The Greatest Story Ever Told
Trebinje is a small, pictoresque town in Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a warm Mediterranean climate and just around the corner from the Adriatic coast. That’s why you’ll usually run into people from Croatia buying their groceries, clothes and other stuff due to lower prices. On Wednesdays, the city market is usually full of people selling and buying fresh produce, home-made jam, wine, wool socks and other stuff that would give the average American hipster a mind blowing hard-on. A beautiful Art Nouveau fountain stands in the middle. On one of the stalls, there’s a piece of cardboard saying “taste everywhere, but buy here”. It applies to the town too. Rarely can you literally smell the salt from the sea in the air. It’s there, but not there enough. You don’t see the coastline, but it’s palpable.
16 plain trees stand in the square at the Hotel Platani. They were planted by the original owner to commemorate his daughter’s passing at the age of 16. That’s the inspiration behind the name of the establishment, a touching gesture of affection and the devastation of a personal loss. If you go there, there’s one thing you absolutely need to try. A dessert commonly known as žito, which is essentially a traditional wheat pudding that’s grown synonymous with the place.
It’s rather sticky and sweet. You might say, an acquired taste. But so is this country as such. When you look at arguably its most famous martyr in the 1990s conflict, you see what it’s about. Srđan Aleksić was the ultimate Good Samaritan, in spite of the sacrifice it might demand. However, in his case, it demanded the biggest one of all.
Born in 1966, he was an amateur actor, though his skills were anything but amateurish. He was an awarded member of the local Slovo Theatre and played a part in the play A War Night’s Dream which premiered during the conflict. I haven’t seen it, but maybe it can be found in some obscure corner of the internet.
Aleksić may have been an amateur until January 1993. But what he did on January 27 that year was nothing short of a masterclass in humanity and instinct that marks the difference between monsters and angels. When Alen Glavović, a Muslim, was attacked by Serbian soldiers, Aleksić intervened to protect him in spite of being in the same forces like the attackers. He had the balls to do the right thing and died for it. Abandoning the madness of tribalism was his mortal sin.
There have been countless tributes to this man’s heroism ever since, from books, movies all the way to a street named after him in Sarajevo and Belgrade. This is significant in the context of the toxic rhetorics of Serbian right-wing populism which, in its essence, represents values exactly opposite to those that led to his death.
We’re still far from harmonious political cohabitation. But acts like these are a flicker of light in the endless darkness of nationalism and hatred that’s been stirring the public pot for the last 30 years without any sign of healing. Alen Glavović now lives in Sweden with his family. He is a walking memorial to his saviour’s legacy and reminder what we should aspire to in moments when it’s do or die.
It’s a tough act to follow. You can argue it’s tacky or predictable to compare the two. But if you’re a practicing Christian, this is as close as it gets to the lessons you were taught at Sunday school. You know, about Jesus dying on the cross and what all that was about. The opposite of selfishness, cruelty and persecution of the innocent.
Unfortunately, the Orthodox Christian Church in Serbia didn’t mind supporting this kind of behaviour by people who were later sentenced for a variety of war crimes. Of course, it’s hardly the first time that a religious institution poops on their own principles. Sometimes it seems that’s all they’re doing anyway. They led their flock into the lion’s den and still do. It’s an unsatianle urge for retribution and rubbing salt into the wounds of the past until your skin burns.
I don’t want to paint Srđan Aleksić as a saint here. Because all sorts of people have been granted the title based on the whim of those with the authority to do it. People who aren’t exactly as admirable as they claim to be. We are all made of flesh and blood and there’s no one who’s clean as a whistle. Still, what put him on the same level with so many other great heroes of the past is that he didn’t do it for glory or appreciation.
It was instinctive and primordial: helping your fellow man in his hour of need. You can hardly find yourself in a bigger need than Alen Glavović did that day. Which is why, to this day, he visits the resting place of his saviour to pay his respects. We all should, in our own way, because you could find yourself in a situation where you’ll be someone’s last straw of hope too.
Naturally, it’s anything but unusual to see the narrative of heroes distorted to fit into someone else’s just for their own gains. If you permit me an another biblical paraphrase, we should resist at all costs to take this man’s name in vain. Yet many still do and don’t intend to stop. There were theories that aimed to discredit or diminish his contribution to our common good.
You’ll find Serbs questioning moral implications of praising someone who sacrificed his own to protect enemies. Nothing surprising about that, because the notion of betrayal doubles down on basic principles of tribes in survival mode. It gives you the permission to cross the moral line you’d otherwise never allow yourself to cross. It’s easy to find an excuse. After all, as the saying goes, everything is fair in love and war.
No love here, though. Not by far. It’s ironic that Milorad Dodik, the leader of Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina bestowed Aleksić with a medal 18 years after the genocide in Srebrenica. Not least because I don’t think he’d be honored by it. Instead, he’d pull a Brando, just without Native Americans. He didn’t rise to prominence due to ulterior motives but what you could call ultimate motives. Something that certainly warrants celebration while requiring careful consideration about how we approach it. Name plates in the strees can be changed and monuments can be torn down. That’s why the only appropriate place for learning from an amateur actor who was in the wrong place at the right time is in the classroom.
However, it’s a mission impossible because it requires a compromise. Focusing on things that connect us, exacerbating and lifting them up above everything else. The ideological diet we’re being served on a daily basis leaves us with few opportunities for this. Not least because it’s difficult to hide from it. In order to find a space where you can break free from these constraints you risk isolation and loneliness but it’s the price of freedom that requires bravery.
For many, it’s too big of a bite. Keeping quiet and fitting in is much easier. The sad part of the story is that its alleged rewards are rarely worth it. But do beware. Those who refuse to lend a life-saving hand in need would break yours like a twig. That’s why I suggest praying you never find out because Srđan Aleksić did. The greatest story ever told.
