Chomsky, Vulliamy, and Me

I would urge anyone who has the time to check out and support Ed Vulliamy's open letter to Amnesty International regarding Chomsky's annual lecture on Human Rights. It is an open, honest and deeply passionate piece of work. Vulliamy describes his own experiences in Bosnia during the war, as a witness to the crimes that took place in the Prijedor Region. With heartfelt emotion he condemns what he rightly sees as Chomskys denial of these crimes.

Chomsky has since penned a response, and it is quite underwhelming. There is none of that humanitarian concern that is felt in Vulliamy's letter. Rather, in a cold and didactic manner, Chomsky attempts to deny and dodge Vulliamy's charges. Chomsky starts off by writing:

"It is a nuisance, and a bit of a bore, to dwell on the topic, and I always keep away from personal attacks on me.."

Firstly lets just get one thing straight Chomsk, it is not a personal attack. He is not suggesting that your hair looks bad. Rather it is a justified condemntation of some of the views you have shared on the Bosnian war. Secondly, there is no need to act like your too cool or slick for this. This is human rights and peoples lives we are talking about, not some neighbourhood gossip.

You dodge most the accusations, and then throw in a few arguments that have nothing to do with the letter at hand. I know this isn't going to mean much, because really why would you care about what some young woman like me thinks, but I have lost a lot of respect for you. On the other hand, I never knew who Ed Vulliamy was before, but I have gained a lot of respect for him. It takes great courage and compassion to put yourself right in the middle of a war zone, expose what you have seen, and then care enough to passionately condemn those who have trivialized the suffering and loss of life.

Chomsky, I understand you've had similar letters in the past and have reacted in a very much similar way.  Well let me tell you, it is easy to write about human rights abuses with cold, jaded intellectualism-it is not so easy to witness and fight against them.

Chomsky, puffing the magic dragon perhaps?

On a few blogs recently I've read about Chomsky's denial of Bosnia's concentration camps. To be honest, I've heard something to this effect before, but never really paid much attention to it. I don't believe much of what I read in corporate media. I know how things can be skewed or taken out of context, and certain groups make it a hobby to smear political commentators such as Chomsky. Reading about it at Samaha's Blog and The Srebrenica Genocide Blog though, I decided to do some research of my own. I found an interview of his on the NATO Bombing of Yugoslavia, that seemed to get off on an okay start:

Danilo Mandic: Last month marked the seventh anniversary of the beginning of the bombing of Yugoslavia. Why did NATO wage that war or I should say why did the United States wage that war?

Chomsky: ...the real purpose of the war had nothing to do with concern for Kosovar Albanians. It was because Serbia was not carrying out the required social and economic reforms, meaning it was the last corner of Europe which had not subordinated itself to the US-run neoliberal programs, so therefore it had to be eliminated..

I don't doubt that the US-led NATO bombing was more out of self-interest than humanitarian concern. Afterall, nobody seems quiet so eager to bomb Sudan in order to save Darfur. So I'm thinking, maybe my pal Chomsky has been misunderstood. Maybe accusations levelled at him of "downplaying" the crimes in Bosnia have just been taken out of context?

The topic then swtiches to this famous photograph:

Chomsky goes on to say:

"Well, you know, it was investigated and carefully investigated. In fact it was investigated by the leading Western specialist on the topic, Philip Knightly, who is a highly respected media analyst and his specialty is photo journalism, probably the most famous Western and most respected Western analyst in this. He did a detailed analysis of it. And he determined that it was probably the reporters who were behind the barb-wire, and the place was ugly, but it was a refugee camp, I mean, people could leave if they wanted and, near the thin man was a fat man and so on.."

Um seriously Chomsk, my man what is it..marijuana? LSD? Maybe some magic mushrooms?

I don't know how else to take your claims. Help me out. Everything else I've read of yours I agree with. But that it was a refugee camp and that it was reporters who were behind the barbed wired, and people could leave if they wanted?

I guess I must've missed the memo that the photograph was fraudulent. Here I was thinking that the man in that photograph, is a survivor who travelled to the Hague recently to witness the proceedings against Karadzic. Silly me.

I would love nothing more but for that photographs to be fake, I would rather it be all made up, than real. I would love if the person in that picture was in a refugee camp, and not a concentration camp. I would love if all the horrors of the Balkan wars never took place. Who wouldn't? But unfortunately, it's not reality. (And P.S your "western specialist" friend must be smoking something even harder).

I, like many many others, lament the break-up of the former Yugoslavia. I wish there was a way to re-unite our countries again. But the concentration camps and the genocide that took place during the Bosnian war is not a figmet of western imagination. Trust me, I know.

You can read the full Chomsky interview here.