4 ms·
In Sarajevo Blues, Semezdin Mehmedinović writes about seeing Radovan Karadžić on television, stirring up genocidal sentiment with vicious lies. Mehmedinović ang
by antiterra 13y ago
In Sarajevo Blues, Semezdin Mehmedinović writes about seeing Radovan Karadžić on television, stirring up genocidal sentiment with vicious lies. Mehmedinović angrily grabs his son's copy of Karadžić's poetry book for children and begins ripping it apart. The son cries, and Mehmedinović tapes the book back together and returns it.
People are more complex than 'bad guy' or 'good guy' despite our attempts to canonize them one way or the other (Jobs, Churchill, Lincoln, JFK.) Sometimes the bad guy does the right thing, sometimes even for the right reason. That doesn't mean you have to let go of your criticisms.
- pessimizer 13y agoKaradžić writing good poems does not make him more than a simple 'bad guy.' Being talented is not a good act.
- Dylan16807 13y agoIt might not stop him from being a bad guy but it definitely stops him from being simply a bad guy.
- antiterra 13y agoYou missed the point of the story, which had to do with accepting a good thing that stemmed from a bad person. The good thing isn't even necessarily the book itself, but the enjoyment it gave Mehmedinović's son. Writing a decently written book for children is a good act and more than a manifestation of talent. I'm definitely not saying it's a redeeming act, and I'm not saying that Karadžić is some kind of flawed hero. He is a bad guy, regardless of how much he loves his grandchildren. But, is he particularly exceptional in his evil? All it takes to nurture his kind of evil is to consider a group of people as something less than human, a 'them' less important than 'us.' This kind of belief is prevalent everywhere; it is nearly innate.