My project was on the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989 that occured in the Prince William Sound. I tried to find a variety of people to interview on the issue to get as differing perspectives as possible. However, considering the number of people the spill affected, I really only got four views out of the millions of perspectives available.
Dave Tarshes is a lawyer who works at the same law firm as my dad (Davis Wright Tremaine - DWT) and my dad arranged for me to interview Dave. This interview focused on the legal aspects or the spill and the litigation with Exxon over its liability for the damage.
Chris Wooley was living in Barrow, Alaska at the time of the spill working as an anthropologist/archaeologist for the local government. He spent six weeks working on the shoreline cleanup assessment team as an archaeologist who was contracted by Exxon. He also wrote a paper explaining how, prior to the oil spill, Prince William Sound was not the pristine environment many people think it was.
Brian Hawkins is the Harbor Master in Homer, Alaska. He was also contracted to work on his boat to clean up the sound immediately after the spill. I contacted him through the fact that he is my mother’s judicial assistant’s son’s (Matt Clarke’s) boss.
Matt Clarke is the son of my mom’s judicial assistant and works as the Deputy Harbor Master in Homer, Alaska and also runs guide fishing trips on rivers. His interview is slightly confusing because it was done simultaneously with Brian Hawkins’ so there are times where Matt’s thoughts were based off of something Brian said (which, to be honest, was an extremely effective way to do this. The two of them were free to discuss everything and I got some great stuff.)
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Dave Tarshes (interview done by phone and rewritten afterwards)
Who are you and how were you involved in the Exxon Valdez spill of 1989?
First let me give you a description of the litigation related to the spill.
After the spill, many lawsuits were filed. State governments, along with the federal government, sued Exxon for damage to the environment as did many private individuals who were harmed. There were 70 plus law firms involved in the case including DWT. Our clients included mostly commercial fisherman but also people who processed fish, native Alaskans, area businesses, tour guides, and the list goes on. Overall there were probably 30,000 individuals in total. They became the plaintiffs in our lawsuit.
The courts set up an administrative structure responsible for coordinating the lawsuit. They appointed two lead counsels: one was Dave Oesting and the other was Brian O’Neil, who was the lead trial counsel. Your father knows Dave Oesting who is a partner in the Anchorage office of DWT and the co-lead council. I was appointed head of the “law team”. This meant that everything that had a law angle to it like briefs, jury business and appeals, I was in charge of. I was given this role in 1990 and I would say that the Exxon case would end up taking up about 40% of my total legal work.
My dad has mentioned to me, and I have also read things about, the controversy over punitive damages relating to the spill. Can you tell me about that?
[Small chuckle] There was a trial in Alaska in 1994 where the jury awarded the plaintiffs, our clients, $5 billion dollars in punitive damages against Exxon. Then in 2001, I think, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said that amount was too high but they didn’t specify an amount they thought was reasonable. Instead the circuit court sent the case back to the Alaska federal court in 2003 where Judge Holland said the amount should be $4.5 billion. You should double check both of those years because I’m not exactly sure. After another appeal in 2007, the amount was again cut to $2.5 billion. The case was then appealed to the Supreme Court, which finally cut the amount to finally cut to $500 million.
So what was the reason for the drastic decrease?
Before I can answer that I need to give you the basics on how damages work. There are two types of damages awarded in a case like this one. There are compensatory damages, which you can tell is related to the word compensation. Compensatory damages are defined as what is paid back for injuries according to the value of the injury. The federal court ordered Exxon to pay our clients $507 million in compensatory damage. That award didn’t change. These funds were used to pay back fisherman who had lost a lot of income due to the spill. The second kind of damages awarded are punitive damages. These are more complicated. They go over and above compensatory damages. They are there to make the guilty party pay more than just the compensation to injury. Punitive damages serve two purposes. The first is to punish the guilty because what they did was wrong. The second purpose is to discourage others from making the same mistake in the future.
When deciding to award punitive damages one thing you look at is the conduct. This was emphasized in the Exxon case. A lot of people think the bad conduct was mostly on the part of Captain Hazelwood but this is not so. The worst conduct was that Exxon knew that Captain Hazelwood was an alcoholic and they knew he had relapsed, AND they knew that he was navigating through a sensitive area. They knew all of this and acted recklessly allowing Hazelwood to continue as the captain of the ship.
What do you think of the Supreme Court’s decisions?
To put it simply, I think the decision was wrong. We won two out of three issues but lost on the amount of damages. The reasoning behind the Supreme Court’s decision was partly that they believe in that “a case of this type”, I’m not exactly sure what was meant by that, the ratio of compensatory damages to punitive damages should be 1:1. Now in this case the cut of the punitive damages to bring them down to the amount of the compensatory was extreme, but it happens.
I think the decision was wrong because it didn’t fulfill the definition and the goal of punitive damages. The amount that Exxon ended up paying was not nearly enough to punish them. Exxon is a huge company and could afford to pay way more than what they ended up paying. I think they got off very easy. The other problem is that because Exxon got off easy, other oil companies, like BP for instance, are not deterred from making the same mistakes and they are not as careful as they should be. BP should have looked at the amount Exxon had to pay and said “We should be careful”. But instead the amount Exxon had to pay doesn’t scare BP in the least.
Also it was bad that the whole process took 20 years. This concerns me greatly that the legal system took this long to deal with this important issue. Maybe you’ve heard the old saying: “Justice delayed is justice denied.”
And why did it take so long?
There really is no simple answer to that question because there is no simple reason for the length of time it took. For one thing, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals sent the case back and forth because they were indecisive. I guess another reason is that the decisions were being made by slow judges. But more than that, the Supreme Court struggled immensely with the punitive damages. It was a difficult issue. Finally, it’s no secret that Exxon’s legal strategy was very effective at slowing down the process.
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Chris Wooley
I need to let you know three things right off the bat.
1) I was initially very disturbed by the images of the spill, and, like a lot of Alaskans with a vested interest in the natural resources of our state (and the cultural resources – the archaeology) I was angry and scared about the effects of the spill. I was in Barrow at the time (an Eskimo community) as I mentioned in my previous note, and quite frankly, most if not all of us were outraged by the initial images of the spill. We didn’t know what to expect.
2) I was later repulsed by the greed shown by many of my fellow Alaskans who felt the spill was a chance to get money for nothing – much of it they expected to receive through class action lawsuits. Also, during the cleanup, many people tried to take advantage of the situation by over-charging, stealing equipment, etc. There was a “wild west” mentality in the summer of 1989.
Exxon paid billions for the cleanup and legitimate claims for actual damages. The subsequent legal issues related to “Punitive Damages” (punishment) decided on by the Supreme Court were issues that lawyers understand (precedent, percentages of Punitive versus actual damages, etc.)
What I saw was that big time east coast class action lawyers showed up promising folks LOTS of money to sign on to the lawsuits. Many people had their hopes sky high, but legal issues (way beyond the scope of my pea brain) prevented all the Punitive (punishment) money being paid out. I really don’t know the legal issues involved, but I do know Exxon was portrayed as stingy – however, their loyalty is to their shareholders, so it seems like there was an inherent “conflict” of perceptions there.
In subsequent spills, I have seen some of the same lawyers show up and try to get their clients free money for wildly speculative claims and for the hope of a similar ruling on punitive damages.
Of course, the press loves to beat up on Major Corporations (and I’m no Pollyanna - they are all about generating profits make no mistake about it) so this sound byte aspect of the story ends up being Big Bad Oil Companies = Bad; small independent fisherman = Good. My personal experience was that there are some very good people working for Exxon, and the same for BP. There are some amazing Alaska Native people and commercial fishermen, too. I know a lot of folks from both companies, from villages and from the fishing industry. The fact that there was a shipwreck (Exxon) or an engineering accident (BP) does not mean all these industry people are evil. It’s a shame the press tries to “tar them all with the same brush” so to speak.
3) Many people forget that, in Alaska, in 1989 we were facing a huge recession of our own. Oil prices had plummeted in the mid-1980s (85% of Alaska’s wealth depends on oil – like it or not) and people were really hurting. Ironically, in a lot of ways (the economists showed this), the job opportunities and billions spend on boat contracts, wages, etc during the cleanup helped the Alaskan economy revive. The economists wouldn’t say that the spill was a good thing, but it’s undeniable that there were significant positive economic benefits to the state at a time when a lot of people were really hurting.
Attached is a paper I wrote after my experience during EVOS that will give you a good idea about my “view” of the spill and its impact in The Big Picture. As an archaeologist, my “frame of reference” is generally hundreds/thousands of years. I looked at the spill and its impacts from that perspective. Some people called me unprofessional names when I published this, saying I was an “Exxon whore” (and worse). It was ironic because I felt that I kind of stuck my neck out to be honest and not over-state things either way. But emotions rule for some people. You’re seeing that now in the Gulf.
I’m sorry not to be able to take a lot more time to respond, but I put a lot of time and effort into this paper, as well as another one I wrote: “The Alutiiq Culture Before and After the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill.” I don’t have a pdf of the Alutiiq paper (from 1994, I think), I apologize. I also got grief about that one. There were lawyers (and expert anthropologists) who claimed the spill “destroyed the Alutiiq culture.” I detailed the actual impacts (yes, people were affected and the villagers closest to the spill were most directly affected and emotionally affected.) But culture is an adaptive mechanism and to claim the spill “destroyed” culture was, in my professional opinion, non-sense. Also, the spill affected different people differently within the native community. Again, I tried to step back, look at the big picture, and try to make an objective assessment of the impacts. I have noticed that since the spill there has been a proliferation of Alutiiq traditional dancers in many of the villages and that the spill may even have strengthened some aspects of local village culture.
