In the book The Cellist of Sarajevo, we see the siege through the eyes of three distinct characters and points of view. Kenan is very aware of the destruction and corruption that surrounds him. Each time he goes to collect water he sees how the city has been bombed and thinks about how he will be one of the ones that gets to rebuild it. He seems to have the most objective view of the city. Dragan does not want to see what has been done to his city. He doesn’t want to see people he once knew because he doesn’t want to see how their faces have changed, aged and gotten slimmer. He hides from the reality until he can no longer avoid seeing the destruction. Arrow also gives an objective point of view when describing the death she has seen surrounding her. She is not as sentimental in her descriptions of the destructions of the buildings and focuses more on the death of innocent people.
Even though some of these characters do not want to see the reality of what has happened to their city, they can’t do anything but face the music and its reality. Those who are not citizens, however, seemed to be presented with a skewed perception of the city.In the book we are told that the outside world really doesn’t know much about what is going on in Sarajevo. The world would not comprehend what is going on. We are told that one street in the city has been given the nickname “Sniper Alley.” However, this nickname has been given to the street by the foreigners because it is the street that leads from the airport to their hotel. Dragan finds humor in this because in reality any street could be named this. However, foreigners seem to be only aware of what affects them. At the end of the book we also see
In the movie Welcome to Sarajevo, we are shown the view from the perspective of journalists. They are part of the outside world but temporarily placed in Sarajevo. Michael Henderson, the main character, is a journalist who is attempting to show the outside world what is going on in the city. At one point he it outraged that the news of what is going on in Sarajevo has been placed second because the main headline is about the a possible divorce of two prominent people in England. This shows how the world truly sees Sarajevo, as only the 13th worst place in the world!
In most cases, modern warfare is dehumanized because it is done from afar. There is no face to face combat and in the movie the enemy is never shown. Because there are such large explosions. The attempt to dehumanize the war doesn’t work on Michael, he gets pulled in. While Flynn seems to think that its all a game and constantly jokes about it, Michael is very much affected by the death he sees around him. He sees death for the individual and not the masses. Michael gets so involved that he takes Emira out of the orphanage and back with him to England. Unlike other journalists he doesn’t just stand by and record everything. He brings back humanity into the war and no longer stands in the background pretending that simply because you are a journalist means you don’t have to get involved.
Shaw:
ReplyDeleteHedda, you are so right about the dehumanization of war. It is so easy to have a peripheral perspective on the atrocities that occur during a genocide when one is not living within these events. While I was learning about Sarajevo I kept wondering how people could have been seeing these stories in the news and not felt compelled to step in or take any sort of action. I quickly realized that it's similar to Darfur, Uganda, North Korea and other countries where we know systemic oppression and murder is currently happening. It's easy for the western world to turn our heads because the suffering of these people has very little to do with us. The loss of their humanity has little impact on our own humanity. We become concerned as a collective nation only when our economy and/or resources are threatened. I think what is imperative for us to realize is how grave of a threat is being posed to society as a whole when even a few of our members are threatened.
MILLER-COMMENT ON ASMUSSEN'S BLOG
ReplyDelete“Even though some of these characters do not want to see the reality of what has happened to their city, they can’t do anything but face the music and its reality.”
This was the main point that I brought up in my blog and I’m glad that someone else touched on it. I think this point is integral in understanding how more current events affect the people caught in the crossfire. An example of this is the Iraqi war; many, many innocent Iraqis have perished in the war, even though they had nothing to do with terrorism acts against the United States. Even though they would prefer not to be involved, in a way, they are; soldiers are stationed in their hometowns, and acts of violence are committed against native citizens, many of whom have done nothing wrong. They too are faced to “force the music” everyday.