Breaking the Bonds: Balkanizing the Yugoslav War
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
THE NEWSPAPER OF THE LITERARY ARTS Breaking the Bonds: Balkanizing the Yugoslav War Bal.Kan, is no less a personage than the ancient Haemus.” Despite the offense to Gail Holst-Warhaft classically trained ears, by the end of the century, the Turkish term—which means “wooded Mountain”—and the phrase “Balkan Peninsular,” a geographic inaccu When the war broke out in Yugoslavia, we soon began to see a new word, or racy, became the accepted way to talk of the southeastern part of Europe or west rather an old word that had fallen into disuse, bandied about in the press as if it ernmost part of the Ottoman Empire, also referred to as “Turkey in Europe.” had a meaning we all subliminally, at least, understood. The word was “Balkans.” Nineteenth-century travelers to the Balkans from western Europe were mostly The war was not in Yugoslavia, it was in the Balkans, and that was supposed to concerned with discovering what they had brought with them in the form of a clas explain a lot. The Balkans had always been a powder keg, a place of deep ethnic sical education. Disappointed with the present inhabitants of a region they had and tribal rivalries. Didn’t the first great war begin there? The term “Balkaniza peopled with the noble classical race of their imagination, they justified their loot tion” said it all. The carving up of what Arnold Toynbee had referred to as “the ing of classical sites as a means of preserving the treasures of antiquity from the seamless fabric of the Ottoman Empire”, into small political units became a barbarians now occupying these lands. The Greek War of Independence drew metaphor for the unseemly and primitive squabbling of unviable nation states Philhellenes to the Greek cause against the Turks, but still they were fighting for wherever it occurred. But was the war just another example of rampant Balkan an ideal, for a topos rather than its present inhabitants. The attitude remained nationalism, artificially held in check by four decades of communist rule, or was almost unchanged into the twentieth century. As one American traveler to Crete it something quite different? And did the Balkans ever really exist as an ethnic or put it: geopolitical unit? One of the first usages of the term “Balkan” is found in a letter written in 1794 The contrast between the past and the present was tremendous, as though by one of the members of the British Society of Dillettanti, John Morritt, a typical the secret of life had been lost. The men who gathered around me took on the example of a species of traveler whose Grand Tour extended beyond Italy to the appearance of uncouth savages. They were friendly and hospitable, but by ruins of Greece and Troy. After going through the Shipka Pass, Morritt wrote to comparison with the Minoans they were like neglected domestic animals. I his sister in exalted mood: “we were approaching classic ground. We slept at the am not thinking of the comforts they lacked...l am thinking now of the foot of a mountain, which we crossed the next day, which separates Bulgaria from Romania (the ancient Thrace), and which, though now debased by the name of see Balkanizing the Yugoslav War, page 10 I n sid e .- Paul West on C eline, page 6 page 2 The BQ0KEBESS April 1995 For the Affirmative their labor force fairly reflected the racial mix loomed as dismaying; also, companies found tion, and of course they had the leverage to Edward T. Chase of their region. that diversified labor forces actually func bring this off. Mathabane did come, and went This new expanded notion of affirmation tioned very well. on to college. I met him through Arthur Ashe, As a beneficiary of affirmative action action to be based on “class,” the economical Perhaps guilt played some role in the early and was able to work with him in publishing myself and among its earliest proponents in ly disadvantaged, as a way to sidestep race postwar days. Racial discrimination had been his two national bestsellers, Kaffir Boy and the press, I naturally watch with fascination and gender, would mean, in effect, transfer “official,” so to speak. The dean of Cornell Kaffir Boy in America. Not government fiat, the burgeoning uproar over the issue in the payments, redistribution of wealth by author University Medical School, back in the but Arthur Ashe’s and Stan Smith’s personal media, in Congress, in President Clinton’s ity, as opposed to the vagaries of the market. 