Just a little memory to share with you this fine cool morning-
On my march through the Nene's at dawn today my ipod shuffled up a cover of the song "Crazy" by the noted hacks, Me First and the Gimme Gimme's. The song got me thinking about my friends in Bosnia, and friends long-returned from Bosnia who lived through the siege of Sarajevo, the evil destruction of Mostar, and the eventual signing of the Dayton Peace Accords.
The song was released in 1991 and within a few months the city of Sarajevo was a death trap. Buses were turned on their sides to make sniper blinds and the people boiled grass for nourishment. What supplies they could get were brought into the city carried by hand through a lifeline of tunnels. As the war ground on and the bodies piled up, all of the parks and open space of the city was used for burials. All trees were cut for fuel until they ran out and turned to window frames, tires, or anything that could burn. 10,000 people were killed or went missing.
The Sarajevans waited for help, fought back, and continued living their lives however they could. The unrelenting nearness of death brought them close to each other and to wear the badge of "Sarajevan" brought great pride.
Sarajevo remained defiant.
Wikimedia has this to say about it-
"The siege of Sarajevo, as it came to be popularly known, was an episode of such notoriety in the conflict in the former Yugoslavia that one must go back to World War II to find a parallel in European history. Not since then had a professional army conducted a campaign of unrelenting violence against the inhabitants of a European city so as to reduce them to a state of medieval deprivation in which they were in constant fear of death. In the period covered in this Indictment, there was nowhere safe for a Sarajevan, not at home, at school, in a hospital, from deliberate attack.
That is why this song,Crazy, has the power to transport them back to a time when the only way they could live with fear was to dance with it.
Neka poživi Sarajevo!
Juancho
5 comments:
You lost me on the song, but reminding us of the massacre in Bosnia right when I read that Hillary is going there this week...wow. Good timing to remind me to pay attention.
That song was a monster hit all over the world. When I got there 5 years later it was still playing everywhere we went. It was powerful to watch people react to it. I didn't know Hillary was on her way there. Maybe that's why it's on my mind today.
And look, here's a video for the song set to Bosnia video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRPP3RatJzU
Not being familiar with the details, I will butt in and speculate that I would have ridden away from that hot mess at the first opportunity.
Bike beat road blocks- unless the city was covered by a dome.
You wouldn't have had a chance.They would have cut you down like a dog. The City sits in a bowel surrounded by mountains. Only a couple ways in or out and artillery covering the hillsides. Still, I'm sure some people got out, but they were still in Bosnia and the war was everywhere, not just the city.
Post a Comment