Last weekend, I had the privilege of hearing Wall Street
Journalist Cameron McWhirter speak about racial tensions at TEDxGeorgiaTech.
The talk didn’t focus on the Balkans, but he mentioned the region briefly in
his talk. This sparked my interest, so I followed up with him during lunch and
got his perspective on the conflicts in the Balkans. I found it very
informative and interesting getting to hear from someone who has researched
racial tensions around the world as a career and visited the Balkans to
investigate the issues there.
One
interesting point that Cam brought up was that because these racial tensions
are long standing and deeply rooted in the history of the region, there have
not been any successful long term solutions. In recent history, former
Yugoslavia was ruled in a communist fashion under Josip Broz Tito from 1939
until his death in 1980. This communist state suppressed the tensions by
prohibiting anyone from publically show discontent due to ethnic or religious
conflict. As a result of this suppression of conflict, many, including Tito,
thought Yugoslavia had solved its historical ethnic conflicts. In reality,
these conflicts were still present and even increased in intensity because
people had to hold in their views. Cam mentioned that this was one of the major
factors that led to the Balkans War in the 90’s. The region was like a boiling
pot of water. Eventually, the pot’s lid will be pushed off because of the
rising pressure within the pot (this is my engineering analogy for the blog
post). People’s ethnic conflicts were suppressed so much that they built in
intensity until they eventually exploded into a war when the veil of communism
was dissolved.
I
wanted to see what Cam wrote about the Balkans in the past, so I googled one of
his older articles. I found an article about the Balkans written in 1996. The article
in the Cincinnati Enquirer critiqued the Dayton Accords as a solution to the
Balkans War in the early 90’s. In the article, Cam quotes a 67 year-old Muslim
woman from Sarajevo as saying “I don’t believe this is a long peace. No one
does.” This was 18 years ago. It makes sense that this would be the perspective
of someone in the region right after the Balkans War, but I’m curious to see
what the current opinions are for people in region when we visit in a few
weeks. Are there still tensions being suppressed by the Dayton Accords, or have
people actually settled into a more peaceful coexistence? We’ll certainly find
out when we visit!
Cam
also predicted that we might experience different interactions based on what
country we’re visiting. I’m curious to see if his prediction holds true or not.
I wonder if people in different countries, or even in different cities within
the same country, will treat American visitors differently. I noticed subtle
differences in how different cultures treated foreigners when I was in Europe
this summer. Based on my experiences, I expect the differences to be slight, if
noticeable at all, for how people treat us in these countries. It will also be
interesting to compare the perspectives of people from different countries on
the war and the present day tensions.
Cam’s
Ted Talk ended with a call to remember racial and ethnic conflicts in the past
and raise awareness of these instances so as to prevent history from repeating
itself. I wonder if we can record our experiences and make them presentable so
others know what we learn on the trip. Just an idea to consider.. In any event,
I’m very excited to visit the Balkans and talk to the locals there in a few
weeks!
Source: http://enquirer.com/bosnia/stories/bosnia0421.html
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