The Balkan wars of the 1990s were bloody and complicated, fueled by evil. The conflicts serve as a reminder that in some cases peoples of different cultures may be incapable of living within the same borders.

 

In a NYT editorial published on Sunday, Bosnia Unraveling, the paper advocates that the US and Europe press Bosnia to revise the 1995 Dayton accords to create a new constitution. According to the NYT editorial board, Bosnia is in danger of breaking up due to ethnic conflict that in the 1990s lead to acts of genocide. The new constitution should, in the words of the NYT's editors, "create a functioning multi-ethnic state." 

Creating a new constitution to force both sides in the conflict, Croat-Muslims and Serbs, to live together in a multi-ethnic state will not solve the problem. 

Prior to the 1990s Yugoslavia had held a large number of divergent cultures together through communist totalitarianism. As centralized control in Yugoslavia weakened throughout the 1980s, cultural conflict and eventually genocide erupted.* Bosnia's territory was drawn around two conflicting groups, Croat-Muslims and Serbs, after the break-up. 

Writing a new constitution to create a multi-ethnic state is simply another form of totalitarianism--Western totalitarianism. On the contrary, the NYTs concludes that "Bosnia’s people ultimately must take responsibility for what their country is to become." I guess this means Bosnians can take responsibility after the West forces them to remain a single state and write a new constitution. 

The fact remains that two groups in Bosnia, Croat-Muslims and Serbs, are hostile towards one another. Writing a new constitution will not create peaceful relations between the groups. It will simply force them to live within the same boundaries. 

It is certainly possible that these two groups may someday find peace. But in the meantime, if they don't want to live together, let them separate. Allow Bosnia to break up. 

*Statecraft by Margaret Thatcher

Article by Ryan Olivett