Date: Sun, 15 Nov 1992 01:17:00 CET
From: wam@zamir-zg.comlink.de
Reply-To: wam@zamir-zg.comlink.de
Distribution: world
Newsgroups: soc.culture.yugoslavia
Subject: Zagreb Diary 12 November 1992
Organization: Zamir = for peace, Zagreb
Content-Length: 6155    
X-Gateway: UC xclhh [UZERCP V3.99]

Zagreb Diary
12 November, 1992

Dobra Dan,

"Heading for a fall" (song by Vaya Con Dios), sometimes there are such 
songlines that are stocked in your head, today it was this line what kept on 
spinning in my head. "We are heading for a fall" I saw short ago the clip on 
television and recognised in the circus and the search for balance the tension 
of living on the edge of a Vulcan. Are we just heading for a giant fall or will we 
come out of it. "If I only would learn to be patient". 

"When I arrived back in Zagreb in 90, after living for about 40 years in the 
Netherlands, was a feeling that something was different, but I couldn't figure 
out what" says Vladimir, he is a 50 years old man, who was born in Zagreb 
but lived all his life in Rotterdam, since his father was Dutch. When he was 
declared not fit to work some years ago he left his room in Rotterdam to live 
from his pension in Croatia, there it was at least enough to live a little bit 
normal. "And after months I figured it out, there are no Negro's, or other 
people with a different skin colour, it was all white and I was used different in 
Rotterdam". And it is true the only Negro's i have seen in Croatia are foreign 
UNPROFOR soldiers or people from humanitarian or other war related 
organisations, and of course two Croatian speaking people on HTV who are 
presenting the rock programme.

Maybe that makes it so strange for me, Vladimir continued when I came 
back, I was used to a multi cultural society and here suddenly there was a 
fight. He was glad that you could, yesterday he visit a friend which has 
painted his walls full of sunflowers and met one of our volunteers who started 
to tell about the Dutch in Suncokret (sunflower) and after months he wanted to 
talk Dutch and see Dutch people. 

A few months back when the Dutch red cross evacuated people from Gasinci 
via Zagreb to the Netherlands this change in Zagreb was broadcasted live on 
Croatian radio (at least that was said) and Vladimir heard people talking 
Dutch and Croatian and not understanding each other. So he jumped in the 
bus and tram to get the hell at the station to see if he could help and of course 
to talk Dutch, without the need to make expensive phonecalls to the 
Netherlands. When he arrived at the station they told him that everything took 
place a day before.

When he phoned to the radio station nobody could remember who did the 
programme and after weeks he found out the name of the Dutch 
representative who worked for the Red Cross in Zagreb, in the hope he could 
work for them. And of course he never could in contact with him. I wasn't 
surprised we also have tried for weeks.

Bleu Helmets from the UK received their newest toys today, the warrior 
armed car or troop transporter or what ever they call it. One of the soldier 
explained who useful this machines has been in the golf war and that even 
due to the light gun they can fires so fast that they will have a good impact. I 
don't know how many came rolling down the ramp of the transport ship. 
strange who such war machines change their radiation when they are change 
from army green to UN white. A few weeks ago this monsters of modern 
technic looked how they should look and now they spread their imagine their 
dangerous radiation away from them. Suddenly the killing machines become 
peace machines. Soldiers who normally seen as the ones who make wars 
are becoming peace keepers. It is a bit if the bad guys over night become 
the good guys and how by changing the colour a tank lost all his symbol of 
destruction.

Tomorrow these peace machine will be put into action, they have to secure 
the road between Split and Sarajevo and will be rolled in as soon as 
possible, it took already enough time to get this power and now they have to 
go to the field, as was said by the soldier. This power we need to hold the 
cease fire, you have seen that today there was still shooting in Sarajevo and 
for days food transport can't get through, so now we have the muscle to fight 
our way through.

Somehow all this information is double. A mystification of the symbols as I 
know them. "We will show the advantage of living in a free country and we 
defend the symbol of capitalism" says a American Blue Helmet soldier in an 
interview, strange I though their duty was to control the cease fire. With a little 
strange taste in my mouth I see Bazooka Joe chewing gum in the shops. The 
first chewing gum I ever tasted back in the beginning of the 60 or maybe even 
late 50'ties. With cartoons on it from a world I didn't know, I didn't recognised, 
a world of middle class USAmerica.

Or the wish of eating Swedish white bread in the Netherlands, now more 45 
years after the second world war, old people will still order "Swedish white" in 
the bread stores. It was for a lot the first food in the occupied parts of Holland. 
Before and after years of activities from the health food movement we have 
got our old brown bread back again.

That is what I saw a whole load of long-life bread being brought in, such 
bread which you can press like an accordion and jumps back in it's former 
size. I tried to imagine how that bread was throw of above besieged cities 
and start to jump up and down.

Also today it was not quiet in the region around Zupanja and Karlovac in a 
few days I will pass by Karlovac again on my way to Istria to visit our new 
office in Rijeka and some refugee centre in Pula and last but not least to visit 
Ogi in Savudrija and keep me promise to stay a few days in his refugee 
centre to take a break.

Mir I Love from Za-Mir-Greb,

							Wam
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zg.comlink.apc.org. Zagreb Diary is dedicated to Tyche, Pjort and Rik, so 
that they found out what there father have been doing all that time in Zagreb.
Organization: Freshman, H&SS general, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA