From: pshane@andromeda.rutgers.edu (Ana M. Shane)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.bosna-herzgvna
Subject: Re: little lies...
Date: 17 Dec 92 09:36:54 GMT
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.

As I have already said in my previous posting, most of Faruk's
replies are aimed at insulting me, and not discussing the issues.
That, however doesn't serve any good to anybody.
For the sake of the argument, I'll make comments on this posting,
just to show that peace-talk is better than war-talk. Please,
do not be ofended, this is not my aim.

faruk@bcars6f5.BNR.CA (Faruk od Bosne) writes:

>part 2

>>In article <Dec.10.04.10.16.1992.366@andromeda.rutgers.edu>
>>>faruk@bcars6f5.BNR.CA (Faruk od Bosne) writes:

FARUK:
>I am talking here about history ...

ANA:
>>This is precisely illustrating my point: as long as people insist on
>>claiming lands and rights on nationalistic and religious basis there
>>will be no hope for peace. Our first and foremost rights are human 
>>rights. And a second thing, history has been dragged into this war
>>just to blind everybody and push them into this nationalist frenzy.
>>People today are BLAMED for what somebody else did 50 years ago, 100
>>years ago, 1000 or 2000 years ago as if they themselves are guilty.
>>No one can say: "Hey, these people 500 years ago made terrible mistakes
>>but they also died 500 years ago and today we should know better."
>>What I mean is that you can't blame anybody for what their ancestors did,
>>only for what they (individually) do.

FARUK:
>... and you brought me to relativism. Which people 500 years ago made
>terrible mistakes? You don't know what you are talking about.

A: There is nothing relative in what I had said: All of the warring
   people 500 years ago (or take any period of war in the Balkans),
   all of those who instigated wars, atrocities, genocides, you name
   it, made terrible mistakes! Are their children guilty? Are children
   of their children, and the generations after, guilty for any part
   of the history? 

FARUK:
>>>That's why no non-serbs 
>>>want to live together with serbs, and why all those cries for secessions
>>>have started. Non-serbs have no choice: freedom or death. It was the hope 
>>>of non-serbs of former Yugo that USA and the West will see that.

ANA:
>>Thinking like this is at the root of this war and it was imposed on
>>you and many others by propaganda. Dividing people into Serbs and
>>non-Serbs or into Muslims and non-Muslim or anything similar is
>>preposterous. It is preposterous when some Serbs do it but it is
>>no less preposterous when anybody else does it. 

FARUK:
>What do you offer? Old Yugo? Yugo is no more. Because its peoples at
>least 4 out of 6 decided so. Yugo was the serbian prison of non-serbs.
>As it is now Serboslavia for Albanians, Muslims, and other non-serbs. 

A: I offer anything that will make people realize that it is not
   the people of another nation that oppress them, but their own
   leaders together with the leaders of the "other" nations. Please,
   there is absolutely no sense in saying that Yugoslavia was a
   serbian prison for non-serbs. Serbian people along with everybody else
   was equally devastated and economically destroyed by the previous
   regime! If Yugoslavia was a prison it was a prison for everyone
   and the keepers of that prison certainly were not just Serbs. There
   were plenty of Slovenians, Croats, Bosnians (muslim and other),
   Albanians, Montenegrinians, Macedonians in the top and middle
   and lower ranks in the government! And what these people - all of
   them did to Yugoslavia's peoples was a complete theft and economic
   destruction and a communist-nationalistic politics that started
   deviding people along nationalistic lines at least 20 years
   ago (1974 Constitution or even before at the time of the so called
   "Croatian Spring"). 

ANA:
>>and eventually punished, nations shouldn't. Calling Serbs as a nation
>>murderers, chetniks, nazis, etc, is the same as calling Croats a genocidal
>>nation etc... 
>>When we come back to normal thinking (I hope one day,

FARUK:
>... or one day after that day? 

A: Or the day after that!

FARUK:
>>>Third are geographic reasons. Kosovo borders with Albania, while "Krajina" 
>>>does not. (That's why serbs militants convulsively keep tiny strip south 
>>>of Orasje.) That's precisely what defines the notion of minorities: people 
>>>not belonging to the mother nation of the state and whose mother state is 
>>>disjoint with the region they live in.

ANA:
>>My arguments are preciselly against making anybody a majority or a
>>minority - politically! 

FARUK:
>What do you offer? Communism?

A: No - democracy in the true sense: civil equality!

FARUK:
>>>Fourth are historic reasons. No Bosnian part (see my previous article about 
>>>of Bosnia and her borders in this section), have ever belonged to Serbia. 
>>>It was rather other way around: Sandzak and Monte-Negro part (around Niksic) 
>>>were part of the Bosnian pashadom, given to Milos Obrenovic who helped 
>>>Turkish sultan in suppressing Bosnian uprising for independence led by
>>>Husein Gradascevic (Dragon of Bosnia). Also, Kosovo before 1918 was never 
>>>part of Serbia. Before 1918 Serbia used to have their consulate in Pristina.

ANA:
>>I have already said what I think of using historical arguments - anybody
>>can use a period in history most favorable to their "rights". 

FARUK:
>Read the second sentence. I said No Bosnian part, have ever belonged to Serbia.
A: So? 

ANA:
>>Instead
>>of learning from history in order not to make the same mistakes, everybody
>>is claiming historical "rights"! Greeks and Macedonians in this group
>>go even to the times of Alexander and Phillip of Macedonia! This dragging
>>of the history does not help the actual people today resolve the problem:
>>what to do to live in peace and dignity as human beings? 

FARUK:
>If Macedonians feel like Greeks, so be it. However seems they do not.

>>Faruk.

ANA:
>>All I want to say is that as people Yugoslav (or ex-YU) citizens have been
>>thrown against each others, 

FARUK:
>No. There is only fight between serbs and non-serbs. Serbs are fighting 
>everybody to leave their properties to them and leave, live or dead. Do
>you know wht does the ethnic cleansing mean? Never heard about? 

A: The ones who are fighting are not ALL Serbs against ALL non-Serbs:
   a) more Serbs are not fighting than fighting
   b) Serbs ("moderate") are also fighting against Serbs ("extreme")
   c) there are many Serbs among civilian victims and refugees
   d) there are deeds against Serbs and Serbian cultural and
      historic "property" commited outside the war zones
   e) there are many refugees in Serbia who are not Serbs
   f) the same five statements can be applied to any of the
      nationalities (substitute: Croats, Muslims)

Therefore, this war is a war of evil forces comanded by leaders
who try to justify their crimes by invoking rights of their nation and
satanic nature of all others. (Regardless of their nationality).

ANA:
>>devided and conquered by yet unrecognized
>>and undefined evil forces which do not deserve to be called by any nation's
>>name, since they are destroying and have destroyed indiscriminately 
>>may indeed believe so). They are destroying lives of Serbian people in
>>Bosnia, Croatia and elswhere, as well in Serbia, as effectively as they
>>are doing it to other people. The other criminals who are not of
>>the Serbian origin are also very skillfully destroying people - Serbian
>>as well as other - but they pretend to have a moral advantage of a victim.

FARUK:
>Bla, bla, bla...
>There is a difference between thinking and .... As Amers say: do what you 
>do best.

I hope you don't take this as another bla, bla bla. Because, I could just
repeat back to you what you said above (but I won't).

>  With hopes for peace upon you.

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>>Ana M. Shane                              voice: (215)-843-2909
>>334 Winona St.
>>Philadelphia, PA 19144      e-mail: pshane@andromeda.rutgers.edu

>Faruk.

Ana