Blood Rose
Wen 丨 Wu Jiaxiang
Sarajevo is often known from the former Yugoslav film Walter Defends Sarajevo; the more in-depth is the assassination of the Austro-Hungarian Crown Prince and his wife on June 28, 1914 next to the Latin Bridge, which triggered the First World War; and the city is known as the "Jerusalem of Europe" because of its long history and religion, as well as the cultural diversity of the collision of Eastern and Western cultures.
In 2018, I walked three times along the Mediterranean Sea and went to several countries, and at the end of the year, I went to the three countries of the former Yugoslavia - Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro, and once again experienced the bittersweet and bittersweet after the disintegration of a country. The last stop on the trip was Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Bosnia and Herzegovina). After crossing the border from the Republic of Montenegro into Bosnia and Herzegovina, it is felt that Bosnia and Herzegovina is less gifted than Serbia and Montenegro in terms of economic underdevelopment, relative poverty of natural resources and geographical conditions. However, what struck me was the large and small public cemeteries that occasionally dangled by the windows of the cars in and out of the towns along the road, and the white under the Mediterranean sun was always so strong and harsh. In the hotel where Mostar is staying, the road to the Old Town and the Old Bridge in front of it is a ruined war, on the right is a magnificent Orthodox Church under construction, and on the left is a large white cemetery on the hillside. Standing on a hill on a commanding height called Yellow Castle in Sarajevo and overlooking the city, no matter how close or close in the distance or on the slopes at your feet, there is no shortage of undead whites that cannot be relieved.
In the 1990s, the Yugoslav Federation disintegrated and was divided into the current 6+1 pattern, in which Bosnia and Herzegovina broke out the famous "Bosnia-Herzegovina War" that shook the world. The Bosnian War was the largest local war to break out in Europe after World War II. During the war, the Serbian, Muslim, and Croatian communities used nearly 2,000 artillery pieces, 600 tanks, 600 armored vehicles, and some fighter jets. More than 278,000 of Bosnia and Herzegovina's more than 4.3 million people have died and more than 2 million have been refugees; more than 85 percent of the country's economic facilities have been destroyed, with direct economic losses of more than $45 billion. The war arose because of national contradictions, expanded because of "reunification" and "independence," and ended under Western military suppression. In order to fight for more territory for their own people, the Muslim, Croat and Serb ethnic groups have waged a brutal war and paid a heavy price. Wars sparked by ethnic contradictions are often accompanied by large-scale genocide. Today, the Serbs and Mukhs in Bosnia and Herzegovina are divided and ruled, and everyone is like a stranger, and the ethnic estrangement is very deep.
When the disintegration of the old Yugoslavia began, Bosnia and Herzegovina also declared its independence in 1992. At the time of independence, there were about 4.3 million people, and the ethnic composition was 33% Serbs, another 17% Croats and 44% Bosniaks (i.e., Muslims). The Mukhs wanted to separate from the Serbs, so a three-and-a-half-year war began in April of the same year. Simply put, all three ethnic groups have been Slavs in history, and after more than 400 years of Ottoman rule, the Orthodox Serbs, catholic Croats and later Bosniaks (Muslims) who converted to Islam were formed. The war turned into a tragedy of cannibalism, though a national struggle.
In the streets of Sarajevo, the walls of many houses are still covered with dense bullet holes. "When the war was urgent, the village wall in front of the bullet hole" is the most vivid portrayal of many old buildings in the city at present. More than 20 years after the end of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sarajevo is still unable to heal the scars of the people, let alone the psychological trauma of ethnic competition. It is a romantic and tragic city.
Walking the streets of Sarajevo, you will find that many streets have a little "blood stain" on the ground. It is said that after the war, in order to commemorate the victims, the locals used red resin to paint a blood-red dot on the corpses or bullet marks of the victims on the street floor, and the spots were like blooming blood-colored roses. Because there are too many such blood-red marks in the city, in order to reduce the grief caused by the war and let the citizens get out of the sadness as soon as possible, the government gradually clears the marks. Today, only a few imprints have been left to warn of the fall of war and not to forget that peace was not easy to come by. Every visitor to these blood-colored roses will stop, be silent, mourn, pray that there will be no more war, and pray for world peace.
I have seen many Chinese tourists traveling or leaving messages on the "Blood Rose" post on the Internet, and many of them have invariably expressed their gratitude for living in the peaceful country of China, no need to worry about war, no need to be displaced, and no need to fight each other. Oh, yes! Only when there is comparison can we know how to cherish, but we need more warnings.
In the past few years, I have wandered around the European continent five or six times, always wondering: Why is China, which is about the same size as Europe, unified for most of its history, while Europe is divided into dozens of small countries?
There are many reasons, but a few of them are well worth thinking about.
The expectations of the people are a key factor in the formation of a unified pattern for a country. This is also the fundamental reason why even if China is divided again and again, it can eventually be unified. In China, the people will have such a desire to have a strong centralized government that can mobilize the country's resources and military forces to invest troops in the northern defense line against foreign invasions. The prosperity brought about by long-term unification has a counter-effect on the people, so that in the chaotic era, they will hope for a unified central government and expel the foreigners to the north of the Great Wall. And Europeans, for historical reasons, don't have much desire for unification.
