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Intelligentsia
and the destruction of
Unfinest Hour of Intellectuals
(Brendan
Simms, Unfinest Hour, “The best ruler is the one sitting with scholars,and the
worst scholar is the one sitting with rulers.”
Hasan Kafija Pruscak, “The foundation of the
wisdom on constellation
of the world”
In the history of XX century,
intellectuals found themselves gravely
tested three times both ethically and intellectually. These three
turning
points, in which the moral capacity – as well as the expertise of wise
men were
to be asserted – occured in: Spain, Viet-Nam, and Bosnia-Herzegovina
(BiH). Two
world wars are deliberately not mentioned, for they were not such big
temptations to make declarations for the
just cause. In the Spanish civil war, intellectuals defended the
Republic with
weapons in their hands. In the case of Viet-Nam, intellectuals
confirmed that
they took the side of the People through their critique and protest,
including the
moral condemnation of the war having come from Bertrand Russell’s
tribunal. In
Bosnia, however, the world’s intellectuals, and European intellectuals
in
particular, only in a few cases recognized Crime and took the side of
the
Victim. They remained largely silent, often repeating absurdities or
overtly
protecting Evil, and some even took shots at Sarajevo! The Twentieth
Century
was the century of temptation for intellectuals. For the sake of
Bosnia, some
intellectuals, even among themselves had – not only because
intellectuals have
often been inciting evil, but because they were not able to recognize
it and
unable to counter it – disappointedly given up of intelligentsia.
I have also,
I admit, after Bosnia, become faithless in Mind, science, and critical
consciousness. And then, something happened
that seriously moderated my doubt. A book
has been published. The book “Unfinest
Hour, Britain and the Destruction of Bosnia”
by Brendan Simms brings back the trust in men of knowledge. Perhaps,
after all,
not everything is lost about us. This is namely a book by an
intellectual who
speaks critically about the role and responsibility of his own country
in the
destruction of another country, but above all, it deals with the role
and
responsibility of the political and scientific Mind for the tragedy of
Bosnia.
It is hard to find a similar case. The country that has most likely
played out
(internationally) the most shameful role in the destruction of Bosnia
– apart
from the actual aggressors – got the opportunity through this book to
be the
only one which has the right to say that it has intellectuals saving
its honour
and the honour of intellectuals as such. It had perhaps to be so, and
it was
perhaps the only possible way. Where shame reached the bottom, one has
firstly
to achieve honour. It is not only Britain that was disgraced in Bosnia.
Nor is
the vague syntagma International community dense enough to conceal some
other
countries and their national intelligentsia. We still know very little
about
the role of other countries and their intellectuals and experts, both
of state
and independent. Admittedly, there are two more countries and two more
intellectuals who by the critique of their intellectual environment
corroborated that not everything is lost for intellectuals, even after
Bosnia.
These are two journalists: Greece’s Takis Michas (Unholy Alliance,
Texas
A&M Universiry Press, 2002) and Norway’s Kjell Arild Nilsen (Europas
Svik, Spartakus Forlag AS, Oslo 1996). The books they have written
stand
firmly alongside Simms’ intellectual adventure. Yet, even if the
syntagma
“critical intelligentsia” is pleonasm, I have to use it in
order to call
intellectuals from other countries to critically assess the role of
their
states and colleagues in the course of the war in Bosnia. After Bosnia,
it is
not taken for granted that the substantive “intelligentsia”
implies the
attribute “critical”. As the Simms’ book is not a
proscription of those
compromised in the case of Bosnia, so too a similar book about France,
Germany,
Austria, Italy etc., will not be anything other than a contribution to
depicting the genuine intellectual and ethical line dividing
intelligentsia
from “intelligentsia”. It appears that Simms, along
with very few others, has, in the case of
Bosnia, guarded what is the best, but so rare, and so often entangled
– the
independence of intellectuals from the censors of any kind, and the
internal
censor in particular. The message by Hasan Kafija Pruscak, the Bosnian
scholar,
400 years ago, much earlier than the existence of the state of Henry
Kissinger,
refers to all those countering Bosnian statehood. It is though,
seemingly,
scholars and philosophies that make decisions about the statehood
capacities of
peoples – as Hegel maintains, but on the condition that they do not sit
with
rulers. At least not with questionable rulers and at least not in just
any
regime. Simms is overtly on the side of
Bosnia and Herzegovina, its multi-ethnic
composition, including the Bosnian government from the beginning of the
war,
about which he, though, claims that it “never entirely lost its
distinctive
multi-ethnic complexion”. (p. ix) He wanted to say that the
Bosnian government
had also considerably lost – albeit not entirely – its
multi-ethnic complexity.
