And lest we forget. . .
from The Diary of A Political Idiot, by Jasmina Tesanovic
Belgrade, March 1998 - June 1999 (from the original article published in Granta 67, Autumn 1999, New York)
1998
10 October -- Yesterday night I went with the Women in Black to demonstrate in the Square of the Republic. The police were protecting us from the crowd who were spitting on us and shouting, 'Whores, whores...' We'd all taken small rucksacks with ID, money, spare clothes, etc. in case we got arrested and tied to the trees as NATO targets, which is what Seselj, the deputy prime minister of Serbia, promised us traitors. My parents call me a traitor for not supporting them; my husband does the same for not supporting him; my daughter, too.
18 October -- Last night, the night of the new NATO ultimatum, I wanted to die. Just like my gypsy friend I got drunk, drugged and aggressive. I wanted to kill. I wanted to die. I bashed my head and concussed myself, made my nose bleed and ended up with a broken finger. I wanted to excise the conflict inside me -- the conflict all around me. There. My war.
1999
On 24 March 1999, NATO began air strikes on Yugoslavia.
1 April -- One thing I've noticed: every evening at dusk my hands start to tremble uncontrollably. It goes on for a few hours. I heard that some other women have the same symptoms. It is fear of air raids after dark.
3 April -- On the BBC, CNN, Sky News, commentators are already talking about the war as a chess game. What a virtual, playful, cruel war. Personally, my war is made up of terrible pictures in my imagination, of my loved ones being killed, tortured, raped. These are the images that hound me when the siren goes off, this is what is turning my hair white....I feel solidarity with anybody who has ever lived through a war -- we receive e-mails from such people all over the world.
26 April -- The shops are still full but people are talking about radioactive vegetables. They are also predicting a future without bread, water or electricity. No visible signs of that yet, only fear.
28 April -- Last night my friend and I were sitting planning the future of our feminist publishing house, '94'. the last book we published was The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt, two days before the bombing. I wonder what Hannah Arendt would say about being published by feminists in the middle of another European war?...a friend calls to tell me an ecological catastrophe is on its way: no more vegetables and fruit, only tinned food and bottled water. Many papers have been circulating on e-mail, collecting evidence of the poisoning of air and water. A young friend of mine decided to have an abortion because she believed what they were saying: she's been crying for days.
9 May -- I slept for thirteen hours because there were no bombs; tonight I am sure there'll be many. I feel like a battered woman who expects violence and then feels loved if the punch misses her.
17 May -- One of my friends said that there are an incredible number of decent people in this country but they are incapable of organizing themselves into a party to work together. So we are a country without opposition, a country with no leaders but one, a country of political idiots like me.
26 May -- Doctors are advising women in the early months of pregnancy to have an abortion. I don't know whether this is medical advice, because of radiation, or political-economic advice. One doctor said it's what she would say to her daughter.
8 June -- Last night, raids again, low planes, bombs, fear, anger. But it's different from before, now we have peace problems, too: the fear that the so-called peace will never be peaceful. We sat on the terrace and dealt with the consequences of peace. We probably won't have money, jobs, schools or democracy: no free space whatsoever. My father said: Don't worry, we will build everything anew, democracy will come slowly...so don't go, but help me in my old age. I don't believe him any more. I know what he needs me for, what he has always needed me for -- to keep me down, to serve his wars and ideas. It is my victory, and his defeat, to have the courage to say no, to drink, to smoke in front of him, and not to die for him.
NATO and Serb military leaders signed the peace agreement.
9 June -- I made it, like most of the people around me. We all made it, holding hands or weapons...except for some who didn't whose names we don't yet know. I am no longer a political idiot. I know I can't hide behind that mask any more.