And who could suggest a better place to begin his new venture than the Balkans, haunt of enterprising foreign correspondents since the nineteenth century. Here in the Balkans everyone knows that hate speech is more than words. In his commentaries, Thompson ruminates on a wide range of topics from Bulgarian orphanages to globalization. He casts a thoughtful eye on the new world he is encountering in and out of the classroom, listening to new voices and observing his new environment with interest and respect. The objective was to create a framework for long-term intellectual and cultural exchange by encouraging just this sort of listening and observing.
Hatreds here are deep-rooted.
The war in Kosovo is only one of many recent examples of a culture of intolerance that envelops the region . . . Two of my students are Serbian . . . Somewhat tentatively I asked if they planned to go back to Yugoslavia after they graduate. Each of them said that before the revolution they had planned to leave not only Yugoslavia but the Balkan region. One of them called her homeland a sick place because of its history of conflict.