[Discussion] Spaces of Identity on War Criminality

[Sule Tarakcioglu]

Dear readers. The special issue of the Spaces of Identity on War 
Criminality is
available on line (at the web address provided below).

This issue takes us on a journey from WWII Ukraine, across the bloodied
landscape of the former Yugoslavia to the seemingly distant but televisually
close land of the Chechens. It is also a journey through time: from the 
camps in
which victims’ last breaths slipped away at the point of a 
soldier’s
bayonet to the eerie silence of a hi-tech war room in a desert.

We are enormously pleased to have John-Paul Himka’s article appear 
in this
issue. Doubly so because of the topic he chose to address: the 
unwillingness of
the Ukrainian diaspora to acknowledge crimes committed during WWII. 
While the
issue of any given diaspora and its selective memories of the past is 
inherently
sensitive and politically charged, we are glad that such a black box is now
open.

James Sadkovich’s contribution also tackles a sensitive theme: the
politically motivated misrepresentation of the past in Bosnia and 
Herzegovina.
Sadkovich successfully and forcefully dismantles the myth of Bosnia 
always being
a multicultural paradise, thus, countering the claims of modern-day
transitilogists and ‘grantoid’ organizations in the region. His
article also sheds a new light on the manner in which the dissolution of the
former Yugoslavia could be analyzed.

Srdja Pavlovic’s contribution also addresses the dissolution of 
the former
Yugoslavia. More specifically, it analyzes the 1991 siege of the 
Croatian city
of Dubrovnik and raises the question of personalization of 
responsibility for
crimes committed as the necessary point of departure in the process of
reconciliation in the former Yugoslavia.

W. Andy Knight & Tanya Narozhna present a powerful account and analysis of
war-torn Chechnya and the ruthless way this war has been waged by the 
Russian
government. By highlighting issues of extra-judicial executions, forced
disappearances, murder, rape and torture, their article emphasizes grave
breaches of the Geneva Conventions and of other horrendous violations of
international humanitarian law.

Lise Hogan and William Anselmi graciously accepted our invitation to reflect
more philosophically on war. Their series of “interventions” 
address
war as part of our common imaginary and the way language and image help
dehumanize and sanitize it for the general public.

Pages of our journal will be open to your comments and reactions.

Editors
Spaces of Identity

Srdja Pavlovic, Department of History and Classics. University of Alberta.
Edmonton AB T6G 2H4. Canada.
Email: editors@spacesofidentity.net
Visit the website at http://www.spacesofidentity.net