The following text reached me today from composer
and radio-artist Ivana Stefanovic under the title
"Letter from Amsterdam"


A Bridge Too Farby Dragan Klaic

The Petrovaradin bridge was  destroyed this morning at 5 am. My wife woke
meup with the news she just  heard on the BBC radio. I thought it was
thenewer railway/highway bridge but  when I finally succeeded to phone to
NoviSad in the evening, I heard it was  the old metal bridge connecting
thecenter with Petrovaradin and the old  fortress above, on the other side
ofDanube. Why that bridge? It was build in  haste in the winter of 1944-45
bythe German POWs under the supervision of  the Red Army engineers and
arailway line was added to renew the connection  with Belgrade, 80 km
south.So in my childhood, with each train passing the  ramp would go down
and thetraffic would pile up on both sides. It wasn't  that much traffic.
Iremember the uneasiness I felt every time crossing the  bridge even in
theday time: the wooden planks of the side board got lose and  rotten and
onecould see the water underneath. I feared I'll step in the void  and
evensink into Danube, little as I was. In the early sixties, a new  bridge
wasbuilt 2 km down the river and the railway track was displaced too.  The
oldbridge got a face lift and served all these years as a busy  connection,
away to enter straight into the center of Novi Sad from the Srem  side.
Inthe years before I had a  driver's license I was crossing it  often
on footin the sunset, going to the fortress for a stroll or to some of  the
inns onthe Petrovaradin side with wild Gypsy music -  only to  return
in the smallhours, admiring the dawn above the city.Ugly as  it was, this
bridge was part of my childhood and adolescence.The consequence  of the
bombing is that windows are broken in that part oftown and   there is
no running water around, even the large hospital on thenearby hills  of
Fruska  Gora, some 900 beds, is without water. This is notmaking the
awful lot of Kosovo Albanians easier. It is not  prompting
thebrave  Novi Sad citizens to start an uprising against Milosevic. Of
coursenot, Milosevic is stronger than ever and as popular as he was in
1988-89.Moreover, many  decent Serbs will hate NATO, W. Europe, USA
for  the next 50years and the self-destructive, obsessive ideology of
Serbian  nationalismhas been fed richly by this past week's attacks and has
seen all  itsfavorite myths reinforced with new arguments and
examples.  If only  NATObombed Milosevic's fleet in the Adriatic in
September 1991 when it  startedpounding Dubrovnik, well before Vukovar and
the horrors of Bosnia  &Herzegovina, the ongoing Balkan war could have been
stopped at an  earlystage. If only  a fraction of 1% of what NATO is
spending in this  campaignnow has been spent instead to  support the
emerging forces of  the civilsociety and the independent media  Serbia
would have a  different future.A military escalation wont halt the ethnic
cleansing in  Kosovo nor speed upthe return of the refugees. This senseless
violence  should  stop at once.The politicians and generals have
committed   great errors in judgment. Theyshould call further bombings
off and step  aside for a while. How about aconference with 50 Balkan
scholars from the  Western and Eastern  Europegetting together and
using their collective  knowledge to envisage some sortof future without
war and terror, to restart  a dialogue. The politicianscan in the meantime
vote budgets for the  humanitarian aid much needed inthe region and entrust
the generals to  implement it. We know how good theycan be at it.Dragan
KlaicDr D Klaic is Professor of University of Amsterdam and  Director of
TheaterInstituut Nederland. e mail: dragank@xxxxxx

Heidi Grundmann
Wiedner Hauptstrasse 37/69
A 1040 Vienna
Tel: ++43 1 5043110
Fax: ++431 5044849

http://thing.at/orfkunstradio



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