Disappearing and forgetting

[Richard] After about a week of rainy, overcast conditions, the weather system cleared out, and now it's been chilly and bright for the past three days. I sort of lament the return to clear weather, as the rain was a welcome interruption to an extended drought around here. I know Chelle has mentioned in at least one of her posts how the municipal water is turned off every night around 10 o'clock. And that will apparently continue until the reservoirs start to fill up again. And practical reasons aside, the low, grey sky of last week was a better match for my romantic notions about what eastern Europe should look like in the fall.

That notwithstanding, Hazel and I went for an urban walk late this afternoon (is there any other kind here in Pristina?) through the autumn sunshine and billowing auto exhaust. We ended up at a plaza where kids ride their bikes and where a few daring ones rollerskate and skateboard down a concrete ramp and stone steps. Just before we got there, though, we passed by a memorial to the disappeared -- casualties of the ethnic cleansing campaign the Serbs waged on Kosovo during the late '90s. This memorial is made up entirely of photos of Kosovans (the ethnic Albanians) who turned up missing and presumed dead in the wake of this campaign. (In some cases, the victims were eventually confirmed dead; in the others, they simply remain "disappeared.") These photos are attached to a wrought-iron fence along the sidewalk near the plaza I mention above. Because many of them have been out here in the elements for several years now, they're fading and weathering in an appropriately eerie sort of way. I mean, the ghosting effects of time and light and weather on photographs, even when they're covered in clear plastic, is sort of similar to how our memories fade and distort their objects over time. In this case, the fading appears to occur along a red-blue spectrum. That is, in some of the photos, all the colors fade into a blue tint; whereas in others, all the colors fade into a red tint. I have no idea what factors determine which end of the color spectrum a particular photo will decline towards, but eventually the memorial may be comprised entirely of blue-and-white and red-and-white ghost images.

As a newcomer to this region -- and as one who doesn't speak the language -- it's easy to assume that this recent tragic history is all but forgotten by the locals. People appear to rush around, besotted with the cheap fragrance of consumerism, fashion, and cowboy capitalism, almost as though that's all that matters to them. Moreover, Pristina has an extremely young population; I think we read that the average age is 23. So perhaps it's natural that they would want to move on, embrace the new order, and forget about mind-boggling tragedies that have already begun to disappear over the horizon. Or maybe this perception of mine is rather superficial, and people here are still acutely aware of recent tragedies and of potential looming dangers. But on a bustling, sunny afternoon, it sure doesn't seem like anyone has much on their mind but what's right in front of them.

In this regard, maybe they're simply taking their lead, as with their fashion and consumer trends, from the good old USA. In the age of Bush, "what, me worry?" ought to be enshrined as America's national logo. (And as the old saw goes, "Denial ain't just a river in Egypt.") So why shouldn't Kosovo indulge in some frantic forgetting of its own? We are at no more of a remove from our own ethnic-cleansing debacle in Iraq than the Balkans are from theirs ... except in our geographic and spiritual detachment, that is. (For more on this, check out the following from Frank Rich in Sunday's NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/opinion/14rich2.html?em&ex=1192680000&en=4bccaa3c0251c781&ei=5087%0A)