Field: Wars, Others
Title: Race with Death
Authors: Vahida Demirović
Publication: TA-HA Publishers
ISBN: 1-84200-005-5
Rating: 3/5
Level: Beginner
Reviewed by: Safwan
“…For a hundred days he had to endure abuse, humiliation and beatings: they kicked him, beat him with iron rods, heavy logs, and anything else they could lay hands on. Nursing his own wounds, he wished he could block out the noise of the sufferings of other inmates… Even worse was the sense of impotence. In particular the cries for help he heard from the Muslim women and girls being raped and tortured… He wondered what his wife was enduring and he thanked God that he had no daughters. Perhaps it would have been better if his wife just died, if she was being tortured like this… And he thought of Risto (his Serb neighbour), how he had transformed from their helpful neighbour into a torturing criminal overnight. What has snapped in his psyche all of a sudden? Or was the good neighbour act all those years a mere façade? Why does he begrudge my existence? What have I done to him to deserve this?”
Title: Race with Death
Authors: Vahida Demirović
Publication: TA-HA Publishers
ISBN: 1-84200-005-5
Rating: 3/5
Level: Beginner
Reviewed by: Safwan
“…For a hundred days he had to endure abuse, humiliation and beatings: they kicked him, beat him with iron rods, heavy logs, and anything else they could lay hands on. Nursing his own wounds, he wished he could block out the noise of the sufferings of other inmates… Even worse was the sense of impotence. In particular the cries for help he heard from the Muslim women and girls being raped and tortured… He wondered what his wife was enduring and he thanked God that he had no daughters. Perhaps it would have been better if his wife just died, if she was being tortured like this… And he thought of Risto (his Serb neighbour), how he had transformed from their helpful neighbour into a torturing criminal overnight. What has snapped in his psyche all of a sudden? Or was the good neighbour act all those years a mere façade? Why does he begrudge my existence? What have I done to him to deserve this?”
This book collects within its two covers 22 personal stories of the brutal Bosnian war, as communicated by Vahida’s patients. Reading one after another is painful, but surely experiencing it is worst. Words can describe so much but it needs a higher faculty, strength and endurance to be inflicted with- and survive- such great ordeal. In the words of Vahida, “only a parent who has lost a child could understand the pain of losing a child”. These instances, however distressing, make only an imperceptibly tiny fraction of what happened to Bosna as a whole.
May Allah severily punish the serbs who were involved with these actions against the Muslims in Bosnia, Kosovo and other places. Allah's curse upon them. aameen
ReplyDeleteAmeen!! And yet some of my atheist friends dare say that punishments are unjust :(
ReplyDelete