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Is That All There Is?
| Article
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10895 |
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Section : |
BOOK WORLD
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| Issue
Date : |
5 / 1993 |
2,080 Words |
| Author
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Dragan Milivojevic
Dragan Milivojevic is professor of Russian language and
literature at the University of Oklahoma. |
TRI POSLERATNA DRUGA
(Three postwar friends)
Djordje Balasevic
Sarajevo, Yugoslavia:
Oslobodjenje Publishers, 1991
284pp.
Take charge, Oh Lord, freely. Nobody will be insulted. Those below can hardly wait." This is how Jockey, the narrator of Three Postwar Friends, pleads with the Almighty to save the people in Yugoslavia from the sins of its people.
The sins of the people in Yugoslavia to which Balasevic refers have become a common sight on TV screens and in newspapers. The name Bosnia evokes scenes of civil war, atrocities, rapes, and starvation. One wonders why Serbs, Croats, and Muslims, inhabitants of Bosnia who have lived with each other peacefully for the last forty-eight years after the Second World War and several centuries before, have suddenly fallen upon each other in this current murderous spree. "Hell is other people" Jean Paul Sartre said. The sins of Serbs, Croats, and Muslims originate in their minds and consist in their projection of evil and bad intentions on other religious and national groups. They refuse to recognize the existence of evil in themselves. With the collapse of the state institution and the recognition of Croatia and Bosnia as independent states the social and economic uncertainties have unleashed nationalistic frenzy and brought about the present situation.
Jockey and his friends Lufter and Popovicki are members of an amateur rock band. They live in a twilight zone between two social systems: communism, whose entrenched bureaucracy does not want to give up power, and an emerging culture of free enterprise. The old Beliefs in socialism, brotherhood, unity, and Tito are no longer acknowledged, but new beliefs have yet to emerge to replace them. Under these circumstances, the young people have to find their way through the traps and thickets of their lives without any guides or guideposts. All three end up discovering different paths. Although their answers to questions of identity and vocation, Where am I? and Where am I going? are different, they have one thing in common: They are devoid of religious or metaphysical content. This emptiness and lack of fulfillment make Jockey plead for the Lord to take charge.
'Joe OK'
The three friends are united by their love for Western
...
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