na srpskom, in English
Nikad nisam imala domovinu, nikad nisam imala maternji jezik, nikad nisam verovala u boga. Porasla sam kao tikva na đubretu, što bi rekla moja majka...
Rasla sam između zemalja, jezika, običaja. U mojim raznim školama govorila sam engleski italijanski srpski...Bavila sam se tuđim mukama kad bih pisala. Pisala sam, uživljavala se, plakala, s empatijom ptice rugalice.
U petom razredu osnovne škole u Titovoj eri, dobila sam domaći zadatak da pišem o slavnim pobedama jugoslovenske narodne vojske. Znala sam sve o engleskim Tudorima i Stjuartima, francuskoj revoluciji i američkom građanskom ratu...ali sva ta velika zbivanja uopšte nisu pominjala komunističke pobede.
I tada sam pitala tatu, rodom iz Hercegovine za neku kratku verziju za domaći u kojoj dobri momci pobeđuju loše.
Moj otac mi je tada ispričao jednu strašnu priču, surovu i herojsku u kojoj je on bio glavni akter. Tada sam prvi put čula za izraz "masovne grobnice".
Srpsko stanovništvo u Hercegovini su nacisti zarobili i potom zavezali konopcima za ruke, troje po troje. Jednoga bi upucali a ostalu dvojicu žive bacili u masovnu grobnicu jedne preko drugih
Na stotine njih je tako ubijeno, ugušeno dok odred smrti nije otišao.
Čim su nestale ubice, moj otac i ostali mladi iz okoline ušli su u jamu i kopali danima spašavajući preživele. Nekoliko njih i jeste da bi ispirčali ovu priču.
Ja sam je i napisala, Tačno mesto i datum. Dobila sam književnu nagradu u toj jugoslovenskoj školi. Međutim nekoliko nedelja kasnije, javno su mi oduzeli nagradu, moji datumi se nisu podudarali sa zvančnim datumom ustanka u Hercegovini.
To što sam ja opisala desilo se mesec dana pre zvaničnog komunističkog ustanka koji je partija predvodila, dotični drug taj I taj. Još uvek živ i na vlasti, redovno je kontrolisao lokalnu istoriju živih i mrtvih.
Nikad nisam pitala svoje roditelje koje su nacionalnosti, bili smo Jugosloveni, to sam znala. Imali smo najboji pasoš na svetu, to sam čula. Moja majka je bila mala i tamna a moj otac visok i plav. Dobila sam ime Jasmina po nekoj narodnoj pesmi
Tako su stvari stajale sve do početka devdesetih i onda se nešto desilo u vazduhu, na terenu.
Naročito u Srbiji gde sam u to vreme živela. Moja majka je počela da priča o Kosovu kao da joj je domovina. Moj otac isto tako o Bosni i Hercegovini. A kao par živeli su u Beogradu još od 1944. Niti su odlazili često u posetu svojim domovinama.
Onda su stigle mračne priče o Srbima koji čine ratne zločine u Bosni i na Kosovu. Pričala sam te priče mojim rodieljima. Nisu mi verovali.
Moja majka je umrla sa Kosvom na usnama a moj otac još uvek živ neće sa mnom o tome više da razgovara.
Juna 1995. pisala sam knjigu o izbegicama iz bivše Jugoslavije ( Kofer, University Press of California): intervjuisala sam lokalne žene i muškarce različitiog etničkog porekla koji su izmešteni svuda po svetu.
Jedan mladi čovek s kojim sam razgovarala bio je iz Srebrenice ali je živeo u Beču. Bio je Bošnjak, veoma ljubazan i dobar prema meni, iako sam bila Srpkinja koja piše za američkog izdavača. Pozvao me je u goste u svoj stan, ponudio večerom i ispričao kako je izašao preko Crvenog krsta iz Beograda. Sebe je smatrao Jugoslovenom i mrzeo je ratove, koji su po njemu pravili političari na visokom položaju, a ne posteni građani zemlje kao on.
