This blog is a bit non-chronological as I try to catch up on the last week’s journey and events…
The train journey and the impossibility of taking photographs:
The train glided slowly through Bosnia – Doboj, Kakanj, Zenica, reaching Sarajevo and on to Herzegovina reaching Mostar. The remains of the war were sticking out like scars. Ruined buildings, with bullet holes still dotting the walls, banks of rivers covered with plastic bags… New mosques, new churches, full cemeteries…It was painful to see the level of poverty and division that is present everywhere I looked. Train station names have been erased depending on the entity, cyrilic ones have been erased in Federation, and latinic ones if in Republika Srpska so one was in no doubt in whose territory one is at any time…When I talked about my pain of seeing such poverty and division to my partner he asked me if I took some photographs. I replied that I couldn’t be a tourist in my own country (but I am some sort of a visitor) and that I couldn’t bring myself to take photographs. It is as though I felt anaesthetised and from that numbness couldn’t create…
I was able in the evening to jot down only a few disjointed words, in my own language this time (I predominantly write in English).
Ne mogu fotografisati oronule zgrade, ostatke rata, balkone sa odjecom, smece rasuto…Ta ideja mene kao turiste boli, nema dovoljno distance, zemlja suvise bliska…
I can not photograph ruined buildings, war remains, balconies with clothes, rubbish strewn…The idea of me as a tourist hurts, there is not enough distance, the land is too close…
I am beginning to understand what Theodor Adorno meant when he commented that "writing poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric”.
