Serbia's war crimes court has jailed four Serb paramilitaries who were filmed as they shot dead six captured young Bosnian Muslims. ⇒
10 April 2007, early morning
The amount of violence witnessed in the Balkans is almost unimaginable. I don't know how you move on from that. I want to check out Good Husband and Dear Son at this years HotDocs, which features interviews with the women left behind after a massacre of a small village outside of Sarajevo.
This is a post from my link log: If you click the title of this post you will be taken the web page I am discussing.
Too bad we only hear about one side of the horror in the Balkans. Ask me about my aunt who was gored and killed with a pitchfork by her neighbours because she refused to leave her home of 70 years. How about my cousin who was beat to death by albanians in front of a bar for no reason. We don’t hear about these things though…because nothing ever happened to the Serbian people in this equation. Do I sound bitter? I am, because not one media source acknowledges that Serbs are not the only ones to blame in the Balkans.
There are 2 million Serbian refugees that we don’t hear about.
I had better stop.
No one gives a crap anyway.
by radmila on April 10 2007, 1:36 pm #
I think the big reason for this is that Milosovic is the most identifiable character from the war, and Serbian nationals in Croatia and Bosnia look to be the initial aggressors. Our role in NATO is also probably a big reason the coverage is how it is. The conflict in the Balkans is incredibly complex. There are so many groups all with grievances, all with blood on their hands, that I think the way it gets covered is a lame attempt to make it easily digestible.
Drina Bridge actually talks about the war from a Serbian perspective. It also covers the events at the end of WWII, before Tito took power. It’s an interesting book — Canadian fiction to boot.
by ramanan on April 10 2007, 3:54 pm #
You’re right ram…and when I read anything about it, my blood boils and I become quite emotional.
I have a friend who sends me information regularly and often I can’t finish reading it because my heart can’t take it.
I’m interested in Drina Bridge, and I’ll have to pick it up.
Another book that was written by Scott Taylor (who was in the CAF stationed in Croatia in the beginning) called INAT which I found very good..if you’re interested in non-fictional personal experience from another Canadian.
You know who else tried to talk about the complex issues in the Balkans, but no one would listen to him?
General Lewis MacKenzie.
It was much easier to put black hats and white hats on the players than it was to explain history/re-ignited hatreds to North Americans.
by radmila on April 10 2007, 5:18 pm #