Why The Dwarf Had To Be Shot

A poem by Sasha Skenderija

The original work is written in Bosnian and translated into English by Wayles Browne

On June twenty eight, Nineteen hundred and ninety two,
in the basement of the Sarajevo City Hospital we sat
with professor Dzˇevad Karahasan and his wife, who were serving
as hospital volunteers, since the city had been massacred day after day.
They were devastated by their family tragedy, her mother murdered
in her apartment by a grenade, and we came to console them
with conversation, with desperate hope
that military intervention was on its way. But instead,
along with pomp and unprecedented measures of security,
Mitterand came, to give us and our slayers a lecture
in morals and mutual understanding. Horrified starving old women
sobbed beyond consolation, while confused passersby and children
hurried toward international television cameras, behaving
like pandas born by Caesarian section in a zoo
in Indianapolis. The whole world applauded with praise the French
love of justice, the French courage,
French altruism —while Mitterand senilely
smiled at the decor of a destroyed building which had been,
in his honor, renamed L’ hospital France. Murderers did not
bombard us for a few hours, taking their time
to shake his hand, and all went smoothly,
almost like an ecumenical colloquium somewhere in Paris.
A local TV crew came to the basement asking
for an interview with Dzˇ. K. What did he think about the surprise
visit of Mitterand, they asked. He said, “Disgusting filth.”
They asked him what he thought, in his opinion, ought
to be done. He said, “to shoot the dwarf dead.” They asked
if he would do it. He said, “If I had a weapon at hand, for sure.”
TV crew: “Would you do it, professor, to go down in history?”
Dzˇ. K.: “What history, friend? I would do it in order to reach sense.”
No weapons were at hand, and the interview, unfortunately, has not
until now been published.