The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, June 16, 1993, Page 4, Image 4
EDITORIAL
Rlinrlness
Lack of preparation hurts
IJSC 's academic future
?????6 4rT"',he University we
JL envision is a unified
community of teaching
scholars attuned to die needs
?f die larger state community
and acknowledged as one
of the finest in the
Southeast. Dedicated first to serving the students,
USC Columbia will continue to offer high-quality
undergraduate and graduate programs with a
core curriculum centered in the liberal aits, as it
continues to build a nationally recognized
research faculty."
-The Future Committee's vision for (JSC as
written in its report to President John Palms
With the scuttling of the S.S. Holderman in the
early '90s. the future of USC lies amidst its flotsam
and jetsam. The Future Committee's final
report seems an ironic dichotomy when compared
with the reality of the university's situation.
Left to salvage the wreckage, the committee
was supposed to recommend cuts and enhancements
that would help lead the university into a
bold future. Instead, the recommendations were
ineffective at best, and regressive at worst.
The committee based its decision on the
assumption that they would receive a level of
funding equal to the previous fiscal year.
However, if the state's projection for higher education
funding is correct, USC will face a $7 million
shortfall, making the committee's and
Palms' decisions moot. Now. they must begin the
whole process again.
One would think a committee of USC's best
anu brightest would make several projections
ranging from the best- to worst-case scenarios.
This lack of preparation defies common sense. If
this is the type of blind leadership USC has to
offer, then it is little wonder why USC is in trouble.
With the loss of four deans, along with F.arl
Black. Nora Bell, Bernie Dunlap, and other noted
professors, the idea of building a nationally recognized
faculty is in jeopardy. Even the rats realize
when the ship is sinking! What will remain is
a poor hybrid of teaching and research professors:
consequently leading to poorer academics,
and a declining reputation.
With poor professors, the difficulty in creating
"a unified community of scholars...acknowledged
as one of the finest in the Southeast" is
Herculean.
With the exception of the MIBS program.
USC lacks nationally recognized programs, making
the process of recruiting the highest caliber of
new students equally difficult.
The future of USC now lies in Dr. Palms'
hands. Rather than focus on the needs of
research, he should focus on keeping the students
and professors from walking the gangplank, or
else he may find himself in the midst of a
mutiny.
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"This thing in Croatia is going to get
settled somehow, but if they start it in
Bosnia...it is going to be a true Bosnian
pot."
These were the words of a friend of
mine, said in the winter of 1991-92 during
my last weeks at home in Yugoslavia, and
a few months before the outbreak of war
in Bosnia-Hercegovina.
"Bosnian pot" is a traditional Bosnian
dish made from different kinds of vegetables,
meat and potatoes, mixed up, and
cooked in a large pot. Now, more than one
year since the beginning of the Bosnian
brawl between the people of two nationalities
and three religions. I see how right my
friend was. Not only that something was
cooking, but it seems it has been boiling
forever.
Bosnia-Hercegovina is a region in the
southwestern Balkans, peopled by southern
Slavs. The last demographic polls
showed that 17 percent of the Bosnian
inhabitants declared themselves as Croats.
33 percent as Serbs, and about 40 percent
as Moslem.
The Moslems are also Slavs who converted
to Islam during the oppressive
Ottoman rule that lasted four centuries.
They were allowed to call themselves ethnic
Moslems after the Yugoslav
Constitution of 1974, thus enabling them
to confuse their religion with their nationality.
Bosnia-IIercegovina had never been
an independent country.
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after World War II by Josip Broz Tito,
president of Yugoslavia from 1945 to
1980, who designed the six Yugoslavrepublics
? not along the ethnic lines ?
but rather according to his own taste and
imitating the example of the Soviet Union.
During World War II, Bosnia was a part
of the Croatian-Nazi puppet regime of
Ante Pavelic in which hundreds of thousands
of Serbs were killed in their homes
and concentration camps. Moslems were
loosely allied with Croatia. Serbs never
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wanted to forget this episode. In it one can
see the reason for the fervor with which
Serbs, kindled by outrageous nationalist
propaganda, plunged into the most recent
war.
On June 26, 1992. Slovenia and
Croatia, two of the six republics, declared
themselves independent. After brief fighting
broke out in Slovenia between the
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National Guard, the rest of Yugolavia,
controlled by Serbia's capital, Belgrade,
yielded.
Slovenia and Croatia were recognized
by the European Community in January of
1992. The EC declared it would recognize
any other republic that wanted to secede.
On March 1, 1992, Croats and Moslems of
Bosnia voted for independence, while
Serbs boycotted the referendum. In April,
Bosnia-Hercegovina were recognized by
the United States and the EC. This was
regarded as a good solution aimed at slopping
the bloodshed in the Balkans. How
wrong it was! The massive slaughter only
then started.
Hundreds of people are losing their
lives in Bosnia; thousands are forced to
flee their homes in ruins. The main target
are the followers of Mohammed; nearly
one million of them were expulsed from
the new country. Not only are they being
attacked by the Serbs; they became a target
of the Croatian land greed as, well.
Bosnian Serbs hold now nearly twothirds
of the territory. Croats the other
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third, and Moslems are confined to narrow
strips of land. Realizing that they are
being neglected by the international community,
they seem to be launching a
counter-offensive against the Croats now.
The proposition to divide Bosnia into
10 ethnic cantons, the so-called VanceOwen
plan, is not very likely to be implemented
in the near future. President
Clinton's policies toward Bosnia had gone
from threats to arm the Moslems to the
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Moslem "havens." The end. however,
does not seem to be near if the warring
factions don't decide to stop it themselves.
It was a widespread belief that Serbian
president Slobodan Milosevic, the man
regarded as most responsible for the war,
could stop it all ? for that reason Serbia
and Montenegro rue presently suffering
under a complete economic blockade. The
passions, it seems, have gone too far.
Milosevic has supposedly stopped supplying
the Bosnians with arms, but the
shelling and pillage of Bosnian towns and
villages is still relentless.
Today, the former country's intelli
gentsia is continuing to emigrate abroad,
leaving the Balkan Peninsula to be governed
by the ones who are only interested
in power and not the well-being of all the
peoples, regardless of their nationality or
religion. Worst of all, the leaders are
always going to llnd ways to persuade and
intoxicate the innocent ones with hatred,
bringing only tears and despair.
Despite everything, as a Serb not
immune to feelings of nostalgia, I want to
be able to go back to my homeland freely
one uay ana eat again an autnentic
Bosnian pot, instead of merely sitting in
front of the TV every day, thousands of
miles away, watching people entangled in
that bloody stew.
Sveto Postic is a columnist for The
Gamecock.