er edition he mentions that the lexicographer Abdulah Skaljic, a representative of the Reis-ul Ulema, the highest Islamic religious authority in Bosnia, objected to his use of the term renegade" for those who had "taken the right road and the right faith."
(Actually, the adoption of the religion of the conqueror I in order to maintain certain privileges such as landholding was common not only to the Ottoman Empire. A similar situation existed m Ireland, where one or two brothers, with the agreement of the rest of the family, sometimes joined the Protestant church in order to pre-the family's land )
IntheBosnian case, the situation is further complicated by the fact that great numbers of those who converted to were members of a heretical Christian sect called
('pleasing to (. ,od '] Diev were threatened ? e^^sition, and some historians have written that y invited the Ottomans m (1463), rather than face *'onbyaHungan<> r .irmv blessed by the pope. Mfe1 ^'s carnt  the saving; "Bosnia fell with a 4^ ' /Wasnt until the rise of nationalism in the last Mth ' 116 ccn,u, v  hat these converts to Islam ^lvhlrv^eSCen^dnts " r,> branded "traitors." Partic-totitury	mmh ot the bknidshed of the 20th
be traced to sir h reinterpretations of cul-by  ^h-'vnhirv hist<'nans.
an Pur'hcation (, meme) of Bosnian villages re mods me of a similar action, u>nll,rv Montenegrin poet Njegos
Han eU?ain Wreath 1 l   smgs of the events leading \.^h^ntnrv extermination of Muslims in
Soffo dlrec,ed bx Danilo, the Orthodox prince and motivated bv fear of contam-todayparanoia may be found in
42.	Ends of History
mainly Muslim,
the holy ground" of the Serbian medieval empire.
rec 7ears' 1 heard worried talk of how Islamic fundamentalism was sweeping Bosnia and of Saudi Arabian money being used to rebuild mosques and Muslim schools. I used to smile at such stories, as indicative of excessive Serbian anxiety about Muslims. But I was wrong. Obviously, Serbian extremists played on fears of a revived Islamic state in Bosnia as a way to spur their savage war. The fact that the Bosnian president, Izet-begovic, was the author of the Islamic Declaration, a 1970 tract calling for the moral renewal of Islam throughout the world for which he was jailed by the Yugoslav communist government in the early 1980s-hardly reassured the Serbs.
This oppressive preoccupation with Muslims Albanians in particular is vividly illustrated in the war diary of a Serbian reservist from Valjevo, named Aleksandar Jasovic, published in a Belgrade journal this year. Jasovic served as a medic in the Serbian ranks in the fighting for Vukovar in Croatia in 1991. While his battery was shelling the Croats in the northeast, he recounts in his diary, he actually was preoccupied with fears about Kosovo far to the south the cradle of the Serbian medieval kingdom and the scene of the Serbs' fateful loss to the Turks in 1389.
He writes of the Albanian Muslims, who because of a high birthrate and immigration from neighboring Albania now are a huge majority in Kosovo: "Their Sarajevo mother supports them!" Westerners may find the phrase obscure, but it illuminates what in the medic's mind seems the powerful, irrefutable and threatening connection between the Muslims of Bosnia and those of Kosovo.
Of Slav Macedonians, who also occupy a former Serbian medieval province, he comments: "The Macedonians are continuing to play the fool. The time is near when we'U have to protect Kumanovc> too[the scene da major Serbian victory in the First Balkan War, m Serbs there are being threatened more and more, the Albanians are continuing to act in their usual fashion nXd to know about the Slovenes S Goats. Europe is against us and everyone . against usFm 0(	S
medic. Not once does J	worrjes of millions of
worries and by ext ^n'. facts. Elsewhere he other Serbs are 1^"Let there be borrows an apocalyp^ c	iose these ancient
what there cannot be.	the end. Such
191
8. THE ETHNIC FACTOR: CHALLENGES FOR THE 1990s
tonal aggrandizement. Will Kosovo and Macedonia be next on the list for "purification" and "ethnic cleansing ?
Is there any way out of the gyre of death and destruction in the Balkans? There may be, but the failure of diplomatic efforts up to now have shown that without more active U.S. participation, nothing will happen. Western Europe's leaders seem incapable of seeing that they should act forcefully with military power, if needed  to force a ceasefire. For those untroubled by the daily murder of innocents in Sarajevo, Gorazde and other Bosnian towns, I should point out the danger to Europe's economy posed by the permanent immigration of 2 or 3 million Balkan refugees.
The U.S. offer of air and naval support for the U.N. relief effort is a first step, but even if this should bring about a ceasefire, we shall have to prepare ourselves to play a very strong role in the overall negotiations. Several European powers, particularly Britain, Germany, Italy and Turkey, seem immobilized, perhaps by their own past history of invasion or involvement in the Balkans.
