I remember your
city before you were born.
Winter nineteen ninety-one, the skies
grey,
the air tense with rumours of war, the whiff
of cordite
floating in from Croation battlefronts.
A brief ray of hope through the
clouds, the
Sarajevo Accords of New Year's nineteen
ninety-two,
sealing (ah, foolish hope) yet another peace
between
Serbs and Croats. That hope shattered
in the gunfire of that cruellest
April,
scattering the habirues of the sidewalk cafes
to the bleeding
barricades, the dull thud
of artillery shells slamming into your
city
from the ring of hills surrounding your parents.
Sarajevo,
capital of Europe.
I remember your city before you were
born.
The siege. The plangent whine
of the sniper's random
bullet
penetrating the heart, the mind, of Sarajevo.
Shell-shock.
Nineteen ninety-two and three, mobilization,
the tramp of mud-caked
boots through the streets
of your Olympic city. January nineteen
ninety-four,
the indelible screams of mothers at the
marketplace,
dismembered limbs filling their shopping baskets
at
Markale. Sarajevo, city of the exclusion zone,
filling with refugees,
spies, advisers, smugglers,
United Nations peace-keepers
sent in to
keep a peace no one could make,
Sarajevo, capital of Europe.
I
remember your city before you were born.
The tunnel under the airport,
fleeing women irradiated
by the searchlights as they tried to cross the
runway,
blood irrigating
the vegetable gardens of Dobrinje,
Sarajevo, a city pockmarked by hate,
scarred
by the tracks of armored personnel carriers,
divided by
barriers of blood. I remember
flying in over destroyed buildings,
putting on my blue
helmet and ill-fitting Kevlar flak
jacket,
stepping off the musty UNPROFOR Yak-40 and walking
across
the tarmac, an armored firetruck driving slowly
between us and the silent
snipers.
Your refugee parents
knew no such security in
Sarajevo.
Sarajevo, capital of Europe. |
I remember your city
before you were born.
Nineteen ninety-five, the smoke mushrooming
over
the ammunition dump in Pale, the air carrying
haunting echoes
of the massacres at Srebrenica,
another blot on the stained
conscience
of what we naively called the international
community.
The thumps of the guns
of the Rapid Reaction Force,
reacting at last
to the shelling of Sarajevo. Thick clouds
of
aircraft overhead, dropping destruction
on your besiegers. And with it,
hope.
Till the air cleared, and peace came at last
to what would
become your home.
Sarajevo, capital of Bosnia.
I remember your
city before you were born.
Nineteen ninety-six, those first tentative
steps of peace,
the buildings still shattered, people
grappling
with pain and
disbelief as they groped
to piece together the fragments of their
fractured lives.
And now, nineteen ninety-nine, at the twilight
of a
century marked twice by tragedy at Sarajevo,
I returned. As you grew
large in your mother's womb,
my first glimpse from the air of reroofed
homes,
buildings repainted in celebratory shades
of shocking pink
and yellow, strolling couples,
children laughing as thy ran across a
park,
the bustle of a city at last at peace
with itself. Sarajevo,
for a day, capital of the world.
I will always remember the day you
were born.
At birth after so many deaths, the reassertion
of the
miracle of life triumphing over the grave.
Flowers bloom in the
cemetary. A bouquet is thrust
into your mother's hands, the traditional
coin
of good fortune pressed into her palm, a United Nations
medal
of peace. We have made you a symbol, a milestone,
a metaphor. But you
are also a boy, Baby Six Billion.
And you will grow up, I pray, in a
city
of healed wounds, bright lights, joyous music,
chattering
friends who will not wear ethnic labels
on their belts. Let peace light
the flame on the candles
of your birthday cake, Baby Six Billion.
In
Sarajevo, city of hope.
|