The big “take-away” is that during the initial stages of the spill, there are huge emotional impacts and different people deal with that differently. Some groups of people have never gotten “over it” – and my observation was that some groups who were so emotionally and financially tied up in the endless litigation continued to stay angry and upset. I am not saying people shouldn’t take advantage of their rights under the legal system, but it seemed like the litigation victimized people long after the direct spill impacts ended.
You asked about the Supreme Court decision and how it may have affected BP’s “readiness.” I don’t think that’s the issue. The big parallel I see between the lack of “readiness” in Prince Wm Sound and the lack of “readiness” in the Gulf is the lack of effective regulatory oversight. In Alaska, the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation (the regulatory group with oversight on the spill preparedness) had been GUTTED because of budget issues in the late 1980s. They weren’t effective in ensuring Industry was prepared. I think a similar process has played out in the Gulf. I haven’t read their response plans, but it sounds like the MMS was not being an effective regulator and ensuring effective preparedness.
I got to see hundreds of miles of remote shoreline in Kodiak and the Alaska Peninsula. Very little oil made it down there relative to the oil in Prince Wm Sound. Also, the press put out a “map” of the oiling in 1989 implying that all the beaches from Prince Wm Sound to the Alaska Peninsula were all oiled. Our shoreline assessments – where teams of specialists (and oil geologist, a biologist an archaeologist and a Coast Guard and Landowner representative) produced maps that showed heavy, moderate and light oil for 1989. The press (New York Times printed it) took that map and took the full extent of the area and put a big black outline over the whole area from the Copper River to the Alaska Peninsula and everyone in the country thought that the whole area was greased. I saw a similar map of the Gulf the other day. From what I’ve heard from the folks on the ground down there, that map is totally inaccurate, implying that the whole gulf is full of oil. It is a mess, and it’s unprecedented in the sense that it continues to spew oil.
I hope this has been helpful, and I will leave you with this final thought: things are never “black and white” like the press tries to portray them – there are lots of shades of grey when you really start looking into things. Use your own independent critical thinking skills to guide you.
Best wishes, Chris
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Brian Hawkins (interview done by phone and rewritten afterwards)
Brian, I was told that you were in Valdez during the spill?
Yeah. That was in 1989. So I was a commercial fisherman in the area who fished in Prince William Sound out of Homer, Alaska. I had a 48 foot boat. Now I remember the spill because it happened before the big fishing season had opened. It was during the spring. It was on Good Friday. So I remember that it happened on Friday. On Saturday morning I got a call telling me about the spill and they asked if I could go to work with my boat to help with the cleanup. They asked me how much I charged and I just doubled my rate. They accepted it really quickly and to this day I feel like I went to cheap, you know?
So by Sunday I was working as support for the skimming ships. We would skim oil from the water and take it back to unload it at a mother ship. Now, I think I worked for about 100 days straight. All we did was pull skimmers through the water. We pulled these skimmers through what seemed like “rivers of oil”. I mean just tons of oil. It was like we were pulling the booms through brown chocolate mousse.
So it seems like you reacted to the spill fairly quickly. What do you think about the accusations that Exxon’s response was slow and ineffective?
Well anyone with any common sense can tell that the response was bad. What we learned was that people standing on the beaches shoveling oil for hours will never have any real positive effect.
Can you tell me about the damage the spill did to the area?
A really obvious effect was the wildlife that was affected. So on our skimmer was a conveyer. When we pulled up a haul of oil we had to check in the thick oil for anything. We had to poke lumps to make sure that there wasn’t a sea otter because we couldn’t put sea otters in the tank.
A lot of people said we should be cleaning these animals off but scientists said we should be euthanizing them. And I believe this to be true. There’s really nothing we could do for most of these animals. It was too expensive and hard to clean them and most of the time the cleaning didn’t work very well. I mean, it would have been better to just put a .22 shell through their head.
Compared to the number of animals affected, the number of people affected was actually pretty small. I was fishing for salmon in the ‘80s. The year of the spill, it was actually quite funny, Exxon informed us fisherman that if we wanted to settle a claim to get any money, we had to fish that year. It was like to prove to them that there weren’t any fish left in the water. So basically all us fisherman were stuck in the same area fishing for fish that had had their populations completely decimated. And since your settlement was based on your catch that year it turned into a competition, and with all us fishing in the same small are it was really competitive. I mean, no one really knew how to address compensation.
So the year before the spill I could sell the fish I brought in for somewhere from 70-90 cents per pound. The year of the spill was a complete waste of time to fish. After the spill I sold my catches for something like 12 cents per pound. The way it worked was that as soon as the spill happened, demand for seafood from the region plummeted because, well of course, no one wanted sea food from a “contaminated environment”. I mean, who wants that? And it’s the same deal with the stuff coming from the Gulf of Mexico and that area right now. The demand for food from their area is going to fall through the floor.
Then I guess over the last five years the industry has started to recover. But of course I got out of it a long time ago. I had a family of five who I was trying to feed with just my income and with no fish and no demand for the fish I was actually able to catch I just got tired of it and eventually just quit. After that I got a skippering job for some fairly big companies.
Do you see anything we learned from Valdez being put to work in the Gulf of Mexico right now?
Well obviously a lot of new knowledge and equipment is being used and in that way I see learning. But what wasn’t learned was that… well, it happened again. We LET it happen again. Yeah, in a slightly different way but still. With Exxon, we had never had a catastrophe in that way of that magnitude. But just because it hadn’t happened doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have planned for it. It’s the same in the Gulf. We are doing all this off shore drilling and oil stuff in the water and even though we’ve never had a problem like this before we still should have planned for it. There’s no excuse. It’s just us being arrogant. We need to make our government responsible for these things because they didn’t plan for it. But now they’ll plan for it. I think they should keep looking for new oil; we need the oil. I can guarantee this won’t happen again. Now that it’s happened once we’ll prepare for it and it won’t happen again. We all pay the price. My advice to fisherman down there [in the gulf] is to get a new job as quick as possible.
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Matt Clarke (interview done by phone, retyped afterwards)
What are your opinions on the cleanup process? (His response to Brian’s thoughts on Exxon’s bad cleanup response)
Well now, Will, you have to understand that in 1989 I was only 18 in a economics history class so my personal memory of the spill isn’t vast.
What I feel we learned from the lack of speed and efficiency in cleanup was that spill response equipment needed to address a major spill. We had never had a spill the size of this one so we had no practice reacting to it. Exxon’s faults come from their lack of preparedness. There was no preparation for a spill of that magnitude because it had never happened before. The money was there but it had never been faced, so they weren’t ready.
You have to understand the vast geography of Alaska. Alaska is a long ways away from you up there so you may not fully get it. Where Brian and I are, in Homer, is over 100 miles away from Valdez. So when people, like Brian, were contacted to help out 100 miles away, you can bet the response was slow. Not only that but also the weather was difficult that time of year and it made it hard for a quick response.
Another thing that was a problem was that there just was a lack of man power and machine power. And this is, again, just because they did not know what they were dealing with because were unprepared. It’s a very difficult situation and people were doing lots of scrambling from the very beginning.
(In response to Brian discussing the drop in fish demand due to “contaminated waters”)
So Will, let me jump in here. It has to be made clear that we would never sell contaminated fish. It’s simply that as soon as the spill occurred, people around the world labeled our water’s, Alaskan waters, as contaminated. It wasn’t the fish we were selling that were the problem, they were still just as good as before. What ruined the market was that they came from contaminated waters.
Do you see anything we learned from Valdez being put to work in the Gulf of Mexico right now?
I feel like this was a good example of industry overpowering regulation. The development of the technology was there, there were just no safety measures in place for the recovery. The government looked kindly on oil companies and the process of oil shipping. But my gut feeling is grim. The oil companies have the best technology and employees of anyone out there for dealing with things like this. Only they can do it. This is not a job for the coast guard or anyone like that. We can’t deal with an oil spill. It’s really an industry specific issue.
One way to put how “we all pay the price” is that, when a big spill happens, the oil companies “privatize the profits and socialize the losses”.
I mean the Supreme Court really let Exxon off the hook. Although, if the Supreme Court had come down harder on Exxon, I do not believe that BP would have been any more careful. The problem in the Gulf area still would have happened. Now it would be a different story if the BP catastrophe had happened during the time the Supreme Court was milling over the Exxon case. They would have come down way harder and in a more effective way on Exxon.
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Showing posts with label 1990's. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1990's. Show all posts
Reflections on South African Apartheid Anna Griffith Fillipo
South African Apartheid will forever scar the history of this country. Discrimination against blacks has always been theme throughout the white world, but the Dutch Afrikaners of South Africa took this discrimination a step further. South Africa was completely segregated, and whites took special precautions to ensure this, such as making separate homelands to force blacks into the bad parts of the country and away from whites. Anything that could be controlled by the white minority was, and blacks were forced into virtual slavery for nearly 50 years.
The effects of apartheid were felt across the world. This cruel oppression was an outrage and reason for protest for many people in Western countries. Apartheid had a huge influence across the globe, and its influence can still be felt today in not only movement for civil reform, but in culture.
A Personal Fight Against Apartheid: Interview with Alan Aderem
Alan Aderem grew up as a white in South Africa during apartheid, and now lives in the United States. He spent his youth in South Africa fighting apartheid, and had to leave for that reason. He remains involved as a proud supporter of the new South African Government.
