A BOOK WITH A VIEW: A REVIEW OF ROSE OF SARAJEVO, By Ayse Kulin

 

Kindle edition, published by AmazonCrossing, Seattle

Originally published by Remzi Kitabevi, Istanbul, 1999

Reviewed for Peacehawks by Jamie Arbuckle

Introduction

The author describes  her book succinctly and accurately in her introduction:

This book tells the story of the heroic and honorable people who survived the horrendous war in Bosnia that took place from April 5, 1992 to February 26, 1996, during which Sarajevo was held under siege for 1,395 days, without regular electricity, communications or water.  Ten thousand six hundred  Bosniaks – of whom 1,600 were children – lost their lives.  Those who survived were pressured to accept the Dayton Agreement.   With this treaty, 51 per cent of Bosnia was left to Bosnia and Herzegovina, while the Serbs, who comprised only 34 percent of the population before the war, gained 49 per cent of the land. (location 31).

She has thus told us both what this book is: a vivid portrayal of the events in Yugoslavia (as it still was) in 1991 and 92, seen through the eyes of the Bosniak community; and what it is not, which is history.

This book may  be read and enjoyed for what it is: an entertaining and well-written novel.  It is best in depicting the slow motion horror of the unveiling  of the malevolence and cruelty of a very few men, who were determined  to wreck a country with no idea of what was  to replace it.  The effects of this nihilism on the lives of common people, and the difficulty of replacing a society which has been so thoughtlessly and deliberately wrecked, is something we need to  hear and not forget.

On the other hand, novels are fiction, and will vary in their usefulness as history. One who is genuinely interested in the history of these events will need to look elsewhere, because there are some gaps here. First, the importance of the relations between the Bosniaks and the Turks is in my view exaggerated, and my suspicions are fueled when I notice how this exaggeration seems to reflect a Turkish government policy about which I am also skeptical. Second, an entirely scurrilous attack on the UN and on one UN officer repeats the scapegoating of 20 years ago.  Neither of these apparent plot devices are essential to the story, and together they seriously undermine the credibility of this book.

CAN CONGO BE SAVED FROM ITSELF?

Panel 3 of a Triptych for Peacehawks, by Jamie Arbuckle

Introduction

On 6 November, the Army of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), with support from UN, Tanzanian and South African forces, defeated the rebel group M23. On 5 December, Nelson Mandela died.  In one month, then, we have been confronted with the worst and the best of sub-Saharan Africa.  Which is the true picture? Which represents the future of Africa? Are conflicts to be peacefully resolved, which we might call the Nelson Mandela Future Model, or are conflicts to be endlessly and brutally protracted, which we might call the Central African Future Model?  Is there hope, or do we face merely a grim preparation for more of the same, in Africa south of the Sahara?  

Is the Congo still at the heart of darkness, or is it the birthplace of the first great international human rights movement of the 20^th Century?[1] 

It does not simplify our understanding of the situation there that it is in fact both.

To address these questions, we need to assess several tributary influences:

1.     The colonial legacy, which was one of cruelty, disregard and dysfunction.

2.     We will review briefly the state of the game board in DRC.

3.     We will survey progress in human development in Africa as a region, with a view to gaining a better sense of what progress in DRC might mean – or might not.

The United Nations Today - As Good as it Gets?

The United Nations Today: As Good as it Gets?




- by Jamie Arbuckle, for Peacehawks



What’s Wrong With the United Nations, and How to Fix It
By Thomas Weiss,
Polity Press, 292 pp., $19.45, 2009



The UN … is essentially the collective agent of its member states. Many of the UN’s organizational incapacities could be corrected by additional resources from its member states, who devote but a tiny fraction of the resources they spend on national security to collective action under the umbrella of the United Nations.
- Peacemaking and Peacekeeping for the New Century, Ottunnu and Doyle, Rowan and Littlefield, New York, 1996







This is an interesting book about the United Nations, and an impressive effort to get beyond the usual procedural and structural tinkering which has characterized and limited most efforts to “improve” the U.N. Thomas Weiss is certainly well qualified to write this book. He combines the skills and the background of a practitioner and a scholar: he served with the U.N. Secretariat for a decade, but has also distinguished himself as an academic for over 25 years, during which he has been a profound student of and a prolific writer, researcher and teacher about, the U.N.

Sir Brian Urqhuhart, in his foreword, tells us that Weiss has come to the “bold and original conclusion” “that world government is the necessary conceptual basis for adequate future management of the major problems of our planet.” Weiss’ solution is actually much more cautious and nuanced – and realistic - than that.

Weiss makes it clear that he considers a preoccupation with sovereignty as a major problem in taking concerted action to confront global challenges: “… treating traditional sovereignty as a cornerstone for the United Nations is a fundamental structural weakness in urgent need of replacement.” He goes on: “The shortcomings of sovereignty and the ill-health of the UN system for the human rights arena can be illustrated with several examples …”. “Westphalian sovereignty impinges directly on more robust action by the United Nations in protecting the human environment.” Weiss concludes that “Westphalian sovereignty is … a chronic ailment for the United Nations, and perhaps a lethal one for the planet …”

But Weiss leaves us under no illusions that sovereignty is any less likely to be the basis for whatever international order may obtain, now or in the near future: “… the state remains essential for national, regional and global problem-solving, and nothing in this book gainsays this stark reality.” And then Weiss turns the corner, and tells us what he really means:

Yet put simply, states and their creations in the form of the current generation of intergovernmental bureaucracies cannot address the transnational problems confronting the world. As a result, and ironically, we have embraced global governance.

Weiss thus distances himself from the chimera* of global government and advocates instead global governance; governance being a more qualitative term, which Weiss defines as

… the totality of institutions, policies, rules, practices, norms, procedures, and initiatives by which states and their citizens try to bring order and predictability to their responses to such universal problems as warfare, poverty, and environmental degradation.