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Post-national, welfare-state, cooperative, pacific Europe was not born of the optimistic, ambitious, forward-looking project imagined in fond retrospect by today’s Euro-idealists. It was the insecure child of anxiety. Shadowed by history,
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“حياة كل إنسان ذخيرة وافرة من الأيام اللذيذة الهنيئة، والأوقات الرخية الراضية، ولكنك تحسبها من أمتع أيام الحياة، ولا تحسبها من أجمل أيام الحياة. فمن هذا الذي يعرف ما يُذكَر وما يُنسَى من الأيام، ثم يستوقف السامعين ليحدثهم عن الأكلة الشهية التي ساغت له أمس أو قبل عشر سنين؟! … ومن هذا الذي يعرف معنى الجمال، ثم يحسب منه تلك الليلة اللذيذة التي قضاها في أحضان الحب والهوى، ونعم فيها بنعومة ذلك الجسد وحرارة ذلك العناق. هذه اللذائذ لا تفوت إنسانًا من بني آدم وحواء، وليست من جمال النفس الإنسانية في شيء، وإنما هي تمرينات محبوبة للحواس ينعم بها كل ذي حس من الحيوان كما ينعم بها كل ذي نفس من بني الإنسان. ليست هذه أجمل أيام الحياة، ولكنها كما تقدم أمتع أيامها، أو قد تكون في حساب الجسد أحب الأيام إليه. أما اليوم الجميل فهو اليوم الذي يرتفع بنا إلى مقام فوق المتعة والألم والراحة، وفوق المعدات والأكباد والجلود، وفوق مطامع النفس التي يغلبها الطمع، ويسومها أن تقبل الجميل والقبيح، وأن ترضى بالحميد والذميم … ••• اليوم الجميل هو الذي نملك فيه دنيانا ولا تملكنا فيه، وهو اليوم الذي نقود فيه شهواتنا ولذاتنا، ولا ننقاد لها صاغرين أو طائعين.”
― أنا
― أنا
“The United Nations showed little initial concern—its inadequate and unconcerned Secretary-General, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, described Bosnia as ‘a rich man’s war’—”
― Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945
― Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945
“Serbian shelling of Sarajevo resumed. When NATO planes bombed Bosnian Serb installations in response, the Serbs seized 350 UN peacekeepers as hostages. Terrified for the fate of their soldiers, Western governments importuned the UN and NATO to desist. The international presence, far from constraining the Serbs, now offered them additional cover.”
― Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945
― Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945
“Yet the only immediate response was an official warning from NATO to the Serbs that there would be a resumption of air strikes if other ‘safe areas’ were attacked. It was not until August 28th, a full seven weeks later, that the international community finally responded—and only because the Bosnian Serbs, assuming reasonably enough that they had carte blanche to commit massacres at will, made the mistake of shelling the Sarajevo marketplace for a second time: killing another thirty-eight civilians, many of them children.”
― Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945
― Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945
“Srebrenica was officially ‘protected’ not just by UN mandate but by a 400–strong peacekeeping contingent of armed Dutch soldiers. But when Mladić’s men arrived the Dutch battalion laid down its arms and offered no resistance whatsoever as Serbian troops combed the Muslim community, systematically separating men and boys from the rest. The next day, after Mladić had given his ‘word of honor as an officer’ that the men would not be harmed, his soldiers marched the Muslim males, including boys as young as thirteen, out into the fields around Srebrenica. In the course of the next four days nearly all of them—7,400—were killed. The Dutch soldiers returned safely home to Holland.”
― Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945
― Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945
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