Pričao je o Srebrenici u koju su se među hiljadama ljudi sklonili njegovi stari roditelji, mlada žena i mala deca. Na kraju je rekao nešto što nikad neću zaboraviti, rečenicu koja je u to vreme delovala mračna i nejasna: ako se nešto desi tamo u Srebrenici mojoj porodici, u enklavi koju štite UN, kunem se da ću svojim rukama ubiti prvog Srbina na koga ovde naiđem, nije važno da li je kriv ili ne, nije bitno da što ću robijati do kraja života.
Mislio je na svog kolegu Srbina, takođe izbeglicu u Beču s kojim se svaki dan viđao na poslu.
Nekoliko nedelja kasnije desio se masakar u Srebrenici . Vojska Ratka Mladića ubila je oko 8.000 ljudi za tri dana. UN trupe su okrenule glavu na drugu stranu. Tela su sakrivena svuda okolo, a i u Srbiji, s nečuvenom efikasnosću.
Danas, posle dvanaest godina, neki ljudi u Srbiji i drugde u svetu još uvek okreću glavu na drugu stranu od Srebrenice. U Srbiji tiha većina tvrdi da su zločini počinjeni sa svih strana i da ih zato valja sistematski zataškavati i zaboraviti.
U velikom svetu sve više pod pretnjom terorizma, militarizma i prekomernog legalizma, opravdanje za taj stav je, neka se lokalna plemena istrebe međusobno na Balkanu. To je divna izolacija onih koji misle da mogu tako nešto sebi da priušte.
Ne znam da li je ubijena porodica tog čoveka u masakru u Srebrenici, niti da li je on ubio svog suseda Srbina, ništa o njemu od tada nisam čula.
Posle genocida u Srebrenici 11-14 jula, hrvatska vojska je bombardovala Srpsku Krajinu početkom avgusta. Oko 250.000 Srba napustilo je Hrvatsku.
Nekoliko meseci kasnije, potpisan je mirovni sprazum između tri zaraćene strane u Dejtonu : Srbi, Muslimani i Hrvati. Sećam se kako sam celu noć probdela čekajući da vidim da li su uspeli da se dogovore. Sećam se svoje 11 godišnje ćerke kako ustaje svakih sat vremena i pita JESU LI? Kada joj konačno rekoh JESU ona je zaspala a ja sam počela da plačem. Nisu to bile suze olakšanja već očaja.
Svi su se rukovali sa Bilom Klintonom, javno su bili mirotvorci i odmah sam znala da će se jednoga dana 8.000 iz masovnih grobnica vratiti kao Hamletov duh s obzirom da nema pomirenja i mira bez istine i pravde.
Decembra 2005. prvi put sam otišla na suđenje Škorpionima, specijalnoj vojnoj jedinici koja je ubijala u Srebrenici između ostalog. Išla sam kao podrška našim ženama, porodici poginulih iz Srebrenice, kao Žena u crnom.
Kada sam prvi put čula Škorpione da javno govore, ove ljude koji su tajno učestvovali u masakru u Sreberenici rešila sam da pratim suđenje do kraja. Ne samo zbog žrtava već i zbog zločinaca. Ovi ljudi su govorili na mom jeziku, imali su govor tela mojih suseda, i ponekad razmišljanja moje porodice.
Bili su deo moje priče i istorije, koji se pokvario, koji je počinio zločin, koji je ubijao i zataškao ubijanja.
Moja dužnost i privilegija bili su da ih čujem iz prve ruke, da beležim i da prenesem istorijsku istinu. Koja vrsta zaborava i negiranja može da učini da nestane 8.000 ljudi? Za samo tri dana. Da li su svi "obrađeni" ubijeni? Kako je zamišljen i sproveden takav zločin?
