From: lgsax@igc.org (Lynn Gazis-Sax)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.yugoslavia
Subject: MIRacles No. 5
Date: 29 Jul 92 03:04:00 GMT
Nf-ID: #N:cdp:1475300296:000:9839
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!lgsax    Jul 28 20:04:00 1992


From: Lynn Gazis-Sax <lgsax>
Subject: MIRacles No. 5

/* Written  3:58 pm  Jul 28, 1992 by gn:jsax in cdp:gen.quaker */
/* ---------- "MIRacles No. 5" ---------- */
===================================================================
MIRacles  No.  5                                                                     Joel GAzis-SAx
Zagreb, 19 Srpanj 1992                                                         Copyright 1992
===================================================================
"Today, I sat at a table with a Dutch peace activist who supported 
intervention,"  I wrote to Friend Carol Newgate of Northumberland.  "He 
seemed to reserve for himself the right to kill when convenient and I told 
him flat out that he was no pacifist.  These words sound strong, but George 
Fox, I think, would not have reserved them.  In any case, Joel Gazis-Sax did 
not and he has no shame for it."

Many peace activists coming through and back in the United States have 
convinced themselves that, at last, here we have a war in which 
intervention is justified.  Even the best among us have had our doubts 
because the Serbs seem to be some inhuman things who kill without 
thought or remorse.

Not too long ago, I cited in an argument against this perennial myth the fact 
that the Serbian Orthodox Church has issued a statement condemning the 
war.  An American activist scoffed at my evidence, saying "They only did 
that for political and strategic reasons."  I could only say "There is that of 
God in Serbs, too."

I am not an absolute cultural relativist.  I accept that God is manifest in all 
people and in most faiths.  I do not proceed from this, however, to hold that 
a destructive practise should be ignored simply "because that is what 
people do down here."  The atrocities committed by nationalist elements of 
the Serbian army and irregulars should receive a strong witness.  As people 
of faith and love, we should also witness against intervention.  The Croats 
want intervention so that they can kill more Serbs.  I am disturbed that the 
some of the same activists who complain to me about America's use of the 
death penalty (where many justify it as an act of revenge) cannot see that 
they are supporting a larger version of the death penalty here.

Just as the death penalty in America fails to deter crime, so intervention 
will not end ethnic conflict in the Balkans unless there is utter genocide.  
Wam Kat, another Dutch peace activist working here, argues against 
intervention on the grounds that it will be as impossible to root out all the 
irregulars as it was to seek and destroy the Viet Cong.  You will kill more 
people than you will liberate.

While I hear the pragmatism in his words, I also hear military pragmatism 
in them, a surrender to the thinking that we must use military analysis 
when we make our decision to intervene or not to intervene.  And, I think, 
too, I hear a certain vain hopefulness.  I remember how many of us 
gathered before the Gulf War, prophesying how Hussein would be a major 
nuisance for the American forces, that this would be no easy victory for 
America, etc.  I confess to finding myself gloating with others over the 
number of Americans who might die with our pathetic conventional forces 
and weapons. 

These same forces and weapons pulverized Iraq.  Civilians died in numbers 
that are still mostly secret.  The Gulf War resulted in my conversion to real 
pacifism and this conflict refines and strengthens my vision.  I do not 
oppose intervention for its impossibilities, now, but for its possibilities, 
which are death and destruction.

I am saddened by the way in which we are willing to spend billions to 
maintain our war machines while mere millions to feed the hungry, clothe 
the naked, and shelter the homeless go unspent.  Fifteen percent of the 
world's refugees stream around me and, yet, the UN gave Slovenia only 
US$40,000 to feed its 300,000 Bosnians!  The UN has shifted from an 
agency for peace to one that uses war as its main tool for conflict 
resolution.  By not helping the new nations of the Balkans care for these 
people, we sow the seeds of the next war by fueling resentment against the 
displaced, the new homeless.

Croatia now refuses to take any more refugees.  Italy and Hungary may 
close their borders.  Do we send these people back into Bosnia where more 
civilians are dying than soldiers and irregulars?  I believe that Croatia will 
change its policy if the rest of us help them cope with the flood.  A photo in 
one of the Croatian newspapers showed hundreds of Bosnian refugees 
sitting in the streets of Rjeka.  I find it interesting that the Croatian word 
for refugee, "izbjeglica" comes from the same root as the word for 
avoidance, "izbjegavatis."  The refugees, who come to Croatia and Slovenia 
to avoid death, are people who the whole world are avoiding and this is 
simply not right.

