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Bosnia Quotes

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Bosnia Quotes

“I understand your position, Dave.  It’s a big story, and you worked hard to get it.  But if you don’t drop me at the Europa, I’ll blow your head off.  Imagine how big that story would be. There’s no need for these histrionics.  We’ll go to the Holiday Inn.  You can rest, shower, debrief.  You’ll be among friends. Last chance, Dave.  You can be the hero or the headline.  Your call. Let’s talk it out. No.  You talk too much. He started a new line of argument, but before the words passed his lips his brains passed them on the way out. A dirty reddish slime painted the windshield; it covered the dashboard and console. It poured and dripped from the ceiling to the seat.  The driver was covered on one side of his head and body.  The mess made the crowded taxi undrivable. -Also, someone crapped their pants.”

WarActionDramaFragileFast PacedBosniaEthnic GroupsPage TurnerDeceptionsBalkan
Book:Magenta
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“Nothing remains.  The destruction is complete: love, lives, families, friends, cities, homes – all gone now.  All our efforts to be good, to do the right thing, to act well, to be just and generous are now for naught.  Because juxtaposed against any hope for fairness is wickedness, pure and simple.  In some abstract formulation these things may exist in equal measure, which is to say that the scales balance when taking all things into consideration. But that is fantasy, the stuff of religion, hope beyond all reason. Because for those caught in the whirlwind, in the chaos of manifest evil, despair is all there is. Civilization falls away: everything is pointless now.  Survival requires reciprocity. What then if there is none?”

WarFictionViolenceJournalistInsecurityFragileBosniaDeceptionsFiction Drama
Book:Magenta
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“In Sarajevo in 1992, while being shown around the starved, bombarded city by the incomparable John Burns, I experienced four near misses in all, three of them in the course of one day. I certainly thought that the Bosnian cause was worth fighting for and worth defending, but I could not take myself seriously enough to imagine that my own demise would have forwarded the cause. (I also discovered that a famous jaunty Churchillism had its limits: the old war-lover wrote in one of his more youthful reminiscences that there is nothing so exhilarating as being shot at without result. In my case, the experience of a whirring, whizzing horror just missing my ear was indeed briefly exciting, but on reflection made me want above all to get to the airport. Catching the plane out with a whole skin is the best part by far.) Or suppose I had been hit by that mortar that burst with an awful shriek so near to me, and turned into a Catherine wheel of body-parts and (even worse) body-ingredients? Once again, I was moved above all not by the thought that my death would 'count,' but that it would not count in the least.”

WarDeathCausesBulletsMartyrdomBosniaNear Death ExperienceChurchillBosnian WarSarajevo1992MortarsJohn BurnsSiege Of Sarajevo
Book:Hitch 22: A Memoir
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“The debacle in Iraq has reinforced the realist dictum, disparaged by idealists in the 1990s, that the legacies of geography, history and culture really do set limits on what can be accomplished in any given place. But the experience in the Balkans reinforced an idealist dictum that is equally true: One should always work near the limits of what is possible rather than cynically give up on any place. In this decade idealists went too far; in the previous one, it was realists who did not go far enough.”

WarIraqIdealismBosniaHumanitarian InterventionInterventionismRealpolitikNoninterventionism
Author:Robert D. Kaplan
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“London. “Look Olivier. Quite a sight isn’t it?” Commandant Auguste Angers stood tall in his stirrups as he pointed out the far distant dome of St. Paul’s. The bronzed roof of the cathedral was glistening in the sun during a brief break in the clouds. The commandant and his colleague and deputy, Captain Olivier Rougemont, had enjoyed a morning’s exhilarating ride in Richmond Park. The commandant was riding his favourite grey, Chloe, and Rougemont was on his boss’s second string, a chestnut Annette.”

WarFictionViolenceJournalistInsecurityFragileBosniaEthnic GroupsDeceptionsFiction Drama
Book:The French Spy
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“And now insane men adrift in a world without order formed a line at the door.  They rendered unto her every evil act brought into this world by God.  They fell upon her with brutality that none of them at any other time would have thought possible.  There was once no scenario that would lead them to behave this way.  At any other time in their life there were no words or arguments that could convince them to treat a woman with such wanton disregard.  No one now asked, “What brought me to this?” Not one of them asked, “Who are these men?  How did we end up here, doing these things? Who am I now?”

