Clinton in Bosnia, Kosovo

There's something rather condescending about Westerners traveling to post-conflict areas devastated by genocide and giving a pep talk.

I'm reminded of Philip Gourevitch's slam against the international community in post-genocide Rwanda (that would be the genocide with Tutsi victims, not the recently reported cleansing of Hutus -- more on that, and Gourevitch's discussion of it in the New Yorker, later). Gourevitch quotes a UN diplomat based in Rwanda: "relief workers in Rwanda were often heard making statements such as 'Yes, the genocide happened, but it's time to get over it and move on,' or 'Enough has been said about the genocide, let's get on with rebuilding the country.'"(206)

Enter Hillary Clinton into Bosnia. Here's a paragraph from her remarks at a townhall meeeting with students in Sarajevo:

So the progress is encouraging, but it is far from complete. Yes, people can now go to work and children can go to school, but there are not enough good jobs. Hatreds have eased, but nationalism persists. And the promise of greater stability and opportunity represented by integration into Europe still remains out of reach.

The take-home message: get over your nationalist differences and integrate so you too can join the party that is the EU! Get it together folks, get over those difficulties!

It's an odd message to give in Sarajevo rather than in Republika Srpska, where threats of secession are a common political theme. Likewise, it ignores the American culpability in creating a system with the Dayton Accords that organized institutions and territories in such a way that mitigates ethnic integration. The Guardian slyly points to this in its coverage: "'I came to see how the Americans are viewing us now,' said Aleksandra Vejnovic, 20, a law student. 'They have started this project, they wrote our constitution and it doesn't work.'" (I need to teach my students such effective quoting of sources!)

And the assessment of the hatreds is what seems so insipid. The Clinton administration (Bill, clearly) hid for awhile behind the ancient hatred canard in their early framing of the conflict, partially as a way to avoid intervention. It seems rather paternalistic to congratulate a society on the diminishment of "hatred" after the experience of ethnic war, cleansing and genocide.