Why Bosnia?

Ali, Rabia, Lifschultz, Lawrence, Monthly Review

At stake in Bosnia were two visions of society and democracy. Those who came under assault in the newly formed Bosnian state made clear that they stood for a society of equal citizens where the rights of all would be secured and protected under law as a matter of constitutional right. This was a vision of a multi-ethnic society in the tradition of the European Enlightenment. The embodiment of "rights" inherent in the status of citizenship was one of the more significant advances which the French Revolution had spread and integrated into the constitutional orders of European states over a period of two centuries. Yet, in the final decade of the twentieth century, it was to be a standard which Europe, ledin this instance by France and Britain, would cynically abandon.

The opposing vision was the one promoted by the nationalist leaders of Serbia and Croatia. Insular, parochial, ethnocentric, this was a vision of a purified nation-state in which there was no room for the "Other." The in-gathering of a people into the bosom of the "mother country" meant in this instance the acquisition of the territory on which they lived. Serbia's nationalist ideology was unequivocal on this issue: the destiny of all Serbs was to live in one state, and since all land on which Serbs lived was by definition Serb land, it rightfully belonged to "Greater Serbia." They alone would unilaterally define its boundaries and remove any community which by their account did not "belong."

For their part, Croation