Wisdom From A Wartime Child

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    While the entirety of Zlata's Diary focuses on the war in Sarajevo during the early 1990s there is a reoccurring theme of anti-ethnicism woven throughout the novel. Zlata struggles to wrap her mind around the complex politics that rule the scene of the war that surrounds her. Zlata writes "It looks to me as though these politics mean Serbs, Croats, and Muslims" (Filipovic 96). Through Zlata's innocent childlike struggle to understand the complexity of adult ideas the reader is able to see the ridiculous feuding between the Serbs, Croats, and Muslims. This is where Zlata begins to connect the dots that the powers in charge cannot seem to realize. Zlata realizes "but they are all people. They are all the same. They all look like people, there's no difference. They all have arms, legs and heads, they walk and talk, but now there's 'something' that wants to make them different" (Filipovic 96). Zlata, at the age of eleven, realizes it is not our differences that matter but our similarities (a concept that people still have trouble understanding even in the year 2020).

    Zlata criticizes the war leaders' anti-ethnic antics by writing "among our friends, in our family, there are Serbs and Croats and Muslims. It's a mixed group and I never knew who was a Serb, a Croat or a Muslim. Now politics has started meddling around. It has put an 'S' on Serbs, an 'M' on Muslims and a 'C' on Croats, it wants to separate them" (Filipovic 97). The reader, through experiencing the Sarajevo war through Zlata's eyes, realizes how meaningless and dehumanizing the war truly is. The innocent civilians trapped in the middle of this war-torn city do not care who are Serbs, Muslims, or Croats. All the civilians care about are their friends, family, and neighbors. The war is forcing everyone into categories. The war is also dehumanizing the civilians by cutting off their access to basic human necessities such as food, clean water, and in some cases shelter. Through Zlata's point of view, the reader is able to realize that at the core of this war is hatred for groups of people who are not like themselves. Sadly, trapped in between all the ethnic groups at war are thousands upon thousands of innocent people, literally just trying to survive. 

    Zlata asks "why is politics making us unhappy, separating us, when we ourselves know who is good and who isn't" (Filipovic 97). Again, I reiterate, that at the age of eleven Zlata realizes that the war and those in charge of the war are doing nothing but trying to separate the people and place them against each other. However, Zlata continues by writing "We mix with the good, not with the bad. And among the good there are Serbs and Croats and Muslims, just as there are among the bad" (Filipovic 97). Zlata does not let the war blind her to the reality that a person's ethnic makeup does not define them as 'good' or 'bad' but their actions do. 

    It speaks volumes that despite living in the midst of a violent war Zlata realizes that there is no reason to point blame on people or dehumanize people just because of their ethnic background. Zlata says it best herself when she writes "The people must be the ones to win, not the war, because war has nothing to do with humanity. War is something inhuman" (Filipovic 33). Keep in mind that Zlata says "the people" not just the Serbs, not just the Muslims, or not just the Croats. Zlata points out that the people collectively must win the war. The people must overcome the anti-ethnicism the war tries to force upon them. 

Comments

  1. Emily BridgesNovember 11, 2020 at 8:52 PM

    Olivia,
    I think it's crazy how sometimes kids can even be more insightful and respectful of backgrounds than most adults. I feel as though this comes from a vast and diverse background and understands what it is like to be judged for that. I like that you mentioned that Zlata refers in her journal to all of these individuals as 'people' and does not discern between ethnicity or race. Your blog post is an incredibly insightful and thorough take on this novel and you brought up some fantastic points that I had not considered when writing this novel.

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