Nachricht Nummer : 300 Übertragungszeit : 3 min 31 sec Nachricht von : WAM@ZAMIR-ZG.zer.sub.org Betrifft : Zagreb Diary 8 November, 1993 Erstellungsdatum : 11.11.1993 11:07:00 W+1 Realname: Wam Kat Zagreb Diary 8 November, 1993 Dobar dan, A small Email revolution is going, when Neeven from Sweden took more or less the initiative about two years ago to start the yugo.antiwar conference on the APC networks he probably hoped that it would be used by as many people from former Yugoslavia. The ZaMir networks runs now a little longer than a year, but in the last weeks I got for the first time the feeling that we are getting connected. Roland is on tour in new Yugoslavia and he let a trace behind him of new users. A small revolution is going on. Most, a group from intellectuals in Beograd is willing to help us with the Pakrac project. The ever lasting question is how and when to start activities on the Krajina side of the town. Besides solving some practical problems, like finding electric heather's for our sleeping place, the main problem is how to get it organised and from where. For me the Croatian side and the Serbian side are just a walk of 15 minute's, but the more I think about it, the distance is harder to overcome. My and rather our main concern is that somebody or some organisation like ARK has to be involved on the "other side" to make it work. It has to do with a kind of never solved question about the involvement of foreigners. I have to be honest with myself, without this war I would have been some where else and probably have been falling in love with that place as I have fallen in love with this place. And the only reason that I can do a little more than the local people is because of my foreign passport. It don't proof that I am trained to do it. The international volunteers are playing a role in the whole project, as they are playing a role in the whole war. I don't know much about other wars, but in one and half year I have seen a huge increasement of "foreigners", including myself in this area. Besides the official involvement (political often offended as none involvement) there is a waterfall of organisations and personal initiatives falling over this region. That sounds negative, much more negative than I would like it to sound. I must admit I don't know. It is a dualistic thought, especially in an area where you almost everywhere can find the foreign involvement from the recent and longer past. Not only the huge project's like motor and railways and canalisation, with the help of foreign working brigades. But also the Austrian infra structure and building are still to be found all over the place, as you probably find the influence of 500 years Ottoman occupation in the other parts of the former country. But does we all have some where the traces from foreign occupations, shorter or longer ago. Nationalism, finding your roots, is that not something we all have in us, somewhere. Wondering off in thoughts. The big question is to find the balance. A question of the time is not only what will happen here, or for that matter in the former USSR republics, since there things are getting out of hand as well. But more what we want the future to look like. A question or discussion we overlook here often, because of every day primary needs and priorities. We want peace, we want that everybody has a roof above his head, food, medicines and probably a lot more. Or rather we don't want war, we don't want sleeping under the sun, hunger, illnesses and we don't want a lot more. The problem is to find out what we want and how to achieve those goals and with whom. Like to whole piece before this, hard, unclear and many hours of talks before we find the "answers". In the main time I am still a foreigner. But back in my home country some weeks ago I also felt a foreigner. And most of my friends I worked with in the last 6 years were also foreigners in the country they were working, watching by the way television programmes on Dutch television from their homecountries. We are living in a multi cultural and national world, nothing is cultural or ethnical clean, or not ? I saw the poster of that new war film today again and saw that I described it totally wrong (the film is called Vrijeme za.... (A Time for ...)). The woman on the picture is not putting her arms up to heaven, but they are hanging down her body and she looks at the soldier, which is probably not dying, but returning from the front and putting up his arms to hold the woman and give her a big kiss after all those weeks thinking about her. Why I thought she was lifting her arm up to the sky is because a huge big red "V", which starts precisely behind her head and goes up all the way to the top of the poster. For those interested, the film is made by a woman, called Oje Kodar, most of the time before the war she was living in Italy, together with a famous film director (don't ask whom), who died some time ago and than she came, still during the war to Croatia and announced that she would make a film about it and so she did. The main role is played by Nada Cacesic-Livakovic, not one of the most famous actors of Croatia (at least not before the war, I don't know what will happen after this picture) and some of the stories in the newspapers about the film, talks about an "Agitprop Comedy". So I really am looking forwards to see it. Bok I Mir from Zagreb, Wam ------------------------------------------------------ Zagreb Diary can be found on a lot of different electronic networks, it is copyright free and can be ported to any network or other means of communication you like, but please drop my a line, you can reach by sending a message to wam@zamir-zg.comlink.de or wam@zamir-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. Financial support for Grassroot relief work in Croatia or BiH can be send to Kollektief Rampenplan (atn. Lylette, Postbox 780, 6130 AN Sittard, Netherlands, tel:. +31-46-524803 and fax: +31-46-516460 or to Zagrebacka Banka, Zagreb, accountnr.: 2440291594, to Kat, Pieter Jan Herman Fredrik, Brace Domany 6 6fl nr3, 41000 Zagreb. Please notify me if you send or have send any donations. ## CrossPoint v2.1 ##