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Jonathan Yardley,"The Invincible City," Washington Post, 18 September, reviews John Berendt's The City of Falling Angels and meditates on Venice and New Orleans.
Paul Kennedy,"America Agonistes," Washington Post, 18 September, reviews James T. Patterson's Restless Giant: The United States from Watergate to Bush v. Gore, the latest volume in"The Oxford History of the United States" series.
Niall Ferguson,"Peace is Spreading: The Troubling Thing is, We Don't Really Know Why," The Telegraph, 18 September, argues that the world is more peaceful in 2005 than it was a generation ago and that we don't really know why, but maybe it's because local people are fed up with the violence. Thanks to Richard Jensen's Conservativenet for the tip.
No argument here, Ralph. But as I read the article I think Schlesinger meant traditional concepts of God. That's where I disagree with him for the reasons stated in my original. I also should mention that I say an interview with him on Book TV (last year?) in which he stated he did not vote for Jimmy Carter for president because he thought he was too religious. I had that in the back of my mind when I read the article.
Ralph E. Luker -
9/19/2005
Van, Of course you are correct if you define G_d in traditional terms, but if by g_d one means simply the highest source of authority or majesty Mao, Hitler, and Stalin believed that they were acting as its agents.
Louis N Proyect -
9/19/2005
It is not a question of being "as bad as Hitler". It is a question of how to define genocide. If the Serbs were carrying out a genocide in Bosnia, then so was the USA in Vietnam or in Iraq today. No matter how much I despise what the USA is doing in places such as this, I would never use that word to describe what was going on. Genocides are attempts to systematically exterminate an entire people, like Rwandans, Jews, Armenians and American Indians. Speaking of which, HNN went so far as to highlight an article by a neocon that claimed that there was no genocide against American Indians. That is far more outrageous than the argument I am making.
Speaking of genocide:
David Binder, NY Times, December 25, 1983:
Now, in addition to the country's other nationalisms, comes a new and perplexing form of assertiveness in Bosnia, locally branded "Moslem nationalism."
Last summer, a Sarajevo court tried 13 Bosnians and found 12 of them guilty of "hostile activity" and spreading "hostile propaganda." Their crimes were said to be rooted in a demand that Bosnia-Herzegovina be Islamized and declared a "pure" Moslem republic. This is especially problematic in Bosnia, a kind of miniature Yugoslavia, whose population of 4.1 million is two-fifths Slavic Moslem, two-fifths Serbian and one-fifth Croatian.
The defendants, including a lawyer, an engineer and a writer, were described here as more a sect than a movement. Yet Nijaz Durakovic, who teaches political science at Sarajevo University, acknowledges that there is "a Moslem revival," inspired by Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini. A news show on Yugoslav television, for instance, recently showed a classroom full of young Bosnian women, all in veils, studying the Koran.
"People don't understand that we are hypersensitive to this nationalism because this region was a slaughterhouse during the war," said Mr. Durakovic. A group called the Moslem Brotherhood allied itself with the Nazi occupiers, and formed a Moslem S.S. unit called the Handzar ("Dagger") Division. Resulting massacres were staggering, even for Yugoslavia: Every fourth citizen of Bosnia was killed in the war.
Van L. Hayhow -
9/19/2005
I read the Schlesinger article and I liked it in general. But when he says on page 2 that no one is more dangerous than someone who thinks he or she is doing God's will, I think that overstates things. I don't think that Mao, Hitler or Stalin (to name one troika) thought they were doing God's work.
Jonathan Dresner -
9/19/2005
Oh, well. As long as it's not as bad as Hitler, I guess it's OK... androcide [yeah, I made it up] isn't genocide? Not even ethnic cleansing?
I missed the part in the rules of war where it's OK to kill all the males "just in case"....
Louis N Proyect -
9/19/2005
Genocide in Bosnia? You must have a different definition of the word than I do. Even in as nasty an episode as Srebrenica, the women and children were allowed to evacuate. I don't remember Hitler treating the Jews in this fashion. In any case, there was bestiality on all sides in Bosnia. Here's a reminder of how a Muslim warlord behaved in Srebrenica, before the Serbs counter-attacked:
The Toronto Star, July 16, 1995
Fearsome Muslim warlord eludes Bosnian Serb forces
By Bill Schiller Toronto
When Bosnian Serb commander Gen. Ratko Mladic swept triumphantly into Srebrenica last week, he not only wanted to sweep Srebrenica clean of Muslims - he wanted Nasir Oric.
