Bosnia After the War Essays

Again and Again?
By Emina Šmigalovic
May 2000

Given an opportunity to write an essay on any topic, I find myself inevitably drawn to reflect on the formative experience of my life. I wish I could discuss love and music, but I recall my cousins and uncles, and I cannot be silent. This explains, perhaps, my connection with Percy Bysshe Shelley's analysis of the causes of war in "Queen Mab." Studying English poetry late one night, "War is the statesmen's game, […] the hired assassin's trade," set a concern of mine in motion.

Many a day, I have been pondering over our recent war in Bosnia. Statesmen, hired hunters, and we the common people were the game. My grandfather, whom I am very close to, survived to give witness, but some other relatives did not.

He has told em about his experience in concrete, specific detail: how the helicopters arrived and how the paramilitary men began their slaughter. Those they didn't manage to kill initially, they pursued in the forest for two days, at first shooting and then, when the entertainment wasn't enough, torturing their captives.

An image of blood sport, blood-thirsty hunters and their prey, innocent creatures, comes to mind. Metaphor somehow palliates the agony of words my grandfather speaks to me. I keep plying him with questions about those dreadful times, however, because I feel my generation must know the truth to the fullest extent possible.

I understand that some people want to forget. However, a society cannot heal by denial or by pretending that atrocity was not committed. We must have awareness that the hatred that made such actions possible doesn't just evaporate. I, too, wish for reconciliation. I do not delude myself that under such circumstances it can come easily.

It is dismaying that in 200 years since Shelley's insight, humanity has not progressed more towards prevention. If anything, it seems we have gained greater proficiency in our capacity to inflict harm on one another.

Works Cited
Dizdar, Srebren Poezija engleskog romantizma. Sarajevo: TKP Sahinpasic, 1999. 199.

Shelley, Percy Bysshe. The Poems of Shelley. London: Oxford University Press, 1966. 777.