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PARTISAN REVIEW
the instinct of destruction or self-destruction, merely as such it exists,
and it only exists until it completes its mission of total destruction.
Yes, Bosnia is a land of hatred. That's Bosnia. And by an odd con–
trast, that isn't really that odd, and could perhaps by careful analysis be
easily explained, it could also be said that there are few countries with
such firm belief, elevated strength of character,
so
much gentleness and
loving ardor, such depth of feeling, devotion and steady loyalty, such
thirst for justice. But in unseen depths beneath all this hide burning
hatreds, entire hurricanes of tethered and compressed hatreds, maturing
and waiting their turn. Between your loves and your hatred the rela–
tionship is the same as between your high mountains and the thousand
times larger and invisible geological layers on which they rest. And so,
you are condemned to live on deep layers of explosives which ignite
from time to time precisely by the sparks of those loves of yours and
your fiery and violent emotions. Perhaps your greatest misfortune lies in
the fact that you do not even suspect how much hatred there is in your
loves and your passions, traditions and pieties. And just as the soil on
which we live, under the influence of the atmospheric humidity and
warmth, passes into our bodies and gives them color and appearance,
and decides on the character and direction of our way of life and behav–
ior-in the same manner the immense, underground, and invisible
hatred on which the Bosnian man lives, enters unnoticed and in a
roundabout way into all of his, even the best, acts. Vices give birth to
hatred all over the world, because they spend and do not create, destroy
and do not build, but in countries such as Bosnia, even the virtues often
speak and act through hatred. With you, ascetics derive no love from
their asceticism, but hatred for the voluptuary instead; the sober hate
those who drink, and a killing-hatred towards the entire world appears
in the drunkards . Those who believe and love, hate to death those who
do not believe or those who believe differently and love other things.
And, unfortunately, often the principal part of their belief and their love
is consumed in that hatred. (The most evil and sinister faces can be seen
in greatest numbers at places of worship-monasteries and dervish
tekkes.) Those who oppress and exploit the economically weaker, bring
into it the hatred, which makes the exploitation a hundred times harder
and uglier, and those who suffer injustices dream of justice and revenge,
but as some revengeful explosion which, if it were to come true accord–
ing to their plan, would have to be of such shape and magnitude it
would blow to pieces the oppressed along with the hated oppressor. You
Bosnians have, for the most part, got used to keeping all the strength of
hatred for that which is closest to you. Your holy of holies is, as a rule,
