The former Serb leader of Yugoslavia, Slobodan Milosevic, is on trial for war trials at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) at The Hague. The ICTY hoped for cooperation from Belgrade in
"a benign process... Some of the region's worst characters would be discredited in the eyes of the world, including among their own kin... the stain of Serbia's 'collective guilt' would be wiped away" (The Economist, February 28, 2004, page 48).
The process has not unfolded as hoped. Serbs anticipated a quid pro quo while the West thought that a political exorcism for Serbia would bring its own reward. The exorcism has failed. Serbia sees the ICTY as the enemy.
The endeavor was flawed from the start. Courts derive their authority from the polity in which they function. Yet there is no appropriate polity to authorize the ICTY. International courts may be authorized by individual states, even by many or the vast majority. However, there is no world government, nor can there be one shy of a messianic end-time which has certainly not yet arrived. The ICTY has no legitimate sway over Serbia. In relation to Serbia, the ICTY must appear as a foreign entity waging war by other means. As an enemy, the ICTY cannot teach morality to Serbia.
More importantly, Milosevic's deeds ought not to be addressed in a judicial proceeding. Much is lost, and nothing gained, by reducing brutality to 'crimes against humanity.' Milosevic should not be on trial. He and his regime sanctioned horrific deeds; they were tried on the battle field, where wrongs began to be righted. It would have been better had he been exiled to a bleak island to rot the rest of his days. No court can adequately address the evil of a Milosevic, or a Hitler, or even an Eichmann. If the ICTY finds him guilty, we will have learned nothing we did not know. If it finds him innocent, a cruel joke will have been played. The category of evil is better handled by political and military power for good than by the force of a court.
As for wiping away the stain of Serbia's 'collective guilt,' ought we, might we, wipe away a nation's collective guilt? There is no nation in the world that
"does good and does not sin."The Serbs feel subjected to undue scrutiny and with good cause. They may apprehend that the 'world' or the 'West' is seeking its catharsis at the expense of their reputation. More is at stake than the rehabilitation of Serbia. The West naively seeks the banishment of evil.
Collective guilt cannot be wiped away. The collective guilt of every sovereign nation persists. Even defeated nations bear guilt for cruelties of earlier days. The Americans, the French, English, and Germans, the Russians, Chinese and Japanese, the Swedes, the Danes, the Indians, and, in their day, the European Crusaders, the Arabs, the Celts, Jutes, Franks, Gauls, the Mongols, the ancient Spartans, Athenians, and Persians, the Israelites, the Arameans, the Phoenicians--any people, nation, or tongue which claims or ever claimed the merest foothold on our unstable planet has blood on its hands. To speak of collective guilt is to alienate man from power and history.
If there is a statute of limitations on former deeds of cruelty, which the Serbs, unlucky ones, have not been fortunate enough to benefit from, then the trial in the Hague is simply unjust. Every people must deal with its legacy of deeds and misdeeds as it will, turning them into projects for the social welfare, into art, science, law, and culture, sublimating darkness into light if able.
There is an evil in the hearts of men that the warrior as warrior may know while the international jurist as jurist may not. One does not lose faith that, sooner or later, on the field of battle a justice will be wrought that can never be made in an earthly court.
-- H. A. Massig
(This piece was drafted on route to Los Angeles, February 29, 2004.)
Comments