Hence, from the outset he has announced that he disregards the
“balanced
approach” of the “dialectical” analysts of the
Bosnian tragedy. This is his
starting point. That is the premise that will also enable him to
address Edmund
Burke’ s warning to his contemporaries that ”Wise men will
apply their remedies
to vices, not to names; to the causes of the evil which are permanent,
not to
the occasional organs by which they appear. Otherwise you will be wise
historically, a fool in practice.” (p. 350) Therefore, from the
beginning to
the end, he is on the side of the «Bosnian» cause,
including the Bosnian
government, in spite of all its “foolishness in practice”,
and against
«Serbian» cause, irrespective of all its “historical
wisdoms”. Only the reader who is not
obsessed by a
“balanced” approach can grasp that the Bosnian cause in
practice is not here
opposed to the Serbian historical cause, and that this book is, in
short, not
only – pro-Bosnian, but also pro-British
as well as pro-Serbian. As such, it will find its public in a Belgrade
of
“another Serbia”, as it finds it in “another
Britain” as well. Unlike the
“balanced” truths – such as those of Vojislav
Kostunica and intellectuals
sitting around him that claim that “crimes have been committed by
all sides”, –
which by justifying the practice, are already preparing the historical
foolishnesses for the future, both Serbian and British – and
Bosnian. This is
the point of view that had recognized genocide in Bosnia long before
Srebrenica
occurred, unlike the one that even after Srebrenica, balancing, perhaps
even
unwontedly, thereby prepares the terrain for some future Srebrenicas. The stance of a “balanced
approach”, aiming to minimize the crimes of
one side through an optical trick so that the crimes of the other side
are
enhanced, is just the continuation of the claim – throughout the
war – to
ensure “military balance” by lifting the arms embargo and
enabling the Bosnian
side at least the right to defence. As if its intercessors were not
aware that
justification of the crime is worse than the crime because the
justification of
a crime is already the preparation for a new crime; because the new
crime, is
always more egregious as the continuation of previous, than was the
previous. The wise architects of the
Dayton accords, of course, should not be
exempted. They deserve our gratitude for ending the tragedy and war,
but they
have virtually divided Bosnia into two (three!) mini-states and made of
it “a
profoundly traumatized country, a land damaged to a degree unique in
Europe
since 1945”. (p.xi) Bosnia “made in Dayton” is
nothing but a decoy for those
obsessed with its division, and cleansing of the «ethnically
dirty», to try
something similar again. Such a political creation acts as a
provocation for
those who consider it anachronistic. Although Britain is named as the
subject of research, as the title
indicates, I dare to say – without refuting the author’s
intention – that the
book does not reveal the question of the role, responsibility and guilt
of
Simms’ homeland, but the question of the role, responsibility and guilt
of the
worlds’ leaders for what has occured, and for what will result in
current
international happenings. This is not to say that the book does not hit
its
target, for it does, but that it hits it deeper and broader than the
author
himself announces in the preface. Even though the tragedy of Bosnia was
more
profound, i.e. that it was destroyed as a political arrangement and one
of its
peoples vanished as the victim of genocide, the feasible tragedy the
book
points to – the dismemberment of the international community and
the principles
the world order rests upon, as well as peace itself, if this world
continues to
be lead by the people who decided on the fate of Bosnia, is much
greater. It is the architects of the
Dayton Accords – including those who decided
to intervene almost four after the beginning of aggressions towards
Bosnia – to
whom the author directs his criticism, as laid out in the first chapter
“`No
Intervention`: Defining Government Policy”. If I am right herein,
if in this
way Americans also hold responsibility for waiting for so long,
listening to
Britons and others, to intervene, then it only confirms how immense was
the
responsibility of the British government, and its entire expert
apparatus, for
what came about as the policy of non-interventionism. Americans could
have thus
intervened earlier. They cannot give the blame for their own hesitation
only to
others, however. The role of Britain and other allies from the banana
continent
cannot be taken as justification. The fact that Americans did act, and
in doing
so proved that British cautions of tragic (global) consequences should
intervention occur were ungrounded, only increases the level of British
responsibility. However, it does not decrease American responsibility
for
delay. That Simms is so explicit in naming the brightest British
political
minds responsible for Bosnia, does not mean that he relieved Americans
of their
own portion of responsibility. In fact, he only calls upon his American
colleagues to write a similar book. To this end, the gap that existed
between
Britain and the U.S., existed within the States as well.
