Defining moment

I still recall vividly the knock on the door of my study bedroom in Churchill Hall on Friday 22nd November 1963, a fellow student announcing: "Guess what - President Kennedy's been assassinated!". I thought Pete was joking and told him to eff-off. It was the "No,seriously, it's on the news." which followed that drew me out of my room and into the corridor discussion by the bewildered that followed.

I also recall switching on the TV to snooze before in the heat during the afternoon post lunch siesta in Monaco, and seeing the breaking news of air attacks on New York's World Trade Centre on September 11th 2001. I remembered that this wasn't the first attempt to destroy the twin towers, and wondering how they, before we knew who they were, could get away with it.

The Balkan conflicts of the 1990s, while we lived in Switzerland, was something that I found disturbing, in the way it revealed the poisonous persistence of tribalism in a sophisticated modern European country. It caused me to question all I took for granted about progress and modernity, and my faith. The avoidance of justice by the key perpetrators of Yugoslavian genocide meant that there could be no closure, no complete reconciliation, even though war had ended and the rule of law was gradually being re-instated.

I was glad when Slobodan Milosevic was taken to trial at the Hague in 2001, even though his premature death in 2006 meant he escaped human judgement. Then Radovan Karadzic was arrested in July 2008, but I don't remember where I was when I first heard either news. But where I was when the news broke of the arrest of Radko Mladic after sixteen years on the run, I shall recall. This was the man who could say in response to the allegations of genocide at Srebrenica, caring nothing for right or wrong: "If you thought it was genocide, why didn't anyone stop us?" This, in bible-talk, is surely the speech of the Great Accuser.

I was at my desk in the CBS Charles Street office, and Ashley called up the BBC live news streaming website, to demonstrate the improvement produced by the deployment of a new router/modem. And there I saw the breaking news headlines, and couldn't help but cheer aloud. Let's hope his health holds out long enough for his day in court. He needs to be heard out, if only so that the world may learn to recognise and beware of his self-defence.

The outrageous facts which accuse Karadzic and Mladic, the stories of victims crying out to be heard, are powerful in their own right. Deposed tyrants are a pathetic enough species, but unless we understand the logic they apply to their arguments very carefully, there's a risk we shall fail to notice their more subtle versions when they arise once more - not necessarily somewhere 'out there', but in our own back yard.