Thomas Cushman and Stjepan Mestrovic (eds) This Time We Knew. Western Responses to Genocide
in Bosnia. New York: New
York University Press, 1996
"We didn't know." For half a century, Western politicians and intellectuals
have so explained away their inaction in the face of genocide in World
War II. In stark contrast, Western observers today face a daily barrage
of information and images, from CNN, the internet, and newspapers about
the parties and individuals responsible for the current Balkan War and
crimes against humanity. The stories, often accompanied by video or pictures
of rape, torture, mass graves, and ethnic cleansing, available almost instantaneously,
do not allow even the most uninterested viewer to ignore the grim reality
of genocide.
And yet, while information abounds, so do rationalizations for non-intervention
in Balkan affairs--the threshold of "real" genocide has yet to be reached
in Bosnia; all sides are equally guilty; Islamic fundamentalism in Bosnia
is a threat to the West; it will only end when they all tire of killing
each other--to name but a few. In This Time We Knew, Thomas Cushman and
Stjepan Mestrovic have put together a collection of critical, reflective
essays that offer detailed sociological, political, and historical analyses
of Western responses to the war. This volume punctures once and for all
common excuses for Western inaction. This Time We Knew further reveals
the reasons why these rationalizations have persisted and led to the West's
failure to intercede, in the face of incontrovertible evidence, in the
most egregious crimes against humanity to occur in Europe since World War
II.
Contributors to the volume include Jean Baudrillard, David Riesman,
Daniele Conversi, Daniel Kofman, Brendan Simms, Liah Greenfeld, Michael
N. Barnett, Philip J. Cohen, Slaven Letica, Brad Kagan Blitz, James
J. Sadkovich, and Sheri Fink.
Thomas Cushman is Associate Professor and Chair of Sociology
at Wellesley College and a Fellow of the Harvard Russian Research Center.
Stjepan Mestrovic is Professor of Sociology at Texas A &
M University and the author of numerous books including The Balkanization
of the West.
August 1996 / 320 pages / 6 x 9
ISBN: 0-8147-1535-4 / $18.95 paper ISBN: 0-8147-1534-6
/ $50.00s cloth
CONTENTS
Chapter 1, Thomas Cushman and Stjepan Mestrovic, Introduction
Chapter 2, Philip J. Cohen, The Complicity of Serbian Intellectuals
in Genocide in the 1990s
Chapter 3, Brendan Simms, Bosnia: The Lessons of History
Chapter 4, Jean Baudrillard, No pity for Sarajevo; The West's
Serbianization; When the West stands in for the dead
Chapter 5, Daniel Kofman, Israel and the War in Bosnia
Chapter 6, Michael N. Barnett, The Politics of Indifference
at the United Nations and Genocide in Rwanda and Bosnia
Chapter 7, Slaven Letica, The "West Side Story" of the Collapse
of Yugoslavia and the Wars in Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina
Chapter 8, Brad K. Blitz, Serbia's War Lobby: Diaspora Groups
and Western Elites
Chapter 9, Daniele Conversi, Moral Relativism and Equidistance
in British Attitudes to the War in the Former Yugoslavia
Chapter 10, James J. Sadkovich, The Former Yugoslavia, the End
of the Nuremberg Era and the New Barbarism
Chapter 11, Liah Greenfeld, War and Ethnic Identity in Eastern
Europe: Does the Post-Yugoslav Crisis Portend Wider Chaos?
Chapter 12, Sheri Fink, The Anti-Genocide Movement on American
College Campuses: A Growing Response to the Balkan War
Chapter 13, David Riesman, Western Responses to the Current
Balkan War
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-- Translated in Slovenian as 'Borba za priznanje samostojnosti', Teorija
in praksa (Theory and Practice), vol. 41, No.3-4, July 2004, pp. 712-738
Conversi, Daniele 2002 'Federalismo y su vuelta atrás: ¿Por
qué se disintegró Yugoslavia?, in Alfons Cuco', Joan Romero
and Joaquín Farinós (eds) La
organización territorial del Estado, València: Universitat
de València
Conversi, Daniele 1998 'Modelli comparativi nella gestione dei conflitti
etnici in fase di transizione politica: i casi di Spagna ed ex-Yugoslavia',
in Lara Bergnach and Antonella Pocecco (eds). L'affermazione della differenza
come nuova mitologia ed il senso del dialogo. Gorizia:ISIG
(Quaderni dell'Isig),
pp. 31-46
Conversi, Daniele 1998 'Les relacions anglosèrbies entre
les dues guerres mundials',
L'Avenç,
n. 226, Juny 1998, pp. 6-12.
Conversi, Daniele 1994 'Violence as ethnic border. The unintended consequence
of cultural assimilation in Croatian, Kurdish and Basque nationalism'.
In Justo G. Beramendi, Ramón Maiz and Xosé M. Nuñez
(eds) Nationalism in Europe: Past and Present.
Santiago de Compostela: Santiago de Compostela University Press, vol. 1,
pp. 167-198
Books and monographs:
Conversi, Daniele 1998 German -Bashing
and the Breakup of Yugoslavia, ("The Donald W. Treadgold Papers
in Russian, East European and Central Asian Studies, nº 16, March
1998). University of Washington: HMJ School of International Studies (82
pp.)
Conversi, Daniele 2000 La desintegració
de Iugoslàvia. Barcelona/ Catarroja: Editorial Afers-El
Contemporani, , 212 pp. (in Catalan) [ISBN 84-86574-87-0]
Articles on genocide:
Conversi, Daniele 2006 'Genocide, ethnic cleansing, and nationalism', in
Gerard Delanty and Krishan Kumar (eds) Handbook
of Nations and Nationalism. London: Sage Publications (vol. 1) pp.
319-333, [ISBN: 1412901014] [DOWNLOAD]
Conversi, Daniele 2006 'Demo-skepticism and genocide', Political
Science Review, Vol 4, issue 3, September 2006, pp. 247-262
"We didn't know." For half a century, Western politicians and intellectuals
have so explained away their inaction in the face of genocide in World
War II. In stark contrast, Western observers today face a daily barrage
of information and images, from CNN, the internet, and newspapers about
the parties and individuals responsible for the current Balkan War and
crimes against humanity. The stories, often accompanied by video or pictures
of rape, torture, mass graves, and ethnic cleansing, available almost instantaneously,
do not allow even the most uninterested viewer to ignore the grim reality
of genocide.
Conversi,
Daniele 2003 'The dissolution of Yugoslavia: Secession by the centre?',
in John Coakley (ed.) The Territorial Management
of Ethnic Conflicts. London: Frank Cass, [DOWNLOAD]
