On the Urge to Violence in a Time of Trump

An immigrant on what happens when neighbors turn on each other:

"Every Bosnian I know had a friend, or even a family member, who flipped and betrayed the life they had shared until, in the early 1990s, the war started. My best high-school friend turned into a rabid Serbian nationalist and left his longtime girlfriend in Sarajevo so he could take part in its siege. My favorite literature professor became one of the main ideologues of Serbian fascism. Just last week, I talked to a Muslim man from Foča whose mother was repeatedly raped by his Serb friend, and whose brother was killed by their neighbor. Yugoslavia and Bosnia had provided a sense of societal stability for a couple of generations, which is why the betrayal was so shocking to so many of us."

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Aleksandar Hemon on the Longform Podcast.

Revolution U

What Egypt learned from the students who overthrew Milosevic. “The Serbs are not the usual highly paid consultants in suits from wealthy countries; they look more like, well, cocky students. They bring a cowboy swagger. They radiate success. Everyone they teach wants to do what the Serbs did.”