Short Reflections on Motivation for Working on Dealing With the Past Processes
Short Reflections on Motivation for Working on Dealing With the Past Processes

Author(s): Milena Ostojić, Boro Kitanoski, Albulena Karaga, Milan Colić, Ana Bitoljanu
Subject(s): Civil Society, Oral history, Recent History (1900 till today), Nationalism Studies, Politics of History/Memory
Published by: Documenta - Centar za suočavanje s prošlošću
Keywords: civil society organizations; politics; conflict; nationalism; motivation; dealing with past;
Summary/Abstract: Well, it’s hard to remember precisely. I didn’t have some kind of...break down, nothing specially happened and I didn’t find myself suddenly standing in the light of activism sun. Somehow, I’ve been feeling my whole life that it is very important to participate in the life of a community, to follow some principles, to fight for some values... This attitude has, perhaps, been formed under the influence of books I’d read. Generally, I have always felt this drive inside. When I was very little, even before I started school, I already liked reading very much. And I read, back in the 1980s, partisan stories such as “Eagles fly early” by Branko Ćopić, and books like that. And I remember growing up with this war, with Germans and partisans. It was as if this war had happened yesterday! I was born in 1983 and already in 1987 or 1988 I was able to read, and all the books I read and movies I watched were about partisans and Germans, and these ‘rotten apples’, chetniks and ustashe. I remember talking to my Dad, who died in 1991, it was just before the war broke out. I remember vividly a conversation I had with him. This must be the way it is, when you lose a parent early as a child, you go back later to some things.. I asked him “Dad, who won this last war?” I meant the Second World War and of course I knew who had won, but this was just an introduction to my following question. These were some of my authentic reflections. He said: “Son, we won.” “Son”, you know, this is how they call daughters there where I come from (laughter). I said: “And what about when a daughter asks her father in Germany about who had won the war, what does he tell her?” I really wanted to know if all children were growing up like me, with this war in which We had won, or was it just a fairy-tale that our parents tell us all when we are little, something like Santa Clause (so not very authentic), did all children, in Japan, Germany, South African Republic, have this privilege to grow up with stories about partisans, about our fight and victory...

• Details
• Contents