MY WAR GONE BY, I MISS IT SO
Anthony Loyd


It would be so trite, so inappropriate to say that the eyes lost something as they witnessed the whole madness of it all, to talk of empty stares and children with hollow gazes. But it was not what people lost in Bosnia that you noticed in their eyes, it was what some of them gained. Whether it is your own or someone else's, the taste of evil leaves an indelible mark on the iris. You can see it flickering in moments of introspection as the muscles relax.

Men and women who venture to someone else's war through choice do so in a variety of guises. UN general, BBC correspondent, aid worker, mercenary: in the final analysis they all want the same thing, a hit off the action, a walk on the dark side. It's just a question of how slick a cover you give yourself, and how far you want to go. If you find a cause later then hold on to it, but never blind yourself with your own disguise.

Dispatches - Michael Herr

John Le Carre

Primarily it was far easier to resurrect nationalist angst in people who have defined sense of nationality than those who do not... After the departure of the Turks in the nineteenth century, the Muslims lacked an 'ethnic identity' until 1974, when Tito recognized them as a separate entity in Bosnia, where they formed the majority population. They were no more than the descendants of Slavic tribes who had settled in Bosnia and converted to the religion of their rulers, the Turks. So the majority had no real sense of an historically rooted nationalism beyond being 'Bosnian.'

Walk on looking ahead. Don't look back, don't look down, don't look inwards. You will fall eventually, one way or another, but with those rules at least you will be up there for a bit longer.

All participants lie in war. It is natural. Some often, some all the time: UN spokesmen, Croats, Serbs, Muslims, the lost. Truth is a weapon more than a casualty. Used to persuade people of one thing or another, it becomes propaganda. The more authoritative a figure, the bigger the lies; the more credible his position, the better the lies.

What defined these two groups? Race? They were the same race. Culture? They were all Tito-era children. Religion? No man present had the first clue about the tenets of his own faith, be it Orthodox or Islam. They were southern Slav brothers, pitted in conflict by the rising phoenix of long-dead banners raised by men whose only wish was power, vlast, and in so doing...

Then a face detached itself from the anonymous mass, and walked purposefully...

There is a philosophical element to it all too: a bullet may or may not have your number on it, but I am sure shells are merely engraved with 'to whom it may concern.'

We had shared something together in Sarajevo so intimate and incommunicable, a humility and compassion among individuals unconnected by blood tie. which I have never found elsewhere. Some would call it the human spirit. Whatever it was, to discuss those time in London seemed an unbearable prospect: the needless wounding of a walk back into loss that I just could not face. I hope that they understand.
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