“Non-interventionism”
and an arms embargo for the Bosnian government were two underlying
points of
British policy. But, what hindered others to oppose British policy? For
the
sake of that the question, Simms’ decision to call the policy of his
own
government into question is a manifesto to intellectuals – contemporary
historians first of all – to question their own governments in the same
manner. What about French intellectuals,
for instance? Why did France intervene
in Rwanda already after eights weeks, but were not prepared to do the
same in
Bosnia after almost four years of war? One year alone, even in Bosnia,
has 52
weeks! Through his book, Simms has
raised the question of responsibility for
his government in refusing to recognize the existence of the state of
Bosnia-Herzegovina, but he implicitly obliged American intellectuals to
raise
the same question of responsibility for their own country in
establishing the
state of Bosnia in an unsustainable, making it necessary for the
government to
dismantle it as it is in order to make it possible for it to attain a
sustainable shape at all. The dismantling of Dayton’s Bosnia is not the
obligation
of Bosnians, as Richard Holbrooke, its architect, asserts, but the duty
of
those who made it such. Was this not implicated in Simms’ book, as my
reading
perceives it to be, then his critique of the role of his own state in
the
destruction of Bosnia would not make sense. The global message of the book
refers to our contemporary intellectual
as such, and to the contemporary subject of his ideologized science,
and not to
any of Simms’ anxiety with Britain, or conservatives, or, even the more
senseless
– Douglas Hurd, The causes of
conflicts
cannot be in cultures, ethnic identities, or religions. They lay
somewhere much
deeper. «Islamophobia» does not necessarily squeeze out
«Germanophobia» or
anti-Catholicism. Moreover, it implies them, or, more accurately, they
are its
assumption. While the consequences are: overlooking “the
distinction between
aggressor and victim” (p. 25), “moral equivalence”
(p. 26), equation of “a
major politico-military crisis in the middle of Europe with more remote
African
and Asian quarrels” (p. 23), “as much blame as possible on
the Bosnian Muslims”
(p.29), and eventually, in tune with the theory of “bloody
borders of Islam”,
an “attempt to force the Bosnian government to accept the
Owen-Stoltenberg
partition plan” (p. 31). Why would these words by Sylvane Foa,
the UNHCR
spokeswoman, quoted by Simms in order to question the policy of his own
government, relate only for Britain and only for that time: “Does
that mean
Britain wants only children? Maybe you want only blond and blue-eyed
children,
maybe only children under six, only orphans?” (p. 36) The Bosnia
of Dayton is
nevertheless the fruit of fear. But, it is also a source of fear, a
scarecrow,
and fear is the cause of any aggressiveness and contention. If Bosnia
is to be
the fruit of the Mind, the mind does not have to be used. It only has
to be
made to be what it used to be. The divisions that unfolded in
Bosnia (among Western allies) continue
even after alliances have been forged in Iraq as well. Madeleine
Albright, who
was an advocate of the Bosnian cause and of intervention on its behalf,
is
today opposed to the American presence in Iraq. Al Gore, who besides
Bill
Clinton was the most meritorious person for the U.S. took the side of
the
“civilizationally distinctive” Bosnian Muslims, is today
supporting the
candidate for American president who opposes the war in Iraq. Margaret
Thatcher
was opposed to British non-interventionism throughout the tragedy in
Bosnia and
was inciting Americans to intervene. Those who have just removed the
regime of
Saddam Hussein did not intervene against Milosevic having been
supported by
Saddam Hussein in his genocide against Bosnian Muslims. And so on and
so forth.
Disagreement about Bosnia and agreement about Iraq, are not
civilizational, but
ethical issues, as well as being questions of experise and competence.
That is
what reduces the British-American alliance to “the lowest common
denominator”
or rises to “the highest common denominator”. The fear of
Britons from
Huntingtonians’ surmises that the intervention of the west on the side
of the
Bosnian government, and against Serbs, could have provoked Russia to
take the
side of Serbia, starting a third world war, had its cause in
theoretical
foolishness. “Russia’s alleged Serbophilia” (p. 84) was
simply a justification
concealing the British lack of expertise on the Balkans’ circumstances,
as well
as a justification for the morally doubtful view about
non-interventionism.
When they have to choose between Serbia and America, Russians do not
care much
about the civilization of Orthodoxy. The readers alone are supposed to
conclude
when the common denominator rests on ethics and knowledge, and when
these
premises are missing. It is astonishing to hear from a
cynical British intellectual to what extent
“Britain, in all her ancestral wisdom” (p. 90) is
responsible for restraining
America and NATO to intervene in Bosnia. Even the officials at the US
State
Department (George Kennedy, Marshall Harris, Jon Western, Stephen
Walker,
Warren Zimmermann) resigned in protest to US non-interventionist
policy.
Moreover, Simms’ critique reminds us of France’s role and the
responsibility of
French intellectuals, some of whom, in the middle of the war,
exhibitionistically drove through Sarajevo. Why did their intellectual
and
ethical interest for Bosnia cease as soon as the war ended? Can the
interest
for the causes of the war and the role of those guilty and responsible
for the
Bosnian tragedy abate as soon as Channel 5 and CNN cameras are focused
elsewhere? It is true that there were those who deleted the word
“genocide”
from documents and reports in both the American and British
administrations.
However, it is also true the word could only be deleted because there
were in
these governments those who used the word in documents and reports from
the
very beginning. When will we know from French, American and other
intellectuals
who was the first in their countries to speak up against genocide in
Bosnia,
and who disputed it? In the light of its relationship with Britain, it
was not
difficult for a civilizationally declared US to give preference to
Bosnia
versus Northern Ireland, in spite the cleavage between
“interventionists” and
“isolationists” at home. Nevertheless, why was it so
difficult for France? It
is true that Britain imperilled even NATO as the American attitude to
use NATO
forces in halting the tragedy in Bosnia – as a principle and not
civilization
related problem, but why have not the other NATO member states devoted
more
attention to the preservation of NATO, thus by complying more to the
American
intention to use it in Bosnia? Does it mean that these countries were
ready to
sacrifice NATO for the sake of Bosnia? These questions are not only for
the
British but are to be raised by intellectuals in many countries.
