A penetrating argument that the heady mix of religion and modern
nationalism are at the heart of the Bosnian catastrophe. Sells is a
professor of religion (Haverford Coll.) of Serbian descent. Here he
joins these personal and professional interests, although he sides
not with the Serbs but with the Bosnian Muslims. His book is both a
condemnation of anti-Muslim religious stereotyping by Serbs and
Croats, and an impassioned argument that the genocide in Bosnia is
"grounded in religious symbols." He is forthright in his
accusations, charging that Western policymakers failed by denying
Bosnia the right to self-defense and by neglecting their "moral and
legal duty" to uphold the Geneva Convention's call for action
against genocide. Sells is determined to debunk the popular
misconception of "ancient Balkan hatreds" and to replace it with
what he perceives to be the driving force of the war: explicitly
modern, anti-Muslim religious and nationalist mythologies in which
Muslims are represented as Christ killers and in which the Bosnians
who long ago converted to Islam are seen as race traitors (because
all Slavs, supposedly, should be Christian). However, while
religion explains much in the former Yugoslavia, it does not
explain all. Political, economic, historical, and social factors,
though they're often overemphasized, have their place in an
examination of Yugoslavia's collapse. Moreover, the war in Bosnia
cannot be isolated from the larger conflict in the former
Yugoslavia. And while Sells convincingly exposes the slander,
falsehoods, and misinformation about Muslims that Serbs and Croats
accept as true, he sheds no light on how and why they came to
believe in these myths. Still, Sells's well-written, impassioned,
and informed book represents a deepening of the ongoing discourse
about the collapse of Yugoslavia. (Kirkus Reviews)
The atrocities in Bosnia-Herzegovina have stunned people throughout
the world, prompting them to ask how this savagery is possible.
This book answers by saying that the Bosnian conflict was not
simply a civil war or a feud of age-old adversaries, but a
systematic campaign of genocide and a holy war spurred by Christian
mythologies. The book examines how religious stereotyping, in
popular and offical discourse, has fuelled Serbian and Croatian
ethnic hatred. It traces the cultural logic of genocide to the
manipulation by Serb nationalists of the symbolism of Christ's
death, in which Muslims are "Christ-killers" and Judases who must
be mercilessly destroyed. It also shows how "Christoslavic"
religious nationalism became a central part of the Croat and Serb
politics, pointing out that intellectuals and clergy were key
instruments in assimilating extreme religious and political ideas.
In addition, the book elucidates the ways in which Western
policy-makers have rewarded the perpetrators of genocide and
punished the victims. The book concludes with a discussion of how
the multi-religious nature of Bosnian society has been a bridge
between Christendom and Islam, symbolized by the now-des
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