STORIES FROM THE FUTURE WAR

The Contemplation of Peace, Justice and Humanity

3 A class &

Zorislav Jelenčić, teacherMarko Marulić Secondary School

Slatina, Croatia

1

Zorislav Jelenčić

Impossible Moral Choices

This collection of stories (the subtitle The Contemplation of Peace, Justice and Humanity was

added subsequently) is a result of specific situations and circumstances in which the outcome of the

previous actions and happenings determined the following actions; however, they could not in any

way have been predicted in advance.

Our school (Marko Marulić Secondary School in Slatina) is taking part in the Croatian National

Curriculum for Human Rights and Democratic Citizenship Education within the module called

“Human Values and Exploring Humanitarian Law.” The aim of this educational programme module

is to help young people adopt the value of humanity in everyday life and make them capable of

respecting human life and dignity. Ten topics regarding such issues are included in school lessons in

order to actualise this programme. All activities were coordinatied by Mrs. Ljerka Čačić, Cratian

Red Cross.

The programme (the module) is being carried out by my colleague, Religious Education teacher

Patricija Brdar, and me, a teacher of Ethics in a third year class of comprehensive school (for this

project the two usually separate groups, 25 pupils attending the Religious Education and 8 pupils

attending Ethics class, were merged into one group). The class is ethnically and religiously

integrated (there are Croats, Serbs, Roman Catholics, Serbian Orthodox, Protestants and the

religiously uncommitted). There are 19 girls and 14 boys in the class, all of them soon to be coming

of age (born in 1991 or 1992). Most of them (22 of them) live in the town, while 11 of them live in

the surrounding boroughs and villages. Their social status is hard to determine – 30 of them are

connected to the Internet. The consequences of war are still strongly felt in this whole area – during

or after the war in Croatia a part of the population of Serbian ethnicity fled and Croats from

Kosovo, Vojvodina and Bosnia and Herzegovina settled in Croatia (they swapped houses). After

they had been privatised nearly all the businesses in Slatina shut down and a great number of people

were left unemployed.

When this programme was presented the first reactions were as expected: the people said things like

“there are no rules in war” or “they attacked us, it’s their fault.” As the programme went on, their

attitudes began to change. After having been acquainted with the basic rules of the International

Humanitarian Law, the pupils were given the following task as their homework:

2

Scenarios: No Prisoners and POW Column

Write the scenarios using the given elements and/or adding some others

Scenario No.1 – No Prisoners

Just before setting out to action, your platoon receives an order – Take no prisoners!

The possible prisoners:

- one of the prisoners is your brother or a cousin

- one of the prisoners killed your friend or a family member

- one of the prisoners went to school with you

- …

Your decision is affected by the following:

a) you are acquainted with the International Humanitarian Law

b) you are not acquainted with the International Humanitarian Law

c) a and/or b do not matter

What are you going to do?

1. follow the order (kill all of them, or some of them)

2. disarm them and let them go (all or some of them)

3. take them prisoner despite the order (all or some of them)

4. …

What are your motives for acting that way?

What are the possible consequences of your choice (consequences for you, the prisoners and the

platoon)?

How is the way you acted going to affect the future events? Why?

Scenario No.2 – POW Column

A column of POWs is passing through your town. Some of them are starving, thirsty, frozen,

exhausted, ill, wounded… They can be the same people as in Scenario No.1.

How are you going to act?

What are your motives for acting that way?

How could your act affect

a) you and your family

b) the prisoners

c) the locals

d) the guards

How is the way you acted going to affect the future events? Why?

Mail your scenario(s) to zorislav.jelencic@gmail.com

3

I received about fifteen quite fair scenarios that I then commented upon and gave my pupils some

technical advice on how to make their scenarios better (for instance, explicate why someone in the

scenario does what he/she does).

Although most of these texts do not meet the basic literary criteria, the moral views expressed in the

texts are what matters here. The case in these scenarios was set so that the pupils had to make a

moral choice. Any choice, even the decision not to do anything, leads to some consequences. The

cases are drastic, but possible to happen. These texts show pupils’ present-day moral views.

