationalists to hear nothing but their own complaints and to see nothing but their own grievances has been strongly reinforced by a national church which gives holy sanction to xenophobia, bigotry, and paranoia.

"Heavenly Serbia: From Myth to Genocide" by Branimir Anzulovic [7]

CHAPTER FIVE: A VICIOUS CIRCLE OF LIES AND FEARS

Fictional Data and Real Hatreds

The previous chapter covered the revived Serbian Kingdom, and pre-Communist Yugoslavia. This chapter picks up the story from there, and begins with this paragraph:

"Yugoslavia would have been less susceptible to violent disintegration if, at the end of World War II, there had been a reconciliation between the nations and factions that had fought one another. All of them, and especially the two most guilty ones, Croats and Serbs, should have admitted the mistakes and crimes committed since they entered the Yugoslav union and taken the steps necessary to prevent another conflict in the future. The enormity of the crimes committed by various parties made such action urgent. The reconciliation of France and Germany was a good model, but it could not be followed because one basic condition was missing: freedom, including the very important freedom of information."

I could not have said it better myself; this concise observation serves as an effective rebuttal to the "Tito was the only guy who could keep the hatreds in Yugoslavia in check" revisionists.

Much of this section is concerned with numbers--specifically, different estimates of the total number of Yugoslav war dead from World War II as well as the casualties for each individual national and ethnic group. The government, for years, continued to maintain the lie that 1.7 million Yugoslavs had perished in the war, a number that was based on shoddy demographics and which continued to be the official line long after independent analysis and study refuted this high number. In fact, the government itself had produced a comprehensive list of war victims (not including victims of the Partisans, since the list was for the West German government in regards to a reparations settlement) from 1964-1966; the total number was just below 600,000. Yet official history stuck with the obviously inflated 1.7 million figure.

Two independent Yugoslavs--Montenegrin Serb Bogoljub Kocovic in 1985, and Croat Vladimir Zerjavic in 1989--separately came up with nearly identical figures of just slightly over 1 million total war victims. The fact that Kocovic, the Serb, actually came up with lower subtotals for Serbs killed in Croatia than the Croat Zerjavic was just one testimony to the impartiality both these men brought to their work.

One would think that the discrepancy between their data and the long-accepted official total would have dampened the use of competing statistics by nationalist parties; sadly, the result was instead that propagandists and demagogues from all ethnic groups laid claim to large numbers of these 700,000 "uncounted" phantom dead. Such activities were carried out by all ethnic groups, mostly being published overseas; however, the domination of the Federal government by Serbia meant that Serb nationalist claims were able to be widely disseminated.

While Tito was aware that this situation was threatening to Yugoslavia's stability, he was simply unwilling to consider the one real solution--total freedom of information. His death in 1980 loosened controls over publication, but this mostly opened the doors to competing nationalist propaganda and outright lies--before long, Serb academics and intellectuals were claiming there were well over a million Serbs killed at Jasenovac alone (the real number of Serb victims was probably around 50,000). Other researchers have validated Kocovic and Zerjavic, to no avail.

Another myth of the post-World War II was the demonization of the Roman Catholic Church, which was outside of the control of the Belgrade regime; the campaign against Cardinal Stepinac is the most infamous aspect of this extensive effort, which began in the immediate postwar period and never really ended. False stories of Church complicity with, and support for, the Ustashe and the NDH were projected onto the Croats as a whole, even though only a tiny minority of Croats supported the quisling regime. Catholicism was being portrayed as an implacable enemy of Orthodoxy, and Croatians as fundamentally fascist and anti-Serb in orientation.

Other hatreds being nurtured in the postwar era:

"Belgrade propagandists avoided mentioning such facts as carefully as they hid the extent of the Serbs' collaboration with the Nazi, including their participation in the Holocaust. Instead, they directed particular effort at portraying the Serbs as traditional friends and protectors of the Jews."

[He then quotes Philip J. Cohen, author of Serbia's Secret War, on the subject; I will be reviewing this book in the very near future.]

"...ethnic Albanians were always a major target of defamation."

"The fear of the "Muslim Threat" was also used in the effort to mobilize Serbs in a nationalist front.."

And so on. Anzulovic wisely concludes this section with this depressing summary:

"The falsehoods spread by the Belgrade3 propaganda machine did not benefit anybody. The intention to obtain higher war reparation payments by means of inflated numbers of Yugoslav war victims failed; the tensions among various Yugoslav nationalities, caused by this and other lies, made life in the common state more difficult and contributed to its violent disintegration."

The Fear of Vanishing

Foreign Affairs Article on Ethnonationalism and Partition

The cover story from the latest issue of Foreign Affairs magazine explains much less than it promises:

Us and Them
The Enduring Power of Ethnic Nationalism by Jerry Z. Muller

Muller is certainly not defending ethnic bigotry or other prejudices, nor is he calling for ethnic partition as a desirable result; I certainly don't want to imply any dubious motives or beliefs on his part. However, if Muller possesses any particular expertise or wisdom in the admittedly broad area of inquiry, I see little evidence here.

Before I criticize the article's weaknesses, I should acknowledge the strengths Muller possesses. He certainly knows the sweep of modern European history well, and understands that forced population transfers and worse have been an integral part of the creation of modern European nations. His initial argument--that ethnonationalism is a more powerful and deeply-rooted force than Americans have often understood--is persuasive. He is absolutely right to note that dismissals of ethnonational identity as a "construction" are misleading, since what gives ethnic nationalism its power is the perception of legitimacy.

However, the conclusion he draws--that a humane, internationally sanctioned partition might be the least-worst option in certain cases--seems very rushed, and ill-supported by the preceding pages. Explaining that forced population tranfers and genocide have generally accompanied the creation of relatively homogenous nation-states in the past does little more than illustrate a prior disregard on the part of the international community to assume any responsibility for the rights of affected individuals.

Ultimately, Muller can only lamely conclude that the separation of ethnic groups within a multiethnic state, while an expensive undertaking, will ultimately be less expensive than humanitarian intervention, and will lead to greater stability. Some of the points he raises are worth further exploration--the idea that Western Europe has enjoyed peace and stability at least partially because the work of "partitioning" ethnic groups into their own nation-states should not be dismissed out of hand, even though I remain unconvinced. But the concluding thoughts on partition seem hasty and almost predetermined.