Disappointed
in the principles their own alliance rests on, but also in the
behaviour and
practice of their own civilization, the US in tandem with with Iran
(sic) and
other Muslim countries, were secretly arming the government in
Sarajevo. (p. 121)
This provides the room for intellectuals in other countries, by the
declaration
of which to join NATO has been accelerated because of Bosnia, to
examine the
role of their governments. In this way, Poland serves as a good
example.
Previously, NATO isolationism, in the period when intervention was the
basic
principle, paved a good foundation for engagement, though under
American
leadership, when principle-related reasons were not present. Today,
Poland has
a prominent presence in Iraq (at the time of writing – 2004), and it is
partly
due to the tragic Bosnian experience that Poland is in NATO. Mazowiecki
and
Michnic are not enough for a country like Poland. Simms has devoted the entire
fourth chapter of his book to David Owen.
As the author has written the book for the British public, he warns
that Owen
and others were the public face of Britain. However, the message is
much
deeper, revealing how someone confident of his own opinion can also be
opposed
to his own opinion if he becomes a part of – Leviathan. We,
having lived in the
states on the other side of the iron curtain (fence!) know it very
well. But we
did not know that it can be so in democratic states as well. Thus, Lord
Owen
wrote, after he saw “news coverage of Serbs concentration
camps” (p. 135) in
July 1992, and before he became the EU mediator, a letter to the Prime
Minister, the Evening Standard, and the Press Association, in
which he
alleges: “It is not exaggeration to
say that we are witnessing, 50 years on,
scenes in Europe that mirror the early stages of Nazi holocaust under
the
dreadful description of “ethnic cleansing”. I urge you not
to accept the
conventional wisdom that nothing can be done militarily…The
first essential
step is to stop by threat of force the use or movement of any military
aircraft, tanks, armoured vehicles or artillery in the former territory
of
Yugoslavia. It is perfectly within the power of NATO to enforce such a
ceasefire…If no action is taken now there will be virtually
nothing left of
Bosnia for the Muslims population to negotiate about.” (p. 135-6)
Immediately in the wake of
having been designated to the post of the EU
mediator, and after he went to take his opinion of his government, he
sends
these words to Bosnians at the Sarajevo airport: “Don’t , don’t,
don’t live
under this dream that the west is going to come in and sort this
problem out.
Don’t dream dreams.” (p. 138) This perhaps helped Bosnians,
Bosniaks in
particular, to begin dreaming Americans. But, again, the Simms’ chapter
on lord
Owen is, as I said, much deeper, and the message is addressed to
Britons and
Americans rather than to Bosnians: “Don’t dream that the problems
in Europe can
be solved without Americans!” Or, more precisely, for it is more
deeper, and
more actual, if I understood him correctly: “Don’t dream that
Americans will
solve the problems of the world only because you will join them!” One of the puzzling dilemmas in
the course of the Bosnian war was the
purpose of the international armed forces’ presence there, neither
armed
adequately nor authorized to intervene. Were soldiers, among them
British as
well, in Bosnia in order to prepare and assess the probability of
intervention
or to deter it? This is the crucial question dealt with in the fifth
chapter. As for Britons, Simms is clear
as early as the first sentence. As far as
the moral side of the international “forces” – including
British – is
concerned, he is even more explicit: on the front page of the book
there is a
photo on which general Michael Rose, UNPROFOR commander in Bosnia
throughout
1994, cordially shaking hands with general Ratko Mladic, currently
indicted for
war crimes and genocide. This chapter, however, raises a much more
grave
question: General Rose, who called the Bosnians «savages” –
albeit he
himself shook hands with one of them – not only considered
himself several
classes above them (p. 176), but he also introduced the question of
cultural
education of British officers in general. If British officers conceive
their
political and ethical attitudes on “anti-Muslim” and
“anti-Catholic” (p. 178)
prejudices, then there must be that some British intellectuals support
the
same. It certainly implies the opposite attitude and raises an
overwhelming
question: whether officers in Catholic and Orthodox NATO member states
pass
through the strategic briefings that fill them with anti-protestant
prejudices?