Alan Aderem was born in Karoo, a smaller town located in the semi desert part of South Africa. When he was 12, his family moved to Capetown. His young childhood was spent with black friends because as he explained, when you are young you don’t notice color, but as you grow and become aware of social norms, the separation of races is noted. Mr. Aderem grew up in a family that was very anti-apartheid. His biological mother was a doctor with a black practice, and a black woman, who he considered his other mother, mostly raised him. His biological mother’s strong moral protest of apartheid and the fact that someone he loved was treated poorly by all society made him aware of the social injustice of apartheid at a very young age. Mr. Aderem explains that on the most crude, basic level, apartheid just meant that black and whites were not allowed to be together, and blacks received the short end of the stick.
Mr. Aderem noted that as a white child, he always had much better resources than the blacks of his age. Even before he understood the apartheid system, he noticed the segregation as soon as school began. Blacks and whites went to different schools, and the white schools were far better than the black schools because the blacks were poor, and the whites could afford quality. Mr. Aderem remembers going to stores that had two entrances, one for whites and one for blacks. Within the store, he notes, there was a fence separating the white side and the poor quality merchandise on the black side. He explained that even if there were twenty black kids and only one white person waiting in line to be served, the white person would always be accommodated first. Mr. Aderem said that as soon as he realized these things, he developed a social conscious.
It was this social conscious that prompted him to take up anti-apartheid movement when he was just sixteen years of age. He started by becoming a member of the National Youth action and met up with black kids from townships to make little anti-apartheid newspapers. He then became involved in more assertive public demonstrations, such as going into the streets with banners, spurred by some issue such as a seemingly unnecessary arrest. These demonstrations were risky as he was often arrested and beaten up. He decided to protest differently, and at the age of twenty, he was recruited and became a member of the ANC (African National Congress). In the ANC, Mr. Aderem was involved with starting trade unions, which would disrupt the South African economy as it relied on black labor. This landed him in a lot of trouble as he put it, and at the age of twenty-three, he was arrested and imprisoned for five years after a protest right after the Soweto Uprising.
His imprisonment was brutal. The first part was the interrogation but Mr. Aderem says it could be considered torture, as the white authorities were willing to go to any lengths to get information on anti-apartheid movements. While imprisoned, they were four to a cell and treated particularly poorly because they were political prisoners. Mr. Aderem witnessed many protestors killed in prison, no matter what their race. After he served his five years in prison, he remained under house arrest for another year. He was banned from leaving or from talking to more than one person at a time to prevent conspiracy meetings. After this, Mr. Aderem was asked to leave the country by the ANC because he knew too much and was at risk. From South Africa at this point, he escaped to a neighboring country in exile, and from there traveled to London and then New York.
When asked about how South Africa was separated from the world, Mr. Aderem replied with the obvious lack of trade because of global disdain towards apartheid. He also explained how South Africa sport was affected because of separation. Apparently, South Africa was good at a number of sports, but no South African sports team was allowed to play anywhere else, and other sports teams would not come to South Africa. As a sports fan, this ostracism was one of them most noticed global consequences for Mr. Aderem.
Mr. Aderem reports that back in the 1960s, not very many white people knew about Nelson Mandela, but he was informed because of his mother’s early involvement in the anti-apartheid movement. Mr. Aderem looks up to Mandela hugely, mostly because of his original leadership in the ANC. Mr. Aderem explained that the most effective step in ending apartheid was the decision instigated by the ANC to make the country ungovernable through people’s uprisings starting with the Soweto Uprising and leading throughout the 1980s. Whites realized that they couldn’t hold on to power and they began making reforms. Mandela was in jail at this time, and Mr. Aderem explained that he refused to come out of jail until the ANC was unbound. When it was announced that Mandela was to be released, Mr. Aderem flew to South Africa. Ever since Mandela became president, and blacks were given political power, a vote, and representation, Mr. Aderem has been an advisor to the South African government. He is very interested in the HIV/AIDS impact, and works with the government commission to equalize health care. He expresses his concern for the number of problems that remain in rebuilding South Africa, but was pleased to report that since Mandela became president, over ten million houses have been built in the poor areas were blacks used to be sent.
Mr. Aderem stated that the end of apartheid was a great role model. He feels that the success of South Africa greatly rests in the amazing leadership skills of Nelson Mandela. This dismantling was extraordinarily important to the developing world to see that a country could be free. The relative peacefulness of the break down of apartheid (no war was fought to end it) demonstrated that radical political change could take place peacefully, he explained. The way South Africa was able to come together after apartheid, through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was a good example for the rest of the world to follow, showing that things could be straightened out between major powers peacefully. Mr. Aderem also said how the constitution that was adopted after apartheid was very progressive and should be taken as an example for its liberal views on women’s rights and gay rights, aside from the obvious racial equality. In all, Mr. Aderem stressed the large effect that the end of apartheid had on people fighting their own freedom battles, and that they can overcome a stronger power with perseverance.
The major point that Mr. Aderem thinks should be taken away from the end of apartheid and the reconciliation of South Africa relates back to the basics of doing what is right and following your moral compass. He feels that the apartheid being overcome exemplifies the ideal that no matter what odds, an underdog can win, and no one should ever fall into something just because everyone else does, “do the right thing.”
Listening to Apartheid: Interview with Beverly Mendheim
Beverly Mendheim is a performer who is very familiar with African culture, music, and dance. In this interview, she expresses the effect that apartheid had on South African culture. We learn of apartheid's resounding influence on music across the world.
Ms. Mendheim started out by stating her extreme displeasure at never having personally visited South Africa. She would have liked to at some point while she was employed, but that was unfortunately during apartheid, and she didn’t want to support the South African economy while visiting. She also didn’t feel comfortable as a black person, visiting.
Ms. Mendheim started out by explaining the historical context of two major indigenous black groups that make up South Africa. These are the Swazi and the Sotho. She explained how these large groups of indigenous people were able to form their own nations during the height of apartheid, based on the “homelands” that were within South African borders. In 1966, Lesotho was formed by the Sotho people, a country entirely within South Africa, and in 1968, the Swazi formed Swaziland, a small country between South Africa and Mozambique. Both are recognized by the United Nations as countries. She explained that there was some debated between black and white scholars about the languages spoken in these areas. It is widely agreed however, she stated, that the languages the indigenous Khoi-Khoi spoke were Bantu, the largest groups being Xhosa and Zulu, along with Tswana, Ndebele, and Venda. Each of these language groups has a distinct culture, condensed by an apartheid made homeland, she informed me, and she happens to own a dance costume commonly worm among the Venda.
Traditional music across all homelands included no drums, rather a clapping or tapping of a shield. Ms. Mendheim explained, however, that the Dutch likely introduced drums from other parts of Africa, and then these Bantu speakers began to follow the commonality of drum use. String instruments are apparently very common, made out of traditional items such as a bow and arrow. Like the Dutch the Porteguese had European influence in South Africa, and they introduced the guitar. According to Ms. Mendheim, the guitar, along with drums, is a main theme in South African music now. One of Ms. Mendheim’s favorite musicians is South African, Miriam Makeba, and she preformed traditional songs of the Xhosa and Zulu peoples. South Africa is also famous for its choral harmonies, exemplified by the work of the Lady Smith Black Mambozo, who took traditional Bantu music and has now globalized it.
Perhaps the most famous example of the effect of homelands on traditional tribal music is that of township jive, Ms. Mendheim said. Township Jive directly reflected popular jazz music of the 1920s and ‘30s around the world, like Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald. However, the people of the townships preformed this music in their own language. The jazzy undertones to their music developed into a new kind of music characterized as marabi or kwela. The Mahotella Queens, originally created in 1964, but still around today, one of Ms. Mendheim’s favorite groups, combined rock with the township jive as western culture began to seep into black South Africa through blacks working in the cities and returning back to their homelands. Ms. Mendheim explained that the wide spread of this new sound gave South Africa a new type of indigenous music that many Americans are familiar with today.
Apartheid directly affected the music scene in South Africa aside from the highly developed musical identities of the homelands. Ms. Mendheim proved this by listing off popular South African songs. The South African national anthem began as an ANC song, “Nkosi Sikelele Africa,” which translates as “God Bless Africa.” This song was originally an anti-apartheid protest song, which is how Ms. Menheim learned it in the 1980s. Another song she brought up related to apartheid was “Shosoloza.” Ms. Mendheim believes that this song is indirectly linked to apartheid because it talks about working in the mines, a job that blacks maintained with their apartheid-stunted education. Many other famous songs have come from South Africa, such as the “Wimoweh” song in the Lion King, which is in fact preformed by South African folk singers, right at the time when Nelson Mandela took power. Since the end of apartheid, South African folk singers have become abundantly featured in popular music all over the world, and Ms. Mendheim sampled a few of these songs in her own voice.
Ms. Mendheim informed me that apartheid had a great impact on the musical development of South Africa. She explained that there was very little radio in black South Africa until after World War II. It wasn’t until 1962 that there was actually widespread radio, when the government made Bantu Radio. This radio was propaganda to enforce separate development of Bantustans. For Swazi and Sotho people this was effective, she explained, because they stayed to themselves and managed to make separate countries. For Zulu and Xsotha peoples however, the issues of Bantustans made it hard for them to work in the cities, so the white culture diffused into the connective homelands.