The results of these texts were at first surprising: female pupils did their task ‘by the book’, while

male pupils got more ‘into the story’ and the character motivation in male stories is fairly more

convincing. The reason for this may be that the task that was set before them was wrong or biased

in favour of male way of thinking or the views of these young men and women differ from one

another more than we could suspect.

The first scenario No Prisoners, if taken literally, is a paradigmatic macho theme. The girls mostly

evade that scenario and some who decide on it write in male (?!) genus1. The girls leave war to the

boys. But is it just war or is there something more? The scenario need not be taken literally. There

are plenty of analogous situations, for instance when the board of directors of some firm want that

the manager fires some of the employees. So, these are the issues of power and ‘authority’,

structural or individual violence… Can we stand up to that in our everyday life? Do we want to

stand up to it? What are the consequences?

The second scenario POW Column is more of a female theme. It brings out compassion, but there is

still a lack of motivation. In the texts we can feel helplessness and confusion, and the situation

described seems rather fatalistic, as if it were a natural disaster. Some everyday situations are

analogous to that: workers made redundant, or the poor in our town, country and the world, or the

pupils who do not go to a school trip because they cannot afford it. Is there something we can do to

help? Is that our responsibility? Do we actually want to bother ourselves with such issues?

Our aim is to make people give it some thought.

1 The Croatian language makes difference between masculine, feminine and neutral genera.

4

The Reader for Peer Education

The aim of these Stories was not to impress our views, however we may deem them right, upon the

young people, but to make them reconsider their own views. Young people are rather sceptical

towards the adults’ preaching – they are much more likely to accept the topics and dilemmas raised

by their peers, which is reflected in the popularity of Internet blogs and social networks such as

Facebook. The Stories were written by adolescents in a language that is specific for their generation

and contains allusions and associations that presumably can be understood by their peers, but may

not be comprehensible to older generations.

The value of the Stories lies in pupils’ emotional engagement and the seriousness with which they

imagined themselves in the supposed situations. This is important since it is not enough just to

know the right from wrong to be able to exercise moral behaviour in practice.

The Stories are unbalanced – depending on the age, intellectual or moral development of the pupils

we can pick a story to introduce some moral issue. The Reader should not, therefore, be read

linearly, it is not necessary to read all the stories – we can choose them depending on the subject

matter. The questions that follow each story are there to help discuss their meaning – these stories

can raise other issues also, which produces further interaction between the author and those who

read the story (work in progress).

5

Aleksandar Živković

One of Those Days

The sound of sirens woke me up once again like infinite number of times since this idiotic war had started. I woke up my wife and children to take them to the basement so that they could be safe in case something happened. And while we were sitting there my son came to me and told me that a huge number of frozen, exhausted soldiers who were taken prisoner were walking in front of our house. I walked silently to a little window that was our only contact with the outside world while were in the basement, and I really saw about ten soldiers and a captain who was guiding tied up soldiers.

The captain must have been very proud to have captured such a great number of enemy soldiers. After I took a better look at those soldiers I noticed that I knew most of them. Something strange happened inside of me and I decided to help them. I went out and only then I realised that I could easily end up like them. Luckily the captain was a kind, humanistic person who, I think, didn't really know why he was in the army instead of working in some institute. He promised me to bring the prisoners fresh water and something to eat. I called my wife and we helped them to get a little bit of energy back. A few neighbours joined us too. The captain was somewhat astonished that we were caring so much about those people because there were a huge number of different races, nationalities and religions. And suddenly in that crowd I noticed my old friend Sergej with whom I spent half of my life. I couldn’t recognize him easily because his face was very much disfigured with a great number of scars. We looked at each other with tears in our eyes because we both knew what awaited him. The captain saw us, came to us and whisperingly offered that we take Sergej with us. We were first shocked but then accepted the offer. The captain and soldiers left after half an hour but Sergej stayed with us. We went back into the basement and talked the whole night with Sergej. He stayed with us until the end of the war because we knew that anyone could kill him if he saw him.

