OBOC - Bosnia

This is my almost 10th attempt to write a review for "Sarajevo: A war journal". What can I say? READ this without fail. The End. Now, that should be enough!

So here i am setting myself up to fail as I know i can never capture my feelings about this journal accurately and yet making a feeble attempt to write a tribute to the people of Sarajevo who survived the unthinkable.

Pick up this book if you ever want to understand what it feels like to be in a constant state of siege, when you learn to accept a day as "peaceful" if there are less than 10 sniper deaths, continue to breathe even after seeing a 6 month old baby getting amputated, ready to trade 10 Rembrandts to buy 2 liters of cooking oil, when your entire town suddenly feels like one giant concentration camp and when an ordinary bridge suddenly becomes a boundary.

How can all this happen right in front of our eyes, broadcast live into our households and yet very few of us actually know what happened in the Balkans in 1992? Are only countries rich in oil worthy of protection from encroachment from neighbors? Were we too fatigued after the Gulf War? Were we all collectively ignorant, too preoccupied?

I have to say the words of Zlatko Dizdarevic are worth a thousand pictures and videos from CNN or even the BBC. If only we all could've read the Oslobodenje, the newspaper that documented the genocide from the inside as it happened - but how could we, when Oslobodenje didn't even have newsprint and had to resort to "distributing" their paper through fax machines or simply pasting their paper on walls or whatever was left of them! How did they even keep the paper alive when surrounded by death and destruction?

The frustration and the anger comes through powerfully in this journal and hits you with raw force. How can Sarajevo ever rise from this? The answer is a testimony to the soul of the people of Sarajevo - whether it was the cab and bus drivers who took you around the city for no charge, or the small business men who were willing to distribute their meager profits to anyone who didn't have money, or the geniuses who hung a banner from a building to "blind" the sniper, or figured out a way to string a bread network from one building to another.

The journal ends in 1993. It would be another 2 years before the NATO involvement and signing of the Dayton Agreement. How did Oslobodenje and Dizdarevic and all the other brave souls of Sarajevo survive 2 more years of this without going insane! Why didn't Dizdarevic talk about his family, his own emotions? Did he need the shield of irony, understatement and dark humor to survive the madness and preserve his dignity?

The journal left me wanting more, that I even overlooked Charlie Rose and watched the interview with Dizdarevic! I leave OBOC-Bosnia knowing for sure I will pick up "Portraits of Sarajevo" without fail.