There is an abuse of history, which I call "Balkanism," that maintains that people in Bosnia have been involved in ancient hatreds destined to repeat themselves out of genetic or historical fate. This abuse of history was used by the Bush administration (President Bush, Secretary of State Eagleburger, Joint Chiefs Chairman Colin Powell) to excuse its failure in Bosnia. It was then adopted by Secretary of State Warren Christopher and President Clinton himself in 1993 when the Clinton administration acquiesced in the European policy of appeasing the genocide in Bosnia. It is also a favorite of indicted war criminal Radovan Karadzic.
The systematic annihilation of culture is a deliberate effort to create on the ground the Balkanist myth, by annihilating the graphic testimony of 500 years of shared life and culture among Catholics, Serb Orthodox, Muslims, and Jews in Bosnia. Yes there had been conflicts, just as there were terrible conflicts throughout Europe. . . .
When the Serb major of Zvornik said, after all the Muslims had been killed or expelled and all the mosques dynamited, that "there never were any mosques in Zvornik" he was trying to rewrite the history according to Balkanist mythology, and to deny 500 years of shared Muslim and Serb life in the town of Zvornik. When the Serb mayor of Foca, after killing or expelling all the town's Muslims and dynamiting all the mosques, including the 16th century Colored Mosque, a masterwork of South Slavic architecture, stated "there never were any mosques in Foca" he then went further and renamed the ancient town of Muslims and Serbs "Serbinje" (Serb place). Similar acts have occurred throughout Bosnia as militias act out the Balkanist mythology they wish to create and project back into the past. Those who perpetuate this abuse of history are providing a cover and protection for the annihilation of 500 years of art, culture, and historical testimony.