The war ended after a year. After a while we found out that the group of soldiers was killed just a few minutes after entering the base and only then we realised in how much danger the captain was when he decided to let Sergej go. After that Sergej returned home and we began living normally again. My wife couldn't understand how I dared to stop that column because the risk that I would get killed too was great. Honestly, I doubt that I would do such thing again but in that moment it was all going on like in a theatre and I was just a puppet executing someone else’s orders. I felt a strange energy that flew throughout my body that was there with just one aim, to help those people. I think it was all written down in a book that is called ″The Duty of Destiny″ and, like I said, I was just a puppet.

6

Questions to think about:

1. What is your first association when you hear the word war?2. Do you think all wars are idiotic? Why?3. How do extraordinary circumstances, like war, change the meaning of admissible

behaviour?4. What is the captain like?5. What are our criteria before we decide to help someone?6. Why do we rather help known people?7. How can pity be reflected on our behaviour?8. How do we explain for the fact that we didn't help someone?9. Who are the people that control our destiny?

7

Aleksandar Živković

Division Bell

I woke up like every morning at 6:00 a.m. and woke everybody else up screaming because someone had left his towel on my suit, which I wore every day for 6 months, and it was all crumpled. But this morning was unusual, I knew something strange would happen, and so it did. Our door opened with a slam and there was our captain standing and shouting at us: WE’RE TAKING NO PRISONERS. We were a little bit shocked but nobody asked us how we felt, they don’t do that during the war.I must admit that it was not easy for any of us to kill someone just like that, because we were not soldiers, each one of us had had his normal, familial life from which he was ripped out and thrown into this meaningless war that had just one point: to destroy people’s homes, relationships, lives and families. And for this war I blame mostly the people on the leading positions in every country that takes part in it... cruel, inhuman swine... I'll better save my words.

And so we came to a little town called Novotrpimirogradovsk and started doing our job. Most of the people had already left the town but there were some stupid old inhabitants that just wouldn’t listen. We took them out and aligned in front of an old wall on which there were written some graffiti like ″Together we stand, divided we fall″, was that irony or what? I decided to walk one more time trough the lines to see if everything was okay and then I noticed him, his name was Adolf or something like that and old friend from school. A thought that I could maybe rescue him and pretend later that he ran away or something like that went through my mind, but in that moment I remembered a few things. He was the one that always humiliated me in front of my friends and he was the idiot that took my biggest love in high school. I just couldn't forget those things. I closed my eyes and ordered the snipers to fire. And they did. It was done in less than a second and I could finally forget some painful memories. At least I thought so. After that our mission was completed and we returned to our base to wait for more instructions. The war ended after six more months and of course, we were defeated. I returned home and the first thing that I did was to turn on the radio and I heard a well known song by CCR - Proud Mary. That was the beginning of the end for me. I realised that I had nothing, all my friends had fled during the war, my parents died long time ago, I never had a wife and children and my dog died of hunger because nobody was here to feed him. That started to take over my mind step by step, day by day. I couldn't sleep anymore, and even when I caught a minute of sleep I dreamed of Adolf and all the time I was asking myself: ″What would be if I had not killed him? Maybe I would have someone to talk to.″ At that time my life was looking like a video clip to a Pink Floyd song. After another two weeks I just couldn't take it any longer. I decided to end this pain and my own life together with the pain. I took a rope from the basement and chose a tree that was going on my nerves for my whole life...irony...again. And there I was - standing on a bough and breathing oxygen for the last time. With a slight move my body I fell down from the bough but I never touched the ground again.

8

Questions to think about:

1. How did the author get into this situation?2. What does he think about the people on the country’s leading positions?3. What is the irony in the graffiti?4. What was his relationship with Adolf like before?5. How did the author hide his revenge?6. How can an unsolved problem from the past influence somebody’s behaviour in the present?7. What do we feel when someone who we hate or has done something horrible to us gets hurt?8. How do we face negative memories?9. In which way can a feeling of guilt be neutralized or tendered?10. Why doesn’t revenge bring peace of mind?

9

Andrea Bogić

They Ordered Me

It happened one cold winter. I was standing outside and waiting for the order to start the action. Just before that, my troops received the order: No prisoners. Therefore, the main question was whether to release or kill them. As a sergeant of unit J610 I had the right to decide what action to take. Although I was familiar with the international humanitarian law I could not overlook the fact that one of the prisoners killed my friend, cold-bloodedly and without any particular reason. But war doesn’t seek for reasons. As they say, in the war everything is allowed. My decision started to be more and more personal, but it should not have been that way. I felt an urge for revenge and I thought that it could be solved only with murder. I decided to kill. I decided to be the same as he was. I called one soldier and sent him over to the prisoners. When they came, I was surprised. All of them were young boys, almost children. But anyway I could not stop thinking that one of them had killed a person who was a part of my life. I asked for him. They showed me a young boy. I stood in front of him. He was crying. We stood in silence for a while. I watched him with disgust. ''They ordered me to do that'' he said ''I did not want, but they said they would kill me.'' I looked at him. I called one soldier. I told him he could release them. And the war still lasted...

10

Questions to think about:

1. Why the author writes in male genus?2. How do women perceive the war as distinguished from men?3. How does the knowledge of or unfamiliarity with law affect one's behaviour?4. Who has the right to forgive a crime?5. How does committing a crime with impunity reflect on the future behaviour?6. When is amnesty justified?7. How people try to justify their crimes?8. In which cases are we not to adhere to an order from a higher instance?

11

Mihaela Krznarić

Reckless Act

We were waiting for them because they were supposed to pass through our town. I was afraid of the arrival and appearance of those prisoners.When I think about war a horrible feeling passes through my whole body. When I found out that a friend of mine, with whom I shared both sadness and happiness for so many times, was in that column, I felt even worse. I decided that I had to do something to help him.As the time of their arrival was drawing near, I was more and more unsure about my act, but I wanted to give it a try. I knew that I couldn’t do it on my own and that I needed somebody to help me. I did not think about consequences, I just wanted him to be saved. I revealed my secret plan to my friends and they told me that it was very hard to do. They told me that I do not understand the difficulty of it and that it would be better to give up because I didn’t know how heavily guarded that columns were. I did not want to give up, so they decided to help me after all. They were aware of the consequences of their act and they knew that they might lose their lives because of that. Nevertheless they decided to help me because he was their friend too. At the end of our village there was an old building by which they should pass. I was supposed to tell him to sneak out of the column and that there were two young men waiting for him. I though I would succeed in my intention. As they were coming towards us so hungry and thirsty I was looking for him. I must admit that I hardly recognized him so battered and dispirited. The columns were heavily guarded. Some of prisoners were not even allowed to take some water. Only few of them succeeded in doing it. I approached my friend with a bottle of water and tried to tell him my plan, but a soldier pushed me away and, enraged, he killed my friend in front of my eyes. There were no consequences for me except for the sorrow and anger within me as I watched my friend die. If I did not try to help him perhaps he would still be alive, but who knows??? God knows. My act was reckless, but my intention was only to help him.

12

Questions to think about:

1. What is the motive for Mihaela’s act? 2. Why did the young men help Michaela? 3. How do intentions as distinguished from consequences affect the assessment of some act?4. In what situations can we not predict the consequences of an act? 5. What does the proverb ‘the path to hell is paved with good intentions’ mean?6. How Michaela assesses the circumstances? 7. How does the assessment of circumstances affect the consequences of an act? 8. How does Mihaela’s assessment of circumstances affect the outcome of the story?9. How to assess an act that has good consequences, although it was done for the wrong reasons?10. Does an excuse that we didn’t do something on purpose justify us? Why?

13

Vedran Veger

The Road

I was standing on an empty road, gloomy, still wet from the rain that had fallen. I could still feel humidity in the air that was pinching my cheeks. On one end the sun was starting to make its appearance. On the other end it was still dark, it wasn’t possible to see into the distance because of it. I was facing the sunlight and it made me warm. The pleasant warmth pulled me closer. Suddenly, I felt a cold wind blowing from the other end of the road. I got terribly cold and started shaking. I stood there frozen waiting for the sun to warm me up. Suddenly, I heard an awful scream which shook me. I turned around towards the darkness and I saw strangely shaped shadows. I could hear men, women and children screaming. There were too many of them...

