The title of this blog is a quote from a film I watched
about 15 years ago. It was about two
brothers on opposing sides of the Balkan war and a family subsequently torn
apart. The line always stayed with me as
it was said with so much conviction, by the wife of one of the brothers, and
ringed so true.
I was reminded of it yesterday as we snaked through rural
Croatia. The damn, insatiable wind was
blowing again and having had enough of being buffeted, we took the next road
off the motorway and decided to see if we could reach our destination on the B
roads without any wind.
In any rural setting you will always have some buildings
that are decrepit, be it an old, dry
stone shed in Cumbria or a decaying brick hut in Spain, as I pondered this I
realised the dilapidated buildings were less sporadic and looked surprisingly
newly fallen. They generally would have no
roof, no windows and most of the walls had tumbled down. Then next door would be a brand new house.
I then realised the new polished grave stones by the road
were adjacent to the shattered buildings.
As we continued through the next town, we began to notice
more and more of these ruins, and that particularly around windows and doors,
they were scarred with bullet and grenade holes. It all looked like it had happened so
recently, if we had turned the next corner and seen smoke rising from a house,
it would not have surprised. Then next door would be a brand new house.
I wanted to take a picture, but didn’t really want to be
reminded of this horrifying place. It
didn’t feel right. Why had they left such a visual reminder of the appalling
recent history, understandably trying to build a new life, but next to
murderous ruins? I don’t know if the houses
were Serbs, Croatians, Christians or Muslims.
I don’t know whose bullets scarred those walls and I don’t know whose
new houses overlook the ruins. I did
know that our windy motorway, in this friendly, pretty country, was brought
into perspective.
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