"How to survive,
but also how to die in the city? This is the first guide-book, which
puts an end to our lighthearted wanderings across the globe. It
should definitely change our geographic perspective and our travel
morality. We, at the end of century, and possibly of the history
itself, must gain a different insight, which began with Neitzsche
and is continued today with Sloterdijk: the project Mankind is a
dubious one and, one could say, a failure.
This guide-book
will certainly deepen our sadness, but it might also dampen the
false optimism of the charitable games. There is no help. There
are no rescue teams and life preservers: the ambulances are prime
targets and the red cross on a sleeve is a suicidal invitation to
those who are going to shoot. This is why we have to stay were we
are. Sarajevo, its inner-city, cannot be brought out -it would be
a futile and nonsensical effort. What remains of its hidden sense
is breaking apart in the glare of the world; nothing can be described
but the description itself. Therefore let us not describe the city,
not even its dignified, perfidious death.
Instead I wish
to appeal to modesty, indispensable to good intentions of any moral
and intellectual tourism. Some of our actions mark us as the witnesses
to and interpreters of the moral degradation of a moment in mankind's
history, instead of making us the indicators of the troubles which
beset the spirit of a single individual."
Bora Cosic
Back to Top