Ms. Mendheim was very familiar with and introduced me to resources in the Seattle area where South African music can be heard. For instance, Mondays from 6-9pm on KEXP is a pop Africa radio show, and on KBCS from 6-9 there is often South African music. The most important thing that Ms. Mendheim wanted me to walk away from this interview with was music in other countries had a singular traditional sound, but the combination and condensed nature of the apartheid-forced homelands allowed South Africa to develop different musical and cultural identities across the entire country.
Apartheid Across the World: Interview with Drew Fillipo
Drew Fillipo is an American citizen and Quaker who has always been interested in African affairs. In this interview, he expresses the effects that apartheid had in the United States. As a Quaker, he reflects the outrage that peace and equality groups had towards this institution.
Reflecting on the impact of apartheid on the United States, Mr. Fillipo remembers the general outrage that was towards this institution. Mr. Fillipo reflects the demeanor of most Americans that it was appalling that 120-130 years after the United States’ own civil war against slavery, that the blacks in South Africa were still being treated like slaves. Equally appalling, he said, was that even after the United States’ recent civil rights movement, where blacks were a minority fighting for equal rights, in South Africa, the black majority still suffered severe segregation and oppression.
According to Mr. Fillipo, apartheid in South Africa caused continuous protest in the United States. As a college and grad-school student, Mr. Fillipo participated in many protests. He and many other students took special care to ensure that universities divested any support to South Africa. The goal of most Americans aware of the apartheid issue was to pressure the United States’ government to more strongly protest the South African government. With his university, and with many universities across the country, students like Mr. Fillipo encouraged their schools to give scholarships to black South Africans to be taught in the United States. This would give black South Africans a chance at education never presented in South Africa. By bringing kids to the United States, universities supported the leaders of peaceful protest in South Africa.
Explicitly as a Quaker, apartheid was an especially upsetting concept for Mr. Fillipo. As a group, Quakers are dedicated to achieving equality and peace, and this violent oppression of an entire race of people, led to many protests. Quakers were a large part of the National Anti-Apartheid rally held in October of 1985. Although Mr. Fillipo was not a part of this particular rally, his meeting discussed in great deal protests and some members did attend. In general, apartheid was a huge energizing point in the Quaker community to band together to support black South Africa, as apartheid embodied almost everything that Quakers were against.
In Mr. Fillipo’s non-political life, apartheid played a role as well. Mr. Fillipo refused to buy a diamond engagement ring because he was aware of the oppressed blacks working in the South African diamond mines, and he refused to provide economic stimulant towards the terrible conditions that black South Africans had to work in the diamond mines. Without education, mine jobs were the some of the only jobs they could achieve, and Mr. Fillipo expressed his disgust at the thought of encouraging more mine work by purchasing a diamond. Mr. Fillipo had visited Africa a few times in the 1980s and ‘90s, but once given an opportunity to work in South Africa, he turned it down. He wouldn’t be working in black hospitals, as those were paid with black taxes and very poor, and if he wasn’t directly helping the black people, Mr. Fillipo decided that he couldn’t support South Africa under apartheid. By working and living there, he would be aiding South Africa economically and just generally aiding a concept he believed was just completely morally unjust. Instead, Mr. Fillipo took a job in Kenya instead.
In this post-apartheid era, Mr. Fillipo is very impressed by black South Africa’s rise to power. He attributes this successful rebuilding of a government to Nelson Mandela. Mr. Fillipo says that Nelson Mandela coming to power was the greatest positive political event in his life. Mr. Fillipo reflects on how before Mandela became president, he was completely dismayed at how decades of struggle against the oppressive government had taught black South African’s violence, and left South Africa with extremely high murder rates. Mr. Fillipo says that without Mandela, no one could “expect people who have been denied basic human rights to know how to run a government,” but with Mandela as president South Africa was able to peaceably rise to a true democratic government.
Since the end of apartheid, Mr. Fillipo has traveled with his family to South Africa. He noted how economically solid South Africa is, and how well the government was able to sustain white economic value. Mr. Fillipo was glad to note that although black homeland areas are still impoverished, they have improved, and will only continue to in the future. He worries, however, for the South African identity. He noted that all place names are in English, Dutch or Afrikaner, with no Bantu or traditional African names. He does concede that it would be very difficult to completely develop a new country, and he only hopes that South Africa will be able to get back to some of its African roots.
Although he has nothing positive to say about apartheid or any of its repercussions, he notes that black South Africans who have moved to the United States from homelands have a “vibrant culture with wonderful music and dance,” that will now diffuse and become part of American culture.
The effects of apartheid were felt across the world. This cruel oppression was an outrage and reason for protest for many people in Western countries. Apartheid had a huge influence across the globe, and its influence can still be felt today in not only movement for civil reform, but in culture.
A Personal Fight Against Apartheid: Interview with Alan Aderem
Alan Aderem grew up as a white in South Africa during apartheid, and now lives in the United States. He spent his youth in South Africa fighting apartheid, and had to leave for that reason. He remains involved as a proud supporter of the new South African Government.
Alan Aderem was born in Karoo, a smaller town located in the semi desert part of South Africa. When he was 12, his family moved to Capetown. His young childhood was spent with black friends because as he explained, when you are young you don’t notice color, but as you grow and become aware of social norms, the separation of races is noted. Mr. Aderem grew up in a family that was very anti-apartheid. His biological mother was a doctor with a black practice, and a black woman, who he considered his other mother, mostly raised him. His biological mother’s strong moral protest of apartheid and the fact that someone he loved was treated poorly by all society made him aware of the social injustice of apartheid at a very young age. Mr. Aderem explains that on the most crude, basic level, apartheid just meant that black and whites were not allowed to be together, and blacks received the short end of the stick.
Mr. Aderem noted that as a white child, he always had much better resources than the blacks of his age. Even before he understood the apartheid system, he noticed the segregation as soon as school began. Blacks and whites went to different schools, and the white schools were far better than the black schools because the blacks were poor, and the whites could afford quality. Mr. Aderem remembers going to stores that had two entrances, one for whites and one for blacks. Within the store, he notes, there was a fence separating the white side and the poor quality merchandise on the black side. He explained that even if there were twenty black kids and only one white person waiting in line to be served, the white person would always be accommodated first. Mr. Aderem said that as soon as he realized these things, he developed a social conscious.
It was this social conscious that prompted him to take up anti-apartheid movement when he was just sixteen years of age. He started by becoming a member of the National Youth action and met up with black kids from townships to make little anti-apartheid newspapers. He then became involved in more assertive public demonstrations, such as going into the streets with banners, spurred by some issue such as a seemingly unnecessary arrest. These demonstrations were risky as he was often arrested and beaten up. He decided to protest differently, and at the age of twenty, he was recruited and became a member of the ANC (African National Congress). In the ANC, Mr. Aderem was involved with starting trade unions, which would disrupt the South African economy as it relied on black labor. This landed him in a lot of trouble as he put it, and at the age of twenty-three, he was arrested and imprisoned for five years after a protest right after the Soweto Uprising.
His imprisonment was brutal. The first part was the interrogation but Mr. Aderem says it could be considered torture, as the white authorities were willing to go to any lengths to get information on anti-apartheid movements. While imprisoned, they were four to a cell and treated particularly poorly because they were political prisoners. Mr. Aderem witnessed many protestors killed in prison, no matter what their race. After he served his five years in prison, he remained under house arrest for another year. He was banned from leaving or from talking to more than one person at a time to prevent conspiracy meetings. After this, Mr. Aderem was asked to leave the country by the ANC because he knew too much and was at risk. From South Africa at this point, he escaped to a neighboring country in exile, and from there traveled to London and then New York.
When asked about how South Africa was separated from the world, Mr. Aderem replied with the obvious lack of trade because of global disdain towards apartheid. He also explained how South Africa sport was affected because of separation. Apparently, South Africa was good at a number of sports, but no South African sports team was allowed to play anywhere else, and other sports teams would not come to South Africa. As a sports fan, this ostracism was one of them most noticed global consequences for Mr. Aderem.
Mr. Aderem reports that back in the 1960s, not very many white people knew about Nelson Mandela, but he was informed because of his mother’s early involvement in the anti-apartheid movement. Mr. Aderem looks up to Mandela hugely, mostly because of his original leadership in the ANC. Mr. Aderem explained that the most effective step in ending apartheid was the decision instigated by the ANC to make the country ungovernable through people’s uprisings starting with the Soweto Uprising and leading throughout the 1980s. Whites realized that they couldn’t hold on to power and they began making reforms. Mandela was in jail at this time, and Mr. Aderem explained that he refused to come out of jail until the ANC was unbound. When it was announced that Mandela was to be released, Mr. Aderem flew to South Africa. Ever since Mandela became president, and blacks were given political power, a vote, and representation, Mr. Aderem has been an advisor to the South African government. He is very interested in the HIV/AIDS impact, and works with the government commission to equalize health care. He expresses his concern for the number of problems that remain in rebuilding South Africa, but was pleased to report that since Mandela became president, over ten million houses have been built in the poor areas were blacks used to be sent.
Mr. Aderem stated that the end of apartheid was a great role model. He feels that the success of South Africa greatly rests in the amazing leadership skills of Nelson Mandela. This dismantling was extraordinarily important to the developing world to see that a country could be free. The relative peacefulness of the break down of apartheid (no war was fought to end it) demonstrated that radical political change could take place peacefully, he explained. The way South Africa was able to come together after apartheid, through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was a good example for the rest of the world to follow, showing that things could be straightened out between major powers peacefully. Mr. Aderem also said how the constitution that was adopted after apartheid was very progressive and should be taken as an example for its liberal views on women’s rights and gay rights, aside from the obvious racial equality. In all, Mr. Aderem stressed the large effect that the end of apartheid had on people fighting their own freedom battles, and that they can overcome a stronger power with perseverance.
