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November 14, 1999
A View of the world

Sarajevo, City Of Hope

Shashi Tharoor

Last month I found myself in Sarajevo on the day that UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan greeted the new-born baby hailed as the six billionth inhabitant of our planet. I had visited the city many times before, as a UN peace-keeping official during the traumatic years, 1991-96. The following is my reaction to this most recent visit. Its theme, I felt, could best be expressed in a prose poem.

I remember your city before you were born. 
Winter nineteen ninety-one, the skies grey, 
the air tense with rumours of war,
the whiff of cordite floating in from Croatianbattlefronts. 
A brief ray of hope through the clouds, 
the Sarajevo Accords of New Year’s nineteen ninety-two, 
sealing (ah, foolish hope) yet another peace between Serbs and Croats. 
That hope shattered in the gunfire of that cruellest April, 
scattering the habitues of the side-walk cafes 
to the bleeding barricades, the dull thud 
of artillery shells slamming into your city 
from the ring of hills surrounding your parents. 
Sarajevo, capital of Europe. 
I remember your city before you were born. 
The siege. The plangent whine of the sniper’s random bullet 
penetrating the heart, the mind, of Sarajevo. 
Shell-shock. Nineteen ninety-two and three, mobilisation, 
the tramp of mud-caked boots through the streets 
of your Olympic city. January nine-teen ninety-four, 
the indelible screams of mothers at the marketplace, 
dismembered limbs filling their shopping baskets 
at Markale. Sarajevo, city of the ex-clusion zone, 
filling with refugees, spies, advisers, smugglers, 
United Nations peace-keepers sent in to keep a peace no one could make. 
Sarajevo, capital of Europe. 
I remember your city before you were born. 
The tunnel under the airport, fleeing women irradiated 
by the searchlights as they tried to cross the runway, 
blood irrigating the vegetable gardens of Dobrinje. 
Sarajevo, a city pockmarked by hate, scarred 
by the tracks of armoured personnel carriers, 
divided by barriers of blood. I remember 
flying in over destroyed buildings,putting 
on my blue helmet and ill-fitting Kevlar flak jacket, 
stepping off the musty UNPROFOR Yak-40 and walking 
across the tarmac, an armoured fire truck driving slowly 
between us and the silent snipers. 
Your refugee parents knew no such security in Sarajevo. 
Sarajevo, capital of Europe. 
I remember your city before you were born. 
Nineteen ninety-five, the smoke mushrooming 
over the ammunition dump in Pale, the air carrying 
haunting echoes of the massacres at Srebrenica, 
another blot on the stained conscienceof what we 
naively called the international community. The 
thumps of the guns of the Rapid Reaction Force, reacting at last 
to the shelling of Sarajevo. 
Thick clouds of aircraft overhead, dropping de-
struction on your besiegers. And with it, hope. 
Till the air cleared, and peace came at last 
to what would become your home. Sarajevo, capital of Bosnia. 
I remember your city before you were born. 
Nineteen ninety-six, those first tentative steps of peace, 
the buildings still shattered, people grappling with pain and disbelief 
as they groped to piece together the fragments of their fractured lives. 
And now, nineteen ninety-nine, at the twilight 
of a century marked twice by tragedy in Sarajevo 
I returned. As you grew large in your mother’s womb, 
my first glimpse from the air of reroofed homes, 
buildings repainted in celebratory shades 
of shocking pink and yellow, strolling couples, 
children laughing as they ran across a park, 
the bustle of a city at last at peace with itself. 
Sarajevo, for a day, capital of the world. 
I will always remember the day you were born. 
A birth after so many deaths, 
the reassertion of the miracle of life triumphing over the grave. 
Flowers bloom in the cemetery. A bouquet is thrust 
into your mother’s hands, the traditional coin 
of good fortune pressed into her palm, a United Nations medal of peace. 
We have made you a symbol, a milestone. 
A metaphor. But you are also a boy,Baby Six Billion. 
And you will grow up, I pray, in a 
city of healed wounds, bright lights, joyous music, 
chattering friends who will not wear ethnic labels 
on their belts. Let peace light the flame on the candles 
of your birthday cake, Baby Six Billion. 
In Sarajevo, city of hope.

(Shashi Tharoor is .......................................)


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