this war, Bosnian Serbs possessed nothingrnbut their own selves, their families,rnkin, friends, and their history, ahvays anrnawful shape upon God’s Earth, a tough,rnthrashing entity stretched through thernTime of the Short Duration, recallingrnTroy, Athens, Singidunum (Celtic Belgrade),rna Rome whose Coliseum remainedrna stony shell, only dimly reminiscentrnof its true shape and glory, like arnrotten rib cage of a once mighty brave.rnWearing homespun and camouflage,rnSlavko Markoviteh, Markan, smiled atrnus and disappeared into the forest, like arntrue Lusatian. Lug, the forest, took himrnin, his brown beard and mustache minglingrnwith its moss and pine needles,rnwhile the .50 caliber on the hill openedrnup, like a rattling hailstorm upon a tinrnshack.rnBehind our backs. Tomcat Ihll shookrnand the Muslims lost: it took thernSpaniards 700 years to drive them out,rnand thus reach their history, and greatnessrn—we still had, if need be, a hundredrns’ears to go, before succumbing tornAIDS, to forced and fake compassion,rnto universal and phonv equality, thernmurder of justice in favor of legality, thernsubstitution of contract for oath or vow,rnto the eradication of family, kith, kin,rnand friendship in favor of the OnernWhose Name is Legion.rnFor Savo Tushcvlyak, whose motherrnhad died for want of drugs (she hadrnParkinson’s Disease, in controllablernform, but that was before the embargo),rnthere was nothing but a wild, aching expectationrnof a return to Sarajevo—hisrnSarajevo—from which he had escapedrnin the spring of 1992, after having beenrnstopped by a Muslim patrol. Then,rnSavo’s mother was still ali’C, and he,rndressed in suit and tie, was asked to showrnhis papers by snickering men in shoddyrnclothes, armed with Kalashnikovs.rn”Savo,” a militiaman read out, and anrnobese man looked at him long and hardrnfrom the shadows of an apartmenthousernentrance. Pondering his fate, hernwaved him on with his fat index finger,rnsaying nothing, and Tushevlyak continuedrnon his way, feeling the oncomingrnbullet between his shoulder blades.rnThere was no bullet, however, but “arnman lives as long as he wishes, whilernonly a fool lives until he dies,” goes arnSerb proverb. So Savo Tushevlyak sentrnhis mother and father to Lukavica tornstay with some family, while he ranrnthrough the Muslim lines, past thernarmed guards put there by Alija Izetbegoviernto prevent anyone—Muslim,rnCroat, and Serb alike—from leaving hisrn”multiconfcssional, multiethnic, multicultural”rnparadise. Alija Izetbegovic, andrnHaris Silajdzic, and Ejup Canic, andrnMuhamed Sacirbey (once upon a time,rna Sacirbegovic) could all wait until theyrndied: after she fell off her toilet seat, Savo’srnmother had stopped eating and justrnwithered away, so Savo Tushevlyak—nornhero, but a man of honor—hid his .357rnmagnum revolver in a milk carton, alongrnwith 300 bullets, and told the Muslimrnguard there was a Serb sniper lurkingrnsomewhere around, before walking on,rnuphill, to freedom, and the Pale.rnUp in the high country oppositernI.eadstone (and the village of Musici,rnwhose Muslim residents had killedrnoff their Serb neighbors in 1941),rnTushcvlyak held his army-issue M72 andrnlistened to the forest breathe, trying tornset apart the sound of the coon, the strayrndog, or the pack rat from the sound ofrnmurderers creeping toward us, as theyrndid back m 1941, and 1914, and 1908,rnand all the way back to 1463, whenrn10,000 Bosnian Serb renegades convertedrnto Islam under the walls of Jajce,rnhaving forgotten what being a man is allrnabout.rnThe renegades (ancestors of Izetbegovic,rnSilajdzic, Ganic, and their ilk) hadrnconverted to save their lives and feudalrnprivileges, under the watchful eyes ofrnSultan Mehmcd II, the Conqueror, therndestroyer of Constantinople, the lastrn(until then) in the long line of Huns,rnAvars, Bulgars, Pechenegs, Kumans,rnSeljuks, Mongols. Ottomans—’lurksrnall—who kept coming at us—the menrnof Lugh, Apollo, or Christ—like perpetualrnheadsmen, skillful only in treachery,rnmayhem, and genocide.rnTushevlyak, like myself, could not stoprnwondering what had made the UnitedrnStates, NATO, and the West in generalrnnurture the Turks—and our own, homegrownrn”Turks” as well—like a pack ofrnpitbull terriers, bred to devour theirrnowner.rnAnd the chance will not be lacking:rnTushcvlyak knew that, as did his 75-yearoldrnfather, who manned our line downrnin Lukavica, the part of Sarajevo (alongrnwith Nedjarici, Ilidza, or Grbavica) nornWestern TV crew ever visited becausernit was suffering a worse fate than anyrnMuslim quarter, and no Serbs couldrnbe blamed for it. A Confederate peeringrnthrough the darkness toward the “internationally-rnheld” Sarajevo airport (thernFort Sumter of a later age), like arnlegionary of Diocletian, or Constantine,rnarmed with an automatic rifle, SavornTushevlyak’s father defended the Pale,rnnext to last in the long line of defendersrnof the honor and the dignity of humanrnlife, made holy only by his faith inrnChrist, the white man who had comerndown upon us from Cod, like a newsbearerrnof the coming Apocalypse.rnMomcilo Selic is a writer and journalist.rnHe was imprisoned by the communistrngovernment in Yugoslavia for satirizingrnthe cult of the leader. He was managingrneditor of Chronicles from 1987-1′-.rnLetter From Italyrnby Marco RespintirnThe Reagan CoalitionrnItaly experienced a revolutionary electionrnon March 27, 1994, an election inrnwhich many Italian voters could make arndifference. This mood of optimism andrnengagement stood in stark contrast tornthe many elections that have left Italiansrnso disillusioned in recent years—localrnadministrative elections, national electionsrnto two houses of Parliament, andrneven international elections for thernEuropean Pariiament, to say nothing ofrnreferenda.rnThere are several reasons for thisrngrowing estrangement from the electoralrnprocess, but in fundamental terms, Italianrnsociety (i.e., the real country) hasrnseparated from the political class (thernlegal country). The case of Italy revealsrnthe paradox of modern democracy, inrnwhich the ruling class ends up constitutingrna nomenclatura far removed fromrnthe real problems and needs of the averagerncitizen. Voter apathy is a commonrnproblem within the West, but Italian apathyrnis aggravated by the knowledge thatrnItaly has been ruled, since World War II,rnby the Christian Democrats (DC).rnEven if the DC did accomplish its missionrn—stopping the great communistrnthreat in 1948—the DC has failed torngive birth to a sound government basedrnon its “Christian inspiration.” On thern40/CHRONICLESrnrnrn