Srpsko Goradze, 16th September 1996

It is cold outside the little room of the local election commission, where the counting of ballots has been going on for several hours.

The office of the commission is at the outskirt of the Serb fraction of the town, which used to be the ‘industrial’ district; you may perceive the ‘national’ border at the end of the road.

It has been difficult to gain the confidence of the Serbian election agents, on one side because they mistrust any representative of the international community, on the other side because we associate them with the massacres we watched on TV.

Just some days earlier, the driver assigned to our team by the OSCE was bragging about having thrown many Bosnians into the Drina river (later on we found out that he was a Radical Party’s candidate for the municipal elections, luckily postponed).

In any case, slowly and cautiously we’ve began communicating with the commission members. Communication then evolved into dialogue and eventually into collaboration.

Election day, the 14 of September, was tense and moving. Bosnians were coming back for the first time from Goradze town, escorted by the IFOR militaries, to vote at their home place. No problems were detected. Maybe also because the Portuguese tanks were patrolling along the road.

The driver says with emotion that it was long time ago when he last saw one of ‘the others’, even if they live just few kilometres away. We did not distinguish the ones from the others.

Now everybody is tired. All the Serbs smoke. One cigarette after another, with no interruption. But the atmosphere is fine, some pleasantry, some food and rakia going around.

The counting is going on calmly. Regulations for Bosnia elections are very complex: people living in Srpsko Goradze before the war could come back to vote or vote where they live now, in Bosnia or abroad. But their votes should be counted here, together with the ‘fresh’ ones.

OSCE is running this exercise, in this case we are not observers but supervisors, taking part to the election activities.

The bags with the abroad ballot papers finally arrive. We throw them on the table. Many of them come out in stacks, with the same vote, traced by the same hand.

The atmosphere is less happy now.

Do you know about the expression ‘va..ffan..cu..lo’?

Playing ‘risk’ on the internet brings you inside a community with its own discussions, jokes, seldom quarrels.

When the game is spirited the debate becomes more passionate too.

Yesterday, one guy who kept attacking me in unfair coalition with other players, noticing that another participant was taking advantage from this situation to gain territory, asked me to join the fight against the new threat.

You can read my answer above.

UN reform

United Nations actually need reform.

It became a self-referential body, where 90% of time and resources are spent to keep the machine going. The flow of information and action points at the interior of the organization rather than outside.
Some people are preparing reports for other people who are using those reports to establish new guidelines for the preparation of the next report.

We were right, when we were young, to say that those salaries, those cars, those radios represented a waste.

Of course, an international arena trying to influence the reality is needed, and some, few, results are there, but it simply cost too much. And produce little. And many of the people do not produce anything valuable. And are not good for the job.

Qualunquismo is probably an illness coming with age, but, I quote again Patricia De Lille: enough is enough.

Les patrons sont tous morts

This appellation, patron, nag me from Chad.

What a paradox, for someone pretending to contribute to better relations among countries and among people, to be called patron, with the simplicity and directness of a long experience.

Are we the same as before?

I often answer, the masters are all dead. But I’m conscious that’s not true, the masters are still there, in our mind as well as in the mind of the others.

In French patron has a faintly softer meaning, it’s used also for the principal at work, but I never use capo to define people I am working for. Colleagues.

Am I a patron? Younger I didn’t accept having people working for me. Later on I compromised. I’m not happy with that.

Sometimes I was accused of patronising, and I have to admit I have this tendency; is this the same?

The human touch

On the plane, the woman sitting next to me grasps my arm. She doesn’t speak, doesn’t look; only this gesture almost automatic. Compulsory.
It’s flight panic. Fear make us more instinctive, less scheming, more direct.
Few occasions remain for real physical contact between people. Especially among strangers, but often also among friends, with the family.
What make us abstain from contact with our fellow men? Etiquette? The urge not to engage? Laziness?
Taking someone else’s hand still is a strong experience. I was a bit shocked the first time I sow African adult males walking around hand by hand.
And surprised, a bit intimidated, when some of them got my hand: friends, neighbours, just colleagues.
Touch is stronger than words. Is a sign of mutual acknowledgment.
It is human and animal at the same time.

Madoubougie


Progressing in the production of different textile items, we met Madoubougie, the king of waxing and colouring, who’s producing several fabrics with the enterprise’s official logo.

In order to preserve their privacy, I have treated the image below, unfortunately through this process the variety of colours got lost.

Madoubougie is the business name of this African entrepreneur, made of the abbreviation of his name (Madou for Mamadou for Mohammad) and bugie (= wax candle) as for his main working tool.

He produced already a pagne in green and is now working on scarlet, violet and blue.

I look forward to seeing the outcome.

It’s a shame

I sympathize with British people, specially Londoners, and with the police too, submitted to very difficult situation and stress.

I know that mistakes, sometimes horrible and dramatic mistakes are possible, and it is very sad when innocent people are involved.

But the phrase of Mr. Blair (as reported by The Guardian), after expressing soreness for the death of Jean Charles De Menezes is a shame:

“I think it is important that we give them every support and that we understand that had the circumstances been different and, for example, this had turned out to be a terrorist and they had failed to take that action, they would have been criticised the other way,” he said.

And the fact that this news -8 bullets shot at the head of this young guy guilty of wearing an heavy coat in London-, was not among the main news in the home page of The Guardian web site and was not at all present in Times home web page today contribute to the sense of misery.

And the ‘scoop’ on him being a student and on his supposedly expired student visa is desolating.

On the same web edition of The Guardian, Shami Chakrabarti, director of human rights organisation Liberty, said she was “disgusted” by the suggestion that someone’s immigration status might have any relevance to the value of their life.

At last, the declaration of Mr. Straw, Foreign Affairs Secretary as reported in Italian by L’Unità, that
the request for compensation will be treated in a short time and with the most of goodwill is the final injury.

Formentera


No, we aren’t there, slightly more south, among Ivory Coast and Congo, but we were in that island just some weeks ago, and the photo could be a folklorist post-card.

All the elements are there, the savage nature in its multiform tint and the human labour, refined by centuries of tradition.

Notwithstanding the outbreak of motorbikes and Italian tourists, the island keep a certain charme and simplicity. Especially in June.