Blood and Belonging by Michael Ignatieff Page B

the hills above Lipik, were pounding the town and, under directions from local Serbian paramilitaries, were targeting Croat houses. WhenYup’s house came under bombardment, he and his wife jumped in their car and fled to Zagreb, but his parents refused to come, thinking they would be safe. Days later, they were dragged out of their house by Serbian paramilitaries, possibly from the same village. They were shot and their bodies were burned. Yup tells me all this with a few sighs, a few pauses to light a cigarette, staring glumly into the distance. All the while, the women work silently around us, stacking bricks.
    Yup declares a break and I sit down with the women at a trestle table in his tiny back garden. I want to know why the work detail is all-female, and they all reply, with much laughter and winking, “Because women are the best.” Left unsaid is the fact that so many Croatian males are away serving in the army. I tell them that I’ve noticed on the other side the Serbs aren’t rebuilding. They’re just living in the ruins, with their guns trained toward Croatia, waiting. “They’re not rebuilding,” says one lady, matter-of-factly, “because they know they’re done for.” Some of the other ladies nod, while others look down silently at the table.
    Yup says. “Three of you are Serbs, isn’t that right?” And three of the women beside me nod and look back down at the table. In the silence, they leave it to me to figure out how it comes about that three Serbian women are helping to rebuild a Croat’s house. It can only be because they were married to Croats, have lived here all their lives, and find themselves now torn in two, as their village is. Then the Serbian woman beside me slowly begins to cry and a stillness descends over everyone. The Croatian women across the table look at her dispassionately, while she crumples into herself. “Cry, girl, cry,” says one, and reaches over and takes her hand.
    WARLORDS
    Back in 1989, we thought the new world opened up by the breaching of the Berlin Wall would be ruled by philosopher-kings, dissident heroes, and shipyard electricians. We looked forward to a new order of nation-states, released from the senile grip of the Soviets. We assumed that national self-determination had to mean freedom and that nationalism had to mean nation building. As usual, we were wrong. We hoped for order. We got pandemonium. In the name of nationalism, dozens of viable nation-states have been shattered beyond repair. In the name of state building, we have returned large portions of Europe to the pre-political chaos prior to the emergence of the modern state.
    Large portions of the former Yugoslavia are now ruled by figures that have not been seen in Europe since late medieval times: the warlords. They appear wherever nation-states disintegrate: in Lebanon, Somalia, northern India, Armenia, Georgia, Ossetia, Cambodia, the former Yugoslavia. With their car phones, faxes, and exquisite personal weaponry, they look postmodern, but the reality is pure medieval.
    Their vehicle of choice is a four-wheel-drive Cherokee Chief, with a policeman’s blue light on the roof to flash when speeding through a checkpoint. They pack a pistol but they don’t wave it about. They leave vulgar intimidation to the bodyguards in the back of the jeep, the ones with shades, designer jeans, and Zastava machine pistols. They themselves dress in the leather jackets, floral ties, and pressed corduroy trousers favored by German television producers. They bear no resemblance whatever to Rambo. The ones I began meeting at the checkpoints on the roads leading off from the Highway of Brotherhood and Unity were short,stubby men who in a former life had been small-time hoods, small-town cops, or both. Spend a day with them, touring their world and you’d hardly know that most of them are serial killers.
    Warlords not only dominate the war zones, but have