Chris Hedges

ost national myths, at their core, are racist. They are fed by ignorance.

he principal religious institutions—the Serbian Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church in Croatia—were willing accomplices. They were national churches and worked as propagandists for the state. The clerics, on all three sides, were a disgrace

Many of those who defy the collective psychosis of the nation are solitary figures once the wars end.

IN WARTIME THE STATE SEEKS TO DESTROY ITS OWN culture.

achieve corporate action, self-awareness and especially self-criticism must be obliterated

llusions punctuate our lives, blinding us to our own inconsistencies and repeated moral failings. But in wartime these illusions are compounded.