|
By Huned Contractor
If we can look conflict straight in the face, through the eyes of the young diarists who are included in Stolen Voices, we might be in a better position to deal with it, feels Zlata Filipovic, whose teenaged chronicle of a war-torn Sarajevo became a bestseller recently
Stolen Voices
Editors: Zlata Filipovic and Melanie Challenger
Publisher: Arvind Kumar Publishers,
New Delhi Price: Rs 250
December 6, 1943
“No electricity again. It’s very depressing to sit with candlelight (one candle only). Maybe Mr Patrontasch will bring good news to pick up our mood.”
(An extract from the diary of Clara Schwarz whose sister Mania was killed during the liquidation of the ghettos as ordered by Adolf Hitler. Clara is now president of the Holocaust Research Centre at Kean University in the US)
January 15, 1968
“This morning I dropped and broke my mirror in the showers. Everybody turned and looked. We are not usually superstitious, but it’s close to jump day and we don’t want to take any chances.”
(An extract from the diary of Ed Blanco who was inducted into the US army in 1967 and was sent to Vietnam with the 101st Airborne Division)
June 29, 1992
“Boredom. Shooting. Shelling. People being killed. Despair. Hunger. Misery. Fear. That’s my life. The life of an innocent 11-year-old schoolgirl. A schoolgirl without a school, without the fun and excitement of school. A child without games, without friends, without the sun, without birds, without nature, without fruit, without chocolate or sweets, with just a little powdered milk. In short, a child without a childhood.”
(An extract from the diary of Zlata Filipovic, written during the 1991 conflict that spread from Croatia into Bosnia-Herzegovina. She managed to flee her native Sarajevo for Paris in the winter of 1993 and has since carved out a name for herself as an advocate for peace and tolerance)
These are just a few excerpts to indicate the pain, suffering, anguish and turmoil that politics and war inflict upon ordinary citizens, that have found their way into a book titled Stolen Voices, edited by Zlata Filipovic and Melanie Challenger. These are the voices of those who have experienced the harsh realities of war as children. Some of them have lived on, unable to shed the memories of what they witnessed. Some have died. These are the voices of 15-year-old Nina Kosterina of Russia who, at the outbreak of World War II, describes the desire she feels for a boy in her class even as she grapples with a decision to defend her state; the Austrian Jew Inge Pollack who was separated from her parents at age 12 and went on to write about homesickness and her burgeoning love for her foster father; 11-year-old Filipovic who describes playing dress-up in the one room available to her amid the perils of sniper fire; and many others whose words detail the gruesome aspects of war with an honesty that no reportage can achieve.
As for the need to publish such a book, Zlata puts it this way: “My great desire is that the reader will be able to connect to each and every diarist, follow their war story and learn a bit more about the otherwise cold and abstract historical (or current affairs) facts of their conflict. These diaries may allow for the concept of war to become less mysterious and more accessible, so that we know what we are dealing with, what it is, and how it works. We can look conflict straight in its eyes, through the eyes of the young diarists. By understanding what conflict is, we might be in a better position to deal with it. Our deep desire for peace and the actual existence of peace may sadly always be at odds, but it does not mean that we should give up on the laborious work of knowing peace, maintaining it, and finding it when it is gone.” Melanie takes it a little further. “These diaries are the fingerprints of flesh, the traces of those hands that dared to hold a pen in wartime,” she writes in her introduction to the book.
A word about the editors: Zlata became renowned internationally when her teenage diary, published in 1993 and chronicling life in war-torn Sarajevo, was an instant bestseller. She has worked with different organisations such as Anne Frank House, the United Nations and Unicef. She is also three-time member of the Unesco Jury for Children’s and Young People’s Literature Prize for Tolerance. Melanie is working with organisations as diverse as the Anne Frank Trust, Unicef, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, British Council and the Canadian Initiative for Children in Conflict on projects that use music and literature to promote moral awareness among young people.
Stolen Voices should also been seen in light of the fact that in the last decade, 2 million children have been killed in situations of armed conflict, while 6 million children have been disabled or injured. Over a quarter of a million child soldiers are being used today in situations of armed conflict around the globe. Since 2003, over 11.5 million children have been displaced within their own countries, and 2.4 million forced to flee conflict and take refuge outside their home countries. The scourge of landmines results in the killing or maiming of 8,000-10,000 children every year.
A book like this cannot be reviewed. It has to be absorbed and understood because it’s not a story or a fable but disturbing reality thrown right into your face. And so here is another excerpt, this time from the diary of a girl called Hoda Thamir Jehad who has written about the Iraq war. “We have nothing left but disappointing hopes, which in my view are only hopeless expectations. Life for us has turned into blood spattered on every corner and every road, and hopes are limited to wishing that the day would end with no loss of life, while our goals and hopes have narrowed to wishing Iraq would become a great country united by concord and democracy, and its people united by love and brotherhood.” Need one say more?
(Huned Contractor is a Pune-based journalist)
InfoChange News & Features, February 2007
|
