Jim Heartfield wrote:
> Chris ignores the obvious difference that people in Britain, however
> deluded, elect their political leaders, while people in Bosnia have
> their High Representative appointed by officials of the EU. (Read David
> Chandler's Bosnia: Faking Democracy After Dayton, Pluto, 1999)
>
> In ignoring the difference between formal democracy in Britain and
> actual dictatorship in Bosnia, Chris is returning to a long-standing
> Stalinist tradition of poo-pooing questions of democratic rights as
> 'mere illusion'. It was this false-hard pose that led Chris' party to
> insist that the accession of Fascism in Germany was just more of the
> same, and indistinguishable from the 'social-Fascism' represented by the
> Social Democratic Party.
>
>
Jim, I find Chris's particular line of reasoning somewhat twisted myself. And I agree that indignities and outrages are visited upon the Bosnians everyday by their foreign rulers. But don't you think it's a bit facile to accuse Bosnia of being run in an "imperialist" or "anti-democratic" fashion when a few years ago the Bosnians same close to wiping each other out?
It's important at least to meet the arguments of your opponent: Mr. Westendorp et. al. say they are the only thing standing between the Bosnians and a renewed ethnic cleansing. Do you think there's a better alternative that would not result in another war in Bosnia?
Seth