From: pshane@andromeda.rutgers.edu (Ana M. Shane)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.yugoslavia
Subject: ... bad leaders fueled the conflict...
Date: 26 Dec 92 08:00:21 GMT
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
To: sii@moumee.calstatela.edu

taken from "The Philadelphia Inquirer", Friday, Dec. 25 (A27)

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HATRED IS NOT IN BALKAN GENES: Bad leaders fueled the conflict
by Trudy Rubin

There is a growing tendency in the West to dismiss Yugoslavia's
ethnic and violence as another hopeless case of wogs killing wogs.

That's just the way they are, the explanation goes. It's in their genes.
In their violent Balkan history. There is nothing we can do to
stop it. Didn't the Serbs just reelect as their president the
archvillain Slobodan Milosevic, whom the United States has
practically branded a war criminal? What other option is there,
cynics argue, then to let them kill each other until they are
exhausted?

But watching the increase of interethnic violence in a Europe unsettled
by great changes, I have come to another conclusion. Whatever the
historic animosity between groups, it can be claimed - or inflamed -
by determined leaders.

Unfortunately, hatred is easily taught; instruction in tolerance too
rarely given.

Which is why hatemongers such as Milosevic are a threat not only to
Europe but to Western values. And why it is so important that Western
leaders stop shilly-shallying about confronting ethnic violence
within their midst.

On a recent visit to Yugoslavia, I found plenty of evidence for this
thesis.

Let's start with the common assumption that the vicious slaughter of
civilians in Bosnia can't be stopped because all Bosnian Serb
Christians hate Bosnian Muslims and vice versa.

Utter nonsense.

Before the fighting started in Bosnia, it was a place where three
ethnic-religious groups - Serb Orthodox, Croat Catholics and
Slavic Muslims - mingled and intermarried. Yes, there were historic 
fears and grievances among them, but 40 percent of the marriages in
Sarajevo are mixed. Bosnian Muslims, like Bosnian Christians, are
Slavs, indistinguishable from each other in appearance. And Bosnian
Muslims are highly secular (under 20 percent are religiously
observant).

So why, you might well ask, are they all slaughtering each other?

I asked this questions of refugees from Sarajevo walking along
Belgrade's main streets. They were well-dressed folks, educated
professionals. A typical response came from a 43-year-old lawyer
whose voice cracked with emotion as he spoke.

"My mother was Croat, my father Serb," he told me. "My wife is
a Muslim. She is still trapped in Sarajevo, and her hair has
turned totally grey. I haven't been able to get any word of her
safety for over three months."

Of his mixed heritage, he said, "We just thought we were Yugoslavs."

"In normal times," the lawyer emphasized, "I would live wherever
I had the best possibilities, in Croatia, or Bosnia, or Serbia, I don't 
care."

He then cursed the leaders of all three ethnic-religious groups, listing
their sins one by one.

He damned Croatia's leader for promoting laws which discriminated
against minority Serbs in the new state of Croatia, thus stirring
up Serb memories of slaughter by Croatian fascists during World
War II.

He damned the leader of the new Bosnian state, a Muslim, for having
written tracts two decades ago advocating Islamic government. Even
though Bosnian Muslims strongly support secular government, these
outdated writings frighten Serbs.

He damned Serb leader Milosevic for inflaming Serbs by using state 
television to promote vicious and false propaganda about hordes of
Muslim fanatics out to slaughter all Serbs. And he cursed Milosevic
for arming and funding bands of thugs to terrorize innocent Muslim 
civilians in Bosnia, as part of a campaign to create a greater Serbia.

The lawyer, who feared to give his name, further denounced Milosevic
for fighting Serb battles with bullets instead of by peaceful
means. The lawyer hoped Milosevic would not win reelection to the
Serb presidency.

But Milosevic continued his hatemongering during the Serb election
campaign. He played on every bad Serb memory and ethnic fear
like a virtuoso. And yet, discounting for gross election fraud,
Milosevic and his moderate opponent Milan Panic probably ran neck and
neck.

Panic - a Serb businessman who spent 30 years in California - preached
reconciliation. Even though his message was kept off TV, Panic managed
to split the vote.

Yugoslavia didn't have to descend into ethnic war. It wasn't foreordained
by fate. Western leaders coddled undemocratic leaders like Croat
Franjo Tudjman and Milosevic at every critical juncture, when strong
economic pressure or threats of force might have changed their
practices. Meanwhile, these two men stirred up their own people's
worst fears.

Contrast this with the record of the Czech and Slovak republic's
ex-president Vaclav Havel. The Czech lands and Slovakia are
splitting peacefully, in large part because of his exhortations. In
the Czech lands, Havel has spoken out strongly against a rising tide
of anti-Semitism: a virulent anti-Semitic newspaper has been forced
to close.

In ethnically mixed Ukraine, leaders have taken strong stands against
ethnic discrimination. So far no bloodshed. Inside Russia, President
Boris Yeltsin has defused potentially dangerous ethnic disputes.

And German Chancellor Helmut Kohl has, belatedly, taken a strong 
stand against right-wing political violence aimed at foreigners
and minorities, banning several neo-Nazi groups. Worried German
democrats breathed a sigh of relief.

In these "strange nervous times" - as Havel calls them - bold,
enlightened leadership is the best antidote to poisonous ethnic
hatreds. Minority groups are looking for assurances they won't be
persecuted or expelled; majority groups must be dissuaded from
blaming economic troubles on immigrants or ethnic others.

And leaders who promote ethnic hatred must be confronted, whether they are
neo-Nazis from Germany, or those, like Milosevic, promoting
"ethnic cleansing." Otherwise demagogues' poison will sicken all
of Europe. And the blame won't lie with the wogs.

-------------------------end article --------------------------

Happy Holidays and with only one great wish for the

		NEW 1993 YEAR

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Ana M. Shane                               pshane@andromeda.rutgers.edu
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