What makes Them so Different?

Going through some of my old primary school stuff yesterday, (i was surprised how this stuff even made it through the move of houses that i made back in 2003..but there you go), i came across the review i wrote back in year five, of a book that we read in class; "No Gun For Asmir".

Reading the review in my messy year five hand- writing, i couldn't help but feel moved by the argument i put forward then. I made no statement, or alluded, to either liking or disliking the book. There was, however, a question that i asked then, which i still ask today. What made this story so different, and un- like any story of war i'd read about, that it sparked an unexplainable feeling of pain and confusion in me?

This was the last comment i made in that review. After looking at the advantages and disadvantages of the story, and the telling of the story, i finished with that simple question. What made it so different that i felt more sorry for Asmir, than i'd felt for any one involved in war, before? Was it because in year five, i was about the same age as Asmir when he was up- rooted by the war from his home in Bosnia? Perhaps.

What made this all the more freaky was that last night a movie played on Foxtel Greats: "Welcome to Sarajevo". Now whether it was by some divine plan, by chance, by fate, or pure luck that i watched, yet another, story of the war in Bosnia, i don't know, and won't bore with a whole sermon on what i think it was. The point is, they both related to each other. Watching the film, at times, i was moved by the brutality of both armies, and at the same time, i was angered. In year five i was unable to answer the question. Asking it again, only this time, using the film as the stimulus the question still remained un- answered.

In year five, i hinted to the fact that because the war in Bosnia was, in part, a cleansing of the Serbian race of the Bosnian muslims; It was a story that needed to be told to remind people of the things that make us people. Moreover, that these differences should not be the cause of war and turmoil, but should be embraced. Back then i was naive. Whilst every death and bomb blast of Asmir's flight from Sarajevo still echoed in my head, i was more moved by the fact that people were dying because of their differences. Watching "Welcome to Sarajevo", i realised that children, babies, were part of the primary targets of the war in Bosnia.

At one point in the film, there is a bus full of Bosnian children being taken by a UN convoy from Sarajevo into Italy. Both sides have agreed to a one hour cease- fire to allow the convoy to pass un- hindered with the children. However, at one stage, the convoy is stopped by a Serbian squad. The Captain ignores all the protestations of the UN officials, who are telling him that no child is to be removed from the bus, and that they are supposed to be moving without hinderence. The captain boards the bus and demands the children listen and do as their told, or they die. He calls the names of all the Bosnian muslim children, the eldest 15, the youngest 8 months old. They are loaded onto the back of a truck, and are taken away by the Serbian soldiers. Later on, (though it doesn't take a genuis to know what happens), it's learned that the children were shot dead.

I have no intention of preaching that war is bad, and that it kills. Rationally, whilst it does all this and more, it also, on the other hand, allows for evolution. As Darwin put it, "Survival of the Fitest", simple, kill or be killed; It's another form of the life- cycle. What i will say, though, is that this film, and the book, both focus on the one and the same victim of the war in Bosnia: children. Watching the part of the fim where the children are taken away from the bus, and seeing the 15 year old boy walk towards the truck, with dejection, knowing he was going to die, hit a nerve. All the while i kept asking myself: "What is it that makes them so different?"

Looking back now, having grown and perceptions having altered and developed; Now i think i can answer that question. What it is about 'No Gun For Asmir', and 'Welcome to Sarajevo', is that they both focus on a different victim of war: children. Children, being to young to know or understand, don't choose their religion. They don't choose the culture with which they can be associated. In both these texts, Bosnian muslim children are one of the targets. Maybe they aren't, and it's just the way the story's are told that makes them seem so. Whatever the reason, i still don't see what makes them so different, that they have to be killed. I didn't see the logic in it then, and i confess, i still don't see the logic in it today.

Maybe you can help me shed some light on the issue. What is it that makes these children so different that they were killed? If you have felt, in any way, the same way i do about both these texts, even in the smallest of ways, then maybe you can also tell me, What makes them so different, that unlike any war story you've read, or watched, these had a totally different effect. One that was more stronger than ever before.