Music
Sadil
Here everything is against life. If you could just 01.00
walk through our town you'd see people that you
know. You'd see familiar souls, but no more.
Half of them look strange, and the other half sad.
V/o
A letter from the heart of Bosnia, from a people 00.35 whose hopes have been crushed by civil war. Sadil Mehmedmovic is writing to relatives living in exile.
Sadil
Sometimes I grit my teeth to stop myself from 00.52 laughing. Other times I have to stop myself from
crying. I feel that we are at Judgment Day.
V/o
Where once people drove to work, now they walk or 01.13
ride. Once they lit their homes at night, now they live without electricity. Two years ago the shops were stocked with food. Today the shelves are half empty and the prices are exorbitant. This is a story about people who cope with and sometimes rise above the savagery of war. People with aspirations and values very similar to our own who've been plucked from the 1990s and thrown back into an era they left behind half a century ago.
Rooster
Rooster crowing.
V/o 01.58
The postal service has collapsed. Letters are rare treasures, passed entirely on trust to
strangers, smuggled into war zones.
Sadil has received one such prize, weeks old, from a brother
in exile. Part of a package of 15 that he's now
pledged to deliver.
Bag clipping shut
atmos - chalk on blackboard
Sadil:
logic?
George:
02.31
Unity of meaning ... logic. Why do we need
The fall of the old communist Yugoslavia
freed Sadil to teach his students about their own
Bosnian history and culture.
Sadil:
... you have a philosophy of your own.
George:
But the collapse
of communism also
02.49
brought civil war and civil duties Sadil had never
contemplated.
atmos Sadil walking along street
George:
So in the confusion of war, the school
teacher becomes postman.
Sadil:
house is?
03.06
Who is able to explain to me where his
George: Sadil's beat takes in shell shocked towns and villages, where a stranger bearing letters is at least momentary release from the apathy ingrained by two years of war.
Sadil:
He has a son who was wounded here but now 13.22
he's in Germany.
George: The man Sadil is looking for is Senahid zrnic, a farmer whose life is disintegrating around him. His family are scattered, his house battered by shellfire, most of his land in enemy hands.
atmos - dog barking horse hoofs
Sadil:
Woman:
Hello. Is this Senahid's house?
Yes, it is.
03.48
atmos dog barking
Sadil: Is Zrnic Senahid at home? I need him. I have a message for him. A letter from Germany. Here's the letter.
George: reliable.
The underground mail proves astonishingly The cash has remained untouched, a
04 .11
lifeline for a proud, once self-reliant man. Yet even a thousand dollars will not go far. The coffee his wife grinds costs a hundred dollars a kilo on the black market, fuel for the tractor 30 dollars a litre.
Senahid: Help is always good and welcome. Many thanks to them for not having forgotten us. And to you for bringing this.
04.37
whose war wounds |
George: The news bittersweet. News of from a son beyond
the war is healed. Of a grandson he's never seen, of a family he hardly expects to see again.
Sadil: This situation will pass.
Senahid: I hope it will.
Sadil: There's been no mail for two years?
Senahid: No, there hasn't.
birds
George: At 57, war has stolen whatever prospects Senahid had of an independent livelihood to see him through into old age.
Sadil:
Is it dry?
Senahid: Dried all through ... It's only fit for
chopping up ... just for chopping.
George:
Even if peace comes tomorrow, he'll be an
old man before his orchards recover from the
battering they took when they were the front line
between Muslim and Serb armies.
Sadil:
Show me where the front line was.
Senahid: The line was here, with trenches all
through here.
Sadil:
So you canlt put new trees in?
Senahid: No, no. It takes a lot of money and the
ground must lie fallow for a few years before you
plant the new trees. Now all this has to be pulled
up.
George:
Menahid owns several plots of land, about
06.32
four hectares in all. He can see it from here, but
he canlt get to most of it. It's occupied by Serb
gunners, a kilometre or so away. He doubts he III
ever get to visit it again.
music
atmos faint children's voices
birds
George:
The village of Velika Brij esnica has lost 07.06
a score of sons. It's typical of countless small
villages along the front line.
water running into plastic container
George:
Nazlija Delic is waiting for news of her 07.22
sons - one is fighting on the front line, another
has been wounded, a third is a prisoner of war.
atmos water tap being turned off
George:
From a fourth son living as a refugee in
exile, Sadil brings both news and the godsend of
money.
Nazlija: I hope he stays alive for a long time -
and you too, so that you can bring more money and
letters.
George:
Nazlija lives for news of her absent
sons, especially of the 21 year old captured months
ago by the Serbs.
Nazlija: Just yesterday we got a message from him,
that he's alive. And then there's Nusret here. I
talked to him the other day - a week ago. He said
he's been wounded, but he's all right.
George:
Nazlija's own story is distressingly
familiar she's one of more than 2 million
Bosnians displaced by the civil war. She and her
daughter in law were on the run for months before a
relative offered them a couple of rooms in his
village.
