Bosnian parliament building set ablaze during the Siege of Sarajevo
The Siege of Sarajevo is an excellent case study in genocide for this class. It is one of the few genocidal events that we have had the opportunity to witness during our lifetime. I was born in 1990, so I do not remember this completely. However, I do remember turning my ear to world events around, interestingly enough, the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Since this occurred in 1998, I can remember the news talking about Kosovo during the final Clinton years. I'm also a huge basketball fan, and I recently watched the excellent ESPN 30 For 30 documentary Once Brothers, about the strained relationship of Serbian basketball player Vlade Divac, and his fellow hoopster, Croatian countryman Drazen Petrovic. Even being 2-6 years old during the Siege, and 8 years old during the Kosovo War, these Balkan wars were able to grip my mind and make me aware of these conflicts. That leads this genocide to be incredibly powerful.
For me, I think both the novel The Cellist of Sarajevo and the film Welcome to Sarajevo make for excellent companions to each other. I think the use of the perspective of the journalists in Welcome to Sarajevo clearly shows the outside perspective, and the state of modern warfare. In contrast, The Cellist of Sarajevo was a much more personal account, even though it was a novel. As such, the novel shows the perspective of the people actually living amongst the siege. I found that the experience of dehumanization was documented in both pieces.
In the film, we are forced to confront our own views as outsiders of the siege. While the United States were very active along with the United Nations in monitoring the siege, military action didn't occur. This is in contrast with the interventionist wars we are fighting today in the Middle East. As journalists flocked to Sarajevo to report on the siege, we must ask what purpose these men and women are serving. Of course their reports create headlines and sell papers, but to what degree, if any, do they help? In a siege that lasted four years, many stories are likely to be similar. Day after day, stories of starvation, bombings, and snipers can have an hypnotic effect. If journalism is to be an unbiased reporting at all times, I think the very practice is a fool's game. We see in the film that Henderson finally gives in to his humanitarian urges when he agrees to smuggle Emira out of the country. Obviously taking a stand on an issue like this could end in loss of "journalistic integrity," but Henderson chose his humanitarian integrity instead, a choice of which he can be proud.
The film also displays the siege in a way that gives us a sense of how these modern wars have been fought since. We've seen the siege of Baghdad just recently as an example of this. The way the Serbian army surrounded the city, choking out the life and controlling it from a perimeter is a slow process, but it allowed them to achieve their stated goal of depriving the Bosnians of their own government for quite some time before eventually being defeated. The film shows effective war tactics, but I believe the book shows their dire effects in a wholly negative light.
The novel brought to light much more completely the human aspect of the Bosnian genocide. The Serbians have destroyed the city, burning buildings of art and knowledge. A permeating feeling of despair seems ready to take root. We see the cellist being haunted by his memories of the bread line bombing, and he seeks meaning in the only way he can: through music. He chooses to play his cello in remembrance of the lives lost in the tragic event. In this way he finds that he can provide hope for his people. He sees the massive death, mourns, and looks to the future.
Living in constant fear of the Serbian threat led to dehumanization that we can see quite clearly in both the film and the novel. The Bosnians were under constant threat of attack, a process which can lead to loss of identity in itself. A lack of safety can threaten one’s very perception of what it means to be human, as we can see in both media. The every day process of living becomes a constant chain of ethical dilemmas about how to stay alive and feed one’s family.
The genocide in the Balkans’ standing as a recent genocide in our time has given us an excellent perspective on the issue this week. The modernity of the tragedy allows us a great example of both warfare and dehumanization in our time.
More specific reference to the characters in the novel and the role of the cellist in the city during the siege. Further, The American Journalist sends a tape of carnage, and the editor says that it won't be used because a member of the royal family is getting divorced. What does that say about what is important to the media, or what does it say about how the media abetted the failure of aid to the people of Sarajevo. I am glad you do remember the siege. Is it irony that the Monica Lewinsky scandal actually overshadowed the siege? I remember the basketball players as well.
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