lunedì 13 luglio 2015

A letter from Srebrenica

Srebrenica, 11 july 2015


Hi,
My name is Salih and I'm writing this letter to you, because I was asked to by a lady with green eyes, who I met today. I can't resist green eyes because they are green, as my beloved land is.
My birth certificate says I'm almost 37 (I was born on 11th November, 1978). I have two brothers, Fikret and Rifet: the first one is 40, the second one is 38.
None of us is married, none of us has kids, none of us has a job. We are sad souls who are wandering around the world for twenty years now, looking for justice, looking for peace, looking for hope, looking for life.
Once we went to America, and stayed there for a while, curled up in a little corner of a big glass palace. There we saw well-dressed people spending hours discussing issues that didn't concern them, people who never reached a conclusion, because there was always somebody, ready to say "No!".
"We'll get no justice here", said Fikret, my oldest brother. "I'm going to look for peace. You, Rifet, go and look for hope. And you, little brother, go and find life for all of us."
So Fikret went to Europe, to a place named Peace, where some komšija (neighbors) were talking about our land. But there was no peace, in the palace named Peace: there was only war in the executioner's eyes.
Rifet went to Africa where there were many people with a lot of hope. But, on the North Coast, he had to give up: hope was drowned in thousands of faceless shadows in the profound darkness of the Mediterranean Sea.
As for me, I went to Asia, down to the Barada river. "I've found the source of life", I said to Fikret and Rifet. "Come over and see with your own eyes!" But they came too late: the river had already turned into bloody red.
"There is no justice, there is no peace, there is no hope, there is no life in this world", whispered Rifet. "What can we do now?"
"We can't do anything," answered Fikret. "Just go and help those who need us."
So, today we arrived in Trieste, where some friends were waiting for us.
They were all dressed in white. Some of them spoke my language and some didn't. But this is not important. It's important what we said all together: "Don't forget Fikret, Rifet, Salih; don't forget all those souls, who are still wandering around the world, without justice, without peace, without hope, without life; don't forget those 8 3 7 2 men and children, who were brutally killed twenty years ago in the Silver Town."

I would like to say much more, but it's late and I have to go. Mom's calling me: she waited so long and now she wants to talk with me.

Goodbye,
Salih.





Commemorazione Srebrenica Trieste 2015
Commemorazione Srebrenica Trieste 2015
Commemorazione Srebrenica Trieste 2015
Commemorazione Srebrenica Trieste 2015
Commemorazione Srebrenica Trieste 2015
Commemorazione Srebrenica Trieste 2015

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