Nazlija: In Zenica there was a starvation. People
would search through rubbish bins for potato
peelings.
George:
For those stripped of everything, life is
08·46
reduced to the contents of envelopes. From the
money and letters that are smuggled in from abroad
to the memories that are amongst the few precious
possessions that refugees can carry with them.
Nazlija: Redzo has fine sons. Look how strong they
are.
Sadil:
Now you can be a proud mother who 09.10
says ... "My sons are better than yours. Or at least
I have one of them."
atmos pouring water
George:
Nazlija and her daughter in law now have 09.18
little to do but wait - and not much to wait for.
They wait for news of their menfolk and for the
UN's monthly refugee rations. A fresh vegetable is
a luxury.
Nazlija: We've got some leeks
brought them.
our neighbors
Sadil:
And that potato down there, is that to eat?
Nazlija: No, even those will be planted.
atmos man pushing bike
George:
The villages themselves are little better 09.55
off. There's no money, so even the local shop has
closed. In a nation of villages, village life is
collapsing.
George:
Most of the men are away or dead. Nearby
fields lie fallow. They're either too exposed to
shells and snipers, or there are simply no seeds to
sow.
birds
George: |
Throughout most of |
Bosnia |
on |
people Most |
today, foot. |
are |
the |
them |
of them a hopeful |
move, |
on |
fleeing from war ravaged villages. Some, few, try to return ,home. But Bosnia |
is |
now |
country national tatters. |
in which social and |
families and villages, the commercial fabric are all in |
horse hooves horse neighing |
George: Sadil's own town Srebreink, has been inundated by Serb, Croat, and Muslim refugees. Yet it's not the volatile mix you might imagine, the deprivations of war forge a sense of unity and even of trust. And it's trust that allows the underground mail system to work at all. |
|
Sadil: |
|
Look, we've got some things. |
Woman: |
Mm, let's see ... My God, what luck! 11.21 |
George: On trust, arrive letters, money, even parcels from relatives in exile. Smuggled across borders and through military blockades. |
atmos |
1° |
10.22 |
a |
10.58 |
Sadil:
George:
Dish washing liquid.
From a brother who's fled abroad, a rare 11.45
package of basic provisions.
Sadil:
Beetroot. Ah, this is good - carrots.
George:
For Sadil,' such moments are tinged with 11.56
despair. He's humbled. Unable adequately to feed
and clothe his own son, or to provide for Adnana,
in her last weeks of pregnancy.
atmos package being opened
Sadil:
Ah ... Masa, sneaker!
Grandmother:
Look Masa, something for Grandma.
Grandma has a lot of things as well. will you offer
something to others?
Adnana:
Ah, he doesn't want to share.
George:
The war takes more than
lives and
property from ordinary people. It steals away their
self-esteem.
Hasib hammering
George:
Sadil's near neighbors, Hasib Nurkanovic,
12.47
is a craftsman. He builds the sarse, Bosnia's
national instrument.
George:
It was once his livelihood, now he has no
13.03
customers, and no income. His life savings are
gone.
Sadil: This time I've brought you something.
Hasib: My friend, what did you do?
Sadil:I t's nothing, it's nothing.
Hasib: Thank you, thank you. Whatever it is, everything is welcome.
George:
Sadil brings coffee, biscuits and
chocolate. Hasib has lived through much of this
century's turmoil in the Balkans.
These, he
believes, are the blackest days.
Hasib:
Look, I'm a pensioner. My pension used to
be $600 to $800 a month. Believe it or not I
haven' t received a pension for eight and a half
months now.
George:
Even if Hasib still got his pension, it's
be worthless today. The war has destroyed Bosnia's
currency.
Hasib:
My pension would be worth just one dollar
and for that I could buy less than a handful of
flour.
music Hasib playing sarse
George:
From the musician who has nothing left 14.24
but his music, to the farmer who's lost his land
and the woman who's lost her home and perhaps her
sons, Sadil's efforts bring hope and some' relief.
But the hardship lingers.
atmos chopping wood
16·06
Sadil:
People don't realise that the war starts /6· II
and finishes inside them. It threatens us with
total destruction. Here, honour is
crushed underfoot.
I guard myself for fear of being
overwhelmed by hatred.
dog barking
wood chopping
Sadil:
timely
The seeds we received were welcome and
we were thrilled with them. That may sound
16 ·2-9
strange, but they're expensive
here and
I certainly wouldn't have had any if you hadn't sent
them to us. I'm happiest because we survived this
winter. We ate rabbits. If you don't know how to
kill rabbits I can describe it for you. You need to
have a wife who's pregnant and hungry for meat. She
hasn't had meat for months and I'm a man incapable
of killing a rabbit. Then the shivers come to me
and I take the knife and kill the rabbit.
/7·:30