This is not the civil war in Spain in the 1930s, where we can join international brigades. The best one can hope for is that the Kosovars will return to their land, that massive economic aid will cope at once with the terrible devastation and that, time healing wounds, this region, like the whole of former Yugoslavia, will one day emerge from the nightmare of ethnic politics. For this is where the root of the whole evil, and of our impotence, lies. It is linked with the break up of Yugoslavia, with the triumph of jingoism over a solidarity stretching beyond racial and ethnic frontiers. Milosevic, Tudjman and company are not the only ones to blame.
Intellectuals spreading the poison of chauvinism are among the worst culprits.
The left-wing parties unable to resist the nationalist tide have their share of guilt. So have the great powers which exacerbated the conflict. So have we, unable to influence our governments and the course of events, as the disease was spreading across the country. The events are too recent and too important to leave them entirely to historians. For, whatever the immediate outcome, the struggle will go on and the radical left in Europe, despite its failings, could actually take advantage of the ambiguities and betrayals revealed by this conflict.