The Civil War is not ended:  I question whether any serious
   civil war ever does end.
                        - T. S. Eliot






                                               Thursday, November 19, 1992

Dear Mimmy,

	Nothing new on the political front.  They are adopting
some resolutions, the "kids" are negotiating, and we are dying,
freezing, starving, crying, parting with our friends, leaving
our loved ones.
	I keep wanting to explain these stupid politics to myself,
because it seems to me that politics caused this war, making
it our everyday reality.  War has crossed out the day and
replaced it with horror, and now horrors are unfolding instead
of days.  It looks to me as though these politics mean Serbs,
Croats and Muslims.  But they are all people.  They are all the
same.  They all look like people, there's no difference.  They all
have arms, legs and heads, they walk and talk, but now there's
"something" that wants to make them different.
	Among my girlfriends, among our friends, in our family, there
are Serbs and Croats and Muslims.  I am mixed group and I never
knew who was a Serb, a Croat or a Muslim.  Now politics has
started meddling around.  It has put an "S" on Serbs, an "M" on
Muslims and a "C" on Croats, it wants to separate them.  And to
do so it has chosen the worst, blackest pencil of all - the pencil
of war which spells only misery and death.
	Why is politics making us unhappy, separating us, when we
ourselves know who is good and who isn't?  We mix with the good,
not with the bad.  And among the good there are Serbs and Croats
and Muslims, just as there are among the bad.  I simply don't
understand it.  Of course, I'm "young," and politics are conducted
by "grown-ups."  But I think we "young" would do it better.  We
certainly wouldn't have chosen war.
	The "kids" really are playing, which is why us kids are not
playing, we are living in fear, we are suffering, we are not
enjoying the sun and flowers, we are not enjoying our childhood.
 WE ARE CRYING.
	A bit of philosophizing on my part, but I was alone and felt I
could write this to you, Mimmy.  You understand me.  Fortunately,
I've got you to talk to.  And now,
Love,

Zlata






Filipovic, Zlata.  Zlata's Diary - A Child's Life in Sarajevo.
Scholastic, Inc.  	New York: 1994.