The Denial of Bosnia

In 1997, Rusmir Mahmutcehajic, one of Bosnia's leading public intellectuals, was scheduled to lecture on Bosnia at Stanford University but was unexpectedly denied an entry visa by American authorities. This book, first published in Bosnia in 1998, is an expanded version of that lecture. It is an indictment of the partition of Bosnia, formalized in 1995 by the Dayton Accord. It is also a plea for Bosnia's communities to reject ethnic segregation and restore mutual trust. For the first time, English-speaking readers can hear this important voice of dissent from within Bosnia-Herzegovina.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 conflic