WarActionViolenceDramaInsecurityFragileFast PacedBosniaEthnic GroupsDeceptions
Book:Magenta
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“Ogni generazione ha le proprie illusioni riguardo alla civiltà; alcune credono di contribuire al suo progresso, altre di essere testimoni della sua decadenza. In realtà essa s'infiamma, cova e si spegne simultaneamente, a seconda del luogo o del punto di vista da cui la si osserva. La generazione che a quel tempo discuteva di questioni filosofiche, sociali e politiche sulla kapija, sotto le stelle e sopra l'acqua, era solo più ricca di illusioni; per il resto era del tutto simile alle altre. Anch'essa aveva la sensazione di accendere i primi fuochi di una civiltà nuova, e di spegnere le ultime fiamme di quella che si stava consumando. Quel che si può dire in particolare di quei giovani è che da molto tempo non ne esistono altri che con tanta audacia sognino e parlino dei grandi problemi dell'esistenza, del piacere e della libertà e che paghino tale libertà a caro prezzo: traendo poca gioia dalla loro vita, soffrendo amaramente, vedendo infrante le illusioni e cadendo in guerra.”

DelusionBosniaPre War Society
Book:Il ponte sulla Drina. Racconti
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“I realize that what happened in Bosnia could happen anywhere in the world, particularly in places that are diverse and have a history of conflict. It only takes bad leadership for a country to go up in flames, for people of different ethnicity, color, or religion to kill each other as if they had nothing in common whatsoever. Having a democratic constitution, laws that secure human rights, police that maintain order, a judicial system, and freedom of speech don't ultimately guarantee long lasting peace. If greedy or bloodthirsty leaders come to power, it can all go down. It happened to us. It can happen to you.”

WarGovernmentReligionPoliticsLeadershipHistoryDemocracyBosniaBosnian WarBosnia And Herzegovina
Book:Not My Turn to Die: Memoirs of a Broken Childhood in Bosnia
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“During the Bosnian war in the late 1990s, I spent several days traveling around the country with Susan Sontag and her son, my dear friend David Rieff. On one occasion, we made a special detour to the town of Zenica, where there was reported to be a serious infiltration of outside Muslim extremists: a charge that was often used to slander the Bosnian government of the time. We found very little evidence of that, but the community itself was much riven as between Muslim, Croat, and Serb. No faction was strong enough to predominate, each was strong enough to veto the other's candidate for the chairmanship of the city council. Eventually, and in a way that was characteristically Bosnian, all three parties called on one of the town's few Jews and asked him to assume the job. We called on him, and found that he was also the resident intellectual, with a natural gift for synthesizing matters. After we left him, Susan began to chortle in the car. 'What do you think?' she asked. 'Do you think that the only dentist and the only shrink in Zenica are Jewish also?' It would be dense to have pretended not to see her joke.”

ReligionHumourExtremismReligious ExtremismJewsMuslimsBosniaIntellectualsBosnian WarZealotry1990sCroatsSerbsIslamic ExtremismDavid RieffCity CouncilsSontagZenica
Book:Hitch 22: A Memoir
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“The neo-cons, or some of them, decided that they would back Clinton when he belatedly decided for Bosnia and Kosovo against Milosevic, and this even though they loathed Clinton, because the battle against religious and ethnic dictatorship in the Balkans took precedence. This, by the way, was partly a battle to save Muslims from Catholic and Christian Orthodox killers. That impressed me. The neo-cons also took the view, quite early on, that coexistence with Saddam Hussein was impossible as well as undesirable. They were dead right about that. They had furthermore been thinking about the menace of jihadism when most people were half-asleep. And then I have to say that I was rather struck by the way that the Weekly Standard and its associated voices took the decision to get rid of Trent Lott earlier this year, thus removing an embarrassment as well as a disgrace from the political scene. And their arguments were on points of principle, not 'perception.' I liked their ruthlessness here, and their seriousness, at a time when much of the liberal Left is not even seriously wrong, but frivolously wrong, and babbles without any sense of responsibility. (I mean, have you read their sub-Brechtian stuff on Halliburton....?) And revolution from above, in some states and cases, is—as I wrote in my book A Long Short War—often preferable to the status quo, or to no revolution at all.”

