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=================================================================
MIRacles No. 14                                    Joel GAzis-SAx
22 Prosinac 1992, Palo Alto California                        QEP
=================================================================
Copyright 1992 by Joel GAzis-SAx

The following talk was delivered by me at the Mennonite Church in
Seattle on 5 December 1992.  The audience, assembled by Seattle
area Fellowship of Reconciliation staff, included members of the
Croatian, Muslim, and Serbian communities.


Dear Friends:  Tonight, I am going to talk finding the hope in the
despair.  You know the despair.  Every one of you whether Serb or
Croat or Muslim feels it.  You all have answers, you feel hate.  I
have many friends where you have family back in Croatia and
Serbia.  I know their complex, painful, and difficult feelings.  I
have walked in neighborhoods shattered by bombs and by hatred and
fear.  I have SEEN Vukovar and I have talked to some of those who
try to live in its ruins.  I know the stories which have not been
told about this war, stories of friends and families who saw the
twin walls of guns and hatred come between them and the people
they loved.  I share their frustration with this war that never
ends, this beast which consumes their cities, their lives, their
dignity.

War has changed.  The Gulf War showed us the devastating effect
conventional weapons had on cities.  I cannot help but reflect on
the irony of UN inspectors in Iraq scouring the country for
nuclear weapons while all around them was the terrible evidence of
the real problem:  the debris left by conventional, high-explosive
weapons.

The reasoning of War allowed for this.  Less than six months
after the Gulf War ended, the senior officers of the Jugoslav
National Army or JNA thought they had a just cause for war.  When
Slovenia, then Croatia seceded, they invoked the memory of the
American Civil War.  That terrible struggle, which turned brother
against brother, friend against friend, bears comparison to this
struggle.  I have often spoken to young people, especially, who
miss their friends on the other side.  Even more compelling is
the thought that, in the reasoning of War, the destruction of
Vukovar resembles nothing so much as it resembles the burning of
Atlanta and Sherman's March to the Sea.  American myths about the
shameless virtue of the Union Cause led, I think, to Vukovar, to
Dubrovnik, to Brod, and to Sarajevo . . . .

Not everyone in the Union supported the killing.  Friends,
Brethren, and Mennonites -- all supporters of the abolition of
slavery -- refused to take up arms, refused to pay war taxes,
refused to make goods for the destruction of human life.  War,
they felt, was never justified, even in a good cause.  Today,
in Serbia, Catholics and Orthodox Christians -- Serbian Orthodox
Christians -- refuse mobilization and protest the policy of
"ethnic cleansing" which extremists in their government support.
Up to half a million Serbs at a single time have shown up to anti-
war demonstrations in Beograd.  In Pancevo, Serbs cut out yellow
stars and pinned them to their breasts to protest extremist attacks
on their Croat neighbors.  "If the Croats go," they said, "we will
go with them."  The Hungarian Yugoslav and Serbian residents of
Oremhegyes declared their "spiritual" independence from the
policies of New Yugoslavia last May.  For three days, ninety-one
Serbian Republic tanks surrounded them.  The people of Oremhegyes
faced the tanks with the words:  "We will not kill Bosnians.  We
will not kill Croats.  And we will not kill you."  There was no
exchange of fire, no killing.  The Army left.  These brave
villagers include some of the 100,000 young men in Vojvodina,
alone, who have refused to take part in the killing of Croats and
Bosnians.

The existence of a widespread and persistent peace movement in
Serbia affirms my basic premise:  that it is the reasoning of war,
not ethnic tensions, which fuels the killing.  Thomas Merton, the
great Trappist anti-militarist, pointed out that madmen seldom get
the chance to start wars.  We sane men and women, good people, go
to war because we think we have good reasons to do so.  There were
good reasons for attacking Pearl Harbor, for invading Poland and
France, for destroying Coventry, for turning Dresden and Tokyo
into firestorms, for causing Hiroshima and Nagasaki to disappear
in a flash of light.  Sane men made the decisions.  Vukovar and
the Serbian campaign in Slavonia may have been as military experts
claim, a botched job, but I say to you that the mythic memory of
the American Civil War provided a set of reasons which the JNA and
Serbian irregular leadership used to justify the leveling of these
towns.  I ask you all, Serb, Croat, and Bosnian Muslim, what
sane reasons are you claiming to keep the insanity going on and
on?  As Maria Chapman wrote:  "We may draw good out of evil; we
must not do evil, that good may come."

