History

I’ve just finished writing my Hist 299 paper. (Sigh of Relief) Though I’m left with a feeling that I wrote a paper full of interesting facts but absolutely no point!!!! I wrote about all of these atrocities that were committed during the Bosnian genocide, which I felt that everyone should know about, but not why they should know about them. It was like I was writing account after account, but not getting anywhere.

I guess what I really wanted to say in my paper was that what occurred in Bosnia was a genocide and that the UN intervention made things worse. What I want readers to realize after reading my paper is that we cannot rely on the UN to protect us, which does not bode well for the future.

David Rieff’s “Slaughterhouse” is the most interesting primary document that I have read so far. His book takes the reader through the Bosnian War from the perspective of a journalist. Rieff spent almost two years stationed in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia which was being bombarded by Serbian shells. His book contains interviews will all parties involved in the conflict, namely Serbians, Bonsians and UN troops.

What I really like about Rieff’s book is that he talks to average people in the streets of Bosnia and Serbia and that his interveiws are shockingly honest. The interviews show that the Serbian people really thought they were being threatened by Muslim fundamentalists. Bosnians thought that the world hated Muslims and were letting the Serbs “do their job” by eliminating them. UN troops on the other hand felt that both sides were violent savages that just wanted to fight. One troop said that he wanted to give both sides guns, lock the door and have the last person left to call him when it was over.

I’ve finally sat down and started to pick through my primary sources. This process has actually helped me come up with a formal thesis, which I have been struggling with.  I believe that my paper will argue that the not only was the UN effort a failure, but that it actually made things worse in Bosnia. I’ve found tons of testimonies from Bosnian citizens on thier experience with UN soldiers and Bosnian officials who wanted UN troops to acually leave Bosnia.

       Palms sweaty, heart racing, face heating up, and the room closing in, all symptoms of presentation freak out!!

I guess my best advice for a great, semi-stress free presentation would be to come prepared, know your subject well and be flexible on the content, in case your running over the time frame (something I learned from our recent presentation).

The biggest mistake a presenter can make is letting the audience know that they have made a mistake. Giving a presentation is kind of like performing, if you mess just keep smiling and move on, most likely the audience won’t even realize what happened.

Other than this short list of helpful tidbits, just remember that you are not alone, there are 20 other people in the classroom freaking out just like you. This thought usually reassures me before I’m called down to the gauntlet.

I read David Rohde’s book this weekend called Endgame. n his book Rohde tries to answer the question of who is responsible for the fall of Srebrenca. According to Rohde, everyone who was involved was at fault in someway for the tragedy that occured, even the citizens of Srebrenica!

Rohde’s believes that the morale of the Srebrenican citizens was so low that they gave up on Srebrenica and let themselves be surrounded and murdered. But can we really blame the victims for having low morale when they had been starved, beaten and already lost family members. How can we say that they should have had the strength to protect themselves, when the reason the UN was created was to protect the weak!

I think this is the hardest part of writing when using secondary sources and I feel that I will easily fall into the trap of plagerism. My sources strongly supporty my argument that the US and Western powers juggled responsibility to one another, so much so that I feel as if I’m repeating what they’ve already proven. I might have to change my thesis. :0

Update:

I’ve given this a lot of thought. I have come to the conclusion that I can have the same argument as other historians, as long as I use primar sources and support my thesis with my own research. I can use the secondary sources to point out historians who agree with my conclusions, but only because this will make my paper stronger.

I have to admit that when I begin researching any topic, I always go to the internet first. It’s a great way to get a general idea of what your researching (even from Wikipedia, but we’ll keep that between us). But of course there are many trap doors in which amateur historians can get caught in once they seriously begin looking for documents to use in their papers.

I believe that some of the best things that the internet can offer us are newspapers which can date back decades. My research deals with the Bosnian Serbian War of the early 1990s and I have found numerous articles from BBC, CNN and the Washington Times talking about the war as it occurs!!! It’s as if I hit the mother load in primary documents. For example I found a great opinion article in the NY Times in which a US citizen criticizes UN actions in Bosnia during the conflict, even before the Srebrenica Genocide occurred.

            I also ran into internet websites which look legitimate but I wouldn’t use them as reliable sources. For example, a website called Info Please which gives a historical outline of the Bosnian Conflict yet has Ads for the Ellen DeGeneres show and Lexus flashing on the top.  

         I have always been fascinated by the Holocaust and the stories of survival and human strength. So my first instinct was to write a research paper on the Holocaust, but then I thought, I should use this opportunity to learn about something I don’t know that much about. So I have chosen the Serbian-Bosnian War of 1992-1995, thought it is not that far off from my initial interest because it also involves genocide.

 I guess in high school we are all taught that the Holocaust was basically a onetime occurrence and that the world has learned from its mistakes and would never let something this evil and destructive happen again. So why did the Bosnian genocide occur? This is the main question I want to explore. Through my research it has become quite clear that the US was aware of the atrocities being committed by the Serbian forces, yet they refused to live up to their “Never Again” promise. Was it because they really believed it was a civil war in which they had no right to interfere in, did they just not want to spend the resources necessary to end the war, or were there other ulterior motives?

So far I have found two great books written by reporters working in Bosnia during the war. One is by Samantha Power who writes about her frustration in trying to get her newspaper to publish her stories and of talking to American politicians who made promises of assistance and never delivered. I have also found witness testimonies by the International Court of Justice Tribunal. What I really want to find next is the official papers sent from UN troops to the head offices in NY for authorization to attack Serbian forces and letters from Bosnian officials to the White House asking for assistance.

Why am I a History Major?

            For the past three years I have repeatedly asked myself “What do I want to be?” This single, most important question has been the trigger of many panic attacks and early life crises. This changed dramatically last year when I realized I was asking myself the wrong question!! What I should have been asking myself is what makes me happy, what excites me and makes me want to come to class everyday. The answer is almost every history class I have ever taken!

            The marvel about history is the fact that it has almost no boundaries. Everyone and everything has a past, everyone and everything has a history behind it, which makes this field inexhaustible. For a person like me, who wants to learn about every aspect of the world, it is the perfect major.

            I’m sure many of us at one time or another have heard it said that history can help prevent us from making future mistakes. I for one take this statement to heart. By teaching the next generation of what has occurred in the past we can give them tools to succeed in the future and maybe create a safer world. Raphael Lemkin, an activist for the prevention of genocide stated that history is “much wiser than lawyers and statesmen (Power 22).”

Power, Samantha. A Problem from Hell : America and the Age of Genocide. New York: HarperPerennial, 2007.