(np) Croatia today

[Carvill John]

I accept what you say, and I believe your intent to be as stated.
 
It's just that you started by saying one thing (about Serbs killing men, women, and children) then launched straight into an irrelevant and not always accurate account of ancient history. So that *did* sort of read like mitigation, the way you said that the Serbs' hatreds had been instilled by the Ottoman empire.
 
> But believing a whole ethnic group must be blamed is not correct
> either, is it? 
 
Well, is it wrong to blame contemporary 'Germans' for Hitler's crimes? Don't think so, I think a majority knew what the Nazis were doing and went along with it. Same goes for the Serbs. And you should see how they behave now, which if yuo want to see you can follow the links posted by Michael bailey, to Serb websites spewing propaganda about their continuing victimhood.
 
> Isn't that how these atrocities proceed in the first
> place - by damning a whole group for the actions of a subset?
 
Sorry, but no, that's wrong. What subset of Bosnians committed any wrongs? NO, that is not how it worked.
 
I do not speak as any kind of expert either. I suppose the best place for anyone to start if the want to learn about the Bosnian war, would be reading contemoraneous newspaper reports. You would have to be careful which papers to trust - many in the UK for instance were full of rubbish about 'ancient hatreds', because they had an agenda of supporting the Conservative government - but I would guess that the New York Times might be a reasonable place to start? 
 
As with any issue, you have to take care about the agenda of your source(s). Serb websites are full of stories which make wild claims about how the world is against them and 'NATO agression' etc. Luckily the discerning reader should immediately recognise the hysterical tone, although recent posts here have made me doubt that.
 
I don't know, I don't look to 'educate' anyone, but there is a lot of ignorance on display on this forum, and it is really pretty frightening. Can thinking people really be so easily fooled into equivocation over genocide?
 
I wonder what Pynchon (remember him?) would think of all this? Odds are he is (or was) a Chomsky reader. BUt he's not a big fan of genocide. 
 


----------------------------------------
> From: kevindunn
> To: johncarvill
> Subject: Re: (np) Croatia today
> Date: Sun, 22 Mar 2009 16:50:20 -0400
> CC: pynchon-l at waste.org
>
> I could admit that the first statement was not phrased well to imply
> that the Bosniaks were a result of Ottoman political & cultural
> dominance in the area. My apologies. Again I am not mitigating
> anyone's fault in any atrocity, certainly anyone involved must atone.
> But believing a whole ethnic group must be blamed is not correct
> either, is it? Isn't that how these atrocities proceed in the first
> place - by damning a whole group for the actions of a subset? Just my
> thoughts, & I never intend to imply that anyone must agree with me,
> that is, I am a big believer in the value of discourse. Plus I do not
> speak as an expert, just going on what I've learned & heard. No big
> "T" claims to truth here; just thought we all were putting in our
> specie.
>
> Kevin
>

 
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