On the Arrest of Radovan Karadzic
Jul. 22nd, 2008 01:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
frustratedpilotI feel a bizarre twinge of synchronicital rightness about not so much the what as the when and the why.
This past week, PBS aired the last episode of Niall Ferguson's documentary series War of the World, about the violence of the past century, its causes, and what it means about human nature. The parts about the ethnic wars in the former Yugoslavia were particularly chilling to me...because I can see how such things could happen even in America--especially now, as we're in tough economic times, with a government people are beginning to lose faith in, and an election cycle that promises to polarize this country along ethnic lines.
The event Ferguson used to illustrate what happened cuts to the core of human nature.
A small town straddling a river. A gang of thugs shows up and makes their demands known over a loudspeaker. "Hand over the people we want and we'll let you live. If you resist us you will die. If any of us die, we'll kill as many of you as we can."
Without the rule of law to protect the citizens, the gang could do whatever it wanted. In two days, the thugs succeeded in intimidating the populace into handing over hundreds of men, women and children, who were hacked to pieces by the gang and disposed of in the river.
This scene was repeated dozens of times over the course of the war. People were forced to choose between self-preservation and their fellow man, and their fellow man would lose again and again.
I can very easily imagine this happening here in this century. AND I WANT SOMEBODY TO PROVE ME WRONG.
FP
This past week, PBS aired the last episode of Niall Ferguson's documentary series War of the World, about the violence of the past century, its causes, and what it means about human nature. The parts about the ethnic wars in the former Yugoslavia were particularly chilling to me...because I can see how such things could happen even in America--especially now, as we're in tough economic times, with a government people are beginning to lose faith in, and an election cycle that promises to polarize this country along ethnic lines.
The event Ferguson used to illustrate what happened cuts to the core of human nature.
A small town straddling a river. A gang of thugs shows up and makes their demands known over a loudspeaker. "Hand over the people we want and we'll let you live. If you resist us you will die. If any of us die, we'll kill as many of you as we can."
Without the rule of law to protect the citizens, the gang could do whatever it wanted. In two days, the thugs succeeded in intimidating the populace into handing over hundreds of men, women and children, who were hacked to pieces by the gang and disposed of in the river.
This scene was repeated dozens of times over the course of the war. People were forced to choose between self-preservation and their fellow man, and their fellow man would lose again and again.
I can very easily imagine this happening here in this century. AND I WANT SOMEBODY TO PROVE ME WRONG.
FP
