Syndicate: Re: Vlada Petric: How Susan Sontag Promotes War

[Geert Lovink <geert@xs4all.nl>]

From: Andras Riedlmayer <riedlmay@FAS.HARVARD.EDU>
To: JUSTWATCH-L@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU

In his response to Susan Sontag's article, Vlada Petric writes:

> As an educator, I fortunately learned that such a vindictive method
> of "teaching" people how to behave does not work, since it expands
> violence and encourages retaliation.

He must have had interesting classes ...

Petric has done great work as founder of the Harvard Film Archive and
is indeed a renowned film theorist.  However, I would take issue with
Milovan Markovic's introduction, in which he attributes Petric's vehement
reaction to having witnessed the dire effects of NATO's bombing campaign
on Yugoslavia in the last 50 days:

> This phenomenon is particularly interesting from a psychological
> standpoint, because the emotional impact of the inhuman destruction
> affects individuals directly, regardless of their political persuasion
> or social background.
>
> As a result, more and more Americans of Yugoslav origin, who left the
> Communist regime and involved themselves wholeheartedly in the social,
> economic, and cultural life of the United States, are beginning to
> reconsider their faith in the "New World Order."

I met Petric four years ago, during the last year of the Bosnian war, and
while we didn't talk about the NWO, we did talk about the war and the
siege of Sarajevo.  He assured me that he knew Sarajevo well from before
the war, and that those who blamed the Serbs for what was happening there
(he specifically mentioned Susan Sontag) had it all wrong. It was the
Muslims' fault.  This conversation took place long before NATO had done
any bombing, either in Bosnia or in Yugoslavia.

Andras Riedlmayer


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