Monday, August 18, 2008

Tourism vs Terrorism

The Wikipedia page for Radovan Karadzic's arrest and prosecution contains this piece of information:

"After Karadžić's arrest, the venues associated with his underground period as an anonymous physician are being transformed into a place for tourist activities - there is already a special itinerary for tourists from his former quarter where he had been dwelling for years via the shop where he had been purchasing bread and coffee and taking a lunch to the edifice of the court, from where he has been delivered to the Hague Tribunal. The itinerary is increasingly popular not only for the local inhabitants but for foreign tourists as well."

I don't know whether to laugh or cry but one thing is certain: the media hype about the 'Balkan butcher' is completely unfounded, since personally I do not view him as such, though I am by no means taking sides here. I simply felt rather sorry for this man, seeing his pitiful appearance before the ICTY Tribunal where he's representing himself. The Bosniaks have been angelically portrayed in the media as innocent victims of fanatical nationalists, but wasn't Karadzic simply trying to defend his country from the increasingly prevalent Muslim population in it? In some years time, those same 'victims' could quite possibly ask for an independent state, and who is going to be the terrorist then? I suppose the media here in Britain is simply trying to appease the Muslim community by condemning any sort of violent undertakings against Muslims throughout the world. Remember Chamberlain and where his policy of appeasement got him with Hitler?
I am not trying to exonerate Karadzic, but he was once a man who simply did not wish to become a tourist in his own country...

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