Lessons from Sarajevo: A War Stories Primer

Preface

[ ix ] This is not a book about war. It is, in point of fact, a book written by someone who doesn’t know a thing about war. When I teach my War Stories class at the University of Massachusetts—as I have now for ten years running—starting with a similar caveat is a matter of clarity, as well as courtesy. I often have a few vets in the room, and usually students with nonprofessional experience of war zones as well. For either group, I’m not certain that I—or the course itself—has anything much to teach them. That has to be their decision, not mine. They no doubt have things to tell us. Next, I do an informal poll, asking the students a simple question: How many of them have been to war themselves, or have a close friend or family member who has? Inevitably the majority raise their hands, often closer to three-quarters. I teach at a state university, after all. It’s essential for this group, I think, to see the other hands raised, and to know that I am not of their tribe. Having established these two points, I have also triangulated my intended audience, for this book as well as the course. To be frank, it’s people like me—those who came to this subject by chance, who didn’t know what they were getting into, and who may even decide to stay. The others will make up their own minds—whether any of this sounds familiar , and whether it helps them find their own words. You all, though, the know-nothings, the people like me, you’re the ones who absolutely do need to be here. If you don’t know why, but you’re still reading anyway, well . . . that’s a sign you’re on the right track. Most books, I imagine, don’t have a date of birth. This one does: January 1, 1997, the day I first arrived in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Preface [ x ] PREFACE oneofsevennewstatestoemergefromtheformerYugoslavia.Atthattime, it was roughly a year after the end of the Bosnian war. And if it weren’t for my sister, I might never have set foot there. My wife and I were in Italy, at her family home. My sister Peggy had moved from her job in Zagreb, during the war, to begin work in Sarajevo, where she would live for the next three years. She spent that Christmas with us, and afterward it seemed natural enough to go back with her for a visit. Family solidarity. Since then, I’ve just kept going. For anyone who’s been there in recent years, and even more so, I imagine, for those who were there during the war, I won’t need to explain why. For the rest of you, some explanation is in order. Many, even most, of the war stories discussed below come out of those wars, the war in Bosnia -Herzegovina in particular. Why that war? The dark yet undeniable truth is that other choices aren’t lacking. Yet few conflicts rival the siege of Sarajevo for the quantity or the variety of its representations in news, film, photography, and print. On one occasion, while it was still happening, the Bosnian journalist Ozren Kebo found a porno tape titled Sarajevo in a Milanese street market. He commented bitterly that “Sarajevo is becoming a brand name, like Benetton, Coca-Cola and Nike.” Twenty years on, that brand is less likely to move merchandise in the more obscene corners of our globalized world, but the issue Kebo makes clear remains. So why call this book Lessons from Sarajevo? The short answer is that obscenity and exploitation in war stories will be a key subject, and Bosnians like Kebo have much to teach us about it. This theme is also the heart of Adisa Bašić’s short, devastating poem “Trauma Market”: Aren’t you just another victim peddling your trauma? a Harvard blonde, with a brain valued at half a mil’, asked me. I didn’t know how to reply in English, Are you even aware of how right you are? Nine deaths from the eardrum – Writhing between bullets – [ xi ] PREFACE all fit into the word “trauma.” And yes, I couldn’t say in English, I am afraid that is the only valuable thing I have. Given her subject, Bašić seems to say...