The train was approachingits destination. I
was standing near a window in that train and staring outside. My heart
was jumping inside of me not following its normal rhythm. I had not been
here for long five years. I leaned to the window, trying to see every little
detail out there. I saw green grass. The mountains were covered with
a green carpet. Then there were trees on the green grass. The trees were
dead. They were completely dead. Their branches were burned down. The lifeless
trees were black burned with fire. They reminded me of dead people.
Life and death were coexisting here at the same time, at the same spot. "At the heart of all beauty
lies something inhuman and these hills, the softness of the sky, the outline
of these trees at this very minute lose the illusory meaning with which
we had clothed them, henceforth more remote than a lost paradise that denseness
and that strangeness of the world is absurd."
That’s what I saw on my way home. My heart was aching. Was it really true?
My country used to be so beautiful. Now I could see the footprints of
death here. I remembered the times before the war: my high school years,
happy people, everything used to be so different. I remembered our President
saying that there was some danger for our young country.
President Djohar Dudaev was right. I wish he were not. I ask one question over
and over. Why do people do such things to each other? The history of mankind
is full of injustice, violence and wars. Mankind has changed and this is a different century. We are not savages anymore; we know what is wrong and what is right. We are seeking to have moral states that care about
people and their rights. We read about the Holocaust and condemn those
that were so violent. Isn’t history for us to learn about our past
and not to make mistakes that our ancestors made? I wish it were so. Maybe we need a history
so that we could talk about those that were violent, so that we could
say it was in the past and it is not true anymore? History happens every
day, we make that history and we can change it.
However nothing is changing. I have been observing the election campaign
of the Russian president. It was clear from the very beginning that he
would be the one to be elected. His image-makers have done a good job.
"He is the savior of the country and he is going to put things into a good
order." A savior? What he has saved the country from? Has he saved the country
at all? Did he have a saving economic program for the economically suffering
country? All I saw on the TV screen was that he was trying all kinds
of transportation. It sounds like a great economic program for the future of the country!
Let me take a different angle of it. Russia says that Chechnya is a
part of it and it is its own internal affair. Let’s say it is so. Then
how come it is killing its own people and destroying part of its own country?
I find it hard to comprehend. They found the way to justify themselves
blaming Chechnians for bomb blasts of few buildings in Russia. It has not been
proven. In 1939 Russia bombed its own army and blamed Finland for it and started the Winter war.
Let’s suppose Chechnians did it. Then is it right to start the war against
the whole country because of few criminals? Spain is not bombing the part
of the country where Basques live. They do consider them to be of
their own. If Russia would consider Chechnians to be of its country, it would not treat
them the way they are doing. In every little village that they conquer,
they put their flag on the highest building. I can recognize that handwriting.
In fact, all occupants do the same thing. The world has not changed; we
have not learned from the history.
"There is no place for us in the big politics. No one is going to sour
their relationships because of us." That’s what one of the Chechnian politicians
said to me. The powerful ones of this world play the big
politics. They do not mess up with unimportant ones. Does it mean that
we unimportant ones have no rights at all? It looks like that. I
cannot take it. I believed into a different world. Where is morality that
we talk about so much? I guess no one really cares about it.
I do not want this to be just my personal issue. There is the war going
on in my home country. But it is not going to be the last country to be
involved in to a war. Although I would wish it would be so. Is the world
going to be silent again? Why are people being so cynical? Why we fail
to intervene at the time of persecution? The same scenario is repeating
over and over in the human history. At the moment of the history, when
that evil is happening, we fail to stop it.
There a picture in front of me. A little boy without either of his legs,
his eyes are sad and he is silent. What he can say? Should he say: "I’m
almost dead?" We see those bloody pictures on TV and they call us to act.
I wish the powerful ones could act. They are silent. Is seems God is silent.
All I can say is SAVE MY COUNTRY and SAVE THE WORLD from its silence against injustice.
I was going away again. I could see the heavy steps of another war.
It had been waiting for another chance and now it was here again. I said
goodbye to my grandmother, to my home, to my country. I looked into the
eyes of my grandmother filled with tears. I could not turn back. I wish
I could not feel anything. The train took off.