If this is so, as I understood the message from the chapter, then the
world
should be afraid of those who are supposed to safeguard us, no matter
whether
we are Muslims, Catholics, Protestants, or Orthodox. Perhaps, those who
should
be most afraid are those who are designing what NATO is. “Indeed,
Rose`s
memoirs are peppered with Natophobic statements which sound
extraordinary on
the lips of a British general.” (p. 203) The most entertaining part of
the book is the one I hold the most
essential as well: the chapter on experts! If Americans stand behind the
political monster, made in Dayton, and
called – today Bosnia and Herzegovina, if behind the Dayton’
constitution of BH
stands the good will of Americans to halt the war, if behind their will
stands
the four-year belated intervention, if behind the late American
intervention
stands NATO, and behind NATO stands Britain and behind Britain stands
the
government of John Major and Minister Douglas Hurd, then it must be
that
experts, i.e. intellectuals, stand behind the government – just
as behind the
Serbs’ genocide in Bosnia stand Serbia’s intellectuals. The case of
Bosnia, and
proved by the role of Britain in its destruction, has compromised what
is an
‘expert’ and an ‘intellectual’. Simms directs his critique of the role
of
Britain towards the Prime Minister and his Minister of Foreign Affairs,
but he
does not neglect to highlight that behind their decisions stand experts
– and research
institutes. Whereas the concentration of power (and money) in the
military
sector in the country, moves towards the concentration of expertise in
this
sector, it is logical to presume that this expertise ensures relevant
premises
for political decisions. When John Major asked his
experts how many soldiers are needed to
separate the three parties in Bosnia, the answer was – 400.000.
(p.224) It is
correct that experts are often used by people of power to justify their
faulty
decisions, but it is also accurate that experts are often more anxious
about
power than they are about truth. As intellectuals cannot be
justification for
politicians’ catastrophic moves, so intellectuals cannot remain without
moral
and competent responsibility for their ideas on the basis of which
someone in
power acts, or – does not act. Moreover, their ideas are perhaps
more
responsible than the moves ensuing from them. If I were the citizen of a
political arrangement protected by NATO, and
using the knowledge of experts such as those who were deciding of the
fate of
Bosnia – as I might become one day – then I would feel as
insecure as when I
was assaulted by the army that was supposed to defend me, for that army
was
advised by the intellectuals who were supposed to be wise – and
moral. The case
of Omer, alias John, alias Jovan Zametica, the lecturer at the British
government training courses, and afterwards the adviser to Radovan
Karadzic,
speaks for itself. Perhaps “the lack of sensitivity in official
circles” (p.
228) for the Balkans’ nationalisms does not deserve such Simms’ irony,
but I do
understand him when it comes to the “prestigious International
Institute for
Strategic Studies” and its deputy director Michael Dewar. Opposed
to any
intervention in Bosnia, the expert for Strategic Studies, colonel
Dewar,
estimates that such an effort would require 500.000 soldiers. (p. 229)
“He did
not say how many troops it would take to defeat Greater Serbia, but,
extrapolating from the Bosnian case, he must have had a truly
astronomical
figure in mind…One would naturally assume that he knew what he
was talking
about.” (p. 229-231) Of course, we know now where
Major’s impressions of the Balkans and
“ancient hatreds” came from. Charles Dick, lecturer at the
Royal Military
Academy offers an expert’s assessment: “The Slavic nationalities
of former
Yugoslavia are tribal societies, governed more by their emotions than
their
intellects.” (p. 231) It is difficult to understand that South
Slaves, even
after a period of very emotional governments, would now choose the
government
of Dick’s intellect. John Keegan, lecturer of military history and
journalist,
also “anthropologizes” the war in Bosnia naming it “a
primitive tribal
conflict, of a sort known to a handful of anthropologists”. (p.
234) If the
genocide in Bosnia was a tribal conflict, then civilized people indeed
must be
afraid of conflicts in which civilized societies are supposed to take
part. As
the advisor to Lord Owen, the former ambassador to Belgrade, Sir Peter
Hall,
writes to the Prime Minister: “Prime Minister, the first thing
you have to know
about this people is that they like going around cutting each other’s
heads
off.” (p. 241) Sir Hall, the Balkan expert, of course, had not to
know that the
homicide rate in his then host country (Yugoslavia, including Serbia),
while he
was at the post in Belgrade, according to the UN data (John B. Allcock
, Explaining
Yugoslavia, Hurst, London, 2000, p.
383) had been lower than in his own country. While American experts were
either resigning based on the continued
American policy of non-interventionism, or were continuing to stand for
the
intervention, there were no such cases in the Foreign Office. “The advent of the Bosnian
war found the Foreign Office unprepared…There
was also a shortage of regional expertise…Those regional experts
who were
available tended to be pro-Serb, supporters of engagement with
Milosevic (i.e.,
appeasement), or at least equally sceptical of all sides.” (p.
240-241) Nothing more could have been
expected from British experts in Belgrade:
“The Serbophilia of the Belgrade embassy and the ‘old Balkan
hands’ was
something remarked upon by visiting journalists.” (p. 241) These
few lines are
to be read in a mere book! No interpretation would be enough.
“Ivor Roberts
himself (ambassador to Belgrade from 1994, Dz. S.) – who was only
executing
government policy – claims that he was engaging in ‘analysis’ not
‘apology’.
