Dervla Murphy - Through the Embers of Chaos: Balkan Journeys

A word about acronyms, which throughout the Balkans seem to breed even faster than elsewhere (see list in the ). In the numerous lengthy documents circulated by the plethora of international agencies sentences like this are the norm The OECD and the OSCE delegates were joined by an IPTF representative to establish new parameters around the structuring of transport programmes related to previous links between PRIZAD and JUSAT in what is now the NDH . In an attempt to control this plague I have referred to institutions such as the EU and OSCE by their current acronyms, even when writing about a time when they were otherwise known.

Two new terms are contentious though now in general usage: Kosovars instead of Kosova Albanians and Bosniaks instead of Bosnian Muslims. In the former case Kosovars offends some Serbs who argue that all who live in Kosovo should be so described, that to apply Kosovars only to the Albanians is to deny Kosovos Serbs the right to exist. However, at least 90 per cent of Kosovos population are Albanians who do not see themselves as citizens (or potential citizens) of either Serbia or Albania. Therefore to describe them as Kosovars seems fair enough. The Bosnian Muslims wish to be known as Bosniaks is even trickier. It can be seen to suggest that communitys assumption of a right to dominate in Bosnia, relegating Serbs and Croats to inferior minority status. But that is a perverse misinterpretation of the average Bosniaks attitude. The adoption of Bosniak merely signifies their wish to be seen as citizens of Bosnia-Herzegovina rather than as Muslims.

As for the phrase ethnic cleansing Im minded to start a campaign against its use. It originated in Serbia when the Miloevi-controlled media chose the euphemism ienjeterena (cleansing the terrain) to describe the forcible uprooting of non-Serbs from their home areas then referred to, by the same media, as liberated territories. Quickly foreign journalists adapted the phrase for their own use and ethnic cleansing a doubly inaccurate term is by now used all over the English-speaking world.

This abuse of language blunts both thinking and feeling. Cleansing is a wholesome word, conjuring up a process with a healthy outcome. And in the Balkan case ethnic cleansing is seriously misleading. Apart from Kosovos Albanians, all those involved in the recent conflicts are of the same stock southern Slavs to a man and woman. They were not murdering, plundering and displacing each other for ethnic reasons.

The international community is another reprehensible euphemism. As the journalist Diana Johnstone has pointed out, The IC is not even a community; the initials could more accurately stand for imperialist condominium, a joint exercise of domination by the former imperialist powers, torn apart and weakened by two World Wars, now brought together under us domination with Nato as their military arm. Certainly there are frictions between the members of this condominium, but so long as their rivalries can be played out within the IC , the price will be paid by smaller and weaker countries. When I refer to the international community or IC I mean this condominium rather than the true (but tragically impotent) international community represented by the UN General Assembly.

Finally, two old terms need clarification.

The Ustasha were ferocious ultra-nationalistic Croatians who fought with the Nazi invaders of Yugoslavia, in the expectation that after a German victory they could rule an independent Croatia.

The Chetniks were Serbian royalists and nationalists equally notorious for their ferocity during the Second World War. They at first fought against the Nazis and Ustasha, then became demoralized and divided. They no longer exist as a recognized group; in 1990 the Belgrade authorities refused to register as a political party Vojislav eeljs Serbian etnik Movement. However, recent victims of Serbian aggression in Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo habitually refer to the Serbian police, military and paramilitary forces as Chetniks and I have sometimes followed that usage.