The killing fields of Pol Pot, and the ceaseless screams from Idi Amin's prisons, cast doubt on this resolve. Still, Westerners could claim they only realized the scale of these terrors after they ended. Not so with Bosnia. The 26 months of slaughter in Bosnia-Herzegovina have provided the first clear test of whether knowledge of the Holocaust impels action against genocide, and we have failed. Apart from a few determined journalists, State Department resignees and other activists, Americans have reacted to the Bosnian genocide with indifference.
Students are silent, musicians are mute.
Only 80 Cornellians attended a vigil at the Straight in November 1992, and barely two dozen came in February to hear Jasmina Burdzovic, a Sarajevan student now at TC3, describe her experiences and her anguish. Rep. Maurice Hinchey has received a grand total of 54 letters on Bosnia since taking office 16 months ago. In Harris opinion polls, fewer than 0.5 percent of Americans mentioned Bosnia among the two most important issues for the government to address. The apathy persists despite a resurgence of Holocaust retrospection. The success of the movie, amidst the failure of Bosnia policy, indicates that precious little has changed.