In Osijek, Croatia, a conflict has developed between the civil and
military authorities over what to do about the Serbs.  One of the
first Quakers, George Fox, observed that the law exists to punish
wrongdoers, not to persecute those  who do well.  Civil
authorities in Osijek agree that Serbs who take up weapons to
shoot their Croat neighbors should be contained.  Military
authorities and militarist extremists, on the other hand, identify
all Serbs as potential enemies.  There have been evictions,
violent attacks on Serbian civilians, and house demolitions in
Osijek -- all well documented by human rights groups.  The former
mayor of Osijek said again and again that the rule of law -- like
all city functions -- applies in war as well as in peace.  He is
arguing for nothing less than the standard of treatment that the
U.S. Supreme Court and Congress agreed was due all citizens in
wartime.  Americans have finally acknowledge that no matter
what the government in Tokyo was doing in the Pacific, our
government here had no right or business persecuting, in any way,
those citizens of Japanese ancestry who were living lawfully.  I
think it is time that other nations of the world stop using
reasons which led to American injustices in the Civil War, in the
Gulf War, in Vietnam, in Panama, and in the Second World War, to
support injustices in these wars.

I have found that many vulgar stereotypes have arisen, especially
in communities of the Diaspora, about each other.  The Pakistani
student of engineering at Stanford who leads the "Students for
Bosnia-Hercegovinia" told me, after I described what I had seen of
the Serbian anti-war movement "Regardless, there is something
about the way the Serbs think, the way that they have always
thought, which makes them keep doing things like this.  They'll
never change."  He has never set foot in former Yugoslavia nor
known any Serbs.  Croats are expected to bear the brand of
"Utashi" on their foreheads.  I understand this hardship, too.
Mere nationality should never be a reason for shame.  Nor should
religion.  Long before this struggle began, many people equated
"Muslim" with "fanatic".  A Serb I know in the San Francisco area
told me that he feared "Islamic Serbs".  I think we all have to
watch our prejudices.

Edward Said criticizes Orientalism, which he sees as those
attitudes of Western scholars and other observers that tend to
cast people and cultures from "the East" as inferior to their
Western counterparts.  "Orientalism's failure," he writes, was "a
human as much as an intellectual one; for in having to take up a
position of irreducible opposition to a region of the world it
considered alien to its own, Orientalism failed to identify with
human experience, failed also to see it as human experience".
Said, I remind you all, insists that the proper -- the
compassionate -- response to Orientalism can never be
Occidentalism.  I see both Orientalist and Occidentalist
mythologies and ideologies at work in former Yugoslavia and I
implore you all not to deny one another's humanity in this room or
the humanity of those you cannot see.  Our Orientalist and
Occidentalist hatred, I think, lead us to forget the primary
solution for the despair in ex-Yugoslavia.  What I believe
everyone in this room wants is an end to the killing.

We've all been short-sighted.  I have mentioned or addressed some
of the myths that your communities use to support the hatred.  Let
me discuss some of mine.  Since the publication of "All's Quiet on
the Western Front", pacifists have been concerned about the
condition of soldiers on the battlefield.  I found that both
Croatian and Serbian soldiers have already suffered from post war
traumatic stress disorders. These men go crazy and kill whoever is
there.  The guilt of being a soldier can be tremendous, especially
when you are called to attack women and children.  The maimed and
the injured can be seen on the streets of Zagreb and Beograd.
We must never forget that while soldiers are the victims in
war, they are also victimizers.  Last July, the men of the
International C.O. conference in Lausanne who wrote a statement
against the war in ex-Yugoslavia forgot to mention in their litany
of stands on behalf of C.O.s, soldiers, and other men affected by
the war, the suffering of women and children.  "What about rape?"
a woman rightly asked.

