Review: War of the Words
| Author | John Fraser |
| Date | 01 June 2000 |
| Published date | 01 June 2000 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070200005500218 |
| Subject Matter | Review |
Reviews
and
reform:
he
was
a
banker,
known
in
American
business
circles,
he
spoke
good
English,
and
he
seemed
receptive
to liberal
economic
ideas,
as
were
some
of
his
key advisers.
It
was
perhaps
not
generally
realized
that
his
influential
wife
was
a
dedicated,
orthodox
Marxist-Leninist.
It is
far
from
clear
that
he
ever
embraced
Serbian
nationalism
as
any-
thing
other
than
a
means
to
achieve
power,
betraying Stambolic
as
he
did
so.
Doder
and
Branson
seem
to
be
ambivalent
on
this
point,
some-
times
writing
as
if
he
had
become
a
nationalist
zealot
rather
than
some-
one
making calculated
appeals
to
nationalism.
It
may
be
true
that
he
had
to
and
was
able
to
convince
himself
as
a
prerequisite
to
convincing
others.
When
he
was
riding
high,
there
seemed
no
doubt
of
his
nationalist
credentials.
Croatian
Serbs,
controlling
roughly
one-third
of
Croatia,
and
Bosnian
Serbs,
masters
of
70
per
cent
of
Bosnia-Herzegovina, were
all
bemused
by
MilogeviCs
vision
of
'all
Serbs
in
one
country.'
They
now
feel
betrayed
by
his
willingness to
sacrifice
their
interests
for
his
own.
That
he
should
have
consented,
under
whatever
duress,
to
allow
Kosovo
to
fall
under
NATO
occupation
surely
diminished
or
even
destroyed
his
heroic
nationalist
pretensions.
It
is
probably
a
mistake
to
think
of
Milogeviý's
'vision.'
Throughout
his
political
career
he
has
shown
himself
a
superb
tactician
and
a
dismal
strategist,
with
no clear
long-range
goals
except
the
retention
of
power.
Even
if
this
book
does
not
tell us
everything
we
would
like
to
know
about
Milogevi5,
which
may
never be
possible
but
certainly
isn't
now,
it
is
a
valuable
account
of
how
he
achieved
and
retains
power,
and
it
gives
some
insight
into
his
background
and
character.
John
Fraser/Ottawa
WAR
OF
THE WORDS
Washington
Tackles
the
Yugoslav
Conflict
Danielle
S.
Sremac
Westport
CT:
Greenwood,
1999,
28
5pp,
$39.95,
ISBN
0275-96609-7
No
one
who
has followed
the disintegration
of
the
Socialist Federal
Republic
of
Yugoslavia
in
1990-1
and
the
subsequent internecine
wars
through
the
media
will
have been able
to
detect
any
hint
of
pro-Serb
bias.
On
the
contrary,
Serbs
and
their
leaders
have
been
convincingly
334
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
Spring2000
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