Roberts was instructed, as he put it, ‘to get inside Milosevic’s head
and find
out what his real bottom lines were’.” (p. 242) In the next
sentence, however,
the point of Simms’ critique is contained – not the critique of
Roberts
himself, but the critique of the British “analysis” of the
Bosnian question and
the critique of “analysis” of experts as such, those who
were grasping nothing.
“Yet the criticism – and the defence – both miss the
point. The problem was not
the apologia, or the morality, but the analysis, which hinged on the
assumption
that Milosevic – who was primarily responsible for the wars in
Croatia and
Bosnia – could be corralled into some sort of acceptable
behaviour, and
that he might be part of a stable solution, however
unjust.” (p. 242)
Look out! Milosevic is not mentioned as responsible for the war in
Slovenia,
but is entirely responsible for – after the war in Slovenia – the
totally
unnecessary, illegitimate and illegal wars in Croatia and Bosnia. For
this type
of analysis, neither the American, and
certainly not the British, administrations were capable. Most British
experts
and their institutes for strategic studies were incapable of this sort
of
analysis. Milosevic may even be considered less responsible for the
dismemberment of Yugoslavia and the Slovenian “blitz-Krieg”
than others, and
yet he was the principal offender for wars and war crimes in Croatia
and
Bosnia. In contrast, British and American experts strove to include him
in a
solution and to preserve him by non-intervention, as well as indirectly
aiding
him via the arms embargo. Eventually, they included him – among
the architects of
the Dayton Accords. One day, when this review is published, it will be
written
– depending on whether it will be published before or after
Milosevic’s
sentence in the Hague, that the Dayton Accords, and that means the
Bosnia of
Dayton, is the result of the person himself charged with, and possibly
sentenced with genocide – & company! For another distinctive approach
to the solution of the Yugoslav
question, one needs intellectuals to whom truth will be more important
than
political will. The same expert and deputy director of the
International
Institute for Strategic Studies, Colonel Michael Dewar, who was opposed
to
intervention, strategically advising that it was necessary to deploy a
half
million troops in Bosnia alone, in October 1992 said: “My view is
that military
intervention is perfectly feasible from a military point of view and
that
Douglas Hurd and others, for entirely political reasons, are fighting
shy of
saying that it is viable. What they mean is that it is not politically
desirable.” (p. 272) Simms, ironically, adds: “This time,
he knew what he was
talking about.” (p. 272) The question is whether (not including
Dewar (!), who
lives already with his questions and conscience) British intellectuals
have to
say something for themselves in the aftermath of Bosnia.
Diplomats, journalists, and
professors all knew that military
intervention was viable,
and knew that politicians were aware of this as well. They also knew
that such
an option was not advisable, for it was not desirable politically.
However,
does this mean that they desired what was happening in Bosnia? Today in
The
Hague, one is tried not only for the sake of crimes committed by them,
but also
in terms of command responsibility as well. Will experts ever be tried
for the
sake of their expert responsibility – in their expert
associations at least?
Has any expert association raised the question of expert responsibility
of its
members – for genocide? Simms’ seventh chapter is
devoted to the role of the Parliament and
media in the destruction of Bosnia. It is taken for granted that
politicians
are intellectuals. Members of parliaments, therefore the legislative
part of
the Montesquieu’s tripartite authority, are meant to be the crème
de la crème of the political
creation called the state. Other than, if it is about the Parliament of
the
state made by the Dayton Accords known as Bosnia-Herzegovina. In
Bosnia,
namely, people are entertained and amused by their MPs and the
proceedings in
their meetings, because the laws they are meant to make enter into
force mainly
made and implemented by the High Representative. Admittedly, people
should, at
least according to Jefferson, laugh at itself, when the people itself
elected
and mandated those MPs to spend lavish amounts of money stemming from
their
taxes. Since I read Simms’ book, however, I see that the British people
could
also laugh at their own MPs and – at itself. And while “American
lawmakers” (p. 273) in Congress corroborated “the
strength of their beliefs on Bosnia” and that “Bosnia was
no small far-off
country for them”, “no such debate took place in
Britain”. (p.274) On the
contrary, in spite of some honourable exemptions (Sir Patrick Cormack),
it was
Bob Wareing, known as “Slob-a-Bob”, who was making the
atmosphere in the House
of Commons. Although he strove, by his later pro-Croatian attitudes, to
alleviate his “pro-Serb” image, he undoubtedly confirmed by
his trip to the
part of Bosnia under Serb control, immediately after the massacre in
Srebrenica, and in a meeting with Mladic and Karadzic, what a British
legislator thinks about genocide and ethnic cleansing. For comfort, but
only to
British tax-payers, he was suspended in 1997 because of monies paid to
him by
Serbian companies. (p. 277) It is hard to believe in democracy after
one witnesses
the “developed democracies” having executed such fatal
errors as these
witnessed in Bosnia. I beg readers not to resent that I do not cite all
that
has been said in the Parliament regarding Bosnia, and specifically
Bosniaks. I
invite you to read Simms’ book, or at minimum, the seventh chapter. As