I am disturbed that we pacifists proved to be susceptible to
racism of the worst sort when we failed to see that conventional
weapons were being used to kill civilians until a white war broke
out in former Yugoslavia.  Civilians have been dying in greater
numbers in Somalia and Sri Lanka:  why did we not see them until
Boutros-Shali called our attention to them?  We ignored the
importance of the weapons themselves as we put most of our
energies into nuclear, chemical, and biological disarmament.
Until the recent war for oil in the Gulf, we pacifists never
seemed to acknowledge that the development, manufacture, and
deployment of conventional weapons wasn't just setting the stage
for slaughter -- these guns and bombs and mortars were killing
people then.  And they are killing people now.

I want to tell you about a fear that a Croat woman shared with me.
This war, she said, will never end.  Of course, she knew that one
day it would stop in her country, but, she told me, after that it
would just go somewhere else.  Other people will die like they are
dying in Bosnia.  Maybe it will be us.

I think that the problem with military intervention is that when
you intervene in one place, it creates an expectation.  People
will refuse to attempt to resolve conflict except with violence in
the hope that some greater power will see the justice of their
cause and intervene.  This is what is happening in Bosnia.  Also,
the Serbian insurgents in that country, hearing the calls for
intervention against them, fight to seize all the land they can in
preparation for the coming of the Allies.  The threat of
intervention, like the fall of bombs, only strengthens their
resolve to fight.

Many of you think that the solution is simply tighter sanctions.
If, you argue, we just keep the guns out, the war will disappear
overnight.  I have a surprise for you:  according to a study by
the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, arms
sanctions have never stopped a war cold.  But this study goes on
to say, the absence of sanctions or one-sided sanctions ensures
that wars last longer and kill more people.  Do not forget that
the biggest supplier of the Muhenjadein in Afghanistan was the
Soviet Army!  The Viet Cong depended on the United States.  Do not
forget that our shared objective is to end the killing.

Pacifists must do more to stop the killing.  We can lend our
support to no greater cause in the awful light of the atrocities
in Bosnia, Somalia, Guatemala, and all the other places where war
lives than to the cause of restricting, then abolishing the
development, manufacture, and trade in arms.  SANE Freeze has
adopted this as a policy objective.  Friends in Europe campaign
against it, and so should you.

I see wars on the horizon, not just in Yugoslavia and Somalia, but
in many other places.  I believe that the promise of intervention
has failed to stop the killing, only created the fear that is
needed to sustain the "ethnic cleansing".  Military intervention
will not mean the end of killing in former Yugoslavia, only the
involvement of more parties and ultimately, more killing.  There
is no solution, short of genocide, that will lead to peace without
recognizing the concerns of all parties.  I cannot support any
agreement that leaves out the Serbs or the Croats or the Muslims
of Bosnia.

Most of us outsiders must confront our racism.  Too often, I have
heard us express indifference about the people of Croatia, of
Bosnia, of Serbia.  We say things like "Those people just like to
fight each other."  Since 1945, the United States has sent troops
to Korea, Lebanon, Cuba, Vietnam, the Dominican Republic, Laos,
Cambodia, Iran, Lebanon (again!), Grenada, Panama, and Iraq.
Until last year, the people of former Yugoslavia had only taken
part in the Greek Civil War.  WHO likes to fight?

The people of Croatia, Bosnia, and Serbia have more experience
being neighbors than enemies.  Let us not forget this.  The unseen
struggle of the people of former Yugoslavia is between passivity
and violence.  It is better to be violent than to do nothing.
One lesson that the experience of the Serbs of Krajina has shown
us is that the use of violence for resolving conflict
can turn the world against you, even when there may be seeds of
justice in your cause!

One God loves us all and whether we are Catholic or Orthodox or
Muslim, all our love, all our devotions are directed to the same
God.  We should not forget that, even in this dark hour, and we
should also not forget that God still loves us all.

In his great book, The Bridge on The Drina, the Serbian Catholic
author Ivo Andric writes of a Bosnian Muslim who sees a bridge,
the center of his community, destroyed in one of this century's
earlier wars:

"So be it, thought the hodja.  If they destroy here, then
somewhere else someone else is building.  Surely there are still
peaceful countries and men of good sense who know of God's love?
If God had abandoned this unlucky town on the Drina, he had surely
not abandoned the whole world that was beneath the skies?  They
would not do this for ever.  But who knows? . . . Who knows?
Perhaps this impure infidel faith that puts everything in order,
cleans everything up, repairs and embellishes everything only in
order suddenly and violently to demolish and destroy, might spread
through the whole world; it might make of all God's world an empty
field for its senseless building and criminal destruction, a
pasturage for its insatiable hunger and incomprehensible demands?
Anything might happen.  But one thing could not happen; it could
not be that great and wise men of exalted soul who would raise
lasting buildings for the love of God, so that the world should be
more beautiful and man live in it better and more easily, should
everywhere and for all time vanish from this earth.  Should they
too vanish, it would mean that the love of God was extinguished
and had disappeared from the world.  That could not be."

