[ALBSA-Info] Letter unpublished by the NYTimes

[Asti Pilika]

For those who read the NY Times cover story on blood
feuds, Sunday,
December 26.


>Hart responds to Scott Anderson's "Balkan Blood
Feuds." 
>
>Not suprisingly, the New York Times has not published
the refutations 
>of its pseudo-journalism by Scott Anderson blaming
the organized state
>violence in the former Yugoslavia on the "blood feud"
codes of "the
>Balkan village."  Now that Robert Kaplan's Balkan
Ghosts mythology has
>been thoroughly discredited and--after the terrible
damage it caused, 
>the author himself now says he didn't really mean
it--the New York
Times
>pulls it out again and serves it as leftovers.
>
>Below is a short response by Prof. Laurie Hart, an
anthopologist whose
>work focuses upon the Balkans.  She made it as short
as possible but
>still, until now, the once respected New York Times
has not published
it.
>
>>Date: Sun, 26 Dec 1999 12:50:25 -0500
>>To: magazine at nytimes.com
>>From: Laurie Kain Hart <lhart at haverford.edu>
>>Subject: Scott Anderson: Balkan Blood Feuds
>>
>>To the editor:
>>
>>I have great respect for the good work journalists
have done in
exposing
>>and helping us to understand the tragic events in
the former
Yugoslavia.
>>It is sad to see the worst faults of journalism
rampant in Scott
>>Anderson's "Balkan Blood Feuds" (Sunday Dec. 26,
1999).  In the
interests
>>of hooking this story about the Albanian blood feud
to the events in
>>Bosnia and Kosovo, the subtitle asserts that "the
dealiest horrors 
>>[in the Balkans] have been perpetrated by those who
continue to live
by
>>ancient communal codes."  Really? what connection
precisely does the
>>kanun have to the death camps in Bosnia or the
slaughter in Kosovo?
>> 
>>As the author points out, the kanun is an
intracommunal code -- it
>>applies to those within the community of
'honor'--and is predicated
on
>>the sanctity of the home. To put it technically, 
blood feuds are a 
>>form of social order through segmentary opposition
within egalitarian
>>societies or those not subject to state control. 
The blood feud 
>>may not be an attractive political mechanism, but
Bosnia and Kosovo
>>had everything to do with the modern state and
nothing to do with
>>blood feuds. Genocide and ripping women and children
out of their
>>homes -- I'd rank these as the "deadliest horrors"
-- are not
stipulated
>>by the kanun, even in variant 'local
interpretations.' 
>>
>>Given the high rates of rural-to-urban migration in
the last half of
the
>>twentieth century, lots of people "come from
villages or small towns"

>>but not all of them are murderers.  Milosevic did
not "revert" to 
>>the "primitive laws and passions of the village" but
engaged in a
>>thoroughly "modern" form of state
violence--organized at the top by,
>>among others, urbanites and university professors. 
Anderson's
attempt
>>to find the generic "Balkan" village in northern
Albania is misguided
>>in the extreme:  as someone who has lived and worked
in "Balkan
villages"
>>(which are not all the same, by the way) I can
assure him that it is
not
>>in the "ancient ethos of the village" that we will
find the answer to
>>Bosnia and Kosovo, but in the modern ethos of the
nation state and 
>>its international context in the late twentieth
century.
>>
>>
>>Sincerely,
>>Laurie Kain Hart
>>Associate Professor of Anthropology and Chair,
>>Department of Anthropology
>>Haverford College


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