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February 29, 2012
Article by Michael Ignatieff published February 29, 2012
Bashar al-Assad’s artillery shells blast into Homs and families huddle in dark and unheated basements trying to stay alive as the shuddering assault edges ever closer. With the bombardment entering its fourth week, those watching video clips filmed with mobile phone cameras feel the same emotion they felt watching the siege of Sarajevo twenty years ago.
It is the feeling of shame.
You know it is shame when ‘the international community’ now talks, just as it did during the Sarajevo siege, not of stopping the carnage, but of offering ‘humanitarian’ assistance. The very word is abject. The people in the basements of Homs would be insulted to be called innocent victims in need of humanitarian rescue. They have been fighting to overthrow a regime.