Srebrenica: a ‘safe’ area Appendix V Western Perceptions and Balkan Realities 2 Contents Foreword .................................................................................................................................................................. 3 Chapter 1 Introduction .......................................................................................................................................... 4 1. Holbrooke and the Rebecca West Factor .................................................................................................. 4 2. From essentialism to constructivism ........................................................................................................... 6 Chapter 2 Western image-forming ..................................................................................................................... 12 1. The image of barbarism .............................................................................................................................. 12 2. The image of Eastern Europe .................................................................................................................... 14 3. The image of the Balkans ........................................................................................................................... 17 4. Balkan writers and Balkan literature .......................................................................................................... 22 5. Traditional friendships ................................................................................................................................ 25 Chapter 3 Dutch policy on the Balkans and Yugoslavia ................................................................................. 33 1. Prior to 1800 ................................................................................................................................................. 33 2. The 19 century .............................................................................................................................................. 36 3. The 20 century .............................................................................................................................................. 39 Chapter 4 Image and reality ................................................................................................................................ 50 1. Eastern Europe, its modern image and its past ....................................................................................... 50 2. Are circumstances alone the deciding issue? ............................................................................................ 54 3. The importance of ethnic mentalities ....................................................................................................... 57 Notes ...................................................................................................................................................................... 66 References .............................................................................................................................................................. 79 3 Foreword During the past decade, an overwhelming amount of material encompassing a wide variety of approaches and analyses has been published on the crises in Yugoslavia. When attempting to elucidate the part played by image-forming in this matter, it is important to consider two diametrically opposed standpoints. One views the wars as the result of political conflicts. The tiny differences between the various population groups could not, however, have generated such conflicts, even though they were artificially stirred up and ruthlessly exploited by political adventurers. The opposing view is that the war can only be understood by recognizing that Yugoslavia is part of the Balkans, and that Yugoslavs are therefore fundamentally different from ourselves. The countless atrocities and war crimes were the result of ancient ethnic contrasts, which are so pronounced because the area is bisected by the border between civilized Europe and the primitive Balkans. These two viewpoints, which have been formulated and expressed in a variety of forms and numerous nuances, are at the heart of this essay. They also determine the kind of books and articles under discussion. It has been my objective to investigate to what extent such conflicting opinions about Yugoslavia are generated by traditional concepts concerning the Balkans. The first chapter explores the problems associated with the study of image-forming processes. Chapters II and III sketch the historical development of the image of the Balkans in the West, and in the Netherlands in particular. In this context, the association between image-forming and decision- making during the western intervention in the recent Yugoslavian conflicts has been investigated. The final chapter focuses on the relationship between image and reality. My thanks go to Nena Tromp, who greatly facilitated my search for relevant literature, and to other colleagues, especially Marius Broekmeyer, Hans Renner and Ger Duijzings, who reviewed and criticized previous versions of this text. 4 Chapter 1 Introduction “Hamlet: Do you see yonder cloud that’s almost in shape of a camel? Polonius: By the mass, and ‘t is like a camel indeed. Hamlet: Me thinks it is like a weasel. Polonius: It is backed like a weasel. Hamlet: Or like a whale? Polonius: Very like a whale.” 1 1. Holbrooke and the Rebecca West Factor At a 1998 international conference organized by the Institute of Eastern European Studies of the University of Amsterdam, the Bosnian lawyer and eminent scholar of Bosnian history, M. Imamovic, described various contacts that he had had with foreigners in Sarajevo during the past several years. He remarked that the majority of these individuals had only a meagre knowledge of the historical background of the conflict. In general, those that had taken the trouble to do some research had all consulted the same books, namely those by Rebecca West, Robert Kaplan and Noel Malcolm. In To End a War Richard Holbrooke specifically cited these three books when proposing that a ‘misreading of Balkan history’ was one of five factors that might explain the failure of the West in Yugoslavia.2 He alludes to ‘Bad History’ or the ‘Rebecca West Factor’, asserting that West’s pro-Serb stance, together with her view that Muslims were an inferior race, had influenced two generations of readers and politicians. ‘Thus arose’, writes Holbrooke, ‘an idea that ‘ancient hatreds’ […] made it impossible for anyone outside the region to try to prevent the conflict.’3 Prior to Holbrooke’s arrival, Lord Owen had attempted (in vain) to mediate between the warring parties. Owen described ‘callousness’ as ‘the most distinctive feature of the fighting’, referring to a ‘culture of violence within a crossroad civilization where three religions, Orthodox Christianity, Islam and Roman Catholicism, have divided communities’. Owen admitted that, before he had departed for the peace conference in Geneva, he had ‘dipped into rather than reread Rebecca West’s account of her travels in Yugoslavia’4. According to Holbrooke, however, the idea that ethnic groups in the Yugoslavian region had always been after one another’s blood was mainly derived from Balkan Ghosts by the American author Robert Kaplan. Furthermore, in his book, Kaplan himself emphasized that he had been largely inspired by Rebecca West. Holbrooke confirmed that Clinton, after reading Kaplan’s book, was even more hesitant to intervene in Bosnia. Bosnia: A Short History, by Noel Malcolm, was published in 1994. This was a much more balanced book, which repudiated the view that Bosnia ‘was forever seething with ethnic hatreds’.5 However, Holbrooke felt that it had been published too late to bring about a rapid change in American policy. Other authors feel that it is not Kaplan or West who are primarily responsible for western vacillation in the Yugoslavian conflict, but rather the elderly yet still influential George Kennan. This American diplomat, celebrated historian and widely recognized expert in East-West relations had written an introduction to The Other Balkan Wars. This was the rather odd title of a book that was republished in 1993. The original, which had been written by a committee working for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, was published in 1913. It dealt with the horrors of the First and Second Balkan Wars. Kennan felt that this report was still topical, since nationalism in the Balkans ‘drew on deeper traits of character inherited, presumably, from a distant tribal past [...] And so it 5 remains today’.6 In addition, centuries of Turkish rule in the Balkans had created a separate world ‘which had continued to the present day to preserve many of its non-European traits’7. In 1993, Kennan felt that none of the Western powers was either prepared or able to occupy ‘the entire distracted Balkan region’8 in order to calm the agitated population groups there. In 1994, the American historian and leading specialist on Yugoslavia, Ivo Banac, therefore indignantly concluded that ‘Western aloofness and indifference to the area itself and to any action or involvement in it’ derived from the view of authorities such as Kennan, that the Balkans diverge too widely from Western civilization.9 In this way, adverse images and prejudices about the Balkans that were propagated by a few best-sellers and some authoritative authors