EDITORIAL Dancing around Kosovos deadly
dilemma
The stories from Kosovo are heartbreakers: of mothers with their
starving, crying children; of old women sitting waiting on the wet earth, not
knowing what theyre waiting for, maybe death; of an old man by his wagon,
in despair, his worldly belongings reduced to a blanket and a box.
So much misery, including thousands tortured and other thousands
murdered, must be caused by someone. It would be comforting to have obvious
culprits to denounce. But in that part of the world -- as well as the rest of
the world -- there are so many complications, and history is such a quagmire,
that blame is blurred and accusing fingers point nearly everywhere.
And as for ourselves: Life is so hectic, theres little time
to read all about it or figure whats what. The ethnic Albanians, more
than 90 percent of the Kosovo region of Serbia, want independence, something
the Serbs dont want to grant. So the Serb-dominated Yugoslav army is
laying waste to the Albanian countryside, murdering and mutilating.
Thats it in a nutshell, which of course means its not
all of it. Ethnic cleansing, more or less. And ethnic cleansing in turn reminds
us of nearby Bosnia a few short years ago.
When the history of this era is written, the verdict will hinge on
how the head of this most influential nation stood idle or distracted while so
many innocent people were tortured and killed, and while, incidentally, most of
us looked the other way. At least, thats how some of us would write it.
It all depends on whos writing the history.
Returning to Kosovo: Just when we thought we knew who were the
good and bad guys, it turns out the United States does not want the Albanian
guerrillas to succeed. This would destabilize something or other in the area.
As if it were now stable.
The great U.S. hope for stability over there has been none other
than Serbias Slobodan Milosevic, the man who unleashed the Bosnia horror
in the first place and is now the primary force behind the Kosovo disaster. But
we cant altogether blame the United States for backing him, because it
also turns out the United States is now threatening Milosevic with air strikes.
And further, we have threatened him with air strikes in the past, because his
idea of stability does not always coincide with ours. And its not as if
our government is generally uptight about our agents of stability. We have
backed some doozies in the past, from Manuel Noriega to Mobutu Sese Seko. And
were in the happy position that we have the air strikes as backup, such a
consoling arrangement.
The dilemma goes round and round in circles, disaster and
suffering at its center. Everyone wants to be good, even the bad guys. In a
perfect world there would be no wars. There would be no need for us good guys
to do violence even against the Hitlers, the Pol Pots or the Slobodan
Milosevics, because the latter would all be good guys just like us.
Meanwhile, thousands of refugees suffer the cold, torture,
anticipation of death. Yet its hard to say what is the biggest suffering
for a refugee. It may be grief for the loved ones killed back there. It may be
the physical pain, from torture or whatever, but the pain doesnt come in
a vacuum. It comes to people who have left everything behind, whose houses or
villages have been burned -- in this conflict, it is said, cigarette lighters
are more effective than tanks. Or the greatest suffering may well be the
aloneness, the feeling of abandonment that all refugees must feel.
The Kosovo refugees, it turns out, are less alone than others. In
this crazy context they could even be said to be lucky. The major media, for
some reason, have been covering their awful plight with commendable regularity.
Spare a thought, then, for the millions of other refugees from Pakistan to
Sierra Leone to Sudan to dozens of other countries who never get mentioned,
never remembered.
If millions of refugees fail to get mentioned, what chance has any
individual among them of being spared a single thought, of being known by name,
of making any difference in this life?
It is commonplace for good Christians like us, at this stage in
sermon or speech or pious article, to conclude by suggesting certain
strategies: Let us pray for the victims; let us ask for money for them; let us
write to our senators or bishops. These are fine suggestions. The danger is
that they allow us to return in good conscience to our daily reality.
Because, after all, were busy. And anyway we cant
stand too much reality, thats how fragile our humanity is. We used to be
able to hand over such crises to our government to do good in our name, but
governments are not as high-minded or effective as we used to think they were.
We dance around in a dilemma, a dance of death.
If only those refugees had nothing more to worry about than the
Lewinsky matter.
National Catholic Reporter, October 9,
1998
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