Earlier this month, I joined Howard Dean for a conference in Sarajevo. In the midst of soaring oil prices, a sinking feeling in Iraq and a Middle East on the edge, we have lost track of the millions of disrupted or terminated lives in the former Yugoslavia. The lessons of Sarajevo and the region are stark: division by ethnic, religious or other cultural difference, when inflamed by unscrupulous, advantage-seeking demagogues, can destroy even an ancient society. For nearly four centuries, Sarajevo was known as the Jerusalem of Europe. Orthodox and Catholic Christians, Jews and Muslims not only lived side by side, but intermarried and celebrated each other's holidays. Sarajevo epitomized strength in diversity. It rose far above "tolerance."
We know the story since 1986, but we easily forget. A power mad politician used ethnic divides to ride from democratic election to dictatorship. In a matter of a few years, the city of the 1984 Winter Olympics became a killing field where 12 year old children were shot like ducks at a carnival game. Only the kids were alive and the bullets killed.
What shall an American politician say to a gathering in war-weary Sarajevo, only now recovering from a decade of bloody hate? I know Howard pretty well, but even I was quite moved and a bit surprised by what he said to a couple of hundred people seeking the path to peace and reconciliation. There, in the center of Europe, in a conservative society trying to find its way, he did not wag a finger, he did not preach. Instead he talked of race relations in the U.S. And he told of his own experiences as Governor of Vermont when he signed civil unions into law. He told the story from his heart, the story of people in his state who literally hated rather than embraced diversity. He told of the courage shown by Republican legislators who voted for civil unions, only to have their political careers end. He analogized the minority of gays in his state to minorities in the former Yugoslavia. Those minorities should, by American tradition, have the same rights as all others, but are marginalized and even now are used as an inhuman wedge in an attempt to distort the American democratic experiment.
I watched the audience carefully. How would they react to something so foreign? The answer was with a powerful ovation and welcoming, inquisitive questions.
Fear of the other ripped Yugoslavia into shreds. Restoration, having nothing to do with destroyed buildings, will take a generation or more. Former Yugoslavia looks to the U.S. as a model for a multicultural society. If they look too hard, they will see a new, ugly era in our country in which those in power seek to divide by fear, to attack those least able to defend themselves. They see Iraq under U.S. rule about to explode into pieces along ethnic and tribal lines.
Let's hope that the residents of Sarajevo and the ethnically divided enclaves thereabouts listen but do not look. The U.S. for centuries stood as a beacon, that melting pot that forged greatness in the strength of many who became one. It's time to light that flame of hope once again. It's time for the courage to speak truth regardless of who wins an election.