SLAVENKA DRAKULIC
65
Edith Kurzweil:
Thank you very much, Slavenka. Who would like to
start asking questions?
Deborah Solomon:
An obvious question is, what do you think the
United States should do about the situation?
Slavenka Drakulic:
The question is not so obvious. I'm not a politician,
I'm a writer. But there are no simple answers. I can give you only my
personal opinion. I think the United States shouldn't do anything on its
own. If there is anything to be done, it should be done together with
Europe. And both Europe and the United States are too reluctant to do
anything. Forgive me for saying so, but I think wherever the United
States has gone with force, there hasn't been a very brilliant outcome. So
I'm very much afraid of intervening by bombing. A month ago, there
were big talks about going in with planes and just bombing targets. Of
course, I'm not an expert, but I think it is more important to set rules for
the future, because obviously Yugoslavia, ex-Yugoslavia, the ex–
Federation, with the new states emerging, and nationalism, and the war,
may be the first place where this is happening, but it might not be the last
one. So I think, if Europe, or the world for that matter, including the
United States, doesn't set up very firm rules, the chaos will persist and
recur. Europe and the United States should be asking questions like,
should we allow changes of national borders? This is a big question. And
how do we proceed? Do we proceed with force, or with some other
measure? Are other measures, like sanctions, enough? What other kinds of
pressures could be used? I think you can't make exemptions. You can't
say, "Yes, now for this country, well, let's change the borders; let's divide
Bosnia and Herzegovina among Croatia and Serbia, and give the Muslims
some little enclave." What are you going to do then in the ex-USSR?
They have nuclear arms, so maybe you are going to treat them differently,
I don't know. I'm very pessimistic about the future of Europe. I would
like to see a more consistent and more articulate politics towards the
whole problem than just bombing, because after bombing, then what?
Philip Gourevitch:
My question has to do with your idea about the
image of the war and the image of peasants and refugees and something
that is "other," because I suspect that a lot of the media has traditionally
conceptualized the image of the oppressed as the image of a peasant, and
the image of the refugee looks a certain way. In contrast, if you see the
image of someone dressed like you or like me, you think, "They're not
doing so badly." Or you think of them the same way as you do in this
country of rich people getting sent to jail, or in some way suffering or
losing their homes: there is a certain public satisfaction in those images.
