SLAVENKA DRAKULIC
73
William Phillips:
You can get two hundred and fifty thousand troops, if
the Europeans and the American government combine. The question is,
as I see it, people are claiming that intervention wouldn't solve the
problem. Now, I don't know the answer to that. You say you're not a
politician, but you know more about it than we do. Do you think if
America and the European nations send troops in it could stop the
slaughter?
Slavenka Drakulic:
Well, I suppose, yes. Someone has to stop it, but
the problem is that it's an enormous number of soldiers, enormous sums
of money, and the question is, why would someone do it?
Joanna Rose:
I have heard that there are Muslims, Turks, who are will–
ing to go in with troops, but that the rest of the European countries do
not want them to go in. There is money, there are troops, and there is a
country willing to go in and help the Muslims in Bosnia. Well, is that a
way of solving it?
Slavenka Drakulic:
Yes, of course they would probably solve it, but we
should also take a look into their interest in the whole issue. You need a
political solution, a proper political solution for that, and without it I am
afraid it can't work.
Joanna Rose:
It has to be troops you like, right?
Slavenka Drakulic:
I think without combined forces under the auspices
of the UN, nothing much could be done. And as we all know, the UN is
a terribly bureaucratic organization, and it's terribly slow. God knows
how many people will die before they do something. But as I said, we
can have a think-tank about what should be and could be done there. I
am very sorry if I disappointed you, but I don't have any political solu–
tion, any ready-made recipes, and I don't even see it as my task to do find
them.
Jack Diggins:
You are puzzled about why intellectuals in the West have
no response to this issue. I think it's mainly because a number of writers
thought that communism was going to solve the problem of religion and
nationality, but it has been a squalid failure. Many people felt that with
the fall of communism, democracy would be able to take care of these
issues, yet that doesn't seem to be able to do so. So everyone is at a loss,
and there's nothing in the heritage of Western political thought to deal
with these issues. We thought the Enlightenment would take care of it,
but that hasn't happened: we thought modern technology and various