a person
who is Bosnian, and to this end, specifically Bosniak, it is beneath my
dignity
to quote such prejudices and ignorance. After all, perhaps these are
“interacting tribal affaires and ancient rivalries” between
British MPs and a
handful of British intellectuals such as Simms is. (p. 283) For the Bosnian public it is of
special importance to learn a bit more
about the then attitudes of Paddy Ashdown, the now High Representative,
a man
playing now a very hard role in which he has to play act that he is not
the
governor of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Although welcomed by Bosnian liberals
as the
friend of Bosnia and one of their personal friends (whereas liberals
has mainly
one member, though there are two liberal parties(!)), Ashdown not
earlier then
“1995 became an advocate of ‘lift and strike’ (along with almost
everybody
else)”. (p. 296) “Unlike the United States,
the British government did not come under
sustained and irresistible pressure from the press.” (p. 300) In
spite of
exceptions, such as the Independent, media were trying to
ensure “moral
equivalence of the antagonists”. (p.302) Moreover, it seemed at
times that one
tempted that the Croatian and Bosnian sides made mistakes so that the
reality
on the ground provided support to the already-made preconceptions
regarding
«equal responsibility» of the warring parties. When Croats
did commit crimes,
it was as if it supported those who were claiming from the beginning
that “all
are the same there”. The pivotal point of who started the war,
who perpetrated
crimes and of what sort were these crimes, and who had no interest in a
peaceful and just solution had lost all importance. It seemed that the
carriers
of this «balanced approach» were only more eagerly awaiting
news of Bosniaks’
crimes against Serbs and Croats than of the Croats’ crimes. And they
got them.
Senseless preconceptions about Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks, and
indestructible
prejudices about the eternal historical responsibility of some, coupled
with the
eternal heroism and legitimacy of others, were nurtured by the mistakes
on both
the Croat and Bosniak sides. The refusal to support the idea of
intervention,
while there was still time, or to support the idea of Bosnians being
allowed to
defend themselves was simply not familiar to the British press. There
was not
any moral dilemma about that. Only the Daily Telegraph was
capable of
assessing analytically the consequences of the arms embargo as the
direct
support to the “Serb aggressor”. (p. 304) Disappointed in intellectuals,
Simms consoles himself with the fact that
this is not the first time intellectuals betrayed themselves. He quotes
Julien
Benda and his “La Trahison des clercs”, about
intellectuals who “abandon
the universal values of the Enlightenment in favour of nationalism,
racism and
the exaltation of the strong over the weak”, and adds:
“Similar criticism might
be made of the response of many British intellectuals to aggression and
ethnic
cleansing in Croatia and Bosnia…’Treasonable clerks’ were to be
found on the
left, on the right and in the centre of the political
spectrum…The result of
this was a kind of renewed Grand Alliance between intellectuals of the
left and
the right…The fact that some intellectuals – especially on
the left – were prepared
to ‘understand’ Serb aggression and ethnic cleansing in the light of
‘history’
is a striking example of the ‘treason’ described by Julien Benda some
seventy
years earlier: the abandonment of universalist values for a worldview
based on
‘custom, history, the past…in opposition to the rights of
reason’.” (p. 306,
307, 311, 312) The last chapter, under a
metaphoric-ironic title “Reckoning”, is a
caution to the political (in spite of all) Mind about the consequences
if it is
based in prejudices. Britain’s relationship with Bosnia, and Serbia
respectively, could have cost her her partnership with America.
“By early 1995,
British policy on Bosnia has reached a complete dead end…Indeed,
the Major
administration insisted that Britain should not only abandon the
legitimate
Bosnian government to its fate, but that it should do all in its power
to
prevent the Americans from coming to its aid, even at the price of a
catastrophic transatlantic rift.” (p. 314) Today, while listening to the
debates about the role of the UN, the then
Secretary General, the unfortunate Dutch battalion, and the distressed
Japanese
Yasushi Akashi, the revelation that perhaps events surrounding
Srebrenica had
been known for months before it took place comes as a sort of relief. The British officer C.A. le
Hardy warned that “Srebrenica has to be
dealt with before the situation further deteriorates”. (p. 316)
If the writer
of these lines would be reduced to the level of prejudice, from which
Britain
and Europe by and large looked on the Bosnian tragedy, then I could
shout: they
all knew about everything! Or even better: they are all the same there!
Or, the
best: we are all the same! Clearly, if the political Mind on which
current
Europe rests has so low either expert or moral standards, or both, then
Srebrenica and the genocide in Bosnia should worry EU more then the
Spanish
Civil War worried the League of Nations. Otherwise, few anarchistic
letters,
having recently been sent to the addresses in Brussels, will be more
important
for Europe, than the arrest of Karadzic and Mladic. The dreams of
genocide,
ethnic cleansing and great political neighbours “will not simply
go away. It
needs high level attention.” (p. 316) Let us learn from these
words of an
experienced intelligence officer. The moral consequences of the
international community’s failure, from
which Britain should not be exempted, are even more catastrophic.
