Yes, yes, but then, what about the people? This is a question that often gets ignored in the metanarratives of war and violence but meanwhile, of great interest to anthropologists who always tend to discover the overlooked, long-forgotten, minor details. Let’s set aside the logistics, the ideologies, the processes, the stimulators, the causes, effects, statistics, reports and even the incomprehensible (maybe not so much) web of complex political relations.., on a very basic ground level, for the people who breathe, survive, and sustain the terrors of violence, war is never a simplified attractive ideological pursuit. It’s not to say that strong patriotic, nationalist sentiments cease to exist amidst violence; rather the ways through which people perceive, understand, and adapt to violence, and the ways through which the violence shapes their ideologies and inclination is conveniently ignored in the discourses of the nationalist/patriotic metanarratives. Accusing the political climate for infusing violence is one way of looking at things, but the possibility of vice versa, that the violence influencing the political inclination (the violence of the state influencing people to lean towards the rebellions, and the violence of the rebellions influencing them to lean towards the state, or another alternative) is another perspective that begs attention.
No matter in which part of the world it occurs, war is always a highly contested space. Perhaps since the experiences are most often rooted in the local context, in the local attitudes and temperaments where it’s almost impossible to fabricate universal arguments to or against them. Or perhaps, with all the conflicting narratives, testimonies and perspectives, there’s no such absolute truth about the war. When the individual or collective memory of war is constructed with fragments of truth, fragments of dismay, fear and frustration, nothing can be false either. Disregarding the contexts, logics, and political performances, on the very ground level, the most dangerous and scariest aspect of violence is its ability to metamorphose people completely, in a matter of a day or two. Whether in Bosnia, Rwanda, or Sri Lanka, the most dreadful result of violence is not the sufferings/terrors that people fear they can’t sustain, they can’t stand for, but, the most distressing thing is what we get accustomed to, what we tend to accept, what we normalize.. The frightening side of violence is not the things we can’t bear, but the things we do bear, how quickly we become anaesthetic to the pain and suffering of others, and how easily we can inflict pain upon the others while justifying our actions by means of nationalism and/or patriotism.
I’ve been thinking way too much. It all started last Thursday, during the lecture on Bosnian conflict by anthropologist Ivana Macek, author of war-time ethnography ‘Sarajevo Under Siege’. As I was listening to her, the attitude I had of general public - that is you, I and everyone – as mere tools in a massive global political game changed dramatically. After all, we are no passive bystanders, I thought, we are rather actors in this very game, we are also the perpetrators. It might be silly, it might sound naïve, but blame it on the anthropological documentary ‘We are all neighbours’, which I already watched a couple of times at York University. It is an anthropological documentary, not simply because it was made by an anthropologist (Tone Bringa), but since the production involves anthropological field methods (participation observation, long-term presence in the field), and the outcome itself is culturally sensitive and ethically responsible. It depicts the tense situation prevailing in a village not far from Sarajevo, during the times of Bosnian conflict. The story unfolds in this particular village where Bosnians and Croatians were living along side each other for quite a long time. In the beginning of the war, Bosnians and Croatians created alliance against the Serbs, but the treaty did not work as expected. Refugees from Sarajevo and the neighbouring towns brought terror-filled stories that escalated the tense situation among the two groups in the village. The neighbours started to fear their own neighbours with whom they got along pretty well for the past 50 years. Then the Croatian army attacked the village, only targeting the Bosnian people and houses, when the Croatian properties were still intact. Many died, and with almost all their houses completely burnt down and ransacked, Bosnians flew away as refugees.
The anthropologist who directed the film 'We are all neighbours' had close interactions with the villagers even before the conflict, and the film was shot in a sequence that narrates people’s lives before, during and after the violent events. The film is a masterpiece in its depiction of violence, considering that it never shows blood, disfigured bodies or the violence itself, but still does a great job in portraying the pain, the cruelty, and the terror. It’s not my first time watching the film but yet I couldn’t control the tears, just like many others who were in the auditorium. I heard a voice cry inside, ‘I was there’.
