Save Us, Oh Lord, From Intellectuals

What are intellectuals supposed to do? To write, talk, point out, caution, analyze, forecast, lead? All this and much else, but, as perceived by the average man, they should think more, know more, come up with answers not available to others, give answers based on facts and reason, which will then, by definition, lead to better solutions and progress. The two latest attempts by world and domestic intellectuals and other well known figures at dealing with the tragedy of Bosnia-Herzegovina--a letter sent to U.S. President Bill Clinton recently and Serbia's answer, will certainly not be remembered by the above listed characteristics.

An open letter to the President of the USA and several other Western heads of state, published about a month ago, lists among its signatories Margaret Thatcher, George Shultz, Eli Viezel and Cseslav Milos. They all demand that the US lead a coalition of Western countries in applying force in order to ``reduce Milosevic's power,'' i.e., in neutralizing Serbia's military goals in Bosnia-Herzegovina. A document dubbed as ``Serbia's answer to Mrs. Thatcher's war cry,'' with which the world public was acquainted a few days ago, explains extensively why the first letter is untenable and unacceptable. The names of those who signed the letter makes interesting reading. It includes people who have seemingly not mixed well on the domestic political scene.

Both letters contain conclusions which bring into question the assessment that intellectuals know more and better than others. In the letter to Clinton, the starting point is the assumption that ``...a civil war is not being fought in Bosnia. Like in Kuwait, this is an act of aggression against a member of the United Nations...'' Many experts do not agree with this. They believe that the war in Bosnia is a civil war, with the wholehearted involvement of Serbia and Croatia. A civil war is not the only form of revolution. Internal conflicts are also regarded as civil war, in fact everything that does not come under an armed conflict between states. Other states, including those with less visible interests than the conflicting sides in this case, have often interfered in civil wars--and this has not affected the basic definition of the conflict. Secondly, Kuwait and Bosnia-Herzegovina cannot be compared. Even if the intentions were the best, Bosnia-Herzegovina was granted international recognition hastily, with the aim of preventing an armed conflict (the opposite happened), and not because all the elements which make recognition ripe had been met.

The Serbian intellectuals' reply includes a thesis which is even less logical, and sounds as if it has been dragged out of the Socialist Party of Serbia's (SPS) agitprop workshop. By denying that Serbia's goal in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina is the creation of a Greater Serbia, the signatories ask ``if it wouldn't be more to the point to talk of a `Greater Germany' at the time of unification in 1989?'' Why more to the point? The creation of two Germanies was a war punishment, and the political consequence of defeat. The division of Germany had, from the start, been envisioned as a temporary solution, but the Cold War made it permanent. The issue pertains to a solution, which at the time, was probably a good one, but was never, at any time, a natural one. A Greater Germany, such as existed before World War Two, turned into History's monstrosity. The Greater Serbia which is being worked on will be a modern monstrosity whose aspect should be of greater concern to domestic thinkers.

The letter sent by the Serbian intellectuals also includes something that irresistibly recalls the SPS's rather relaxed approach to facts, namely, an insisting on the fact that the other letter demands the bombing of Serbia. The end is rather pathetic with: ``If the Western countries were really led to bomb Serbia, the ordinary Serbian citizens would doubtlessly conclude that such an act was the result of unprovoked aggression.'' The bombing of Serbia, at least the way the press presented it, is the one thing that is not mentioned in the letter to Clinton.

It is a matter of debate if the bombing of certain Serbian military goals in Bosnia-Herzegovina, on condition that civilian victims were avoided, would really bring about an end of the war. If the matter could be resolved in this manner, why would so many politicians and military experts, many of whom are fiercely opposed to Serbia's policy in Bosnia-Herzegovina, be, like the signatories of the letter to President Clinton, opposed to such a solution? The other possibility which has nothing to do with humanism and democracy, asks for revenge and not peace. This is very close to the dominant policy of the warring sides, and is better known as ``an eye for an eye'' policy. No intervention by Western countries is necessary for its realization. That very same West, which, it must be said, has not earned the right with its moves so far, moral or otherwise, to arbitrate in the war in Bosnia with bombs.

Generally speaking, the moral aspect of both letters is their most controversial element. In the letter to Clinton, the most problematic part is the call to arms. All moral compasses have long been lost here, so that thanks to the lack of a system of values, it is very difficult to stand up in the defence of a certain stand and say ``this is correct,'' or ``this is wrong.'' To look for reason with bombs in such a climate, is not something that one wishes to hear from world statesmen and well-known representatives of humanist intelligentsia. Not only because violence, as such, isn't moral, but because it would be an admittance that nothing can be achieved here without the use of even greater force.

Serbia's just cry is certainly not morally founded. Where were the leaders of the Serbian intelligentsia when it was necessary to write and sign ``Serbia's answer to the war cry from Pale''? If they had reacted in this tone, and in this number against those who have been shelling Serbs, Croats and Moslems in Sarajevo for the past year, no one would have challenged their moral right to be horrified by the proposal to attack artillery positions around Sarajevo. They, however, passed up the opportunity of acquiring legitimacy and no grand phrases can help them now. In fact, the sentence: ``...the Serbs could have taken the city (Sarajevo) several months ago, if they had really wished to,'' puts them in the worst possible light.

Morally, perhaps the most scandalous thing is the way in which they have come to terms with the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina. ``We must hope that a reconciliation will be possible one day. Today, however, and over the next few years, even decades, a parting of ways seems to be the only solution,'' they say. First of all, if the signatories of the ``Serbian agreement'' had ``hoped'' for good relations with neighboring Bosnia-Herzegovina, and if they had done something in this direction, then this war would not have turned out the way it did. But since all this has been missing, all they can do now is to hope for something ``one day.'' It is a pity that they didn't forecast who would initiate the reconciliation. Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic? Or Bosnian Serb Army Commander Ratko Mladic? Local gunners and snipers? The families of the dead? Former concentration camp prisoners? Refugees? Or perhaps this is the role reserved for intellectuals. Not just some day in the future, but now, since they didn't do so yesterday.

Of all the destructive theories which have cropped up during the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia, the one about the impossibility of a joint life, and the necessity of going our different ways, has probably been the most destructive one. In its name, the greatest number of people have died, fled and starved. Notwithstanding all, this is simply not true. People in Croatia and Bosnia have lived together for centuries. They lived together after Jasenovac (a concentration camp in Croatia where hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews and Romanies were exterminated under the Fascist Independent State of Croatia, during World War Two--ed. note). Suddenly they can't live together--because the Serbs, Croats and Moslems currently in power have decided so?

If they really think that the solution is to live for others (on condition that they are Serbs), and not with others who are here, in our neighborhood, even though they are not Serbs, the best thing for them would be to don uniforms. Peace, not war, is the work of intellectuals.