I opened my eyes and found myself lying in cold sweat. I rolled over in my bed to look at the time. It was 5:37 AM. I have slept for about 4 hours, and that was a good thing considering how little sleep I have had over the last few days. I got out of bed, did everything that needed to be done and sat on my chair waiting for the clock to strike 7 so I could go outside. That waiting wasn't a big deal anymore; I've learned how to shut my mind off. I looked at the time, it was 7:08. I stood up and took my bag in which I carry books for the class and my scripts for English lessons. It has been long since I last thought about the fact that there are less and less children in my classroom every day. I don't even think about the fact that every time I wake up I search for the excuse to live. Sticking to a routine helps me. I took my things and left the apartment. It was a cloudy and grim day, with no sun, the temperature was around 10 degrees and by the look of the clouds it seemed as it was going to start raining any minute. The streets were empty; you could see a person here and there hurrying to get somewhere. I could see something in the distance, shadows that were coming towards me. I noticed people closing their windows, drawing the curtains and bolting their doors. It made me clear who was coming. I entered a gift shop that was on the same street. I waited there for everything to end. After less than a minute the despair was in the air, you could hear women screaming, children crying and men shouting, asking for help, to give them water, to give them food, anything… to end their misery. The shop owner found an excuse to go to the back room so he wouldn’t have to look at the horror that was passing by. There were about 15 of them. It seemed to me there were more men. Two or three children were carried by their mothers.You could see on their faces that they were exhausted, hear the despair in their voices and cries for help in their eyes. I’ve seen these scenes many times before, and every time it hit me in a different way, but this time I’ve seen something that made me react. I’ve told you that I noticed more men, and I recognized one of them. He had the posture that I’ve seen many times on a school hallway, eyes that were looking at me while I was telling them about tenses and the voice that would ask me not to give him the grade he didn’t want to get. He was one of my students whom I saw sitting in my classroom not so long ago. And that was it. The moment I saw him pushed me over the edge and I jumped and started falling down. I ran outside and went to one of the soldiers. I asked him where were they taking them. He looked at me confused; he probably didn’t even understand me. I went to the other, and the same thing happened. I went to the third one, he didn’t understand me either. The fourth one told me something that I understood as they didn’t belong there and that they would soon find out where their place really was. I didn’t even want to think about what he meant by that. I turned to my student, he was looking at me. In his eyes I saw tears and fear, despair and rage that symbolized him completely. I asked the soldiers if they realized that these were minors, women, elderly. The fourth soldier looked at me confused and said something that sounded like…it’s their own fault. It’s their own fault?! How can a child in his mother’s arms be guilty of anything? How can a 17-year-old be guilty and be taken out of his homeland.

I approached him and hugged him. The soldiers ran to me and they punched me in the head so I fell to the ground. The rain finally started falling. My head started bleeding. I stood up again and looked at him and tried to approach him when I heard a loud shot and felt the pain that instantly went through my body. I felt the blood running down my back and I fell on my knees. The student

14

was forced to continue walking, towards his destiny of which he was not asked. I saw tears in his eyes, and in the eyes of other people that looked at my body falling onto the road. Then the retailer from the gift shop ran to me and rolled me over. I could see that he was bewildered. Then I found myself standing on that road again, the one that I was standing on last night in my dream. It was the same as I left it. Wet from the rain, dark on one side with sun starting to shine on the other. I stood in the middle and again started to go towards the light. I turned around. In the dark I could see those shadows again, creatures whose screams had left me completely paralyzed. Now they were quiet. They only stood there. I turned again towards the sun and started walking, with a drop of fear that that the wind would start blowing again. But it didn’t. I just kept walking.

Questions to consider:

1. Why can't Vedran sleep?2. Why does Vedran stick to his routine?3. How can routine help us in our lives?4. Why did Vedran stop thinking?5. Why do people shut down?6. How can being exposed to suffering of others affect the bystanders?7. Why is it important to just keep walking when the going gets rough?

15

16