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Case Study in Ethnic Strife: Without Rules or Pity

David Rieff
March/April 1997
Summary -- 

Like Bosnia, Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian-majority enclave deep in Azerbaijan, has seen civil war, ethnic cleansing, and a million people made refugees. Living without a peace agreement, this statelet no one recognizes is mired in communal grievances and nationalism, as is the entire region. One almost longs for a return of the Soviet Union and its rhetoric of friendship between peoples. Karabakhis are discovering that nationalism cannot power an economy and that ethnic identity is a poor foundation for a state.

David Rieff, a Senior Fellow at the World Policy Institute at the New School for Social Research, is the author of Slaughterhouse: Bosnia and the Failure of the West.

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