and children across the rhetorical battlefield.rnWords like freedom, liberty, democratic,rnart, and culture mean somethingrnfar different to these people. They seernsociety as a social science laboratory inrnwhich they inflict their experiments on arnpublic that views art as a cure for kidsrnwith Uzis. They disdain the notion thatrnleft to their own means folks just mightrnput on their own plays, kids might investigaternart with a box of crayons and thernInternet, and artists might considerrnworking for a living, indeed, as most do.rnTo them, the private sector is somethingrnto be “leveraged.”rnCritic Robert Hughes whines in Timernmagazine that France, Germany, andrnother European countries spend farrnmore on public art than we do. He failsrnto mention, however, that Canadarndoesn’t know what to do with the thousandsrnof pieces of art it bought over thernyears, and that it has canceled the pro-rnAmnesty Internationalrnby Harold McCurdyrnObscure taxpayer of small account,rnI yet am courted forrnDollars to help good causes mountrnTheir latest holy war.rnFor I am grieved by the ugly newsrnThat through Nigerian gravesrnDutch Oil plunges its iron screwsrnDown to the loot it craves.rnBut I am grieved no less that crimesrnDone in the U.S.A.rnOur Fed watchdogs, in synch withrnthe times.rnTry to scapegoat away.rnWill angels be stopped from riotingrnOr vipers sopped in GabunrnBecause we’ve paid off ex-con KingrnAnd jailed policeman Koon?rnThere is a limit to how farrnCorrect injustice canrnRestore the shattered household larrnOr dignify a man.rngram to buy art from artists; he does notrnmention that the Netherlands burnedrnmost of that country’s art surplus purchasedrnbv the government. It neverrndawns on the puffed-up crowd Mr.rnHughes hangs out with in Manhattanrnthat America was supposed to be differentrnfrom European countries. It was thernindividual that counted here, and ourrnlives and our liberty and our pursuit ofrnhappiness would not be voted on byrn”peer panels.” But that was then, andrnnow we will never know what might havernevolved in America if the cultural landscapernand mainstreams had not beenrnperverted to the ends of the few over thernmany. It is time to let American arts andrnletters once again seek its own course.rnThe dams are breaking, the levies willrnnot hold, and the course of the Americanrncultural river must reclaim the floodplainsrnof the national spirit.rnStan Edwards is an artist in Chicago.rnEUROPErnThe EurobalkanrnBasketcasernby Tomislav SunicrnTo place equal blame on the Serbsrnand Croats for the tragedy in Croatiarnand Bosnia-Herzegovina appears tornbe an exercise in academic self-righteousness.rnOn the international hit paradernof bad guys, some Bosnian Serbsrntake the lead, followed, in the distance,rnby some Bosnian Croats—while thernBosnian Muslims are more or less exoneratedrnfrom all evildoing. Some scholarsrnand politicians have argued that the prematurernrecognition of Croatia ignitedrnthe war, and some have even suggestedrnthat Croatia should never have been recognizedrnas an independent state.rnThe root of the Balkan crisis lies not inrnthe premature recognition of Croatia,rnbut to a large extent in the excessive legalismrnof international organizations.rnFor four years, the United Nations andrnthe European Union were not able tornfind a common approach to the conflictrnin the heart of Europe. In 1991, whenrnYugoslavia began to fall apart, Croatiarnexpected the European Community andrnthe United Nations to accept its bid forrnindependence, hoping that its recognitionrnwould stave off the threat fromrnthe Yugoslav Army. In the absence ofrnprompt international recognition, andrndue to its lack of firepower, Croatia couldrnnot prevent a land grab by the YugoslavrnArmy. Croatia had to wait six longrnmonths before it was finally recognizedrnin 1992 by the European Union, and severalrnmore months before it joined thernUnited Nations. Meanwhile, it had lostrnterritory and people, and suffered an estimatedrnwar damage of $27 billion.rnWhether Croatia and neighboringrnBosnia and Herzegovina should havernbeen recognized earlier, or not at all,rnis now academic. Clearly, centralisticmindedrnSerbia considered herself thernbest custodian of the Yugoslav “unityrnand integrity,” especially since it had thernmost to lose from Yugoslavia’s disintegration.rnIronically, it was the SerbiandominatedrnYugoslav Army, which, whilerntrying to salvage the former Yugoslaviarnby force, also destroyed it by force.rnWhile debating whether the recognitionrnof Croatia led to unnecessary bloodshedrnin neighboring Bosnia-Herzegovina,rnone might also raise the questionrnwhether the multiethnic Yugoslav staternshould have been created in the firstrnplace, in 1919, and recreated in 1945.rnThe faked “brotherhood and unity,”rnwhich was imposed on the Yugoslav peoplesrnby the communist elites, couldrnhardly mask profound cultural differencesrnamong Yugoslavia’s diverse ethnicrngroups. Suffice it to say that in the formerrnYugoslavia each ethnic group secretlyrnwondered fiow to part company and gornits own separate way.rnNow, as the war in the formedy occupiedrnparts of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovinarnseems to be over, some foreignrndiplomats are calling for the creation of arnwar crimes tribunal for those Balkanrnwarlords suspected of committing warrncrimes. Ironically, while some BosnianrnSerb wadords are being portrayed as “warrncriminals,” until recently they werernurged by the international community tornattend the United Nations-sponsoredrntalks with their erstwhile victims. Smallrnwonder that in such an ill-defined legalrnenvironment, some foreign journalistsrnoften resort to pejorative and false statementsrnabout “Balkan warring parties,”rnengaged in “civil war,” etc.rnThe legal options for Croatia, the firstrn48/CHRONICLESrnrnrn