Following the fall of the Berlin wall and the collapse of communism, the former Yugoslavia broke into pieces. It began when the Bosnian people voted on a referendum to leave Yugoslavia in late February, 1992. The Serbs boycotted the vote, calling it illegal.
The Serbs were militarily superior and the hardware lay within the boundaries of Serbia, one of the six republics that made up Yugoslavia. Within weeks of the referendum, tanks rolled down the main streets of the capital Sarajevo; the airport closed; water and electricity went off. Snipers were posed on buildings; hundreds of mortar shells fell on civilian areas. The city became besieged for more than 1425 days — the longest and one of the most cruel sieges in modern history.
By early summer, Serb paramilitaries crossed the strategic River Drina into Eastern Bosnia and began their ethnic cleansing operations. Rape camps were set up in towns like Foca, and women were imprisoned and raped up to 16 times a day. I call Bosnia a backyard war because often, when fighting in the trenches that surrounded the cities and towns, the very young soldiers could see their former school friends, their football mates: it was like being in the neighborhood.
Many of the inhabitants were of mixed background — they were half Croat, a quarter Muslim, part Serb. Some clung fiercely to the fact they were Yugoslav and not identifiable by their religion. Still, they fought for territory, with the Serbs intent on carving out a greater Serbia. Some fought to protect their neighborhoods or their houses. In parts of Sarajevo, there were plenty of Sarajevo Serbs who fought with their Muslim brothers against the Bosnian Serb forces. I remember being in a trench once near Zuc in Sarajevo, and being so close to the Bosnian Serb frontline that we could see their flags. “Hey!” one of the soldiers next to me called out to a soldier on the other side. “How’s your sister?” It turned out he had dated her back in the days before they were killing each other.
The siege of Sarajevo, which I reported, broke my heart. The population — multicultural, sophisticated Central Europeans — burnt books to keep warm, chopped down trees for firewood, made cheese out of rice, lived by candlelight. Without heat, the former winter Olympic city was unbearably cold. Surgeons operated by flashlight with limited medical supplies; hunger and war crimes were rampant. So many people died. I used to go to the morgue every day to count the dead.
It was a desperate time, but people were resourceful: To avoid snipers we grouped together to run across streets. Entrepreneurial men would light one cigarette on a corner, sell puffs to fellow smokers. Black market developed; as well as underground theatre: Susan Sontag arrived to direct Waiting for Godot. Gallows humor kept our flagging spirits going.
Meanwhile, outside of Bosnia, no one seemed to care. The international community bickered whether or not it was a European or American problem. While diplomatic missions failed, more than 100,000 people died (the figure is disputed — some say 250,000) many of them children. Nearly 2.2 million people were displaced.
The same nationalistic rhetoric that marched Bosnia toward a bloody war echoes throughout the U.S.
Only after the brutal genocide of 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys, who were marched into the woods near Srebrenica and slaughtered in July, 1995, did the world stand up and begin to take action. For me — a reporter who made Bosnia my priority for years — it was unbearably painful. Lives could have been saved if early humanitarian intervention had taken place.
America is not nearly so divided on ethnic lines, and there is no referendum on next week’s ballot seeking the breakup of the nation. But we are deeply divided along tribal lines, torn apart on issues such as race, gun control, immigration, and what kind of country we want to live in. The same nationalistic rhetoric that marched Bosnia toward a bloody war echoes throughout the U.S. Not since the 1860s has there been such deep rifts between neighbors.
The divisions have been building throughout the Obama and Trump eras. Back in 2018, Stanford historian Victor Davis Hanson posed a provocative question in National Review essay: “How, when, and why has the United States now arrived at the brink of a veritable civil war?”
Hanson’s argument was that nearly every American institution from late-night television to the Oscars to NFL football had become not only polarized but weaponized. Donald Trump’s 2016 election, he wrote, was not so much “a catalyst for the divide as a manifestation and amplification of the existing schism.”
War happens when large groups of people are willing to engage in mass violence. We’re not there yet: I don’t think many Americans are ready to pick up a hunting rifle to kill their neighbor. At least I hope not. But I worry about the militias and the guns, and a social compact that frays more every day. What happened in Bosnia shows us how essential it is that we open up dialogue and encourage peaceful dissent — long before we get anywhere near the point of self-destruction.
Bosnia should be a lesson for us, a case study in how quickly things can unravel. If talks had been set up after the referendum, and if all sides sat down to hash out some kind of agreement, perhaps hundreds of thousands of lives might have been saved. There are dangerous preconditions for a conflagration, and we are showing some of them in America today: the erosion of our basic rights, the anger, and the tribal divisions. The economic disparity. The desperate need to come together before it is too late.
Our country is traumatized by the past four years. We are suffering from moral injury — we’ve been forced to witness lies and deceit and acts which go against our moral grain. We need to find ways to heal, and to remember conflicts like Bosnia, in order not to repeat them.