In the wake of the arrest of Radovan Karadzic, the presumed war criminal whose Bosnian Serb army slaughtered thousands of Bosniak Muslims during the Bosnian War from 1992-1995, Serbia has enjoyed a wave of diplomatic normalization. The ouster of Milosevic successor Vojislav Koštunica marks the ascent of a pro-European Democratic Party (DS). After withdrawing diplomats from those states that recognized Kosovo’s sovereignty earlier this year, Serbia’s pro-Western foreign minister declared that European integration is a top priority, and that diplomacy will resume. Effectively, “Serbia is back in Europe.”
However, thirteen years after Karadzic’s most heinous crime against humanity – the slaughter of 8,000 Muslims at Srebrenica – both Bosnia and Serbia remain themselves divided societies. Particularly in Bosnia-Herzegovina, there exists the sentiment that “the prewar coexistence that Karadzic sought to wipe out has not been revived, and may never be.” Tacit segregation dominates civil society; there are Muslim cafés and Serb cafés, for example, and communication between the two sides is “largely superficial.” Though Karadzic’s arrest is reason to hope, the chief of the Bosnian Serb army, Ratko Mladić, has never been caught. There has been no Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Survivors of the massacre at Srebrenica, like famed author Emir Suljagic, doubt the potential for “truth” and “reconciliation” in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
In short, these post-conflict societies contain seemingly intractable, insurmountable tensions.
How do we move beyond them?
I believe a Truth and Reconciliation Commission is, in fact, a start. Right now, the most prevalent impediment to cooperation is mistrust. If the governments of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia could each ensure that victims and perpetrators could speak openly and without fear, under the protection of the state, the crimes of the war could be brought out of collective memory and into public discussion.
What do you think?
America’s soft power and bin Laden’s soft support
In the Washington Monthly, public opinion researcher Kenneth Ballen investigates the motivations of young radical Islamists. They do not, he finds, detest Western people or values; nor do they “hate us for our freedoms,” as President Bush has attested. A surprising and overwhelming number of these young radicals actually desire visas to the United States. However, there is an almost universal sentiment that the United States and the West are hostile toward Islam. Ballen concludes that in increasing student visas, opening up trade agreements, and augmenting direct aid to the Muslim world, the United States can “adopt policies that reveal a different side of American power—one that demonstrates respect and compassion by improving the lives of individual Muslims.”
Perhaps with such interaction, perspectives like that of American Muslim Andrea Useem – elaborated in this Washington Post column – will flourish. Useem describes her desire for an Islam that can acknowledge that “Western values” are not necessarily inferior to “Islamic values,” one that is not dominated by Salafi conservatism or bitterness over the American war on terror.
Sunnis rejoin Iraqi government, raising reconciliation hopes
Nancy Youssef of McClatchy comments on the return of the Iraqi government’s largest Sunni bloc to the national cabinet after a boycott that spanned nearly an entire year, citing demands met by the Maliki Shiite-majority government. Though largely a political maneuver, the reunion of the two blocs portends, perhaps, a departure from bitter sectarianism and toward political reconciliation.
On Sunday, the last day of his visit to Australia, Pope Benedict XVI held a private mass for victims of sexual abuse at the hands of Catholic priests, reports Al Jazeera. The character of the mass, when coupled with the Pope’s similar message during his April visit to the United States, suggests that reconciliation between the Church and those it victimized is more than a theme for this papacy – it is a dedicated mission.
It was John Paul II that showed the merit of apologizing for the Church’s grave errors. Understanding that to be Catholic was to own its collective history, John Paul II expressed his remorse for the Church’s entire 2000-year legacy of violence against dissidents and minorities. Benedict, it would seem, is following the former Pope’s lead in espousing the Catholic tenet of forgiving – and asking for forgiveness.
This practice of publicly saying sorry for sins committed by ancestors is not exclusively Catholic. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper asked for the forgiveness of native Canadians abused during the controversial residential schools program. However, at the same time, nor is the program universally well received. While some argue that public apologies help to reopen and bring attention to painful, often overlooked periods of history, others insist that governments and institutions offering such apologies are trying to simply clean their hands of wrongdoing. The reason Truth and Reconciliation Commissions are effective is because the actual perpetrators of violence confront their victims.
In short, is it possible to achieve true reconciliation through these sweeping public apologies?
The New York Times’ Michael Slackman analyzes the “relatively subtle” shift in international policy toward the Middle East, away from isolation and toward cooperative engagement. The announcement of undersecretary of state William Burns’ diplomatic trip to Iran only capped off a week of unusually diplomatic events. France’s President Sarkozy, in inaugurating his Union for the Mediterranean, welcomed Syria out of isolation. In spite of persistent violence, Lebanon formed a unity government.
If nothing else, this shift acknowledges that peace and dialogue are often the most pragmatic routes. In America, the current administration is beginning to realize that “the players who can deliver in hot spots like Iraq, Lebanon and Gaza are the same ones that Washington had shunned” – sovereignties such as Iran and Syria, and sub-state actors like Hezbollah and Hamas. Though too often a shared sense of humanity is not enough to assuage conflict, the prospect of mutually beneficial cooperation can avert disaster. The idea quickly dawning on the US government and, in some ways, the Middle East, is that my interests can best be served by protecting our interests.
There has been notably mixed reaction to Saudi King Abdullah’s interfaith conference held in Madrid this week. While Abdullah has insisted that the gathering earnestly seeks to turn a “new page for humanity,” skeptics have repeatedly questioned his intent.
The more pessimistic of bloggers argue that, worse than a mere PR stunt, the conference aims to forbid any criticism of Islam – a recommendation Abdullah supposedly intends to turn over to the UN. Others posit that Abdullah’s call for interreligious understanding falls somewhere between rhetoric and substance. Perhaps now is the time for Saudi Arabia’s new “peace offensive;” perhaps instead Abdullah is shoring up relations with the West and intends to change little about religious tolerance at home.
Tariq al-Homayed of Asharq Alawsat insists that dialogue — any dialogue — is “better.” Indeed, even if the formal meetings fall flat of their lofty goal, a commenter on the blog Crossroads Arabia reminds us that “the important stuff doesn’t take place in the sessions, but outside in the corridors, when people meet each other.”
This last point stands to reason. Even if the public face of the conference does not drastically change the shape of international religious tolerance, the fact that dialogue has been started is a boon. Nevertheless, it is unlikely the Madrid conference will end in anything more than a question mark.
I pose the question to you: what good, or lack thereof, will come of King Abdullah’s attempts to foster interfaith dialogue?
