The Beast Within

LOOK now at what is happening in the Balkans and weep. What a terrible monstrosity has been unleashed in the name of humanitarianism. Look now and weep for those being butchered and bullied and bruised. Look now and weep for those being uprooted and displaced. Look now and weep for those being bombed and brutalised by the cruise missiles raining down on Yugoslavia. Look now and weep for those who will be left to clean up the catastrophic mess, after all this grotesque madness is done with, sometime some unpredictable time in the future. Look now and weep.

In Ireland, we might also look now at what is happening in the Balkans and learn. In the North, D-Day is upon us, in relation to the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement. Failure to find a way of resolving the differences between Sinn Féin and the Ulster Unionists could result in a return to military engagement. And once the guns are back on the streets in earnest, who knows what scale of horror might yet be visited upon us all? Ten years ago, who would have predicted what is happening now in Kosovo? The onus on those involved in the current negotiations in Northern Ireland is immense. It is essential that a way forward should be found. It will require sacrifice and compromise on both sides but it must be done. It must.

It is chilling to watch the inevitable happening in Kosovo. The decision by NATO to proceed with the bombing of Serbia had an air of callous indifference about it that was in itself shocking. It was taken, we were told by President Clinton, to avert a humanitarian catastrophe in Kosovo. Rather than averting that potential outcome. It has guaranteed it. Not only this, but it has involved significant collateral damage within Serbia. And finally, it has intensified support within that benighted place for the appalling Slobodan Milosevic. You'd wonder what manner of strategic geniuses worked this gameplan out.

There is something particularly obscene about this new kind of strategic warfare, in which the US and their NATO allies are beginning to specialise. The development of laser-guided long-range missiles has allowed NATO to go for the soft option of bombarding Yugoslavia from a safe distance. There is no question of sending in ground troops, we are told. Instead, the policy is to level however much is necessary of Serbian strongholds until Milosevic can take no more. Hundreds of thousands of Kosovars may be slaughtered by Serbian militia in the meantime. The potential death toll among the Serbians and Montenegrins of Yugoslavia is also impossible to predict. But hey, who really cares? "Push that button again, there, Bill." "No, it's your turn, Tony." "Oh, it's my go, is it? Right-ho! Boom."

Sending in ground troops would, of course, be even worse so this is not an argument for trench warfare. But it is an argument against the obscenity of remote control warfare, and against the immorality of putting so many innocent lives at risk so wantonly.

There are of course real dilemmas involved: should we stand idly by and allow Slobodan Milosevic and his henchmen free rein again to engage in an orgy of ethnic cleansing? It is a win-win situation in reverse whatever course of action you take, or don't take, you are certain to be accused of doing the wrong thing. But there is no compelling evidence that this kind of military intervention has any hope of resolving the fundamental tensions and conflicts which exist within the Balkan region in general and within Kosovo in particular.

Enough has happened in the first week of bombing to suggest exactly the opposite: pictures of smiling women, dancing on the shell of the US Stealth bomber shot down by Yugoslavian anti-aircraft missiles, tell their own story about the attitudes of ordinary Serbians. The mood is hardening against Kosovars, as well as against the NATO war machine. "It is their fault, having so many children that they are now in a majority," one Yugoslav was quoted as saying in the Observer, and you know what the next line in this kind of crazy illogic is likely to be. Kill the children. Or if necessary wipe the lot of them out. It is no surprise, therefore, to learn that Arkan, Serbia's most infamous militia leader, and a man who it is generally agreed was guilty of the most brutal extermination of Bosnians and Croats in the early 90s, has been seen in Kosovo. Perhaps the real horrors have only just started.

How different is Arkan from some of those who have held sway within paramilitary circles in Northern Ireland? How different is the evident hatred that some Yugoslavs feel towards Kosovars from that which so often pollutes relations between Protestant and Catholic in Northern Ireland? How different is it from the kind of low-level racism which has been emerging in Dublin, directed against black people in particular?

It is easy to point to Serbians, and what Slobodan Milosevic has done in their name, and to recoil in disgust. But it is more important to look into our own hearts and to exorcise whatever demons might lurk therein — those feelings of resentment and hatred of the other that ultimately have the capacity to inspire the most terrible crimes.

Northern Ireland would be a good place to start — but it's a challenge that we will all face over the coming months and years.

Ireland is on the way to becoming a multi-racial society. We can become infected with fear, loathing and mistrust. Or we can embrace the change and love it, and the diversity it brings.

Let's mambo!