Gledajući i slušajući Škorpione, te umišljene heroje, čije su burne ratne godine minule, videla sam obične lopuže, ubice svojih suseda koji su potom potonuli u teške godine mira, stareći kao bratija po krvi, kao neka mala patrijarhalna mafija...napisala sam ove stranice i misli trudeći se da imaju smisla, da poštujem reči i misli protagonista u sudu, da dočaram širu sliku svega.
U Jerusalimu posle Drugog svetskog rata Hana Arent je pratila suđenje Ajhmanu. Neki od njenih jevrejskih sunarodnika bili su zgroženi i uvređeni što je Ajhmanu uopšte omogućeno da se brani pošto je nestalo šest miliona Jevreja bez suđenja. Međutim, upravo prisustvo suđenju omogućilo joj je da shvati banalnost zla.
Istorijski zločini su osmišljeni. Mrtvi su nemi ali njihovi legalni duhovi vrlo glasni. Najbolji glasnogovornici su ponekad glasovi njihovih ubica.
The Design of Crime
I never had a homeland, I never had a mother
language, I never believed in God. I grew up as a
pumpkin on the garbage, as my mother used to
say...
I grew up between countries, languages, customs.
In my various schools I spoke English, Italian,
Serbian...
I borrowed other people's troubles to write about.
I wrote, emoted, wept, with all the empathy of a
mockingbird.
In fifth grade, in a Yugoslav school under
Tito, I received a homework assignment to write about the
glorious battles of the Yugoslav communist army. I
knew about English Tudors and Stuarts, the French
revolution, the American Civil War...but none of
those grand narratives had mentioned any communist glory.
So I asked my father, a native from Herzegovina, for
a schoolgirl digest version of the good guys beating
the bad guys in World War II.
And my father told me a terrible story; cruel and
heroic with him as an actor. That was the first time that I
heard the term "mass graves."
Serbian people in Herzegovina were seized by Nazi
occupiers and lashed together with knotted ropes, three in a
bunch. Then one victim was shot and other two tumbled together into a common trench.
Hundreds were killed in rows in this fashion before
the death squads left.
Once the killers disappeared, my father and other
teenagers from the town dug for the whole day
trying to save survivors.
Some few unearthed victims did survive, enough to
tell the tale.
So I wrote that, exact place and date, and I won a
literary prize in the Yugoslav school. A couple of weeks later I was publicly deprived of my prize: my dates didn't match the official history of the Resistance.
The struggle I described had occurred a month or
more before the official communist uprising, led in
that part of the country
by a Comrade So-and-so. This apparatchik, still
alive and in power at that time, was making it his business to control the local history for both the dead and the living.
I never asked my parents what nationality we were:
we were Yugoslavs, I knew that. We had the best
passport in the world: I heard that. My mother was small
and dark and my father was tall and blond. They
named me"Jasmina" because of a folk song.
So things stood until the early nineties: then
something happened in the air, on the ground, in people's
minds.
Especially in Serbia, where I happened to live at
the time. My mother started speaking about Kosovo as if it
were her homeland. My father talked in much the
same way about Bosnia. As a couple, they had both
lived in Belgrade since 1941. We had never bothered to
visit their native lands.
Then dark stories emerged of war crimes from Serbs
in Bosnia and Kosovo. I told those stories to my parents.
They didn't want to believe me.
My mother died with Kosovo on her lips and my
father,still alive, does not speak to me of such things
anymore.
In June 1995, I was writing a book on refugees
from former Yugoslavia, “The Suitcase”,
(University Press of California), and interviewing local
women and men of various ethnicities who'd been displaced all over the world.
One of my contacts was a young man from
Srebrenica: displaced in Vienna. He was a Muslim, very polite and kind to me, as a Serb writing for American publishers. He
invited me to his flat, offered me dinner and told me how he
fled the troubled country through the Red Cross in
Belgrade. He considered himself a Yugoslav and
loathed the wars, according to him made by remote
politicians, not the people like himself.