The best resistance is to persist in being builders.  In Osijek, I
witnessed the best examples of resistance to the ultimate
destruction of war -- the destruction of the community.  City
officials refused to abandon their duties, refused to surrender
city services, refused to give in to the relentless shelling by
the Serbs and the attempts, by both sides, to divide their city,
Serb against Croat.  There was no passive resistance in Osijek:
there was singular determination to retain humanity.  Every
pothole was filled.  Schools continued to teach.  The garbage was
picked up.  The human spirit survived.

Don't give up!  As Serbian, Croatian, and Bosnian Americans, your
friends and family look to you.  I leave you with an invitation to
struggle, to the struggle for dignity.  For only if every human
life enjoys the dignity that only freedom from needless death
ensures, there is no peace.  The pacifist, like the soldier, must
be willing to die.  I am only asking you to be willing to struggle
to listen and understand, to help those you love live in peace
with their neighbors again.  Dare to find God, for in that God's
love, we can find the hope to lead us out of the despair.


=================================================================

ACTIONS:  The recent (apparently manipulated) election in Serbia
indicates that some tense times are ahead for Beograd peace
activists.  E-mail connections to the Center for Anti-War Action
are available, but please do not flood their mailbox with
questions.  The Center posts news in the conference yugo.antiwar
and soc.culture.yugoslavia.  As news of further action comes, I
will circulate it.  Demonstrations against the election may be in
order.

=================================================================
NEEDS
1.  The Osijek Peace Center now has an American fiscal sponsor.
You may send your checks made out to "PYM East-West Committee"
(memo:  Osijek Project) to Joel GAzis-SAx, 2727 Midtown Court No.
37, Palo Alto, California.

2.  Contributions for supporting my work (including my return to
former Yugoslavia in the spring) can be sent to the address below.
=================================================================
THOUGHTS ABOUT ACTIONS
American activists concerned about the situation in former
Yugoslavia should be certain that their work not only addresses
military intervention and arms sales, but offers solutions which
stop the killing of innocent civilians.  Our efforts should speak
to the problem of militarism, not preventing Americans from dying
in a foreign war.
=================================================================

GRATITUDES:  Special thanks to Patty Lyman for her excellent work
in arranging my Seattle schedule and to everyone else who has
arranged my talks.
==================================================================
OFFERINGS:  I am available to speak about the conflict and the
prospects for peace.  Send e-mail to jsax!igc.apc.org or call 415-
321-3449
=================================================================
ABOUT THE TITLE

Brethren theologian Dale Brown once counted the belief in miracles
as an essential component in the psychic constituency of the peace
activist.  "Mir" is the word for "peace" in Croatian, Serbian, and
most other Slavic languages.  The title, therefore, reflects the
author's belief in the power of persistent peacemaking.

=================================================================

This publication is circulated over the Alliance for Progressive
Communications Network, UseNet, EcuNet, Quaker-L, QuakerNet, and
other networks  by Joel GAzis-SAx.  Users are free to download
MIRacles for their personal use, but are asked to make a donation
to support the costs of publication.  Checks or money orders made
out in U.S. dollars to Palo Alto Friends Meeting and earmarked
"Peace in the Balkans Fund" may be sent to:

     Palo Alto Friends Meeting
     957 Colorado Avenue
     Palo Alto, California     94303
     U.S.A.

European Friends may send their donations to:

     FWCC
     1 Rue B. Haal
     L-1711  LUXEMBOURG

or via the FWCC postal account -> 32356-55/F. Perna/Luxembourg <-
mentioning "Peace in the Balkans".

These reports may be recirculated without editorial correction or
comment via e-mail or photocopied for community use at a charge
not to exceed the price of copying.