Discussion
at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, 17th August
2012 - Janine di Giovanni and Ed Vulliamy, - twenty years on from the
beginning of the war in Bosnia. Chaired by Bidisha
Ed
Vuilliamy said that the war in Bosnia broke preconceptions. His
optimism and his faith were shattered. He used to believe that
justice would prevail, that the good guys would win and the bad ones
would be punished, but such ideas were blown apart with this war. He
spoke passionately about the ‘impotence and hubris’ of the
international community and its politicians.
Janine
said that journalists felt they ‘can and must do something’. We
used to feel she said, that our reporting could actually affect
policy. That their work was about ‘bearing witness’ an overused
phrase she agreed yet one that seemed to fit. To give a voice to
people who don’t have one. But she admitted that since Bosnia, a
lot of reporting seems to be more geared towards getting scoops and
newspaper sales.
In
the days of the war in Bosnia she reminds us, back in the 90s, they
used to be there before others got there, before médecins
sans frontières got there, before the NGOs got there.
Nowadays, we have embedded reporting which she thinks is destructive
of journalism – you are censored in what you write. For her, it was
always important to go and talk to the people involved, go into the
villages and speak to them, which cannot be done if you’re
embedded.
In
his book, as Bidisha points out, Ed names things as they are, he
talks about mass rape for example, he detests the euphemisms so often
used. Collateral damage he says, means a village consisting mainly of
women, children and the elderly, is attacked, and the inhabitants
killed.
When
asked about the ‘neutrality’ of journalists, Janine said ‘I’m
a journalist and I’m not supposed to have a side’ but that
doesn’t mean that they should not have compassion for the people
who were suffering. She says she usually has seen war from the side
of those who were having the worst of it, and being attacked.
She
related how guilty she felt when after a few weeks or so in Sarajevo
she went to Zagreb for a short time, to have a break - and a shower.
She felt that she should be back there, in Sarajevo where the others
were suffering all the dangers and privations of the siege. All the
foreign journalists were very aware, she said, that they were in a
different situation from the Bosnian people – if things got very
difficult for them, they could leave, they could get out. Not so, for
the people of Sarajevo.
Journalists
need to be objective about facts yes, but neutrality is something
else.
Ed
Vulliamy was accused of ‘breaching neutrality’ by testifying at
the Hague. Some reporters felt he should not have, because
journalists are supposed to be neutral, report facts and not take
sides. But Ed said he was horrified by the ‘neutrality’ of the
international community. The war could have been stopped with very
little loss of life he says, if the international community had
intervened. Each case has to be weighed individually, he does not
always think that intervention is the right action, but in this case,
he says, yes it was.
Janine
reminds us that in Bosnia, this was in the days before emails and the
internet, before blogging and twitter. We had to phone in our
reports, she said, reading them out from the page we’d written it
on. Journalism nowadays is too much about journalists, rather than
about the people they have gone there to report on. They are
encouraged to write in the first person.
Ed
says he tries to make himself invisible in his story. ‘We [the
journalists] don’t matter.’ Yes, he says, it is hard after seeing
all that they have seen, their ‘post traumatic lives’ are not
easy.
Janine
says she is bitter about the siege in Sarajevo, as it could have been
stopped. ‘politicians allowed it to happen’. She says there
should have been intervention in Sarajevo before the siege.
We can never forget what happened, she says, - and it seems we
[humanity] are doomed to repeat our mistakes [as in Syria today].
In
Bosnia, Ed said, it was complicated by both victims and perpetrators
being neighbours, knowing each other so well. He was told by one
person who had been tortured that his torturer said to him – your
grandfather tortured my grandfather. The pleasure that was taken in
torturing was also horrific to them. There was a strange kind of
atmosphere, he said, a kind of chumminess between perpetrators and
victims, and then the atrocities would happen.
They
were asked about their present situation – if they were still able
to write their own stories – both because of embedded journalism
and because of the traumatic nature of their work.
Janine
said – I still do it. Then she talked about young, desperate,
would be journalists who blog and even go to war zones and undertake
dangerous border crossings when they know very little about the
situation. Whereas they are experienced journalists who can far
better assess situations in general and the level of risk involved.
These young people she said, think it’s glamorous to be a war
correspondent but it’s not at all. But I can still earn a living.
Photo journalists I know, often have to fund themselves. But those
who are truly committed will do that.
Ed
said that his last assignment was in Mexico and he found it so
frightening, the amount of death and torture, that he has ‘hung up
his boots’. It’s not that he does not care or feel any more, but
he has ‘commitment fatigue’. He thinks it’s time to come back
to the UK and do some ‘foreign reporting’ here.
These
are reports from people who were there and saw what went on. Who can
relate the stories of what people have gone through, who can give a
voice to people who do not have one, people who have disappeared, or
have been murdered, shelled, tortured, raped, imprisoned. Without
them, we would know very little, and that little would probably be a
mass of rumour and counter rumour and we would not know who to
believe. We can certainly believe these people for their observations
are skilled and articulate, their compassion and commitment is very
clear.
Among
Janine di Giovanni’s other books are Madness Visible, about
the war in Kosovo
and
The Quick and the Dead about the war in Bosnia.
Morelle Smith
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