Adam rallies the caravan/ a Serbian social studies lesson/ bono recites his latest poem/ the author's uncle has an audience with the blessed mother/ waiting for the end of the world

I'M buying my groceries in a shop on Baggot Street one morning, paying no attention to the small talk of the Dublin housewives and little more to the radio playing quietly on the shelf of the man behind the counter. The news is on, saying something about a group of Irish relief workers in association with Amnesty International who are going to try to drive a caravan of food and medical supplies through the Serbian military lines besieging Muslim, Croatian, and secular enclaves in Bosnia, in what used to be Yugoslavia. Boy, I think, those relief workers must be saints! And like saints they are going to be martyred. The nationalists who have seized control of Serbia want blood. They have been carving their way across Croatian, Muslim, and multiethnic territory since the moment Communism lifted from Eastern Europe. The Serbs have the remnants of the Yugoslavian military machine (the Croats claim the Serbs are simply the communists trying to hold on to their power by raising the flag of ancient nationalism; the Serbs respond, Oh, yeah? Well, your daddy was a Nazi!") and the West has refused to get involved, except to pass U.N. resolutions refusing to allow arms shipments to either side. As the Serbs are already heavily armed, this has had the effect of leaving the Croats (who at least were part of the establishment of the country that disappeared under them) at a disad­vantage and the Muslims (a religious minority within the officially godless former nation) defenseless.

It is a horrible example of diplomatic malpractice, but the unspoken attitude of the West is, "You don't make an omelette without breaking a

[200]

few eggs. We have seen simultaneous peaceful revolutions on a scale undreamed of as the dictatorships in Poland, Czechoslovakia, the Bal­tics, East Germany and—who could have imagined—the Soviet Union itself have been swept aside. Political change that might have cost as much blood as World War II has happened with peace and speed. Now, if the people of, say, Romania, want to drag their dictator and his wife before a kangaroo court and shoot them, that's ugly—but it is far less ugly than World War III would have been. So, sure, there are going to be power struggles and ethnic infighting popping up here and there as the new nations settle themselves. It's sad, but it's inevitable, and all we can do is deny them any more weapons so it does not drag on too long."

Maybe no one in the West expected the Croatians to fight back. More likely, no one expected the Bosnian Serbs to be so bloodthirsty. They do not want to conquer the Croats and Muslims, they want to destroy them. They, too, have seen the execution of the dictators of Romania and the lesson they learned was to exterminate your rivals before they can exterminate you. The Irish have been leading the efforts to raise money for relief of the besieged cities and "safe areas" of what was Yugoslavia. The English and French have been hiding under their tables, hoping it will go away; the U.S. has been oblivious—most Americans could not find Bosnia on a map. Pretty soon that won't be a problem 'cause the way things are going it won't be on the map. But what causes me to drop my groceries on the floor of this market is when I hear on the radio what sounds like talk about U2 leading this humani­tarian effort to run the Serb blockade. I couldn't have heard right, could I? I just have U2 on the brain, surely the announcer said "U.N.," not "U2."

I lean over the counter, trying to catch the news above the noise of the store and, yes, that is Adam Clayton speaking about the need to take the risk of getting these supplies past the Serbian guns: "It is unaccept­able in the world that we live in that these things can still be allowed to go on without being challenged!" I can't believe it. I walk back toward the Factory in a daze. Are we really going to Bosnia? Are we really going to war? Does U2 think their backstage passes will get them safely through the Serbian artillery?

⇐ Предыдущая53545556575859606162Следующая ⇒

Поделиться: