Paul Pawlikowski, |
The deconstruction of identity in three stages. First : "the other cannot live amongst us just like that", which amounts to the demand for an abandonment of his specific cultural, national, ethnic, religious, political and other baggage. Second : "the other cannot live amongst us", the consequence of which is expulsion, banishment and other means of purging. Third : "the stranger cannot live", which is for those who are still around after the two previous stages. The last stage only forms the triumphant consequence of the idea that identity is not formed by diversity but by elimination. Bosnia, in the nineties. In contrast to the emotional rhetoric of Bernard-Henri Levy's Un jour dans la mort de Sarajevo and Bosnia!, Serbian Epics 's seemingly bleak and distant anthropological look into the enemy's camp goes way beyond the subject of ethnicity. |