And at the end, he said something I will never
forget, a sentence that at the time sounded creepy
and muddy: If something happens to my family back
there in Srebrenica, which is a Muslim enclave protected by
UN troops, I swear to God that I will kill with my
own hands the first Serb I come across here, and I
don’t care that he is not guilty, I don’t care if I go
to prison forever…
He meant, presumably, his Serbian co-worker, a
fellow refugee in Vienna whom he saw most every day.
A few weeks later, the massacre happened in
Srebrenica; more than 8000 people were executed
in by the army of Bosnian Serbs led by
General Mladic. UN troops looked the other way.
Bodies were buried all over the region, some in
Serbia proper, with an unprecedented efficiency.
Today, ten years after, some people, in Serbia and all over the world still look away from Srebrenica. In Serbia, the claim of the silent majority is that crimes were equal on all sides and should therefore be systematically obscured and
forgotten.
In the larger global world, itself increasingly
terrorized,militarized, and extra-legalized, the
justification for such an attitude is: let the violent local tribesfight it out in the
Balkans. This is the splendid isolation of those
whoimagine that they can afford isolation.
I don’t know if that man’s family was killed in
the Srebrenica massacre, and I don’t know if he killed his
neighbor the Serb.I have never heard from him since.
After the Srebrenica massacre of July 11-14, the
Croats bombed Krajina in the beginning of August. Two hundred fifty thousand Serbs fled Croatia.
A few months later, in Dayton, a peace treaty was
signed between the three warring sides, (Serbs,
Muslims and Croats). I remember waiting awake all
night in order to see if they reached an
agreement. I remember my 11 year old daughter coming every few hours out of her bed to ask me: DID THEY?
When finally I said yes: she went to sleep and I
started crying.
Those were not tears of relief but of despair. The
Dayton treaty was signed by Milosevic and Karadzic. They
shook hands with Bill Clinton, they publicly
performed as peace makers, and I immediately knew that the eight thousand bodies from Srebrenica’s mass graves would return someday, as sure as Hamlet’s father, because there
would be no reconciliation and peace without truth
andjustice.
In December 2005, I first went to the Srebrenica
trial of the Scorpion paramilitaries. I went to support
our women friends from Bosnia, who came to testify at the
warcrimes tribunal, to identify their murdered loved
ones.
I went as a member of the Non-Governmental
Organization,"Women In Black."
When i first heard the Scorpions speak publicly,
these men who had secretly participated in Srebrenica as well asother, lesser massacres,
i decided to stay until the trial's very end. Not
merely for the sake of thevictims, but because of the criminals. Thesepeople spoke in my own
language, they had the body-language of my own
neighbors,and the reasoning of my own family. They were part
of my family storyand history, the part which went bad, went astray, committed crimes, killed and obscured the killing.
My duty and my privilege was to hear them at first
hand, to take notes and try to convey the historical truth. What kind of obscurantism and denial could make eight thousand victims vanish?
In three mere days? All"operated," all killed? What design could executesuch a crime?
Looking at and listening to the Scorpions, these
heroesin their own minds, whose turbulent war years passed
as common looters, killers of their neighbors, who
then sank into frustrated years of peace as an aging brotherhood-in-blood, a small-scale,patriarchal mafia... I wrote these pages struggling to make sense of that, to respect the words and thoughts of theactors in the
court, and to convey a bigger picture to the world.
In Jerusalem after World War II, Hannah Arendt
followedthe trial of Adolf Eichmann. Some of her fellow Jews
were offended and appalled that Eichmann was given
the right to speak in his own defense after six million Jews weredenied any due process and executed. And yet it was her
presencein his court that allowed Hannah Arendt to
understand and describe the banality of evil.
Historical crimes are designed. The dead are silent
but their legal ghosts are loud.
Their best port-parole is sometimes the voices of
their executors.