(Estimated Pub Date) the Challenge of Ethnic Conflict to National and International Order in the 1990S: Geographic Perspectives- October 1995

Approved for Release: 2018/06/01 C00123268
Summary of Discussion
Discussant: Thomas Poulsen
Professor Wixman has laid out both in the paper that
he wrote and in summary presentation some of the key
elements that explain the Bosnian situation. I would
like to underscore a few of them. The first element has
to do with the Serbian justification for their actions. A
concept that is helpful in explaining the Serbian posi-
tion is that of iconography, which was coined a num-
ber of years ago by the geographer Jean Gottman.
Gottman defined iconography as the sum total of the
perceptions of history, national symbols, and trivia
that go to segregate one nation from another.
According to Serbian iconography, they are a heroic
people. The Serbs believe that they saved Europe from
the Muslim hordes. They also believe that Yugosla-
via—the Yugoslavia created in l918—was their
nation-state and that it was their rightful prize because
they had won World War I, which was just a continua-
tion of their long defense of Europe. This perception
can help to explain why the Serbs still see themselves
as victims in the current conflict when most outside
observers see them as the aggressors.
The Serbs also believe that their homeland was Kos-
ovo, a belief derived from the fact that they suffered
their greatest defeat in the Battle of Kosovo in 1389,
although Dr. Wixman can convincingly argue that this
belief is not based on fact. He could cite an examina-
tion of place names and a number of other features
that cast doubt on the Serbian assertion. But such
arguments would not change Serbian beliefs. All justi-
fications are real to the justifiers, and in the case of the
Serbs—as with most people/—it’s not what really hap-
pens that counts, but what people believe happened.
The Serbs were wrong in trying to maintain control of
all of Yugoslavia. They are wrong now in trying to
maintain control of all of Boshia and Herzegovina. I
still think they have pretensions to the rest.
Another point that Dr. Wixman brought up that I
would like to comment on is that of the role of emi-
gres in defining national identity. There are some who
would attribute the Slovak separatism that led to the
demise of the Czechoslovakian state as much to the
effort of Americans of Slovak ancestry who returned
after the fall of Communism with images and feelings
of the 1920s and the 1930s as to any real problems in
the region. The same can be said, perhaps, for some of
the stronger original aspects of Croatian nationalism.
However, many Croatians who were content to live in
Yugoslavia and be proud of their Roman Catholic eth-
nic heritage became Croatian nationalists as a reaction
to Serbian action.
My last point deals with the issue of core and periph-
ery. It has been suggested that, in looking at the inten-
sity of national feelings, we should consider core
regions and intellectuals. Certainly—based on my
experience—for an extended period of time those in
Croatia who promoted a sense of difference and the
need to get Croatian “rights” somehow satisfied were
the professors, the schoolteachers, and the intellectu-
als. But in addition to students, those who were most
motivated to obtain such rights were not the people of
the core area but were, in fact, the people in the border
regions. This is a point that Dr. Wixman also made. In
Croatia, for example, the strongest members of the
Ustasha, the Croatian nationalist party during World
War II, did not come from Zagreb but from the outer
periphery, particularly in eastern Slavonia adjacent to
the Serbian region. There, they had been challenged in
their Croatian identity by living with Serbs. To use a
more local example, during my lifetime, one could
find “I20-percent Americans” in the Canal Zone more
frequently than in the state of Oregon.
General Discussion
QUESTION: Professor Wixman, could you discuss
the origin of the Muslim population in the Sandzak?
DR. VVIXMAN: The origin of the Muslim people is
the same as that of the Muslim peoples of Bulgaria
(Pomaks), Macedonia (Torbesi), Bosnia and Heroe-
govina (Muslimani), Albania, and Serbia, including
the Sandzak. When the Turks came into the Balkans a
major conversion of local populations occured. Most
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Approved for Release: 2018/06/01 C00123268