SORDID LEGACY

I look at this people and wonder how stupid humans can get. I see these people going to cheap-stinking restaurants, eating and drinking cheap and lot. They get drunk and sing silly turbo-folk songs, amongst which are songs of struggle for justice and freedom from the Ottoman Empire or so. Yes, they sing of justice and freedom from an imaginary oppressor in the evening and kneel and act disgracefully before the rulers they elected themselves in the morning. They are taught to hate their fellow citizens because they speak different language and believe in slightly different gods, but they will be slaves to those of their tribe, and will sleazily obey anything they say, and will try to do even more to entertain the party leader.

To kneel is not enough! Kiss the dirt before the feet of the party leader! Lick his shoes! Eat the dirt!

I look at these impoverished and deluded people, many of them confused and scared. I hear them chanting to the leader, while he walks between the ridiculous and kitschy monuments of his vanity and fabricated history. Their minds are empty; brains washed; their stomachs are empty, only hearts are filled with stage-managed emotions. Sandwiches and Rakia is made available during the bus tour of party supporters, to fill the city squares and leave an impression that the leader is great.

These poor people support their leaders who rob them in the most unscrupulous way. These poor people believe that - by supporting these thieves today - secure a better future for their sons and daughters tomorrow. Unaware they seem to be that their sons and daughters will have to pay the terrible financial and moral debts for a long time into the future. Their daughters are going to walk the streets for money. Their sons will look to the west, seeking for a decent life, ashamed of the sordid legacy that their parents left behind.

txt&photo: Xhabir M. Deralla