China's Yangtze River Yellow River Basin is the main birthplace of civilization, and the two rivers are very close, resulting in a relatively concentrated population. The water sources in Europe are very scattered, the Danube, the Rhine, the Dnieper, the Don, the Elbe, the Loire, the Volga, etc. (I am very fortunate to have seen several of them), scattered in various regions, so that the civilizational gathering points and even large cities established along the river are naturally scattered in various regions; therefore, they lack the preconditions for forming a cohesive and cohesive whole nation, while China's two-river civilization has become the cradle of the main ethnic group in China.
In ancient China, the Han nationality was a dominant ethnic group, and the Han nationality had a strong ability to assimilate, and in the non-war period of the unified dynasty, it could show a very strong inclusiveness to other ethnic groups (such as the Tang Dynasty); even in the period of its own rule, the Han nationality could quickly counterattack the ruling nation and gradually assimilate it by virtue of its advanced civilization and the ruling and management capabilities accumulated over thousands of years, and the Xianbei of the Northern Wei Dynasty and the Manchurians of the Qing Dynasty are the most obvious examples.
But the peoples of Europe are more complex. The Latins, Germans, Slavs, and so on, plus the Celts, Greeks, Magyars, Bulgars, and so on, were scattered throughout the continent. The first three european dominant peoples (Latins, Germans, Slavs) were always in a delicate state of equilibrium wrestling. Such struggles lead to a fragmented result, and even if they intermarry, they still cannot change the reality of the lack of subject cohesion. Due to the lack of a dominant ethnic group, the various ethnic groups in Europe embody an attitude of no one obeying the other and acting independently. Even the Germanics were subdivided into Franks, Anglos, Saxons, Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Vandals, Lombards, and so on. After these peoples began to emerge as nationalism, they gradually formed their own subject states. The former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which has five peoples and four languages, disintegrated into six States plus one Kosovo. The former Soviet Union had 180 ethnic minorities, which split into 15 countries after its dissolution. Compared with the Chinese version of the "Glorious Revolution" that took great changes in China toward republicanism more than 100 years ago (The Xinhai Revolution), we are glad for the Chinese nation!
If a country or a union of nations lacks a dominant ethnic group and the proportion of the population of each ethnic group is relatively close, it is often easy to split and disintegrate. The Czech Republic and Slovakia peacefully separated through the "Velvet Revolution"; Serbia and Montenegro, the former Yugoslav Federation, also separated peacefully through a "referendum"; Bosnia and Herzegovina was baptized by blood and fire to form a state that was "administratively and administratively divided into three entities: the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (also known as the Mukh Federation), the Republika Srpska and the Brcko District". The independent countries formed after the disintegration of these European countries are often marked by the main nation, or the main nation is the main body of the state form. It can be seen how important a juche nation or a multi-ethnic common cultural psychology is for a unified country. We are proud of our motherland, china is a multi-ethnic unified country! Thinking more profoundly, I obey, I worship, and I am in awe of the great unity and fusion of the profound Chinese culture!
In the 1990s, Hong Kong singer Zheng Xiuwen sang a song "Romeo and Juliet in Sarajevo", which was once popular. The song is set against the backdrop of a true story from the Siege of Sarajevo in the Bosnian War.
During the Bosnian War, the whole of Sarajevo was besieged for three and a half years by a powerful military force, and the city was like hell on earth. A pair of young lovers living in Sarajevo, Admiral and Boshko Burkić, the former Bosniaks and the latter Serbs, have not been able to prevent them from falling in love. The two fell in love for 9 years and looked forward to a happy marriage in the future, until the civil war broke out in Bosnia and Herzegovina at the age of 25, and Sarajevo was besieged by Serb troops, and they were forced to meet and flee. On 18 May 1993, they were both shot while crossing the Ferbania Bridge over the Miriac River that runs across the city. The girl struggled to crawl to the man, clutching his body, and died 15 minutes later. The moment before death, they still hugged each other and did not want to let go, so it was 8 days, because no one could safely remove their bodies for burial during this time. The moment was snapped up by an American journalist who was taking refuge nearby, and it caused a sensation around the world (the hotel I stayed in Sarajevo was once a centralized refuge for journalists from all over the world). The story of the two men who bravely crossed the national and religious divide to fall in love to the death has been described as "Romeo and Juliet of Sarajevo".
Life and death in love, poignant love. Blood Rose, human tragedy.
Fortunately, today's young generation in Bosnia and Herzegovina has slowly diluted the gap between ethnicity and religion, and has gradually come out of the shadow of hatred of the previous generation. The great love of mankind is boundless, as Zheng Xiuwen sang: Love never distinguishes religion, no ethnic disputes, never fears guns, and often prefers to love you all your life until death.
When the world curses war and prays for peace, we need to awaken humanity the most!
When the people oppose separatism and safeguard reunification, we need national unity even more!
Wu Jiaxiang is a Manchu scholar, essayist, tourism planner and cultural communication veteran. He is a member of the Chinese Essay Literature Association, a standing director of the Guangdong Tourism Culture Communication Association, a director of the Guangdong Folk Culture Association, and the vice president of the Guangzhou Manchu History and Culture Research Association. He has published more than 200 papers and essays in newspapers and periodicals in mainland China, Hong Kong and Macao. He is the author of many collections of essays and tourism culture books, such as "Song of Doing Nothing", "Xingcheng Yusi", "Colorful Haifeng", "Conghua Xing", etc.; he has presided over the compilation and compilation of academic monographs on Manchu literature and history, such as "Compilation of Historical Materials of the Eight Flags in Guangdong", "Huacheng Banner Language", and "Guangdong Sea Full Rhyme".
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