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Mobs have an evil dynamic. An ethnic tribe, at its worst, is a supermob. A sense of narcissistic self-pity that is merely contemptible in an individual is transformed to heroism in the tribal context: a fierce, virtuous assertion of the group. That is why ethnic grievance -- a rising force in so much of the world -- is so dangerous. When the subjective goes tribal, the self-indulgence of one man or woman comes frighteningly alive, collective, suddenly legitimized, glorious even. What would be individual shame now blossoms into shamelessness. The weak and vicious transfer their worst defects to the larger cause (Greater Serbia, perhaps). Thus does self-pity become selfless and, by this magic, righteous. And thus a brute killer portrays himself as a victim, who is therefore infinitely justified. Ethnic cleansing is merely injured virtue catching up. Nothing is more empowering, as they say, than being a victim. It is the Rolls-Royce of self-justifications, a plenary indulgence. W.H. Auden described it as if it were one of Newton's laws: "Those to whom evil is done/ do evil in return."
In any case, self-pity congeals to make a hard shell. The Serbs are indifferent to mere world opinion. Their leaders have manipulated them to obduracy. So Bosnia becomes another parable (savoring ominously of the '30s) of the primary human mystery, the beast potential in everyone. Sometimes the beast can be talked out -- negotiated out -- and calmed and recivilized. But the bully-beast loves to play with the people's hopeful illusions. Sometimes the beast, once risen among us, needs to be beaten until it is helpless to harm any longer. Sometimes it simply needs to be killed.
Will anyone drive the beast out of Bosnia? The terror of getting involved is powerful. The craven thought is that one Bosnia begets another. But Bosnia will happen again and again elsewhere unless this one is stopped. Europe should have undertaken the job. But the Europeans long ago exhausted themselves in sponsoring such projects as colonialism and two world wars. They have ended up smug, fat-bottomed and morally useless.
Who then? The U.S., leading the U.N.? Perhaps. Or is it all too late? The least that America should do, for now, is to end the arms embargo that has kept the Bosnian Muslims from defending themselves against the ruthless "victims" from Serbia.
Some of us thought that the coming of electronic glasnost to the global village would bring a reign of sunshine in which the germs of atrocity would have trouble surviving. We were wrong. The germs can flourish in the light. How many divisions does CNN have?