The claim ‘I was there’, is by no means a simplified, emotional statement, it’s rather a political, existential assertion. It’s a fragment that completes a larger picture. Then again, ‘there’ could mean anywhere, the frontline, the borderline, a very distant landscape, or even the diaspora.., and the experiences could also differ accordingly. I was never on the site of violence. I wasn’t living in ground zero. However, residing in Colombo, I believe I was close enough to feel the ‘culture of fear’, I was close enough to see how violence change people and their perceptions.
Nevertheless, the image of war that still occupies my mind is the disfigured image of my distant cousin who was paralyzed for life by a shell attack. It’s an image that shatters all my pretension as a strong, politically neutral, ethically conscientious individual - a story that I never wanted to talk about, which I never did. I knew, when I do talk about it someday, I wouldn’t be able to stop the tears or hide my trembling voice. After all, he was only 8 or 9 when it happened. I was fifteen then. I remember him lying in the children’s ward of the Colombo General Hospital. He and his mom were brought there the previous night by the Red Cross, since the Jaffna hospital was not equipped well to provide necessary treatments. The poor boy, I was told, was caught in the attack on his way back from school. I remember the sickening smell of the hospital, the cries and screams of the other kids in the ward, and him, quietly lying in the bed, his sobbing mom.. I did not dare look them in the face. I was biting my lips, and blinking my eyelids so fast so the tears would dry soon. I was hoping no one would notice my trembling body. I tried to hide my panicked face because I didn’t want him to think that I freaked over his disfigured body. When the silence in the room became too unbearable, his mom tried to cheer him up by making me talk to him. She picked the wrong person. I was weak. I have always been weak. I wasn’t ready to talk to anybody. I remember him trying to raise a finger and tell me something, but I ran away, I ran away like a coward, far away from his bed, far away from the corridor. I stopped at the elevator, and cried my heart out. I hated amma for taking me along with her to visit him. I hated myself for being so weak, for being a coward. I could’ve told him a few words, to cheer him up, to make him feel confident. I hated myself because now I have made him feel extra bad. Poor little kid, he had to see his cousin run away when he tried to talk to her. I know I can never overcome this guilt, even after years. It is this image, this guilt that overshadows me whenever I think of war. And I often hear a voice cry inside me, “How could they? He is just a kid!!” Maybe in the papers, in the news, in the reports, he’ll turn into a mere casualty. But he is MY cousin. How could one see just numbers, when they all are people, someone’s parents, siblings, sons, daughters, partners, and neighbours..
In Colombo, in the lane where we lived, there were only two Tamil families, and rest of them were Sinhalese. It was a perfect setting just like the film. You have people from different ethnicities or nationalities living next to each other, for quite a long time. In the film, it was Bosnians and Croatians living together for at least 50 years, and in Walls Lane, it was Tamils and Sinhalese, for approximately 15 years. The processes of violence, the preceding events transform the concepts of friendship, trust, neighbourhood, then at one point, turns your friends into enemies, and you start fearing your own neighbours with whom you shared meals, exchanged groceries, and celebrated festivals. No one knows how it happened, no one understands how it happened. It just happened, from nowhere.
Then again, the most disturbing thing about violence is its ability to metamorphose people, to fabricate nationalist and patriotic discourses (of both sides) through which increasing the tendency to inflict pain upon the others (no matter which side you are), all the while, justifying the outcomes by means of the same discourses.
This is not exactly what I intended to write, I started off with something and ended up with a completely different thing. But war is such a sensitive topic. It’s always a taboo. One is constantly afraid of the threats, the accusations of being biased, of taking sides. I wanted to write about the people, how they are also actors when they're most often portrayed only as victims in the violent settings. Then it's about the silence as well, voluntary or involuntary. In Bosnia, even after years people still could not talk/discuss the war, their experiences. One can be friends with anybody – a Croatian, Bosnian or Serb – but talking about the war with the other, would lead to an expected catastrophe; accusing each other, trying to establish who suffered the most. Whatever the popular/national narratives say, on the very ground level - considering the people who had to live, share and survive - nobody likes war, nobody likes violence.
Still, it’s that silence I fear the most.
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ReplyDeleteChandra