A dismal, dejected, bleak place ready to nourish intolerance and rancour

(4:32 p.m.)
Our dear Sabrina,

Back at the computer again.  It is nice (no irony intended) to get support
from the Sandinistas, but what I am craving for is some kind of peace deal
to put an end to the tragedy here.  I think that each one of us has a
metaphorical map of her/his own country incorporated somewhere in the mind
but in the body as well.  Each time I hear that one or other location in my
country was destroyed by a 1-ton- or a 2- ton- bomb, locations such as
bridges over rivers, landlines, post offices, beautiful old buildings, TV
repeaters, patches of highways, railways, etc., I feel as if a part of my
body and mind were hurt and perishing...  Just think:  the Belgrade - Nis
railway was built back in the 1870s as the first one in the Balkans and it
is no more due to NATO bombs -- it has been cut off in several places by
destroying all the bridges along it...  As our Egos are made up of
cognitive maps of our countries just think of what damage one single little
chip of the Ego can make to the psyche of a person, let alone huge dents
like the ones taking place in Serbia.

This constant destruction of my country and its people  -- already more
than one thousand dead people, amongst whom there are many Albanians -- is
more than sufficient to take its toll even from mentally sturdy and
composed people and leave those less hardy in despair.  This country that
used to have lots of spirit and joie de vivre seems to be turning into a
dismal, dejected, bleak place ready to nourish intolerance and rancour. 
Terrible. Something that I have always been afraid of -- instead of the
expansion of Serbia's collective mind through contacts, diplomacy and
unhindered flow of information, what inevitably follows the metaphorical
rape of Serbia is a promotion of xenophobia and isolationism.  Not to
mention the severely crippled economy that will bring about black market,
increase of crime and corruption, suppression of any oppositionary views.

With this in view you can understand the reaction of some people,
especially from the extreme and belligerant right, to pacifist proposals
such as the one I wrote for Peacelink (the letter to the Italian MP), which
I felt I had to have published in the local paper.  Unveiled threats
followed innuendoes and now I have to really take care. All this is the
result of the bombing:  the extreme rightists feel that they have got
confirmation of their distrust of the West and wish to get back at anyone,
anything that may even remotely be connected to it.  Of course, as Vice
President for the Autonomy of University (opposing the present government,
started in 1997), and as someone employed for a spell by the Soros Fund for
an Open Society, I appear to be one of the suitable targets...

Dear Sabrina,  I simply felt that I had to fill you in a little more about
the here and the now in Serbia.  Forgive the details, I feel better having
said this  -  so much better to get it off one's chest.

Love to you and yours,

Djordje