The major point that Mr. Aderem thinks should be taken away from the end of apartheid and the reconciliation of South Africa relates back to the basics of doing what is right and following your moral compass. He feels that the apartheid being overcome exemplifies the ideal that no matter what odds, an underdog can win, and no one should ever fall into something just because everyone else does, “do the right thing.”
Listening to Apartheid: Interview with Beverly Mendheim
Beverly Mendheim is a performer who is very familiar with African culture, music, and dance. In this interview, she expresses the effect that apartheid had on South African culture. We learn of apartheid's resounding influence on music across the world.
Ms. Mendheim started out by stating her extreme displeasure at never having personally visited South Africa. She would have liked to at some point while she was employed, but that was unfortunately during apartheid, and she didn’t want to support the South African economy while visiting. She also didn’t feel comfortable as a black person, visiting.
Ms. Mendheim started out by explaining the historical context of two major indigenous black groups that make up South Africa. These are the Swazi and the Sotho. She explained how these large groups of indigenous people were able to form their own nations during the height of apartheid, based on the “homelands” that were within South African borders. In 1966, Lesotho was formed by the Sotho people, a country entirely within South Africa, and in 1968, the Swazi formed Swaziland, a small country between South Africa and Mozambique. Both are recognized by the United Nations as countries. She explained that there was some debated between black and white scholars about the languages spoken in these areas. It is widely agreed however, she stated, that the languages the indigenous Khoi-Khoi spoke were Bantu, the largest groups being Xhosa and Zulu, along with Tswana, Ndebele, and Venda. Each of these language groups has a distinct culture, condensed by an apartheid made homeland, she informed me, and she happens to own a dance costume commonly worm among the Venda.
Traditional music across all homelands included no drums, rather a clapping or tapping of a shield. Ms. Mendheim explained, however, that the Dutch likely introduced drums from other parts of Africa, and then these Bantu speakers began to follow the commonality of drum use. String instruments are apparently very common, made out of traditional items such as a bow and arrow. Like the Dutch the Porteguese had European influence in South Africa, and they introduced the guitar. According to Ms. Mendheim, the guitar, along with drums, is a main theme in South African music now. One of Ms. Mendheim’s favorite musicians is South African, Miriam Makeba, and she preformed traditional songs of the Xhosa and Zulu peoples. South Africa is also famous for its choral harmonies, exemplified by the work of the Lady Smith Black Mambozo, who took traditional Bantu music and has now globalized it.
Perhaps the most famous example of the effect of homelands on traditional tribal music is that of township jive, Ms. Mendheim said. Township Jive directly reflected popular jazz music of the 1920s and ‘30s around the world, like Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald. However, the people of the townships preformed this music in their own language. The jazzy undertones to their music developed into a new kind of music characterized as marabi or kwela. The Mahotella Queens, originally created in 1964, but still around today, one of Ms. Mendheim’s favorite groups, combined rock with the township jive as western culture began to seep into black South Africa through blacks working in the cities and returning back to their homelands. Ms. Mendheim explained that the wide spread of this new sound gave South Africa a new type of indigenous music that many Americans are familiar with today.
Apartheid directly affected the music scene in South Africa aside from the highly developed musical identities of the homelands. Ms. Mendheim proved this by listing off popular South African songs. The South African national anthem began as an ANC song, “Nkosi Sikelele Africa,” which translates as “God Bless Africa.” This song was originally an anti-apartheid protest song, which is how Ms. Menheim learned it in the 1980s. Another song she brought up related to apartheid was “Shosoloza.” Ms. Mendheim believes that this song is indirectly linked to apartheid because it talks about working in the mines, a job that blacks maintained with their apartheid-stunted education. Many other famous songs have come from South Africa, such as the “Wimoweh” song in the Lion King, which is in fact preformed by South African folk singers, right at the time when Nelson Mandela took power. Since the end of apartheid, South African folk singers have become abundantly featured in popular music all over the world, and Ms. Mendheim sampled a few of these songs in her own voice.
Ms. Mendheim informed me that apartheid had a great impact on the musical development of South Africa. She explained that there was very little radio in black South Africa until after World War II. It wasn’t until 1962 that there was actually widespread radio, when the government made Bantu Radio. This radio was propaganda to enforce separate development of Bantustans. For Swazi and Sotho people this was effective, she explained, because they stayed to themselves and managed to make separate countries. For Zulu and Xsotha peoples however, the issues of Bantustans made it hard for them to work in the cities, so the white culture diffused into the connective homelands.
Ms. Mendheim was very familiar with and introduced me to resources in the Seattle area where South African music can be heard. For instance, Mondays from 6-9pm on KEXP is a pop Africa radio show, and on KBCS from 6-9 there is often South African music. The most important thing that Ms. Mendheim wanted me to walk away from this interview with was music in other countries had a singular traditional sound, but the combination and condensed nature of the apartheid-forced homelands allowed South Africa to develop different musical and cultural identities across the entire country.
Apartheid Across the World: Interview with Drew Fillipo
Drew Fillipo is an American citizen and Quaker who has always been interested in African affairs. In this interview, he expresses the effects that apartheid had in the United States. As a Quaker, he reflects the outrage that peace and equality groups had towards this institution.
Reflecting on the impact of apartheid on the United States, Mr. Fillipo remembers the general outrage that was towards this institution. Mr. Fillipo reflects the demeanor of most Americans that it was appalling that 120-130 years after the United States’ own civil war against slavery, that the blacks in South Africa were still being treated like slaves. Equally appalling, he said, was that even after the United States’ recent civil rights movement, where blacks were a minority fighting for equal rights, in South Africa, the black majority still suffered severe segregation and oppression.
According to Mr. Fillipo, apartheid in South Africa caused continuous protest in the United States. As a college and grad-school student, Mr. Fillipo participated in many protests. He and many other students took special care to ensure that universities divested any support to South Africa. The goal of most Americans aware of the apartheid issue was to pressure the United States’ government to more strongly protest the South African government. With his university, and with many universities across the country, students like Mr. Fillipo encouraged their schools to give scholarships to black South Africans to be taught in the United States. This would give black South Africans a chance at education never presented in South Africa. By bringing kids to the United States, universities supported the leaders of peaceful protest in South Africa.
Explicitly as a Quaker, apartheid was an especially upsetting concept for Mr. Fillipo. As a group, Quakers are dedicated to achieving equality and peace, and this violent oppression of an entire race of people, led to many protests. Quakers were a large part of the National Anti-Apartheid rally held in October of 1985. Although Mr. Fillipo was not a part of this particular rally, his meeting discussed in great deal protests and some members did attend. In general, apartheid was a huge energizing point in the Quaker community to band together to support black South Africa, as apartheid embodied almost everything that Quakers were against.
In Mr. Fillipo’s non-political life, apartheid played a role as well. Mr. Fillipo refused to buy a diamond engagement ring because he was aware of the oppressed blacks working in the South African diamond mines, and he refused to provide economic stimulant towards the terrible conditions that black South Africans had to work in the diamond mines. Without education, mine jobs were the some of the only jobs they could achieve, and Mr. Fillipo expressed his disgust at the thought of encouraging more mine work by purchasing a diamond. Mr. Fillipo had visited Africa a few times in the 1980s and ‘90s, but once given an opportunity to work in South Africa, he turned it down. He wouldn’t be working in black hospitals, as those were paid with black taxes and very poor, and if he wasn’t directly helping the black people, Mr. Fillipo decided that he couldn’t support South Africa under apartheid. By working and living there, he would be aiding South Africa economically and just generally aiding a concept he believed was just completely morally unjust. Instead, Mr. Fillipo took a job in Kenya instead.
In this post-apartheid era, Mr. Fillipo is very impressed by black South Africa’s rise to power. He attributes this successful rebuilding of a government to Nelson Mandela. Mr. Fillipo says that Nelson Mandela coming to power was the greatest positive political event in his life. Mr. Fillipo reflects on how before Mandela became president, he was completely dismayed at how decades of struggle against the oppressive government had taught black South African’s violence, and left South Africa with extremely high murder rates. Mr. Fillipo says that without Mandela, no one could “expect people who have been denied basic human rights to know how to run a government,” but with Mandela as president South Africa was able to peaceably rise to a true democratic government.
Since the end of apartheid, Mr. Fillipo has traveled with his family to South Africa. He noted how economically solid South Africa is, and how well the government was able to sustain white economic value. Mr. Fillipo was glad to note that although black homeland areas are still impoverished, they have improved, and will only continue to in the future. He worries, however, for the South African identity. He noted that all place names are in English, Dutch or Afrikaner, with no Bantu or traditional African names. He does concede that it would be very difficult to completely develop a new country, and he only hopes that South Africa will be able to get back to some of its African roots.
Although he has nothing positive to say about apartheid or any of its repercussions, he notes that black South Africans who have moved to the United States from homelands have a “vibrant culture with wonderful music and dance,” that will now diffuse and become part of American culture.
