Balkans, Anatolia, Caucasus, Levant and other Middle East, Iran, Afghanistan, South Asia, occasional forays into southern Italy, Spain or eastern Europe, minorities, the nation-state and nationalism — and whatever other quirks or obsessions lurk inside my head.
Bosnian Muslim women hold posters with the names of the missing during a protest at the U.N. office in Sarajevo in 2008. Hundreds of wartime rape victims were protesting the decision of the U.N. war crimes tribunal to reject the prosecution’s request for rape charges to be added against two Bosnian Serbs who were on trial for other war crimes.
“Even education is strictly segregated. Children from different ethnic groups — often in the same building — follow totally separate curricula.
Ahmet Alibasic, a professor at the University of Sarajevo’s Faculty of Islamic Studies, says the result is that today, most Muslim, Croat and Serb children are totally ignorant about each other.
“I must admit I am a bit worried, because many of the causes of the conflict are still there,” Alibasic says. “Given the wrong combinations of conditions and circumstances, they might produce another conflict.”
Hopes of restoring Bosnia’s prewar multi-ethnic tapestry have proved elusive. Many Bosnians hope that commemorating the 20th anniversary of the start of the war will revive international attention and stimulate efforts to build a more inclusive society.”
Also, SEE Angelina Jolie’s Land of Blood and Honey. I know; I had my doubts too, but it’s excellent.
I always feel like smirking a bit when I come across the title of Mark Mazower’s 2005 book: Salonica: City of Ghosts. It’s not just that “our parts” with their ‘ancient, tribal hatreds’ always seem to be ‘haunted’ in the Western imagination; it’s just that, truly, which of our cities isn’t a city of ghosts? Salonica, Sarajevo, Istanbul, Izmir? Beirut, Alexandria, Lahore, Delhi? Which?
Well, Al Jazeera has produced a beautiful little documentary by Giorgos Augeropoulos about the story of Alexandrian Greeks. Augeropoulos is apparently the director of a highly praised Greek documentary series and has been pretty vocal in Greece’s recent political and fiscal crisis/rezili, but I had never heard of him before.
Al Jazerera, by the way, has now become my primary source of news. It’s the only place one can get any serious international news, run from the idiocy of American politics, escape from MSNBC’s twenty-four hour liberal catechism class, and catch genuinely original and — I don’t know how else to put it — sincere documentaries like this. Watch it when you have the chance.
Below are the complete texts of the two Cavafy poems used at the beginning and end of the documentary, “Candles” and “The City” in both Greek and English. Single-accent Greek (the appropriately named “monotonic”) literally causes me visual pain — like, I can’t look at it, actually have more trouble reading it — and when used for Cavafy the pain reaches excruciating levels, but I couldn’t find the poems in polytonic versions anywhere on line; those who know what I mean, please forgive me. And this from “The Official Website of the Cavafy Archive,” malaka: http://www.kavafis.gr/index.asp …criminal, ntrope. And I’m beyond certain Cavafy himself, so much of whose work was dedicated to memory, the past, and the continuity of Greek civilization, would have agreed
The English translations are by Edmund Keeley and Phillip Sherrard, still the best around, despite the attempts of many others. Under the Greek version of “Candles” is the Greek actress Eirene Pappa’s performance of the poem set to music by Mimes Plessas. Below the Greek version of the “The City” is a gorgeous reading of the poem by the truly great actress Elle Lambete, whose stunning Greek face I think readers should have a photo of as a visual reference:
Days to come stand in front of us like a row of lighted candles— golden, warm, and vivid candles. Days gone by fall behind us, a gloomy line of snuffed-out candles; the nearest are smoking still, cold, melted, and bent. I don’t want to look at them: their shape saddens me, and it saddens me to remember their original light. I look ahead at my lighted candles. I don’t want to turn for fear of seeing, terrified, how quickly that dark line gets longer, how quickly the snuffed-out candles proliferate.
Η Πόλις
Είπες· «Θα πάγω σ’ άλλη γη, θα πάγω σ’ άλλη θάλασσα. Μια πόλις άλλη θα βρεθεί καλλίτερη από αυτή. Κάθε προσπάθεια μου μια καταδίκη είναι γραφτή· κ’ είν’ η καρδιά μου — σαν νεκρός — θαμένη. Ο νους μου ως πότε μες στον μαρασμόν αυτόν θα μένει. Όπου το μάτι μου γυρίσω, όπου κι αν δω ερείπια μαύρα της ζωής μου βλέπω εδώ, που τόσα χρόνια πέρασα και ρήμαξα και χάλασα.»
Καινούριους τόπους δεν θα βρεις, δεν θάβρεις άλλες θάλασσες. Η πόλις θα σε ακολουθεί. Στους δρόμους θα γυρνάς τους ίδιους. Και στες γειτονιές τες ίδιες θα γερνάς· και μες στα ίδια σπίτια αυτά θ’ ασπρίζεις. Πάντα στην πόλι αυτή θα φθάνεις. Για τα αλλού — μη ελπίζεις— δεν έχει πλοίο για σε, δεν έχει οδό. Έτσι που τη ζωή σου ρήμαξες εδώ στην κώχη τούτη την μικρή, σ’ όλην την γη την χάλασες.
You said: “I’ll go to another country, go to another shore, find another city better than this one. Whatever I try to do is fated to turn out wrong and my heart lies buried as though it were something dead. How long can I let my mind moulder in this place? Wherever I turn, wherever I happen to look, I see the black ruins of my life, here, where I’ve spent so many years, wasted them, destroyed them totally.” You won’t find a new country, won’t find another shore. This city will always pursue you. You will walk the same streets, grow old in the same neighborhoods, will turn gray in these same houses. You will always end up in this city. Don’t hope for things elsewhere: there is no ship for you, there is no road. As you’ve wasted your life here, in this small corner, you’ve destroyed it everywhere else in the world.
Balkans, Anatolia, Caucasus, Levant and rest of ME, Iran, South Asia
Me, I'm Nicholas Bakos, a.k.a. "NikoBako." I'm Greek (Roman really, but when I say that in English some five people in the world today understand what I'm talking about, so I use "Greek" for shorthand). I'm from New York. I live all over the place these days. The rest should become obvious from the blog.
Jadde: from Bosnia to Bengal 