cover image The Denial of Bosnia

The Denial of Bosnia

Rusmir Mahmutcehajic. Pennsylvania State University Press, $37.95 (156pp) ISBN 978-0-271-02030-3

During the past decade of warfare and atrocities in the countries that once formed Tito's Yugoslavia, much of Western public opinion was formed on the basis of exposure to fierce nationalism. Politicians such as Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic and Croatia's Franjo Tudjman dominated the news and, indeed, literally determined the fate of peoples and nations. Mahmutcehajic's passionate treatise on the history and fate of Bosnia is both a bitter denunciation of Milosevic's and Tudjman's destruction and division of Bosnia and an eloquent voice of dissent within Bosnia that has long needed to be heard. Mahmutcehajic, formerly a close ally of Bosnia-Hercegovina's president Alija Izetbegovic and a government minister in the early '90s, broke with Izetbegovic and the Muslim Party of Democratic Action over his opposition to their gradual acceptance of partitioning his country. Dividing Bosnia, he contends, represents a denial of a liberal model of unity in diversity--one that ""could act as a model for European progress."" As Mahmutcehajic reviews the historical background of the Bosnian war and the events that have occurred during the country's disintegration, he offers a philosophical treatise on Bosnia's past and future and on the nature of human relations as witnessed in the Bosnian model. With references to concepts such as trust, renewal and the right to redemption, Mahmutcehajic forces readers to examine anew the nature of religious conflict in Bosnia, positing that the country's destruction was not the result of religious conflict; instead, he argues, the conflict is ""a political betrayal of religion"" (whose ""core elements can be seen as transcending division and conflicts""). This fervent petition for dialogue and building trust is an eloquent reminder that voices of faith and hope have survived amidst the cynical barbarity and corruption in Bosnia. 20 maps and illus. not seen by PW. (Oct.)