The Causes of the Breakup of Yugoslavia and its Lasting Impacts - Nicholas Efthimiadis
Overview: My topic focuses on the causes of the breakup of Yugoslavia and its lasting impacts. For the interviews, I used the simple question and then response format. The first interview is from Person-1, then a high school graduate living in Stolac, a small town in Herzegovina (part of Bosnia). She witnessed the decent of multi-national, religious, and ethnic Bosnia into war and managed to survive. The second interview is from Person-2, a college graduate, living in Sarajevo, working in a state run company. He has the unique insight of witnessing the breakup of Yugoslavia and the Bosnian War from up close, in Sarajevo and then also from the outside, in various countries. The third interview comes from Person-3, a new immigrant to the United States and a doctor, living in Los Angeles. She watched as her native Yugoslavia broke up and then rapidly fell into war. I hope that these interviews help to explain the confusing causes of Yugoslavia's violent breakup and then its deadly decent into war.
Interviews:
Interviewee: Person-1.
Description: Student/young adult during the breakup of Yugoslavia
1) Where were you during the 1980's, or the time period leading up to the collapse? In the mid 1980's I was in middle school and from 1988-1992, I was in high school. I lived in Stolac, a city located in Herzegovina. It was a small town, near the border of Croatia.
2) What is your understanding of the breakup of Yugoslavia? My understanding on the breakup at the time was that Slovenia wanted independence from Yugoslavia, however during the war, it became clear that most big politicians (Milosevic and Tudjman) didn’t care about Slovenia leaving. The big politicians simply wanted to split the rest of Yugoslavia into Croatia and Serbia. However, by then we were already simply fighting to stay alive, as the war had started.
3) What causes would you attribute to the breakup and did you experience them? The major cause was the rise of nationalistic ideas and the fact that many politicians took advantage of people, encouraging them to do awful things. I personally saw this happen in Stolac, during the war. Many of my neighbors, who we'd lived next to for years and even been friends with, turned on us and other Muslims. A majority of the people seemed to just follow their "people", or in other words, the nationalistic politicians. That is why I never really felt personally attacked, even though we were now being bombed from the hills and our house was half destroyed. There were other causes, but none can compare to nationalism.
4) Did you anticipate or believe that Yugoslavia would breakup? No, I did not anticipate that the breakup would happen or that the war would ever happen. I guess we were all so naive. Even when Slovenia eventually left, we had no idea of what was going to come. Life continued normally until eventually Serbians attacked and reality struck.
5) After the war in Bosnia, do you thing that an identity crisis emerged? For sure, people felt that they needed to belong after the war. Many non-religious people became religious, so that they could identify with others. This was particularly strong among Muslims. Croats could turn to Croatia, Serbs to Serbia, but ethnic Muslims could not turn to anything but religion. It is also important to note that a majority of ethnic Muslims before the war were either non-practicing or only visited a mosque a couple times a year. I had an acquaintance who was totally non-religious before the war, but he became ultra religious afterwards because he could not identify with others anymore. Many of the Muslims of Bosnia had lost their identity in
6) What are the main lasting impacts of the breakup? There are many direct impacts from the war and breakup, such as people losing family members, which is on a personal level. In addition, there were and still are huge economic impacts. For example, unemployment in Bosnia is over 40%, the economies of Serbia and (Fyrom)Macedonia are still recovering as well. Losses of property were huge, too. Then, you also have so many historical losses, numerous beautiful bridges, mosques, and churches were destroyed in the senseless fighting. Finally, the social impacts are the worst. I don't know if the wounds between Croats, Serbs, and Muslims can heal. The hatred that caused this was so strong it will take years to forgive and move on.
7) Do you think that the breakup/conflict is complete? I hate to say this, but I don't think it’s over. I don't follow the politics as closely as I should, but people seem like there not ready to move forward. The wounds and the rift caused by the breakup and fighting will take years to fully heal. Such hatred in a place where three nationalities existed peacefully for years prior to the breakup, will most likely take another fifty years before things can go back to "normal". I do not know too much about the conflict between Serbia and Kosovo, but I don't think the fighting has really ever stopped. I can't really say what will happen next there, but like I said before, I don't think the Balkan conflict and breakup is over yet.
Interviewee: Person-2.
Description: New father at the time of the breakup
1) Where were you during the 1980's, or the time period leading up to the collapse? Josip Broz Tito, father of the nation, national hero, president for life, died in May 1980, after months spent in a widely publicized hospital fight for his life. I graduated from my high school in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, before then enrolled in the Civil Engineering school. My dreams of becoming an architect did not look very real in an increasingly bad economic situation. Our government started something they called Stabilizacija (stabilization), a strict economic program pushed by the IMF in order to reduce a whopping twenty billion dollars of foreign debt (that was about a thousand dollars per head of each person in Yugoslavia, more or less the amount of an annual salary for a qualified worker). I spent one year in the Yugoslav army as part of our obligatory conscription. I had a chance to witness the great mismanagement of huge amounts of tax revenue, direct towards the expensive and ill trained military. The military intervention in Kosovo had a great political and ideological impact on Yugoslavia, especially on us soldiers involved in that first major conflict during the 1980's. In 1984 we hosted the Olympic games (in Sarajevo) and that was effective end of good times. I graduated and started working on a major construction project away from my home. Living in one small provincial town, I witnessed the mounting nationalistic divide, caused by atrocities in first and second world wars, still alive like open wounds after many years. My salary was abysmal, but I learned quickly, so I eventually joined a group of engineers that worked with some international consultants from the United States. While I was preparing myself for my first international project, I worked on antiquated computers. Imagine an 8-bit computer with a 750 kHz memory and a 20 MB hard drive, priced at sixteen thousand dollars! I also used a Word Processor program and Word Perfect that used to cost $1800 for one user. I left for Iraq in 1988. Before that, I started dating and eventually got married to my wife in 1989. With the money I earned in Iraq and with help of her parents, I bought my first and only new car, a Yugo 55 ($4000) , a 19 inch color TV ($1250), a VCR Sanyo ($1360), washer, fridge, Samsung (all-plastic) stereo ($400), and some other stuff. My father in law also had enough money to pay for one hundred and fifty dollars rent for one year, up front, and to go on a honeymoon to Italy. I left for Iraq again, this time I was taken hostage by the Iraqi revolutionary guard and returned penniless, traveling on the bus, through Anatolia (Turkey), for three days. We then lost our lease and moved to an apartment outside of our hometown, owned by my wife's family. That was right at the beginning of 1990's. During this time, we had our "first democratic" election in Yugoslavia, the Berlin Wall fell, and war in the Gulf was imminent. I was making computer programs for an extremely popular video store in exchange for free movies. The reason: I was not able to go to my work position for about three months since I worked forty-eight plus hours a week in Iraq, so therefore I accumulated hundreds of hours over the allowable limit. My car was mostly parked, literally, on a gas station, where the lines for gas were formed almost a week ahead of the anticipated delivery to the local pump. Every time, after filling my tank, I needed to spend some extra money to recover parts stolen from the car, while it was unattended (headlights, door handles, tire caps, radio, seat covers...).
2) What is your understanding of the breakup? A series of conflicts resulting in the dissolution of the government and territory of former Yugoslavia, along mostly ethnic lines (e.g. Slovenes in Slovenia, Croats in Croatia).
3) What causes would you attribute to the breakup and did you experience them? First off, there was the political aspect: The role of Yugoslavia as a non-aligned movement leader diminished after Tito's dead. Then, with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Perestroika policies in Russia, Solidarnosz policies in Poland, the role of Yugoslavia as a Western ally was not needed anymore. Secondly, the economic aspect: The economic system was creating a non-productive work environment. High taxation of foreign goods and the favoring of domestic products, combined with no "healthy" competition lead to low quality products and lower productivity. That resulted in lower salaries, unemployment of at least one million people, most of them fresh out of school. In addition, there was a lot of red tape surrounding employment, very formal and narrow definitions for employment, and probably ninety percent government owned production. The tax system and banking system very rudimentary, while the foreign currency was free marked for only a few years at the end of 1980's. A majority of transactions were illegal. Thirdly, internal political reasons: A weak federation with disproportionate development - the northwest had European economic standards, while the southwest had far bellow economic standards. Agricultural reform after World War two, saw farms subdivided into units that were unmanageable and unproductive. Tito's succession was also handled poorly, a collective rotating presidency in government and communist party was formed. Eventually, the Communist party was dissolved during congress, held on the 14th of January, 1990. Fourthly, the rise of nationalism: The late 1980's and early 1990's saw the 600 year anniversary of the battle in Kosovo, crowned by new nationalistic political leaders in Serbia. Croatians revived nationalistic movements from early seventies, invoking old fascistic ideologies, to name few.
4) Did you anticipate or believe that Yugoslavia would breakup? The situation looked bad, but it did not look like the breakup would happen until the early 1990's, when the Communist Party Congress dissolved. That began the deep divisions that would lead to the eventual war.
5) After the war in Bosnia, do you think that an identity crisis emerged? In my opinion, there was an identity crisis that existed before the war, or at least the starting of it. The issues were present, just buried down deep among other things. When the war started, the identity crisis erupted and that is why we saw so many young, confused people being recruited by the nationalistic leaders. These leaders took advantage over the population who did not know who to identify with. Clearly, Croats were led by fellow Croats from Croatia and Serbs from Serbia. That left the Bosnian Muslims, many who were also confused, to turn to Islam. Before, there were relatively few practicing Muslims, but after the war, many more emerged, along with practicing Catholics and Orthodox Christians, reflecting the need for people to identify with others.