WarReligionPoliticsChristianityRevolutionIslamLiberalismCatholicismDictatorshipPersecutionEthnicityJihadLeftismBosniaKosovoBalkansBosnian WarBill ClintonSaddam HusseinBertolt BrechtNeoconservatismKosovo WarSlobodan MilosevicA Long Short WarHalliburtonPersecution Of MuslimsThe Weekly StandardTrent Lott
Book:Christopher Hitchens and His Critics: Terror, Iraq, and the Left
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“The glow of the Mathnawî’s inspiration has never been extinguished in Bosnia, even as its people were forced to endure trying hardships, ranging from Austro-Hungarian occupation, the Serb- dominated Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the monstrous bloodletting of the Second World War, the communist’s hindrance of religion, and most recently the ferocious atrocities of the 1990s.”

IslamRumiBosniaBalkanMathnawiTariqaSufisme
Book:Reading Rumi in Sarajevo
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“I saw my job [as president] as to try to move the world from an unstable condition of interdependence toward more integrated cooperative world community. Therefore, my approach was to cooperate wherever possible and to build institutions of cooperation, an expanded NATO, the World Trade Organization, the Summit of the Americas, the Asian Pacific Leaders, all those, the coalition to fight in Bosnia and Kosovo, to cooperate wherever possible but to act alone if we had to.”

IfsWorldTryingJobsMovingFightingPresidentCommunityLeaderSawsConditionsApproachOrganizationInstitutionsTradeCooperationAsianSummitIntegratedPacificCoalitionsUnstableNatoInterdependenceCooperativesWorld TradeBosniaKosovoWorld Trade Organization
Author:William J. Clinton
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“When you see what goes on in Iraq on a daily basis - more people dying in car bombings - you almost brush it aside after a while. To actually comprehend the human tragedy of these events is overwhelming. We see so many images, but there's always the sense, for Americans, that it's not in our backyard. That's another reason why the war in Bosnia was so fascinating; because it really was in Europe's backyard. It was in Europe. And they didn't do anything about it for years. It took the Americans to end that war, really. That's a shame.”

PeopleYearsHumansWarEndsReasonDyingCarEventsGoes OnEuropeBasesTragedyShameIraqReason WhyFascinatingOverwhelmingBrushesBombingBackyardsBosniaPeople Dying
Author:Richard Shepard
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“Consider that in a galaxy far, far away (otherwise known as the 1990s), President Clinton felt that he had to assure an isolationist Republican Congress - repeat after me, an isolationist Republican Congress - that the 20,000 U.S. peacekeeping troops he promised Bosnia as part of the Dayton Accords would only stay deployed for a single calendar year.”

YearsFeltPresidentKnownRepublicanClintonCongressRepeatsFar AwayTroopsGalaxyAccordCalendarsPresident ClintonPeacekeepingBosnia
Author:Matt Welch
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“FAQ regarding my book were not about my use of commas or how the images went berserk, but about the political situation in Bosnia, about guilt and shame, about victims and perpetrators, about reasons, arguments and beliefs that led to the conflict in the first place, etc. All of this needed and still needs answering and ongoing discussions, but I mostly felt overwhelmed and unqualified to articulate anything worth more than personal experiences of the siege, of fear and refuge - all the things which I wrote about anyway.”

NeedsFirstsStillsBookReasonUsePoliticalBeliefFeltSituationNeededConflictArgumentShameVictimGuiltDiscussionEtcRefugeOverwhelmedOngoingPersonal ExperiencesPerpetratorsSiegeUnqualifiedBosniaBerserk
Author:Sasa Stanisic
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“It would be a huge mistake to abandon democracy promotion. Peaceful political change has been enormously successful in the past years in Eastern European countries as well as in countries like South Korea, South Africa, Chile and Indonesia. However, if possible, the use of force is something to avoid except in cases where genocide is threatened, like Bosnia or Libya or with regimes that threaten our security, like the Taliban and Saddam Hussein.”

