Duraković: Every military parade is an omen to me!

By: Academician Esad Duraković/Depo

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A person has a pronounced tendency to bring joy in its bloom – in the state when it becomes so ripe and overripe that it must be presented to others – to bring such joy into a monstrous relationship with the ugly and destructive, with the murderous. Moreover, people display such joys as the greatest celebrations, often unaware of the incurable perversion in which destruction and killing are disguised as friendships, as celebrations.

When statesmen visit each other – and they represent entire nations at such times – they arrange a review of an armed and militarily lined-up honor guard for each other as the greatest honor. There are rifles, sabers, perfectly trained military movements in uniforms, because the best soldiers must be in that guard.

We all admire this ceremonial perversion, this frightening pose of martial training and armament at the moment our highest representatives meet. It is a message deeply threatening and ominous in its essence and in our subconscious... And then it is not surprising that the history of the human race is actually the history of wars and that humanity celebrates its greatest historical conquerors, enslavers of other peoples and cultures, as its most successful greats.

Let's imagine what we would express if, at such a ceremonial welcome, we only performed the anthem with a peaceful text and melodious music, with the condition that it is not performed by a military orchestra, because that is essentially the spirit of warfare. Or – if a welcome of the highest order was expressed with some other wonderful song, poetry, dance… That would be without those deeply deceptive, even warlike connotations.

After a long time, in the late stage of life, I managed to see through the monstrosity of these parades, despite the red carpet, shiny weapons, and impeccable uniforms.

I managed to despise it too.

Every such masked celebration is an omen to me. Life and history have taught me this for a long time.