6) What are the main lasting impacts of the breakup? There are many things that resulted from the war and the breakup. First of all, so many lives were lost in basically, what it was, a civil war. That is definitely the biggest loss. Another loss was the destruction of infrastructure, from factories, to roads, to whole towns. The government then had to take out many expensive loans, which it won't be able to for many years to come. This also means that the economy will continue to suffer with such minimal government investment. Also, before the war, Bosnia was an incredibly accepting place and that culture was lost during the war. To get the tradition of tolerance and togetherness back, will only come with the closure of the deep wounds of war. Furthermore, economic losses came from such instability, which scared off foreign investors and tourists, who are essential in revitalizing the damaged economy.
7) Do you think that the breakup/conflict is complete? I think that if you asked me today, or anybody else in Bosnia, we would say it is still going on and will continue (not in the terms of war, but in the terms of nationalistic tension). When the EU went to review Bosnia, they saw how ineffective the government was, so the EU installed a "shadow" government, who dictates a lot of things, from the type of uniform of soldiers to budgets of the military. The Bosnian government is simply too indecisive, to the point where they cannot agree upon much of anything. The war may be over, but there are many areas where you wouldn’t want to visit even by car because of the tension. I don't think there will be another conflict, unless some external force changes quickly. For example, the Serbian army would not be able to help Bosnian Serbs because the current state of the Serbian army and economy is not good. If there were the same amount of weapons in the area, the war could potentially start tomorrow because the wounds and tensions have yet to heal. I am honestly surprised that there is no visible conflict between Serbia and Kosovo now! When Kosovo declared independence, they expelled a majority of the Serbian population, so really few are left there. That mitigates Serbian claims to attack Kosovo, regardless of that, I don't think that Serbia will attack again because they know that economically, they can't afford it, while on the political side, it would be suicide.
Interviewee: Person-3.
Description: Research-doctor in Los Angeles, during the breakup
1) Where were you during the 1980's, or the time period leading up to the collapse?
I came to the UK (London, specifically) in 1983 to do my fellowship as a doctor and then from 1986-1990, I did my Ph.D. However, I still had regular contact to Sarajevo, as my mother and many of my friends lived there. My standard of living was decent, but my friends back in Sarajevo kept on telling me that every year, the standard of living was decreasing. There were shortages of food, while there were always long lines for regular household items. In addition, inflation went through the roof and people started to have their salaries deferred because there was no money to pay them.
2) What is your understanding of the breakup? Let me tell you a story. In early 1990, even going to 1991, my mother, who was living in Bosnia, started telling my brother and I that Serbs had climbed into the hills surrounding Sarajevo. She said that they were digging trenches and forming bunkers! We were so startled by not what she was saying, but the fact that she was mentioning a specific nationality doing this. My mother had always been secular and totally non-nationalist, so when she specifically stated that the Serbs were doing this, my brother and I became worried for her. How wrong we were..... only a year later the fighting would begin. Both my brother and I were in denial when the breakup started. We grew up in a society that was totally in harmony. After denial, I was filled with anger. I couldn't understand why this would happen because we came from Sarajevo, a cosmopolitan city! I never imagined that it could ever end up like Beirut, divided upon religious lines. In other words, I understood that it was happening, but I couldn't fathom how this was happening. I guess that was our mentality, from Sarajevo and other Bosnian towns. It never occurred to us that thinking was so different in other parts of Yugoslavia.
3) What causes would you attribute to the breakup and did you experience them? Oh gosh.... my belief is that once the economy went downhill, the leaders such Tudjman and Milosevic were able to take advantage over an unhappy populace. From there, they both turned the situation into a national and religious divide among people, with Bosnia trapped in the center.
4) Did you anticipate or believe that Yugoslavia would breakup? No, not at all, however I felt that something was going to happen because the economy was so bad. If something were to happen, maybe it would have been a coup. I could even see that maybe Slovenia would have split off, but I never envisioned anything like war or a total breakup.
5) After the war in Bosnia, do you think that an identity crisis emerged? I strongly feel that an identity crisis emerged. Especially, in Bosnia, among people who grew up secular. During and after the war, I felt so disgusted by the atrocities and I felt like I lost my identity because my beliefs that I grew up with of tolerance were shattered. All my friends that I grew up with were Serb, Muslim, Croat, Jewish, etc, but we all felt Yugoslav, in the sense that we were part of a greater Yugoslavia. Basically, it is the same in that you can be American, but still identify with the country where you came from. Just to show how tolerant we were of others, my Serb/Croat neighbors would wash their dishes in chemicals to make sure that all non-kosher fats were dissolved, before inviting their Muslim neighbors for celebration of Christmas. This just shows how we respected the differences of one another.
6) What are the main lasting impacts of the breakup? There are so many lasting impacts. The largest impact is definitely the split between the people of Yugoslavia and especially in Bosnia. It will take many decades for trust to re-emerge and people to open their minds to wider views of nationalism, etc. Of course, you also have the economic factor. It was absolutely terribly on the economies of Yugoslavia. Bosnia, Serbia, Croatia, etc are all still recovering and their economies will continue to be weak for many years to come.
7) Do you think that the breakup/conflict is complete? I'm afraid that I don't think it is over, it is just such a fragile and volatile area that the continuation of some sort of tension will return. I don't think that Kosovo and Serbia will ever fully be at peace because the Serbs will never allow their most holy site to be simply taken away.
Interviews:
Interviewee: Person-1.
Description: Student/young adult during the breakup of Yugoslavia
1) Where were you during the 1980's, or the time period leading up to the collapse? In the mid 1980's I was in middle school and from 1988-1992, I was in high school. I lived in Stolac, a city located in Herzegovina. It was a small town, near the border of Croatia.
2) What is your understanding of the breakup of Yugoslavia? My understanding on the breakup at the time was that Slovenia wanted independence from Yugoslavia, however during the war, it became clear that most big politicians (Milosevic and Tudjman) didn’t care about Slovenia leaving. The big politicians simply wanted to split the rest of Yugoslavia into Croatia and Serbia. However, by then we were already simply fighting to stay alive, as the war had started.
3) What causes would you attribute to the breakup and did you experience them? The major cause was the rise of nationalistic ideas and the fact that many politicians took advantage of people, encouraging them to do awful things. I personally saw this happen in Stolac, during the war. Many of my neighbors, who we'd lived next to for years and even been friends with, turned on us and other Muslims. A majority of the people seemed to just follow their "people", or in other words, the nationalistic politicians. That is why I never really felt personally attacked, even though we were now being bombed from the hills and our house was half destroyed. There were other causes, but none can compare to nationalism.
4) Did you anticipate or believe that Yugoslavia would breakup? No, I did not anticipate that the breakup would happen or that the war would ever happen. I guess we were all so naive. Even when Slovenia eventually left, we had no idea of what was going to come. Life continued normally until eventually Serbians attacked and reality struck.
5) After the war in Bosnia, do you thing that an identity crisis emerged? For sure, people felt that they needed to belong after the war. Many non-religious people became religious, so that they could identify with others. This was particularly strong among Muslims. Croats could turn to Croatia, Serbs to Serbia, but ethnic Muslims could not turn to anything but religion. It is also important to note that a majority of ethnic Muslims before the war were either non-practicing or only visited a mosque a couple times a year. I had an acquaintance who was totally non-religious before the war, but he became ultra religious afterwards because he could not identify with others anymore. Many of the Muslims of Bosnia had lost their identity in
6) What are the main lasting impacts of the breakup? There are many direct impacts from the war and breakup, such as people losing family members, which is on a personal level. In addition, there were and still are huge economic impacts. For example, unemployment in Bosnia is over 40%, the economies of Serbia and (Fyrom)Macedonia are still recovering as well. Losses of property were huge, too. Then, you also have so many historical losses, numerous beautiful bridges, mosques, and churches were destroyed in the senseless fighting. Finally, the social impacts are the worst. I don't know if the wounds between Croats, Serbs, and Muslims can heal. The hatred that caused this was so strong it will take years to forgive and move on.
7) Do you think that the breakup/conflict is complete? I hate to say this, but I don't think it’s over. I don't follow the politics as closely as I should, but people seem like there not ready to move forward. The wounds and the rift caused by the breakup and fighting will take years to fully heal. Such hatred in a place where three nationalities existed peacefully for years prior to the breakup, will most likely take another fifty years before things can go back to "normal". I do not know too much about the conflict between Serbia and Kosovo, but I don't think the fighting has really ever stopped. I can't really say what will happen next there, but like I said before, I don't think the Balkan conflict and breakup is over yet.
Interviewee: Person-2.