IfsYearsWellsHas BeensCountryUseWould BePastPoliticalForceMistakeCasesDemocracySuccessfulSecurityHugeSouthPeacefulAbandonGenocideRegimesSouth AfricaThreatenedSaddamEasternHusseinPromotionKoreaIndonesiaTalibanLibyaChileEuropean CountriesBosniaUse Of ForceSouth KoreaPolitical Change
Author:Paul Wolfowitz
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“Let's recall Bosnia in 1995. As we know well, the European peacekeeping contingent, represented by the Dutch troops, did not want to get involved with one of the attacking sides, and allowed it to destroy a whole village. Hundreds of people were killed or injured. The tragedy in Srebrenica is well known in Europe.”

PeopleKnowsWantWellsWholeSidesKnownInvolvedEuropeTragedyVillageTroopsRecallsWell KnownGet InvolvedAttackingInjuredDutchPeacekeepingBosnia
Author:Vladimir Putin
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“[Albert Camus]didn't have much hope that things would work out, but he wanted them to. Algeria had reached such a degree of violence that once such violence is created there's no more room for reflection. And there's no mediating position. If you look at Bosnia today, the Croats, Bosnians and Serbs, they've all created so much horror that one starts to wonder how these peoples can live together, after having done what they have. Already the violence has reached such a degree that everybody is living in hate, there's no possibility of reflection, no mediating position.”

IfsLooksDoneTodayWantedTogetherHateRoomsWonderViolencePossibilityPositionHorrorDegreesReflectionWork OutBosniaAlgeriaBosniansCroats
Author:Catherine Camus
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“If you go to former Yugoslav states, the Balkan states, Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, Slovenia, the situation is dire. Not to mention Bosnia, which is just run like a colony. The way they used to stand up and sing hymns to President Tito, they now salute the EU flag. It's a very strange transition that we're witnessing in most of Europe, and I don't think it's going to work.”

IfsThinkingWayStatesRunningUsedPresidentSituationStrangeEuropeFormerTransitionFlagsGoing To WorkColonyHymnsSaluteBosniaSerbiaBalkansCroatiaTito
Author:Tariq Ali
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“During the war, a battle was fought here, not only for the creation of a new Yugoslavia, but also a battle for Bosnia and Herzegovina as a sovereign republic. To some generals and leaders their position on this was not quite clear. I never once doubted my stance on Bosnia. I always said that Bosnia and Herzegovina cannot belong to this or that, only to the people that lived there since the beginning of time.”

PeopleSaidWarLeaderClearCreationPositionBattleRepublicSovereignDoubtedStanceBosniaYugoslavia
Author:Josip Broz Tito
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“Now that I'm suffering, I feel closer to people who suffer more than I ever did before. The other night, on TV, I saw people in Bosnia running across the street, getting fired upon, killed, innocent victims....and I just started to cry. I feel their anguish as if it were my own. I don't know any of these people. But - how can I put this? I'm almost......drawn to them.”

PeopleIfsKnowsFeelsHelpingRunningNightSufferingMy OwnSawsStreetsCryTvsVictimHelping OthersInnocentAnguishBosniaInnocent VictimsGetting Fired
Author:Morrie Schwartz
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“Freedom is not empowerment. Empowerment is what the Serbs have in Bosnia. Anybody can grab a gun and be empowered. It's not entitlement. An entitlement is what people on welfare get, and how free are they? It's not an endlessly expanding list of rights - the "right" to education, the "right" to food and housing. That's not freedom, that's dependency. Those aren't rights, those are the rations of slavery - hay and a barn for human cattle.”

PeopleHumansLibertyRightsEconomicGunEmpowermentEconomicsSlaveryListsWelfareExpandingHousingEmpoweredEntitlementCattleDependencyBarnsHayBosniaRations
Author:P. J. O'Rourke
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