The Denial of Bosnia
- Binding: Hardcover
- Publisher: Pennsylvania State Univ Pr
- Publish date: 09/01/2000
Mahmutcehajic (pronounced "ma-moot-che-HI-itch") argues for the history and reality of a Bosnia-Herzegovina based upon a model of "unity in diversity". He shows that ethnic and religious cultures have coexisted in Bosnia for centuries. Partitioning of Bosnia, therefore, should have been unthinkable except that a multi-ethnic, multi-faith Bosnia stood squarely in the way of Croatian and Serbian leaders determined to enact their own nationalist programs. The decisive moment came when the international community accepted the Serb-Croat argument that ancient ethnic hatreds were endemic to Bosnia. At that point, ethnic segregation became not only acceptable but desirable. With the complicity of Western powers, Serbs and Croats proceeded to carve out ethnically cleansed states.
Mahmutcehajic examines the reasons why Western liberal democracies have regarded with sympathy the struggles of Serbia and Croatia for national recognition, while viewing Bosnia's diverse society with suspicion. As one of Bosnia's former leaders in the early peace talks, he describes with authority how the parties were oftenphysically aligned during formal talks, with Bosniak negotiators on one side of the table and everybody else -- Serb, Croat, and international representatives -- on the other. In the end, justice was subverted and the final solution justified on the basis of an intractable "conflict of civilizations".
The Denial of Bosnia has dire implications for the future of a Europe searching for a viable post-Cold War order. Will Europe accept ethnic segregation as a solution to the contradictions of ethnic diversity or find a way to protect and build upon this diversity? Bosnia, though currently divided and shaken to its foundations, could become a model for European progress. The greatest danger is for Bosnia to be declared just another ethnoreligious entity, in this case a "Muslim State" ghettoized inside of Europe. If protected and allowed to develop, however, Bosnia too could find a place in the new European order.
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