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THE ‘INVISIBLE HAND’…OF CULTURE:
Tripping Over, and Returning Whole, from My Journey Through the Great Balkan Divide.
“Maybe if I just meditate on it, I’ll understand it better”, I said to myself as I flew back home from a recent trip through Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Kosovo and Montenegro, today independent nation-states of the now defunct former Yugoslavia in the Balkans. This region has such a deep history of cultural, political and social complexity, that the word “Balkan” itself is used today to describe any complex of political, cultural and social division in a small geographic area that defies easy understanding or management. Cross a street, travel a few miles, round a mountain, and you can quickly find yourself in a completely alien — and sometimes hostile — environment. Bring up a topic — almost anything, from something as simple as the weather, a theatrical performance, food…and certainly, politics — to a Serb, a Bosniak, a Croat, and a Kosovar, and be prepared to have your mind bent in four different directions, as each explains things from their own alternate — and very different — universe. “It’s history”, the US-American says, meaning forget about yesterday; but in the Balkans, what happened a millennium ago is recalled nightly over drinks, graffitied on the old city walls, and recited to and by little children as anthems of unrealized freedom, identity and revenge. After two weeks of trying…
