There’s no escaping binaries these days. Every conceivable detail of modern life seems to be reduced to digital 1s and 0s. As computing technology encroaches ever further, it makes resisting binaries seem harder than ever. In/Out, Left/Right, Same/Different, Them/Us. (more…)
I have stood at the very spot where Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie were shot by Gavrilo Princip 100 years ago. And the impossible “What If” question occurred to me even then. So when I noticed that eminent historian Ned Lebow had published an examination of the issue, I leapt at it. The assassination was such a fluke, so preventable, so absurd that the yearning for a different outcome of that moment is great. As he says at the start (having summarised some of the counterfactual options),
None of these what-ifs strains our understanding of the world because most royal processions do not stray from their intended routes, and most security details would have rushed the archduke and his wife to safety at the first signs of violence. In this instance, the so-called factual, not the counterfactual, is what strikes us as unrealistic and incredible. (p16) (more…)
Without a doubt, the greatest privilege of working for Langham Partnership is the opportunity to make friends all over the place, especially when one returns to specific places over time. This is certainly the case with a number in the Balkans, of whom Slavko has become the closest. He has been to stay with us in London on numerous occasions (including with his family), and I’ve been able to spend time with them over there. (more…)
There is a clear counter-argument for every point I want to make here. In fact, I sort of agree with every counter-argument myself. But I feel the need to make them nevertheless. For my hunch is that one of the key factors in ministerial burnout is that we are far more influenced by post-enlightenment modernism than by the values of the Kingdom. It shouldn’t come as any surprise – we’re always more insidiously affected by our culture than we appreciate. It’s just so sad how little we face the problem. (more…)
I don’t cry in movies. Sometimes I’d quite like to. But that’s a different story. I just don’t. Usually. But one of the greatest films of recent years (and that is no hyperbole) made me weep: The Lives of Others. The scene in question is one that affected many other friends similarly. It is the moment when the Stasi agent, Gerd Wiesler, eavesdrops on the playwright Georg Dreyman playing a piano piece given to him by an old friend driven to suicide by being blackballed by the East German officialdom. (more…)
As a bit of change for the last night of the Bosnia conference here, I gave my seminar on U2. And as I was doing a bit of rejigging and final prep on it, I realised it was absolutely appropriate…
This rather unprepossessing, pock-marked (i.e. bullet-riddled) house was Sarajevo's lifeline during the 4 year siege in the mid-9os. I posted about that siege the last time I was here. Am here for the first ever Bosnian Langham Seminar (the preparations…
One edition of this book (more recent than the 1997 edition that I had pictured here) begins with a preface by someone who suggests (apparently) that it is impossible as an outsider really to understand or empathise with what happened…
Having painted something of an amateurish potted 20th Century history of Sarajevo, here is one story that gave me great hope. Last week, I was meeting in Sarajevo with a small group of pastors in Bosnia. It's estimated that there…
I fell in love with Sarajevo last week. But this was no rosy-tinted romance, no naïve foreigner's passion. Although, it's true - being a Balkans outsider means I will always be ignorant and unable fully to grasp its historical complexities.…