Bosnia was more than a human tragedy. It was the emblem of the international community's failure and confusion in the post-Cold War era. In Bosnia, genocide and ethnic fascism reappeared in Europe for the first time in fifty years. But there was no will to confront them, either on the part of the United States, Western Europe, or the United Nations, for which the Bosnian experience was as catastrophic and demoralizing as Vietnam was for the United States. It is the failure and its implications that Rieff anatomizes in this unforgiving account of a war that might have been prevented and could have been stopped.
One might say that this horrible episode, as recounted in David Rieff's excellent and properly outraged book, was typical of the world's reaction to Bosnia: a false neutrality between the murderer and the victim moving towards active indulgence of the former against the latter; a refusal to accept the blame or responsibility for one's actions; a member country of the United Nations actively betrayed by the UN whose paths to peace amount to its liquidation. One might say this, but that would not be enough. Rieff reminds us of the full horror and obscenity of the Bosnian war, and provides a shocking picture of Western callousness.
He reminds us of the obvious. Here is a democratic multicultural republic who has no defenders in either the United Nations or in the European Community. For years the Soviet grip on Eastern Europe was the United States' best argument in the cold war. Yet nothing Husak or Honecker ever did was as foul as the butchery of Srebrenica. 200,000 people were slaughtered in ethnic cleansing and millions made homeless, the worst atrocity in Europe since the death of Stalin. But the ironies of the war are such that the one multicultural community in Bosnia found itself called "the Muslims." Meanwhile the irridentists seeking to destroy it were called the "Serbs" and "Croats" in the international press, and not Orthodox or Catholic, Chetnik or Ustashe. There is the whole pointlessness of the nationalist enterprise, as Serbs and Croats emphasize their distinct variety of Christianity when most of them are agnostic, while special nationalist intellectuals seeks to dream up new vocabularies or emphasize special alphabets to get around the fact that all three countries speak the same language.
Rieff argues, rightly, that only NATO intervention could have stopped ethnic cleansing. He also points out, again rightly as we can see from the case of Kosovo, that had they done so the Bosnian Serbs would have quickly compromised or been quickly defeated. He also notes the strain and pressure that the multicultural and democratic values of Bosnia were put under by the unrelenting strain and viciousness, and he also notes how the thugs of Karadzic and the cowards of the UN and the US leaped on the rising fundamentalism and intolerance as vindication of their own vile stand. We see the United Nations trapped in the worst set of bureaucratic mindset, with corrupt soldiers on the ground. The UN fully accepts George Orwell's ironic dictum that the quickest way to end a war is to lose it, and do everything they can to discourage the Bosnians. Increasingly, it seems that instead of sacrificing its political capital to help Bosnians, Bosnians should sacrifice everything for the UN's convenience. And so we see the Canadian general Lewis Mackenzie and the British General Sir Michael Rose insinuating, never frankly declaring, that the Bosnians shelled their own people. It is amazing that Mackenzie entered federal politics after his return home, and had the voters of an otherwise extremely conservative rural Ontario riding wisely re-elected the liberal incumbent, this most overrated of men could have been viewed as a potential leader of the opposition, even a potential prime minister. Rieff's book is worth reading alone just for pointing out the truth about him.
These were ordinary people; doctors, teachers, parents, etc. that grew up in the bosom of civilization, in Europe. They expected that civilization to shield them from the horrors unleashed by the Bosnian Serbs and were shellshocked when it didn't. Comprehension was beyond them, this simply COULD NOT happen at the end of the 20th century in the heart of Europe, but it did. The worst slaughter in Europe since the Holocaust, 250,000 dead. Why? Mr. Rieff comes to the same conclusion as most; myth and delusion. The Turk/Janissary/Handzar were coming for the Serbs in their beds, only, it was actually the Chetniks murdering and raping instead.
"Why did they murder a 70 year old Bosniac?
Don't you understand they did it because in 1389 the Turks beat Prince Lazar on the Kossovo Polje?"
GAAAH!
Because of when this was written it is a dated history but still very valuable because Mr. Rieff was there, as an American, whose perspective any American (Westerner) will understand. His disbelief and horror echoes your own. A horrible read in that it will make you want to weep but a great way to begin to comprehend what happened.