In Mladic's view, the powerfully built Muslim commander had made life too difficult and too deadly for Serb communities nearby.
Even though the Serbs had Srebrenica surrounded, Oric was still mounting commando raids by night against Serb targets.
Oric, as blood-thirsty a warrior as ever crossed a battlefield, escaped Srebrenica before it fell.
Some believe he may be leading the Bosnian Muslim forces in the nearby enclaves of Zepa and Gorazde. Last night these forces seized armored personnel carriers and other weapons from U.N. peacekeepers in order to better protect themselves.
Oric is a fearsome man, and proud of it.
I met him in January, 1994, in his own home in Serb-surrounded Srebrenica.
On a cold and snowy night, I sat in his living room watching a shocking video version of what might have been called Nasir Oric's Greatest Hits.
There were burning houses, dead bodies, severed heads, and people fleeing.
Oric grinned throughout, admiring his handiwork.
"We ambushed them," he said when a number of dead Serbs appeared on the screen.
The next sequence of dead bodies had been done in by explosives: "We launched those guys to the moon," he boasted.
When footage of a bullet-marked ghost town appeared without any visible bodies, Oric hastened to announce: "We killed 114 Serbs there."
Later there were celebrations, with singers with wobbly voices chanting his praises.
These video reminiscences, apparently, were from what Muslims regard as Oric's glory days. That was before most of eastern Bosnia fell and Srebrenica became a "safe zone" with U.N. peacekeepers inside - and Serbs on the outside.
Lately, however, Oric increased his hit-and-run attacks at night. And in Mladic's view, it was far too successful for a community that was supposed to be suppressed.
The only songs they want sung of Nasir Oric are funeral dirges. . .
Rebecca Anne Goetz -
9/19/2005
last time I checked, the balkans was not just about imposing democracy but about stopping genocide. the democracy came later...surely mr proyect doesn't mean to suggest that europe had no responsibility to stop the slaughter of bosnian muslims in its own backyard? if democracy is a byproduct of that, and there is a lasting peace, i can't see how that's a bad thing.
Louis N Proyect -
9/19/2005
Democracy cannot be imposed by the bayonets of occupying armies. It has to emerge from social forces within a country. Rwanda's problem was not lack of intervention, but a surfeit of it. Check:
You still evade the issue of whether democratic forms of governance are preferable to undemocratic forms and you apparently see no legimate humanitarian role to be played by armed intervention by regional authorities to prevent further genocidal bloodshed. Your way of calculating things would apparently condemn the U.N. or the U.S. whether they had interceded in Rwanda or refused to intercede in Rwanda. It is a circular argumentation that has no decent course of action.
Louis N Proyect -
9/19/2005
Well, Ferguson points to Bosnia as a good example of imperialist intervention (and Guatemala as a bad one.) If you are prepared to accept the right of NATO to impose its rule in the Balkans, then at least don't try to prettify this as an exercise in "democracy". It is nothing but naked imperialism. The goal of the USA and Western European powers was not to bring democracy to the Balkans but to put continue a process of forced economic and political assimilation that began with the IMF wrecking of the Yugoslav economy. When Yugoslavia began to suffer from the consequences of onerous debt repayment, the constitutent republics were dragged into internecine warfare--just like Africa has experienced for decades. For a useful comparison of Yugoslavia and Africa, I recommend the final chapter of Basil Davidson's "Black Man's Burden."
Ralph E. Luker -
9/19/2005
Mr. Proyect, I assume that your Marxism either leads you to prefer democratic forms or to oppose them. No one here endorsed the imposition of particular democratic forms, but I'd say that the burden is on a Marxist like yourself to make the case against democracy, if you are opposed to all its forms.
Louis N Proyect -
9/19/2005
Surely we don't want to endorse the idea that the United States can use military force to impose its ideas about democracy on other nations? This sort of "white man's burden" should have gone out of style after the Spanish-American war at least.
