Ratko Mladic
I usually don't "do" LJ from work, because my computer screen faces an aisle and the rest of the office.
But what I'm thinking of at the moment is probably safe for work...
I was a teenager during the siege of Sarajevo with the concommitant vague idea that awful things were happening in a country far-far away. In 1995 I traveled to Haiti with a group of American volunteers. My host was a child psychiatrist called Bob Belenky who knew some people who worked for the UN. I vaguely recall a woman saying that Milosevic was not nearly as terrible as Mladic or Karadzic. But at the time I only internalised that as a soundbite while being a lot more fretful about whether to take my snowy shoes off indoor or not (I should've but what did I know - a kid from Africa).
I've just spent an hour or so reading up about the siege, familiarising myself with where Bosnia and Serbia is, and refreshing my knowledge of the Balkan states and their history. I also briefly reminded myself of the movie "Welcome to Sarajevo". My feelings that the world is harsh and most people are shit are, sadly, confirmed. Maybe I'm too negative. And perhaps my personality is just not perfectly suited to The Way Things Are. I'm also thinking that, if Muslims are killed en masse in almost unbelievable numbers, it takes a lot for the rest of the world to mobilise. But I can't really comprehend murder motivated by religion. How can someone else's *beliefs* upset... nay ENRAGE... you so much that you want them to be dead? Isn't it just the worst expression of needing to be right and having the last say?
Ugh. I hate conflict.
But what I'm thinking of at the moment is probably safe for work...
I was a teenager during the siege of Sarajevo with the concommitant vague idea that awful things were happening in a country far-far away. In 1995 I traveled to Haiti with a group of American volunteers. My host was a child psychiatrist called Bob Belenky who knew some people who worked for the UN. I vaguely recall a woman saying that Milosevic was not nearly as terrible as Mladic or Karadzic. But at the time I only internalised that as a soundbite while being a lot more fretful about whether to take my snowy shoes off indoor or not (I should've but what did I know - a kid from Africa).
I've just spent an hour or so reading up about the siege, familiarising myself with where Bosnia and Serbia is, and refreshing my knowledge of the Balkan states and their history. I also briefly reminded myself of the movie "Welcome to Sarajevo". My feelings that the world is harsh and most people are shit are, sadly, confirmed. Maybe I'm too negative. And perhaps my personality is just not perfectly suited to The Way Things Are. I'm also thinking that, if Muslims are killed en masse in almost unbelievable numbers, it takes a lot for the rest of the world to mobilise. But I can't really comprehend murder motivated by religion. How can someone else's *beliefs* upset... nay ENRAGE... you so much that you want them to be dead? Isn't it just the worst expression of needing to be right and having the last say?
Ugh. I hate conflict.