Description: New father at the time of the breakup
1) Where were you during the 1980's, or the time period leading up to the collapse? Josip Broz Tito, father of the nation, national hero, president for life, died in May 1980, after months spent in a widely publicized hospital fight for his life. I graduated from my high school in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, before then enrolled in the Civil Engineering school. My dreams of becoming an architect did not look very real in an increasingly bad economic situation. Our government started something they called Stabilizacija (stabilization), a strict economic program pushed by the IMF in order to reduce a whopping twenty billion dollars of foreign debt (that was about a thousand dollars per head of each person in Yugoslavia, more or less the amount of an annual salary for a qualified worker). I spent one year in the Yugoslav army as part of our obligatory conscription. I had a chance to witness the great mismanagement of huge amounts of tax revenue, direct towards the expensive and ill trained military. The military intervention in Kosovo had a great political and ideological impact on Yugoslavia, especially on us soldiers involved in that first major conflict during the 1980's. In 1984 we hosted the Olympic games (in Sarajevo) and that was effective end of good times. I graduated and started working on a major construction project away from my home. Living in one small provincial town, I witnessed the mounting nationalistic divide, caused by atrocities in first and second world wars, still alive like open wounds after many years. My salary was abysmal, but I learned quickly, so I eventually joined a group of engineers that worked with some international consultants from the United States. While I was preparing myself for my first international project, I worked on antiquated computers. Imagine an 8-bit computer with a 750 kHz memory and a 20 MB hard drive, priced at sixteen thousand dollars! I also used a Word Processor program and Word Perfect that used to cost $1800 for one user. I left for Iraq in 1988. Before that, I started dating and eventually got married to my wife in 1989. With the money I earned in Iraq and with help of her parents, I bought my first and only new car, a Yugo 55 ($4000) , a 19 inch color TV ($1250), a VCR Sanyo ($1360), washer, fridge, Samsung (all-plastic) stereo ($400), and some other stuff. My father in law also had enough money to pay for one hundred and fifty dollars rent for one year, up front, and to go on a honeymoon to Italy. I left for Iraq again, this time I was taken hostage by the Iraqi revolutionary guard and returned penniless, traveling on the bus, through Anatolia (Turkey), for three days. We then lost our lease and moved to an apartment outside of our hometown, owned by my wife's family. That was right at the beginning of 1990's. During this time, we had our "first democratic" election in Yugoslavia, the Berlin Wall fell, and war in the Gulf was imminent. I was making computer programs for an extremely popular video store in exchange for free movies. The reason: I was not able to go to my work position for about three months since I worked forty-eight plus hours a week in Iraq, so therefore I accumulated hundreds of hours over the allowable limit. My car was mostly parked, literally, on a gas station, where the lines for gas were formed almost a week ahead of the anticipated delivery to the local pump. Every time, after filling my tank, I needed to spend some extra money to recover parts stolen from the car, while it was unattended (headlights, door handles, tire caps, radio, seat covers...).
2) What is your understanding of the breakup? A series of conflicts resulting in the dissolution of the government and territory of former Yugoslavia, along mostly ethnic lines (e.g. Slovenes in Slovenia, Croats in Croatia).
3) What causes would you attribute to the breakup and did you experience them? First off, there was the political aspect: The role of Yugoslavia as a non-aligned movement leader diminished after Tito's dead. Then, with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Perestroika policies in Russia, Solidarnosz policies in Poland, the role of Yugoslavia as a Western ally was not needed anymore. Secondly, the economic aspect: The economic system was creating a non-productive work environment. High taxation of foreign goods and the favoring of domestic products, combined with no "healthy" competition lead to low quality products and lower productivity. That resulted in lower salaries, unemployment of at least one million people, most of them fresh out of school. In addition, there was a lot of red tape surrounding employment, very formal and narrow definitions for employment, and probably ninety percent government owned production. The tax system and banking system very rudimentary, while the foreign currency was free marked for only a few years at the end of 1980's. A majority of transactions were illegal. Thirdly, internal political reasons: A weak federation with disproportionate development - the northwest had European economic standards, while the southwest had far bellow economic standards. Agricultural reform after World War two, saw farms subdivided into units that were unmanageable and unproductive. Tito's succession was also handled poorly, a collective rotating presidency in government and communist party was formed. Eventually, the Communist party was dissolved during congress, held on the 14th of January, 1990. Fourthly, the rise of nationalism: The late 1980's and early 1990's saw the 600 year anniversary of the battle in Kosovo, crowned by new nationalistic political leaders in Serbia. Croatians revived nationalistic movements from early seventies, invoking old fascistic ideologies, to name few.
4) Did you anticipate or believe that Yugoslavia would breakup? The situation looked bad, but it did not look like the breakup would happen until the early 1990's, when the Communist Party Congress dissolved. That began the deep divisions that would lead to the eventual war.
5) After the war in Bosnia, do you think that an identity crisis emerged? In my opinion, there was an identity crisis that existed before the war, or at least the starting of it. The issues were present, just buried down deep among other things. When the war started, the identity crisis erupted and that is why we saw so many young, confused people being recruited by the nationalistic leaders. These leaders took advantage over the population who did not know who to identify with. Clearly, Croats were led by fellow Croats from Croatia and Serbs from Serbia. That left the Bosnian Muslims, many who were also confused, to turn to Islam. Before, there were relatively few practicing Muslims, but after the war, many more emerged, along with practicing Catholics and Orthodox Christians, reflecting the need for people to identify with others.
6) What are the main lasting impacts of the breakup? There are many things that resulted from the war and the breakup. First of all, so many lives were lost in basically, what it was, a civil war. That is definitely the biggest loss. Another loss was the destruction of infrastructure, from factories, to roads, to whole towns. The government then had to take out many expensive loans, which it won't be able to for many years to come. This also means that the economy will continue to suffer with such minimal government investment. Also, before the war, Bosnia was an incredibly accepting place and that culture was lost during the war. To get the tradition of tolerance and togetherness back, will only come with the closure of the deep wounds of war. Furthermore, economic losses came from such instability, which scared off foreign investors and tourists, who are essential in revitalizing the damaged economy.
7) Do you think that the breakup/conflict is complete? I think that if you asked me today, or anybody else in Bosnia, we would say it is still going on and will continue (not in the terms of war, but in the terms of nationalistic tension). When the EU went to review Bosnia, they saw how ineffective the government was, so the EU installed a "shadow" government, who dictates a lot of things, from the type of uniform of soldiers to budgets of the military. The Bosnian government is simply too indecisive, to the point where they cannot agree upon much of anything. The war may be over, but there are many areas where you wouldn’t want to visit even by car because of the tension. I don't think there will be another conflict, unless some external force changes quickly. For example, the Serbian army would not be able to help Bosnian Serbs because the current state of the Serbian army and economy is not good. If there were the same amount of weapons in the area, the war could potentially start tomorrow because the wounds and tensions have yet to heal. I am honestly surprised that there is no visible conflict between Serbia and Kosovo now! When Kosovo declared independence, they expelled a majority of the Serbian population, so really few are left there. That mitigates Serbian claims to attack Kosovo, regardless of that, I don't think that Serbia will attack again because they know that economically, they can't afford it, while on the political side, it would be suicide.
Interviewee: Person-3.
Description: Research-doctor in Los Angeles, during the breakup
1) Where were you during the 1980's, or the time period leading up to the collapse?
I came to the UK (London, specifically) in 1983 to do my fellowship as a doctor and then from 1986-1990, I did my Ph.D. However, I still had regular contact to Sarajevo, as my mother and many of my friends lived there. My standard of living was decent, but my friends back in Sarajevo kept on telling me that every year, the standard of living was decreasing. There were shortages of food, while there were always long lines for regular household items. In addition, inflation went through the roof and people started to have their salaries deferred because there was no money to pay them.
2) What is your understanding of the breakup? Let me tell you a story. In early 1990, even going to 1991, my mother, who was living in Bosnia, started telling my brother and I that Serbs had climbed into the hills surrounding Sarajevo. She said that they were digging trenches and forming bunkers! We were so startled by not what she was saying, but the fact that she was mentioning a specific nationality doing this. My mother had always been secular and totally non-nationalist, so when she specifically stated that the Serbs were doing this, my brother and I became worried for her. How wrong we were..... only a year later the fighting would begin. Both my brother and I were in denial when the breakup started. We grew up in a society that was totally in harmony. After denial, I was filled with anger. I couldn't understand why this would happen because we came from Sarajevo, a cosmopolitan city! I never imagined that it could ever end up like Beirut, divided upon religious lines. In other words, I understood that it was happening, but I couldn't fathom how this was happening. I guess that was our mentality, from Sarajevo and other Bosnian towns. It never occurred to us that thinking was so different in other parts of Yugoslavia.
3) What causes would you attribute to the breakup and did you experience them? Oh gosh.... my belief is that once the economy went downhill, the leaders such Tudjman and Milosevic were able to take advantage over an unhappy populace. From there, they both turned the situation into a national and religious divide among people, with Bosnia trapped in the center.
4) Did you anticipate or believe that Yugoslavia would breakup? No, not at all, however I felt that something was going to happen because the economy was so bad. If something were to happen, maybe it would have been a coup. I could even see that maybe Slovenia would have split off, but I never envisioned anything like war or a total breakup.
5) After the war in Bosnia, do you think that an identity crisis emerged? I strongly feel that an identity crisis emerged. Especially, in Bosnia, among people who grew up secular. During and after the war, I felt so disgusted by the atrocities and I felt like I lost my identity because my beliefs that I grew up with of tolerance were shattered. All my friends that I grew up with were Serb, Muslim, Croat, Jewish, etc, but we all felt Yugoslav, in the sense that we were part of a greater Yugoslavia. Basically, it is the same in that you can be American, but still identify with the country where you came from. Just to show how tolerant we were of others, my Serb/Croat neighbors would wash their dishes in chemicals to make sure that all non-kosher fats were dissolved, before inviting their Muslim neighbors for celebration of Christmas. This just shows how we respected the differences of one another.
6) What are the main lasting impacts of the breakup? There are so many lasting impacts. The largest impact is definitely the split between the people of Yugoslavia and especially in Bosnia. It will take many decades for trust to re-emerge and people to open their minds to wider views of nationalism, etc. Of course, you also have the economic factor. It was absolutely terribly on the economies of Yugoslavia. Bosnia, Serbia, Croatia, etc are all still recovering and their economies will continue to be weak for many years to come.
7) Do you think that the breakup/conflict is complete? I'm afraid that I don't think it is over, it is just such a fragile and volatile area that the continuation of some sort of tension will return. I don't think that Kosovo and Serbia will ever fully be at peace because the Serbs will never allow their most holy site to be simply taken away.
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