From: sharon@unixland.natick.ma.us (Sharon Machlis Gartenberg)
Subject: Re: Sharon's at it again.
Organization: Unixland Public Access Unix  (508) 655-3848
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 16:18:37 GMT

In response to the following posting by me:

>>Still no one has been able to explain to me why the Serbs claim to see
>>a rebirth of World-War-II Nazis in an independent Bosnia-Herzegovina
>>but the Jews do not. I am not talking about the international
>>Jewish community, but the Jewish community of Sarajevo, which would be
>>living under the Bosnian government just as the Serbs would.

Milan Pavlovic (pavlovic-milan@yale.edu) responds:

>  And Sharon, I don't think you have the right to go to the Serbs, 750,000 of
>whom were massacred by the Ustashi in WWII, and tell them "how dare you
>not want to live in a Bosnian state."  It's their right to live in their own
>state if they want to.  They own 60-65 % of the land, so why shouldn't they
>be allowed to live on it in peace as they like?  How dare you grant yourself
>the right to tell others where & how they should live?

I would strongly suggest you re-read my post above, and point out to me
where I said "How dare Serbs not want to live in a Bosnian state?" I asked
a question. I have the right to ask that question, regardless of your opinion.  
I find it rather sad that someone attending a prestigious institution of higher 
learning in America would dispute that right.  

I'm not going to start getting into the numbers game, and
start getting into a debate over Who Suffered More in Yugoslavia In WWII.
A huge percentage of the Jewish population in Yugoslavia was murdered by
the Ustashi in World War II, Milan. Maybe the numbers were smaller than
the numbers of Serbs that were killed in Yugoslavia, but that's only because
the number of Jews was smaller to start with. Will you not even agree with
me that Jews suffered terribly in World War II, also?

I asked a serious question, Milan: Why do the Serbs claim to be so threatened
by the Bosnian government, seeing echoes of WWII all over again, yet the
Jewish community does not, when both suffered at the hands of Nazi
collaborators in WWII? If there is indeed the spectre of the Ustashi rising
again in Bosnia, then I do not understand why the Jews do not oppose the
Bosnian government and Bosnian independence, too. 

In fact, there are some Serbs who are supporting the Bosnian government,
and oppose what the Serbian nationalists are doing in Bosnia. One can
quibble about the numbers, but there are documented cases of Serbs 
fighting with the Bosnians, Serbs in Sarajevo supporting the Bosnian
government, etc. I have not seen one documented case of a Bosnian Jew
siding with the Serbian nationalists. Maybe you do not see anything
significant about this, but I do.

The Jewish people take the issue of genocide in World War II, and preventing
it from happening again, just as seriously as the Serbian people do. That
is why I asked the question. 

The question I would ask in this whole miserable mess that 
starts with "How dare," is How dare Serbian nationalists commit widespread
massacres of unarmed civilians, rape thousands of women, destroy 
beautiful cities, purposely shoot and blow up innocent people trying
to find food, and attempt to starve and freeze people to death.

As a human being and a member of the so-called civilized world, I feel
it is not only my "right" but my duty to speak out against the horrors
going on in Bosnia-Herzegovina right now. Not enough people in the world
spoke out and tried to stop the genocide against my people 50 years ago.
If the world has learned anything at all from that tragedy, it should be
that such things should NEVER be allowed to happen again.
 
Political aspirations of the Serbian people are one thing, Milan. Committing
murder, rape, mass destruction, fomenting widespread terror, creating a
million refugees, and "ethnic cleansing" are something else entirely.
If you do not see the difference -- or if you believe that the former
justifies the latter -- there is absolutely no basis for any discussion.

Sharon 
-- 
Sharon Machlis Gartenberg
Framingham, MA  USA
email: sharon@unixland.natick.ma.us   or   uunet!think.com!unixland!sharon
Newsgroups: soc.culture.croatia