Lonely voices
were meaningful, but were not decisive. Newt Gingrich, the Republican
leader,
maintained that “the entire world’s honour” was being
ruined in Bosnia; the
former Prime Minister to Poland Tadeusz Mazowiecki, and the then UN
rapporteur
on Human Rights, resigned after Srebrenica; Tony Lake, the National
Security
Advisor, reiterates that “This is larger than
Bosnia…Bosnia has become and is
the symbol of US foreign policy.” (p. 324-5) However, what
decided American
policy to finally intervene was, nevertheless, Srebrenica. Thousands of
Bosnian
Muslim boys and men had to be executed in a single massacre in order
for the west
to decide haltering the genocide. Two questions which inevitably arise
from
this are: First, why were 200.000 victims before Srebrenica not moral
reason
enough for an intervention in Bosnia? Does it mean that 200.000 people
were
being killed systematically in the course of few years is less morally
questionable than 8.000 men and boys killed in few days? Second: What
would
have happened if Srebrenica had not happened? Would the genocide go on
in a
morally more acceptable way, systematically, in consecutive portions of
time,
and in respective numerical portions acceptable for European moral
standards?
To the point of utter extermination and ethnic/religious cleansing of
Bosnian
Muslims/Bosniaks? I know there are no answers to these questions, but,
that it
is not a reason not to raise them. I am not sure that intervention
(the opponents of intervention do not
deserve to be mentioned from an ethical point of view), provoked by a
crime
that cannot be compared even with Guernika, released from moral
responsibility
even those who intervened. Srebrenica also stands as an ethical warning
for
those who changed their opinion after it. Nor does the new stance release
France from the responsibility after
Jacques Chirac condemned the west’s hesitation and compared it with
Chamberlain’s and Daladier’s talks with Hitler in Munich. Srebrenica
remains
shameful for the French, as well as the entire world, as much as for
the
British, in so far as there is still honour in politics. It must be so,
for
only those who share the virtue of shame can deal with politics.
(Protagora)
Otherwise, neither Britain nor France will have a chance bigger than
the one
Bosnia had. Interventions, in Bosnia, as
well as the latter one, in Serbia for the
sake of Kosovo, were not adequate responses of the west to what was
happening
and is still going on in Serbia. The perpetrators of genocide in Bosnia
must by
no means be rewarded by the division of this unhappy country. The
bombardment
of Serbia must by no means have as a goal the establishment of a
protectorate
for Kosovo only. The removal of Milosevic from power is not the
solution of the
problem, for Milosevic is not the clue to the problem. The problem of
the
Balkans is nationalism. There is only one solution for its deepest,
fascist
layer. The moment for it to be applied has been missed. That is why the
balkanization is still on the agenda in both Europe and the Balkans. *** I would happily say of Brendan
Simms’ book that it is a good book on
Bosnia, but I cannot. This is the best
book on the Bosnian issue I have ever read! I would also very gladly
say that
this is an excellent book for patriotic reasons, but I cannot. This is
the best
book not because of its content and subject, but because of the
methodology
applied in it. If deduction and induction are modes or methods used by
our mind
in comprehending and elucidating of reality, then a deductive-inductive
method
is the peak of this mode we pass on the way toward truth. However,
without the
intention to declare what in this syntagma is primary – the
deductive or the
inductive – for I do not know, I have to say that it is the most
important in
the mere deduction, no matter how non-scientific it might sound to
someone, to
start not from the theoretically general, but from what is the base of
theory:
the philosophically general, in this case, the ethical. Simms’ uses an
ethnical
starting point in his exploration of Bosnia. Moreover, he uses a
general ethics
point, only owing to which the author can reach the truth, or allow it
to fall
away, even when considering an elementary cube of the mosaic called
Bosnia. The
book is thus historiographical. Moreover, this is a textbook of
historiographic
science. I would recommend it to every MA or doctoral student, and in
particular to those who in their search for impartial, balanced
approaches,
depart from the facts that corroborate that in Bosnia all were doing
crimes,
and arrive to the conclusion that in Bosnia all committed crimes.
(sic!)
Nonetheless, the book is something much higher methodologically.
Because of its
starting point it is also – a philosophy of history. I do not
know if there is
– after G.W.F. Hegel, and his philosophy
of history – anything similar, but I propose this book to be
proclaimed the
basis of a new discipline – the philosophy of modern
historiography. This is
indeed a philosophy based on facts, or, even better, the book is the
textbook
on facts that can not be understood without philosophy. Simms’ book
proves that
science is not any morally neutral l’art
pour l’artism – and that morality is the assumption of truth.
If science is
anxios about the truth – something I do not have any doubts about, even
in the
case of those justifying the crime by equalizing the victim and
criminal – then
it has to start from morality in order to make morality the purpose of
the
truth, i.e. its own purpose. Otherwise, it will – and it is
pretentious – serve
only itself. Or, more often – Evil. Copyright © 2006 Dictum.noISSN 1504-5307 |