1940s, stated that the number of Jews admit initiative was the crucial factor. But while White House. As the decibel level of the It would be an affront to the theme of the ted to Cornell was to be proportionate to the discrimination still prevails, we must not debate rises, all segments of society are get 1987 movie “Wall Street,” celebrating the Jewish percentage of the state’s population leave matters to luck—the Urban Institute ting into the act. Republican strategists view ideology of today, that runs, “Greed is good. (though the medical school itself was situated reports that 53 percent of black men aged 25 affirmative action as the “nuclear wedge Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, in New York City, where the percentage of to 34 are unemployed or so underemployed issue,” as The New York Times editorialist cuts through and captures the essence of the Jews was several times higher than the state that they earn too little to lift a family of four puts it, “by concocting a fantasy that white evolutionary spirit. Greed in all its forms, average). Columbia University’s medical from poverty. The case for affirmative action males are a new victim class.” White males greed for life, for money, for love, for knowl school dean argued that “Representation of stands. constituted 62 percent of the pro-Republican edge has marked the upward surge of the various social and religious groups in voters in the November 1994 elections, so mankind.” Indeed, such a “class” policy medicine ought to be kept fairly parallel with Edward T. Chase is former Editor-in- they alone could “seal off Clinton from victo might seem to invoke the sentiment of the the population make-up.” President Lowell of Chief of New York Times Books, the New ry” should he uphold affirmative action, so communist slogan, “To each according to Harvard famously recommended a Jewish American Library, Senior Editorial Vice the Republican reasoning goes. one’s needs, from each according to one’s quota on all undergraduate admissions. President of Putnam, and Senior Editor of I was a young white male who got into elite means.” According to civil rights authority Lawrence Scribner’s, and has also been a frequent con Lawrenceville School for free (and this led to Of course, President Clinton doubtless Bloomgarden, Dartmouth College president tributor to Harper’s, Atlantic Monthly, New a virtually free ride through Princeton) didn’t quite have that in mind. He has mod Ernest Hopkins defended a quota system on Republic, The Reporter, Dissent, The Nation, because my father was an impoverished artist, estly asked that there be a review of all feder ethnic grounds as late as 1945. and The New Leader. a painter. He persuaded the headmaster that I al affirmative action programs to ascertain Hard to believe, but things have improved was some kind of “victim” who deserved a “whether there is some other way we can radically since then. For instance, in 1974, chance to attend Lawrenceville, but that he reach our objective without giving preference Diane Joyce and Paul Johnson both applied couldn’t afford my tuition. In those pre- by race or gender.” The discourse on affirma for the position of road dispatcher in Santa National Endowment years, artists were still tive action so far has been and is conceived Clara Co., California. No woman had ever cfP/*iter& deemed socially worthy, it seems, so the not as a general palliative for all kinds of dis been considered for the job. Diane Joyce headmaster took affirmative action in my advantage per se, but for policies affecting appealed to the affirmative action officer, and plight. preference in entry-level employment, in edu ultimately got the job. Paul Johnson claimed I am reminded of this by the latest wrinkle cation, in public contracting and employment, discrimination and took his complaint to in the affirmative action debate, namely that and in loans. Nevertheless, the proponent of court. Their struggle finally reached the Unit affirmative action be applied, not to race or class-based affirmative action, author Richard ed States Supreme Court, which found, six to gender preferences, but to class, as it was in Kahlenberg, stresses the point that, as early as three, on behalf of Diane Joyce. When both B ookpress my case, the economically disadvantaged 1974, liberal Supreme Court Justice William Time and Newsweek gave this landmark case class. Articles are proliferating on this theme O. Douglas argued (in DeFinis v. Odegaard) cover-story attention, I felt it was of sufficient and Richard Kahlenberg, for one, is writing a that preferences (in law school admissions) public interest to warrant a book, and I book on class-based affirmative action. Yet so be based on disadvantage, not race, and that enjoined Prof. Melvin Urofsky, the biograph far, few if any commentators seem to realize Martin Luther King, too, called for class, not er of Justice Louis Brandeis, to write it, to send in how profoundly radical this could be. Indeed, race, as the criterion.