If there is ever to be a healing, it may be that it can only begin with the establishment of a unique, continuing conference of Serbian, Croatian, Muslim and other historians, to arrive at a core of mutually-agreed upon statements regarding each group's history. Ideally, this multicultural convocation would face shibboleths regarding "enemy" ethnic groups, examine national memories for their accuracy and rationality and separate truth from prejudice. The mediation of Western experts will be vital,
since Balkan scholars always seem biased in fav own group.
In examining the more documented history c century, responsibility will have to be accepte crimes of one nation against the other. For exam will have to admit their nation's guilt for the di of King Alexander in the 1920s and '30s, whi mined the pre-war Kingdom of Slovenia, Ci Serbia. In the same way, Croatia will have to c on the holocaust of Serbs at Jasenovac. Only t sion of guilt on one side, and the granting of fc on the other, can start the healing process.
The same is true for the Christian relationshi Muslims (the "Turks"). The Muslims need to i their ancestors abused and lorded it over the 1 for centuries. And the Serbs especially, whik them forgiveness, must ask in turn for their j recent savagery. We have precedents for sud confessions of guilt, in the West German acct responsibility for Nazi crimes against Jews an (June 21) in the French intellectuals' call for the ment to condemn, in the name of "the French memory," the Vichy government's persecutio
If such a healing process is to take place in th it will be best to keep it out of the hands o leaders and politicians. The liturgy of rec should be written by the poet, aided by othei will. Thus the Yugoslavia that many of us in truly loved for its diversity may pass peac< history.
192
Article 43
Race and Urban Poverty
COMPARING
EUROPE AND AMERICA
I n the past decade, a new specter has haunte Eu I rope. The intertwining of race and poverty, once I considered a distinctively American problem, as I become a European concern as well. In the ace o I racial conflict and ethnic disadvantage, the press I and some politicians have warned that Europe s I cities are developing American-style ghettos pop I ulated by ethnic minorities cut off from the mam 1 stream of social and economic life.
No one contends that Europe s cities today ace t e extremes of ethnic and racial segregation, violence, and poverty that blight American cities. But many ear that Europe is on the same trajectory as the United States, only a decade or so behind. And they ave cause for concern.	 
Racial ghettoization does not  just happen. a tional political arrangements profoundly affect the way people and economic activity are organized spati y, either uniting or dividing people of different income levels and races. In the era after World War II, t e forces shaping the way groups and economic activities sorted themselves out on the local level establis e is tinct metropolitan spatial patterns in the United tates, Britain, and France. American political structures in vited extreme segregation within cities and the su ur banization of the white working and middle class, while British and French political structures ten e t allow more mixing by race and income. But t e so ing out was not immutable. Policy responses in^t United States, Britain, and France since the ate have influenced the development of concentrations Poor ethnic and racial minorities in each nation.
Margaret Weir, a seniorfellow in the Brookings Governmental Studies program, is working on a book on race and poverty in the city. This article is drawn from a paper prepared for the Training and Research
Workshop on Race, Ethnicity, Representation, and Governance, sponsored by the Harvard
University Centerfor American Political
Studies.
  c mpr 1993 pp. 23-27.   1993 by The Brookings From The Brookings Review, Sum	 
Margaret Weir
Are France and Britain now  10 years behind the United States ? In some ways the similarities are stnk-  Government promotion of homeownership and the ensuing suburbanization of the middle class, whic the ensuing	States, were simph
 k y fo *dS     .n Bn-   d toe Over 1* poo. be  'd7"  X tas
spite
United States.
The political featur	metropolitan spatial
United States in t e s aping nments Although patterns is the pow	formal consti-
municipalities in the United States lack^ tutional recognition	substantial powers,
state governments y control over land use. Among the most imP  measures formally meant Through zoning an o	locailties determine
 X,hey ire
institute. Reprinted by permission.
1
8. THE ETHNIC FACTOR: CHALLENGES FOR THE 1990s
atively easy to form. Areas often split away from existing jurisdictions to form new ones. By contrast, expanding existing jurisdictions, by way of annexation or consolidation, is usually much more difficult. And chief among many incentives to form separate political jurisdictions is the importance of local property taxes in financing public schools.
Precisely those features of American local political organization hailed by public choice analysts as allowing local residents to choose the mix of services and taxation they most desire the organization of social policy, the power of local government, and the ease of forming separate political jurisdictions provide powerful incentives for whites to separate out by income and by race.
Rather than counterbalancing local fragmentation,
the federal government has reinforced it. Washington has supported suburban life by building highways, promoting automobile use, and subsidizing private homeownership, especially through the favorable tax treatment of mortgages. It has also engaged in practices that encouraged racial exclusion. Most significantly, until the late 1960s it sanctioned discrimination in housing markets by promulgating rules preventing blacks from receiving mortgages insured by the Federal Housing Administration.
Similarly, bowing to lo