As I reached this point two hours ago, Edin Tuzlak came with a tall woman 
wearing a blue scarf over her head.  Semra Turkovic has just come from 
Sarajevo via Kiseljak.  Despite her Australian passport, UNPROFOR did 
nothing to help her because they had no mandate from the UN do to so. 

She came with her two younger brothers on her own.  She took off her 
hijab and let her hair down so that the guards at the Serbian checkpoints 
would not know that she was a Bosnian Muslim.  The journey from 
Sarajevo to Kiseljak normally takes four hours.  She and her brothers spent 
twenty four hours driving over stones, grass, and fields to reach this place 
of safety.  Once, a Serbian guard thought he recognized her, but she 
managed to convince him that she was really the person whom her forged 
papers claimed she was.  The Croatian military issued her a special pass to 
enter the country on account of her Australian citizenship.  Had she held a 
Bosnian passport, she could not have escaped.

A few weeks ago, during a particularly bad shelling, she found herself 
underground praying that she would be killed rather than lose her legs.  
Nonetheless, she spoke of her faith becoming stronger under the strain.  
She reminded me of one of my neighbors back at home, a Palestinian 
woman, who lost everything she owned in East Jerusalem.  The bombings 
and shellings have become part of daily life.  "You know when to run.  You 
know when to duck.  You know when to hide.  It is normal for us."

Another thing that has become normal is the lack of food, water, and 
electricity.  When Semra's younger brother saw a potato, he became very 
excited.  Semra hates tomatoes, but when she could find them in Sarajevo, 
she ate them.  The UN is making no effort, it seems, to distribute food to the 
people.  When the UNPROFOR vehicles pass, the people of Sarajevo call out 
"Chetnik taxi!"  Only the press and the severely injured or ill get transport 
out of Sarajevo.

Semra, who has been in the thick of the fighting, understands better than 
most that I cannot accept intervention as a solution.  When she asked if I 
would wear a bullet-proof vest, I said "yes".  When she asked if I could 
handle a gun, I said "I do not carry guns or use them."  I could see, 
however, that she understood that I cared for the people of Bosnia, that I 
wanted to do all that I could to see that they received the food and aid that 
they so desparately needed.  

Christian and Jewish readers of this message should remember that Allah, 
the God of the Koran, is Yahweh, the God of the Old and New Testaments.  
Our Muslim brothers and sisters love the same God as we do:  in the name 
of that God, should we not do all that we can to feed the Bosnians instead of 
doing that which will ensure that many more Bosnians, Croats, and Serbs 
die?  We should not reserve the right to kill while neglecting the basic 
duties of our faith.  Our witness to the whole world is peace.  Let us do all 
that we can to create it in Bosnia and in the whole world.
* * *
Wam Kat is trying to find a Vietnam veteran who knows how to fly a 
helicopter.  In this time when the military strategists of the world will not 
even attempt an airlift of food and medical supplies to Visegrad and other 
besieged Bosnian cities, perhaps there is a brave man of peace who will.
* * *
Once more I urge Friends and their organizations to urge their elected 
representatives and formulators of foreign policy to seek nonmilitary 
solutions to the conflict.  The creation of an effective framework for 
dialogue (one which includes representatives from the government, the 
irregulars, and the peace movements) and an increase in aid to Croatia, 
Slovenia, Bosnia, and Serbia to care for the refugees is essential to the 
peace process at this time.  Also a mandate which would allow UNPROFOR 
to move the people of Sarajevo and other beleaguered cities to places of 
safety is another thing that is needed right away.  Other people of peace 
should do the same.
ABOUT THE TITLE:  Brethren theogian Dale Brown once counted the ability 
to believe in miracles as an essential component in the psychic constituency 
of the peace activists.  "Mir" is the word for "peace" in Croatian, Serbian, 
and most other Slavic languages.  The title, therefore, reflects the writer's 
personal belief in persistant peacemaking.

* * *
This publication is circulated over the Association for Progressive 
Communications Networks by Joel GAzis-Sax.  Users may download this 
article for their own use, but are asked to make a donation to help support 
Joel's work in the Balkans.  Checks should be made in U.S. dollars and made 
out to Palo Alto Friends Meeting and earmarked "Balkans Peace Fund".  The 
address is:

                 Palo Alto Friends Meeting
                 957 Colorado Avenue
                 Palo Alto, California     94303
                 U.S.A.
Organization: Doctoral student, Mathematics, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA