Notes From Prison, 1983 - 1988, by Alija Izetbegović (Alija Izatbegovic)

Notes From Prison, 1983 -1988
Alija Izetbegović
CONTENTS
• Preface
• Chapter 1 - On Life People and Freedom
• Chapter 2 - On Religion and Morality
• Chapter 3 - Political Notes
• Chapter 4 - Islam Between East and West
• Chapter 5 - Communism and Nazism
• Chapter 6 - Thoughts on Islam - Historical and Other Observations
• Appendix - From My Children's Letters
Note from Taskforce Ezania
Taskforce Ezania scanned the original book with the courtesy of Bakir Izetbegović.
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Due to the international character of our Taskforce and circumstances beyond our
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convinced that the thoughts in this book are of tremendous more importance as
some more or less irrelevant typos.
Without doubt shall any reader, very soon after starting to read, notice the
importance of Alija Izetbegović thoughts for the future of our Islamic Movement.
Allah gave our brother Alija Izetbegović a sharp mind and a warm hart for those
who care for Islam and thus for the well-being of what Allah has entrusted to
Man. May we soon meet.
Allah promised victory to the ummah of the prophet (saws);

Allah's Word is Truth.
Ezania Taskforce 1
11 Rabi-Awal 1427
Courtesy: Bakir Izetbegović

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On Life, People and Freedom
CHAPTER 1
When I lose the reasons to live, I shall die.
Life has a purpose in itself and on its own. It becomes visible once life has lost all
its outer sense: youth, beauty, health, freedom. We then see that the beauty of
life is not in these desirable yet impermanent values, but rather in life itself!
I have no hatred but I do have bitterness.
To despise death, often excessively praised, can be a consequence of the lack of

respect for life (or man). Hegel gives a very bad image of the Blacks, the Indians,
the Chinese. Thus, for example: "There is nothing in the nature of the Blacks to
resemble humanity. . . . Human worthlessness can reach incredible levels;
tyranny is not considered to be an injustice, and cannibalism is a widespread
permissible activity." Or: "China does not know the sense of honour... . Since
there is no honour the prevailing sense is that of servility, which transforms easily
into viciousness. Related to this viciousness is the immorality of the Chinese.
They are known to cheat wherever they can; a friend cheats on a friend and if
found out, it is not held against them.. . . Slyness and wiliness are the main
features of the Indian; submissively low and sly is he to the conqueror and the
master, and totally ruthless and cruel to the conquered and the submissive"
(Hegel, Philosophy of History). My comment: there is clear racism, or at least
Eurocentrism, in these statements. If a sense of morality were a privilege of only
some races or nations, it would no longer be what it really is. It is an individual
who is moral (or immoral), not a people, thus any generalization is unacceptable.
Two truths; a poet's and a scientist's. To a poet, stars are either twinkling and
sad, or they look at us from the skies and tell us about eternity; the moon is the
light of heaven and the lovers' friend; a brook murmurs and tells a story, an old
oak hides secrets; the skies smile or thunder with rage, and mountaintops reflect
in the big blue sky and tell of the eternity of nature and the transience of all
things human, etc. Science sees things quite differently. For science, nature is
detached and the universe is blank and everything in it is just a game of blind
and impersonal forces. The moon is a plain, cold planet that has been moving in
the dark of space for millions of years, with no known or comprehensible purpose.
We would learn so much about ourselves if we were able to say with certainty
which held more truth to us and which was closer: the untruth of the poet or the
truth of the scientist. This is, perhaps, where the answer is to who we are and
where we are from, in fact, the answer about our nature and our origin.
Funny is a sober man among drunks. For in the company of drunks, the drunks
are the majority and they set the standard of normality. In such company a sober
man seems abnormal.
When we say that the work of any true artist is essentially autobiographical, we
certainly do not mean that the adventures he leads his characters through are, in
fact, events from the writer's life. We simply mean that descriptions of inner lives,
dilemmas, suspicions, sufferings-especially the sufferings-are a description of
one's own life. For no one has ever described someone else's suffering, nor is it
possible to. The suffering any writer describes is his own, past or future, but his
Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 1 of 27

own, not someone else's. In that sense, every novel is autobiographical in its
essential part.
Only he who asks shall receive an answer.
There is a reason why I am enduring all this. The reason is just one, but
sufficient: I must.
Fasting has something truly human to it, taking the better sense of the word. It
cannot, of course, be analyzed, nor can it be proved, for it is a purely personal
experience. When I was in prison, in moments of the kind of depression that can
absorb a man in such a situation, I always felt worse if I ate well. Hunger always
helped me more than a wonderful parcel from home. For the worst combination is
an empty soul and a full stomach. Why is it so? Thoughts on this could contribute
to our understanding of the essence of a human being more than deep and
learned philosophical discussion on the topic.
However paradoxical it may sound, the invention of gunpowder enhanced the rule
of the spirit over naked physical force. It provided an opportunity for the
physically weak, provided they had the spirit and the courage.
Advantages of freedom do not have to be proved by something outside freedom
itself. It is its own underwriter.
There are signs of upheaval everywhere. It is a turmoil that reaches to the

bottom of our world, to its very foundations.
Heidegger and his philosophy of death are totally a part of the Christian world of
thought and emotion, as much as Marx and his optimistic philosophy of life
belong to the Jewish world of the Old Testament. Nominal alignments do not
mean much. Marx and Heidegger are like Moses and Jesus, the New and the Old
Testament, Judaism and Christianity. Marx's philosophy is shallow and optimistic;
Heidegger's is deep and pessimistic. True philosophy is only the one that takes
into account the fact of death. Otherwise, the question that always remains is
how can one speak truly of life, while avoiding the fact the truth of which is the
only one void of any doubt-the fact of death.
294. Two men are gambling on the sinking Titanic. One of them is cheating.
Many people resemble these two in real life.
304. When you are in prison, you have but one desire: freedom. If you fall ill in
prison, you do not think about freedom, you think about health. Health is,
therefore, more important than freedom.
325. I do not know if one can speak of a stupid peasant. Stupidity is far more
frequent with so-called intellectual imbeciles. That is the most repelling and the
most obvious form of stupidity. False erudition reveals rather than conceals
stupidity. In it, stupidity is at its most obvious. I have never found such stupidity
with peasants.
326. Excessive reading does not make us smarter. Some people simply
"devour" books. They do it without the necessary intervals of thought, which are
necessary in order to "digest," to process what has been read, to absorb and
comprehend it. When people of that kind speak, pieces of Hegel, Heidegger and
Marx come out raw, unprocessed. Reading requires personal contribution as much
as a bee requires "inner" work, as well as time, to transform pollen into honey.

328. Newton, Darwin and Freud introduced determinism into everything they
studied: the first into the universe, the second into the living world, and the third
into the psyche. All three types of determinism were to be questioned later, and
in the same sequence. It all started with Einstein's denial of Newton's universe.
355. In the world, things are in relations of mutual dependence rather than
those of cause and effect. Instead of observing them in a cause-and-effect
relationship, we should observe them in their correlation.
360. Their entire long story, with an abundance of words, is usually just a clear
sign that they have nothing to say.
366. Life is a game where nobody wins. . . except for those who believe and do
good deeds. . . (Qur'an, Surah "Al Asr").
377. Kundera' s Theresa (Unbearable Lightness of Being) felt nakedness as a

sign of the compulsory uniformity of a concentration camp, a sign of humiliation.
413. Is the world divided into good and evil, and is man thus halved? I think
that that is where lies the difference between a "romantic" and a "realist."
Romantics see the world as a battle arena between men, of whom some are good
and some are evil. Realists see the same battle, but primarily within man himself.
I think that the latter is closer to the truth.
417. In King Lear, Shakespeare shows that only when mad does Lear
understand life, and only when blind does Gloucester "see" life. The mind and
eyes often do not see. It is the soul that understands and sees.
418. There are places more desolate than cemeteries. People go there with
memories and emotions, they cry and lay flowers. So, let us not say: desolate as
a cemetery. The comparison is false.
423. If I cannot speak freely with a friend-and I obviously cannot, read my

judgment-if all privacy is denied, then it is a concentration camp. It is not just
ordinary violence; it is the total elimination of privacy, one of the features of a
concentration camp.
426. There is no proof of the existence of the soul, unless some of our questions
that have no answers reveal something like that. One of those questions is why
poetry tells about the human soul more than all the psychology of our time. Why
is it poets rather than psychologists uncover the soul, why Shakespeare, and not
Freud or Jung? Another question may be: why is it that the better off we are, the
more displeased we are? Or: Why is pessimistic philosophy born in regions of
affluence? Why is man negatively affected by comfort?
428. Look at a daring building: true, it is held together by adhesives or by steel

built into it, but the real truth is that it is held together by the thought inside its
basic balance and ratios.
457. As the case of Voltaire (and not just his case) shows, upbringing may
result in the unintended. Voltaire was brought up by Jesuits, and in him they bred
their fiercest enemy.

500. There are paradoxes. If there were no night, we would be deprived of the
magnificent image of a starry sky. Thus light deprives us of "vision," and
darkness helps us "see."
509. A word uncovers the truth; it can also be used to conceal it.
521. Imitation is the most obvious form of acceptance.
523. The deepest, most important question the human mind ever asked itself,
the most important question ever asked, is: Why does something exist, rather
than nothing? Or: why does something exist at all? For me, this is the
fundamental question of ontology.
533. Endless lies are possible on one and the same thing. The truth about it is
just one.
534. Life is a dangerous thing. Insecurity is the price of living. Only those who
died and those who will never be born are absolutely safe.
540. It was Plato who, long ago, found that it was impossible to discuss
anything before agreeing on the terminology, that is, on the meaning of notions
and names.
562. Existentialism is philosophy in its subject, and art in the means it uses to
resolve it.
563. All Heidegger's efforts, supported by incredible perseverance, knowledge

and passion, to build a "philosophy of existence," by his own admission, ended in
failure.
578. "It is better to deal with an intelligent devil rather than a good-natured
fool," says a proverb. This is probably so because an intelligent rascal is guided
by interest, thus being, contrary to a good-natured fool, mainly predictable. You
know where you stand and what you can expect.
585. In moments of real tragedy, there is no place for acting or complacent

grief.
588. History sometimes makes fun of us and of our best intentions.
591. Ivo Andric was once asked what would have been his most important
message, if he had been asked to give just a very short one, and he said: "Do not
get drunk." He did believe that there were other evils, most of which would have
disappeared, though, if people stopped drinking. Still, the writer emphasized:
"When people speak about how damaging alcohol is, they give numerous
convincing examples. A doctor speaks about how damaging it is for health, a
social worker speaks about problems of alcoholics' families, divorces, unhappy
children and devastated homes, public officials speak about economic damages,
etc., but one reason, perhaps the most important one, is often left out: human
dignity. I would like to say to people: do not drink for your own sake, out of self-
respect, for your own dignity, do not humiliate yourselves." My comment:
That is, presumably, the reason how a ban on alcohol came to be the subject of a
religious ban. For religion may be indifferent towards this calculation of damages
and benefits, but it cannot remain indifferent towards violations of human dignity.

695. Between sorrow and indifference, I will choose sorrow.
696. Falsity is the only thing uglier than an ugly truth.
782. If I do not kill time, time will kill me.
790. Melancholy is a matter of the soul, not a matter of the psyche, and it was
thus always of more interest to philosophers and poets (as well as theologians)
rather than psychiatrists.
824. If there is anything that has charisma, it is suffering ("charisma of

suffering").
825. A man can flee the unpleasant present in two directions: into the past or
into the future. The choice depends on character and convictions. The so-called
dignified withdrawal from reality can be mere cowardice, capitulation in the face
of reality or a whining self-deception. It is hard to learn exactly which one of
these is valid for a particular case.
847. The matter is not only of dignity of life, but also of dignity of death. The
two are connected. Lack of respect for death is a consequence of the lack of
respect of life.
853. Our skill of life and our knowledge of life are two completely different
things. In a similar way, it is one thing to be an artist, to create, and our
knowledge of art, or our ignorance of it is something different, the latter being
more frequent and more true.
873. It is said that mathematics is a synthesis of rationality.
876. I am convinced that there are illnesses that stupid people cannot succumb
to. I think that if I tried, I could even list some of them.
878. What is the biggest question of honor? One thing above all: stay true to
yourself and your destiny.
879. How big is disappointment? As big as hope was. Big hopes create big
disappointments.
880. "Sad is this time of ours, when it is more difficult to break a bias than a
atom"-A. Einstein.
898. Prison allows for realizations that can be said to be "painfully

fundamental."
929. A true man speaks most harshly with those he loves or of things he cares
for the most.
966. Can life have a happy end? How do you imagine it? Doesn't every man
suffer losses? (Qur'an, Surah "Al Asr").
998. "For a man to be able to read a lot, he should be either very rich, or very
poor," said a famous film director. I would add: or a prisoner (in my case).

1010. During my time in prison, I never noticed a drop in my will to live, but I
often realized that I was finding relief in the fact that I was old enough to know
that death was not too far away. This thought brought me comfort. I treasured it
like a big secret.
1012. Realists object that what we say or think about man is excessive idealism
rather than the truth. Yes, it is possible that we do not speak of men, but rather
of our desires, not of what man is, but what he should be. That may be true. But,
despite all, this beautiful dream of what man is like is what makes us human. If
we ever cast away this idea as an illusion or a folly, in the name of "truth" or
"reality," everything that makes our life bearable will disappear and we will
become definitively prepared for all the evils and atrocities that humanity is prone
to. Unfortunately, many of them, initiated in the name of the "truth" that man
does not exist, are already implemented in large parts of our planet.
1049. A happy man does not have a life story. One may say: boring as a
biography of a happy man living in peaceful times. At least that is what it looks
like. And is it so? Is there a truly happy man? Is an average Swiss or an average
Swede truly happy today? Bauer and Ibsen tell us something about that.
1080. There are realizations that we cannot confirm in any other way but to go
through them ourselves. It takes hardship (and suffering) to reach that level, to
see and be assured. There is no other way.
1094. A man can be as old as an old shoe, or as old as an old town or at least as
an old, centennial oak tree. If he wants to, a man can grow old in this second
way. It requires spirit. And what is spirit? This question has almost no answer,
certainly not a direct one, but Socrates comes to my mind. This tragic Ancient
Greek scholar had an ugly face, an ugly face that was loved by all. Despite that,
he was a model of dignity and respect for those who knew him best, especially by
his students. Perhaps at least some part of the answer to the question: what is
human spirit, lies here.
1117. It is the kind of people, too wise and spiritual, who know how to rejoice
endlessly and how to suffer endlessly. Extremes are typical of this kind of people.
1122. Even the most profound, the most versatile wisdom a man may "know,"
feel or "live," once spoken, becomes a thought, is reduced to a thought. And a
thought is, by definition, one-sided. Those are the inevitable human limits, or the
limits of knowledge, information and human communication.
1123. A true poet, a true artist, is "engaged" even when he does not wish to be.
His art-if it is true-is always a testimony against lies. That is where the inevitable
engagement of artists lies.
1182. There are situations in a man's life when a mere thought of death can
awaken a desire and move the soul out of total numbness.
1187. This is how they praised old age (and I still do not know if they were right):
Plato: "Eyes of the spirit become discerning only when the eyes of the body start
to decline." Seneca: "The soul is flourishing and it is rejoicing the fact that it has
little to do with the body." Zuber: "Those who have long old age are as if purged
of the body." Tolstoy: "It is to the old that we owe the moral advancement of the

world." Vuando: "As much as the body reclines towards its fall, so much the soul
ascends to its peak," etc.
1193. In prison, man has a shortage of space and an excess of time.

Unfortunately, space and time cannot compensate here.
1232. Some people are alive merely biologically. Emotionally and psychologically
they are dead. To be alive means, first of all, to be alive in spirit.
1233. Despite numerous exaggerations, even nonsense, fashion has a good side
to it: it expresses the need of an individual to be individual, to be "different."
1235. In a certain way, a child is more human than an adult: it possesses the
most appealing and the most convincing features-spontaneity of will and
emotions. So, while growing up, man loses some of his "humanness," some of
what he brought with him from Paradise. By living, he moves further from its
source and that is why "every man suffers losses" (Qur'an). Is our life, just like
the "life" of nature, a continuous increase of entropy?
1257. I always wondered what was the difference between a story and a report of
an event. The content of the story is not just the event itself, the reality, but
rather the event as I experienced it. The story is not realistic, but it makes sense.
A report is just realistic, it makes no sense, it is a mere collection of facts,
whereas a story is an organized event. A story with no end is not a story, time in
it stops being an endless flow. In a story, time is somehow bordered. A story is
not the truth-it can be, but the truth impedes the story more than it helps it in
being a story.
1267. Neither is the irrational senseless, nor is the rational always sensible. It is
sometimes the other way round.
1275. Suffering cannot be avoided, but it may be complemented by ideas.
Everything that lives, suffers. But only men give ideas to suffering. That is the
difference.
1276. Any reasonable thinking naturally strives towards a system. It is its good
as well as its bad side.
1295. A true man carries out his human task, or exhausts himself trying to fulfill
it. That is the beginning and the end of what we call human. The task itself is
usually understood in an individual way. Religion and ethics are but attempts to
objectify this task, to determine it and make it less subjective. It is always
something outside mere biology. For, animals live, too. In order to be human,
man must possess something above biological life alone. The question is not how,
but why one lives.
1324. I have often boasted (to myself and others) that I am turned toward the
future rather than the past, and this has been true. I thought that this was a
particular virtue of mine. It was certainly useful, but it was not a virtue. Only
much later did I understand that it was an escape from the past and from bad
memories. It seemed to me at certain moments that there was nothing beautiful
in anything that I had gone through; it all seemed like an inferno that I was able
to rescue (have I?) my three children from.

1325. Kant claims that the laws of natural phenomena must a priori correspond
to reason and its forms, and its categories prescribe even the laws of phenomena,
thus also of the nature as the "synthesis of all phenomena." Reason is therefore
of a legislative nature. As there is obviously a correspondence between nature
and notions on subjects of experiences. How is this correspondence possible?
1329. (Politicians and thinkers): Whoever still remembers Baron Cedlic- whom
Kant addresses as a "humble and most obedient servant" (in the dedication of
Critique of Pure Reason)?
1332. It sometimes seems to me that for a man to endure the pressures of life,
he must descend to the ninth circle of the inferno. That means enduring the
unendurable and accepting the unacceptable. Accepting everything one fears,
absolutely everything. And just when it seems that all the troubles of this world
have already befallen him, that he has drank all the cups of bitterness except for
the most bitter one, it means to take that one and drink it all. There are people
who are said to have gone gray overnight. Are they the ones who descended to
the very bottom? And when they returned, all that was left of them was
something that can face the entire world, heaven and earth, and can look any
truth in the eye. Everything that could have happened did happen to them and
they have nothing left to fear, there is no fear left. They are the ones who are
prepared to live their life, no matter what it may be like, to endure with serenity
and dignity all the way to the end. And those who can endure life, can endure
death. For life is more difficult and more dangerous than death.
1356. Man is born in blood, pain and scream, the first thing heard is crying, the
birth is not exactly a natural act, it is painful, almost cruel. Does this not say
something about the very life that has just been created?
1388. It may sound awkward, but evil gives sense to our existence. If there is no
evil, there is no good. If there are no good and evil, everything is reduced to
mechanics, thus to non-existence (non-sense).
1395. I have sometimes doubted my faith. I wondered if it really existed. But one
thing was certain: I was already an old man, but I had no great fear of death. In
fact, I never thought I would really die. I was more absorbed by the fear of the
responsibility that awaited me. It was then that I understood that my faith was
stronger than I thought and that such an emotion could only have originated from
and been maintained by faith in God.
1407. I sometimes vividly remember my youth, the early youth when all the
illusions were there. Life that was to come would blow like the wind, shatter them
all and leave behind a wasteland. Still, not everything is gone, I have my
children. I am grateful to God.
1417. What we call good fortune is sometimes just concurrence of our personal
task and our historical one, of our biography and our history, our personal
aspirations and historical trends. Some find this "good fortune" in foregoing the
personal and accepting the historical imperative as one's own. If I look at things
that way, most of my life has been in collision with the historical one and
harmony began to appear only recently. It is a paradox that such good fortune is
happening at such a late stage of my life, the one I am spending here. I may also
say: I was born too early to be happy, I should have been born a little later.
However, birth is one of many things we do not choose. It is part of our destiny.

1431. I finished reading Herman Hesse's The Glass Bead Game. It is Saturday,
June 28, 1986. (My son is exactly 30 years old today and I have almost nine
years of prison before me.) The reading was so "dense" that at times it felt like a
jungle where I had to cut my way through with a machete. It is one of the best
books I have read, and it is certainly one of the closest to my own thoughts and
dilemmas.
1452. True love only chooses to reside in a noble heart. Selfish hearts cannot
love.
1458. The ninth, the worst circle of the Inferno. Dante intended it for traitors.
1516. In literature, the greatness of a hero is not in his social significance, but in
the greatness of the moral dilemma he represents. A character is great if he
represents the good and the evil in a novel, irrespective of his social ranking, his
title or position. That is why, in a novel or a drama, a king may be an insignificant
character and a servant may be a hero. Why is it not so in life? The reason is that
in writing the writer introduces us to the soul of a hero, and in real life we get to
know people only by their outer side. A man may be in our vicinity for years (at
work or in the neighborhood) and we may believe that we know him, and what
we know, in fact, are exactly the things that bear no moral value: name,
profession, financial situation and social standing, etc. What is truly important
and what no one but a writer could tell us about that person usually remains
unknown.
1525. There are "mighty" personalities, mighty only because the society or the
environment where they act is weak.
1526. You cannot give up your ideals, and you see quite clearly that there is no
place for them in reality. That is a tragic situation.
1529. There are people who accumulate knowledge without expanding their
views. The latter is achieved only through ideas.
1530. Writers may be well received by society or they may be rejected and
misunderstood. In the former case, they are faced with the danger of alienating
themselves from life and reality, and in the latter, to disappear. Both have
happened.
1551. Contempt toward people can be twofold and can originate from totally
opposite emotions. It can be a product of selfishness and insensitivity to people;
in that case, contempt is an excuse for one's own emptiness. However, it can also
be the other side of love for them, thus a result of continuing love for people and
constant disappointment with them. The first is a feature of the selfish and the
insensitive, and the latter of generous and noble souls.
1552. What is a star (or sky) for an astronomer and what is it for a poet, and
which of the two is right? To an astronomer, the sky is an empty, desolate space
that embodies a kind of algebra (or geometry). To a poet, stars are shimmering
messages that create melancholy emotions, or symbols of eternity and order
above a transient, forever changing world. Again we have two truths. What
should one teach a child first: a beautiful poem about the moon or astronomic
information about it?

1555. A starry sky is equally interesting to a scientist, a mystic, an ethics scholar

and a poet. Looking at the stars, each experiences something different and each
sees his own picture. An image (a scene) is endless; it can be compared to itself
and nothing else.
1579. I have just finished Dickens's David Coppeifield and I wondered: from the
point of view of formal morality, are Mr. Murdstone and his sister, who devised
the monstrous system of upbringing, bad people? Perhaps not, but the scenes
described by Dickens, where Mr. Murdstone's every word and Mrs. Murdstone's
every move spread a deadly coldness, uncovering a kind of cruel order and
mercilessness. God, save me from righteous people who possess honesty but
have no heart. (God, save me from their heartless honesty.)
1583. Principles alone are insufficient. The second "decisive parameter" is man.
The most sublime deeds of kindness and mercy have been done in the name of
Christian principles, but stakes have burned too. It depended on the people who
were applying the principles. Let alone the hypocrites.
1588. A toothache hurts, stupidity does not. A hollow head does not hurt the way
a hollow tooth does. It is just damaging, but one does not die of stupidity.
1596. The political and material circumstances and troubles I have gone through
in my life made my children, I believe, think and judge life and its problems much
earlier than would normally have been the case. The consequences of this in their
lives must have been both good and bad. God grant that there were more of the
good ones.
1600. There are people who are not materialists in the philosophical sense, but
are by their instincts and behaviour. Most people are, in fact, like that.
1607. Faust sells his soul for the treasures of this world-an old story, very old and
often repeated. And true.
1613. "Speaking of history, it is art that flicks through the pages of the book of
centuries, questions chronicles, fills in what the chroniclers missed out,
reawakens facts, customs and characters, bridges analyses, groups what has
been separated, introduces harmony into disharmony"-thus writes Victor Hugo.
Still, speaking of history and art, I believe that there is a difference in the subject
itself. History describes external events. Historical novels describe life itself.
History deals with events, and novels deal with experiences. The subject of
history is a people, a society, a community or a group; the subject of a novel is a
person (an individual). History written on the basis of a novel or an epic poem
would be very bad, but at the same time our complete knowledge of an epoch is
not possible without a novel or a poem about it. However inaccurate literature
may be in its presentation of historical facts, it is true in terms of local colour,
social climate, spirit of the time, emotions and a subjective experience of a
historical event recorded truly, albeit only externally, by history. We should
therefore leave history to historians and life to poets. The latter will tell us truths
about a time gone by, truths of a kind that we can never find in history. There is
obviously an outer and an inner history of any era.
1645. It is difficult to help a man without hurting his pride. Everyone wants to be
a giver and not a receiver.

1649. Nietzsche's "super-humans" are weak. For it is easy to live only for oneself,
follow one's own instincts, which is Nietzsche's advice to his superhuman; it is
hard to live for others and against one's own instinct. It is easy to retaliate, it is
hard to forgive. It is easy to want the wife of thy neighbour, it is hard to resist
the temptation. The first requires less than a man. Only the second requires a
super-human.
1652. There is a strange link between good and evil. Were there no evil, would
there be good? Is there good but in the struggle for good? Ibsen had nothing
against oppression, for-he used to say-what else would awaken inside us the love
for freedom? When he learnt that the Italian army had liberated Rome, he was
not particularly delighted. He said: "The beautiful yearning for freedom is lost
forever. I myself must admit that the struggle for freedom is the only thing about
freedom that I like. I am not interested in the exercise of freedom" (Henrik Ibsen,
Brand). My comment: these are the thoughts of a man who lives in freedom. I do
not know if Brand would think the same way if he were in my situation.
1665. Has it ever happened to you that you actually like a rogue more than a so-
called honest citizen? Have you ever wondered why? I believe that this can only
be so because a rogue is more original and more his own. He is what he is. An
honest citizen often acts according to a law that is not his own, that which was
imposed upon him, and a rogue acts true to himself, according to his own law. It
does not mean that you like misdemeanours, nor that you approve of crime or
sin, it is about the other part of the pair-personality. We like a man who is his
own legislator. And conversely, we like the acts of a moral man, we do not like
the man himself, since he obeys, and obedience is a form of non-freedom.
Actions in accordance with a code that does not arise from the soul can easily be
odious. In the end of nineteenth-century poetry, we find certain understanding for
rogues and sinners, and the understanding originates from the above. "Be
whatever you want to be, but be true to yourself all the way," says Ibsen's Brand.
In certain extreme situations, a rogue seems a free man, and a moral man seems
a slave to rules. Faced with a choice like this one, our spontaneous sympathies
are with the free man. A slave can be pitied, but no one wishes to identify with
him.
1674. I often wondered, especially in the first days after the verdict, whether I
had the courage that could endure all that was ahead of me. There were days
when death was my only hope. I kept it as a secret that only I knew, a secret
THEY neither knew nor could take away from me.
1678. Love cannot exist as something general, just as something individual. That
is why Jesus speaks of love for a neighbour. Only this specific love has meaning
and only this love exists. Love for mankind-what is it? How does one love
mankind? There is love for a human being or no love at all.
1679. "Be serious with your work, always and everywhere," says Kierkegaard-
bearing in mind the Ibsenian (or Nietzschean) law of either-or. You either are the
one who is called for and ready to sacrifice unconditionally for an ideal, or you are
not, in which case, your seriousness toward work means that you do not accept it
at all. There is nothing worse than doing things halfway. It sometimes equals
treason and lies.
1680. To have one's own self, to be aware of it, to defend it-irrespective of what
else the "I" may mean-is the first condition for being human. That is why we can

sometimes feel respect and be interested in the destiny of a negative hero-if he is

consistent and ready to draw consequences of his own attitude.
1691. A man and a woman are the basic cell of the world and of life. No
revolutions, changes of empires, changes of laws and owners over the goods of
the world were ever able to change real life unless they changed the relationship
between man and woman. And vice-versa: the smallest shift in this basic element
of life leads to an overall upheaval. The first image of Him and Her, this
primordial image, is linked to Paradise, to sin, to responsibility and punishment.
Everything else that happened later, starting from the epoch-making Descent, is
linked to Adam and Eve and their relationship. What happened between them
started as metaphysics, and metaphysics it remained. All subsequent history has
been determined by this first drama and its main characters, Him and Her.
1717. That was the embrace of the unfortunate, those who could not belong to
each other under the laws of this world. And there was but one way out of this
embrace reminiscent more of a struggle: death. For "love and death are the
same"-I do not know whose words these are, but they are implanted deep in my
memory.
1727. It can be said of many people: they wanted to destroy the mechanism,
instead they became its victims.
1728. Justice is one of those few things that need no proof. To prove the need for
justice and fairness is either superfluous for those who have a heart or useless for
those who do not. The very question why there is a need to be just shows that
any conversation and any explanation are pointless.
1729. A metropolis has a strange influence on men. A man poisoned by a

metropolis loses the immediate sense of life that he had when he came to this
world. He starts to hate nature, the sea, the sky, the clouds and becomes an
"addict" just as he would with any extensively administered poison.
1735. American writers-contrary to European writers-do not strive to improve the

world nor do they believe in such a mission of literature. To them, ideology is one
of the grave dangers of this world. I agree with them.
1746. To seek trouble-this is not courage, this is madness. Courage is the

willingness of man to sensibly face the troubles he cannot avoid.
1748. Accustomed to darkness, moles cannot tolerate light. To them, darkness is

a normal state and light is unnatural and unbearable. Some people are like them.
They are accustomed to darkness, they dislike light.
1751. Nietzsche once wrote that he hated "the weak, the moralists and the
slaves." For him, these were one and the same kind of people.
1760. In order to build, there must be destruction. Only anger can destroy, love
cannot. That is why anger is a necessary and a useful part of life.
1762. We seek freedom, but are we worthy of it?
1763. This one great hardship saved me from hundreds of small ones that would
have eaten away at me every day, in bits, yet systematically.

1766. I took revenge on hardship from my earlier life by forgetting it.
1774. I would like to live like a human being but I would like to ail and die
quietly, like an animal.
1780. When Prophet Yahweh, God's Emissary, asked Satan about the time when
his power over man was the strongest, he replied: "When man has eaten enough
and drank enough."
1789a. After seeing a large exhibition of modern painting (in Sarajevo in 1980) it
took me some time to re-establish balance and a normal link with the outer world
and to start walking through it straight. Upon leaving the exhibition and entering
the street, I felt a mild clash between the two worlds, the one from the painting
and the real one. It is obvious that laws governing these worlds are not the same.
1790. When you see a painting you do not understand, you may think that the
creator is not an artist but rather a charlatan playing with a naive audience.
However, you may also think this: How high did the creator have to climb and
how low did he have to descend in order to see a scene or a truth he is trying to
tell you? If you do this, you will err less. For, think about it, you do not
understand an essay on electronics, nor do you understand much of what a
scientist may tell you about how he is building a spaceship to go to Saturn and
how he plans to direct its flight from Earth. Although what he is telling you is
fantastic and hard to understand, the scientist is not a charlatan. So why should a
painter whose painting you do not understand be one?
1795. Injustice can be remedied by justice, by punishment. Same for same.

Crime and punishment, remedium peccati. But the only way to truly overpower
injustice is forgiveness. That is why the Qur'an instructs justice and recommends
forgiveness. And yet, how does one know that justice is truly just, and not just a
new injustice? And is there the same in human life? Are crime and punishment
ever-can they at all be-the same, one at the measure of the other? Is not every
justice, for it is pronounced and executed by men, always a new injustice,
seeking again justice of its own? Over and over again.
1797. It was in Andric, I think, where I read that surplus imagination and laziness
go together. Imaginative people are often lazy. Hard working ones are often dry,
rational, calculating. Some people are pushed towards hard work by selfishness,
ambition, desire for attention. Yet lazy people are not as disliked as we may
expect, since their nonchalance is often accompanied by a total absence of
ambition and calculation. In this respect there is a parallel with teetotallers and
drunks. While we basically praise teetotalism and condemn drinking, we do not
always feel the same towards teetotallers and drunks. The only thing we respect
in some teetotallers is their sobriety, wishing them to be as far from us as
possible.
1799. It is impossible to go forward, and backward there is nothing to go back to.
1801. Is there anything more beautiful than a rainbow? But the man who is inside
it, cannot see it.
1802. It is one thing to do evil unto man, but it is another, though not a very
different thing, to not do unto them the good you were able and obliged to do. If
you summarize your life from time to time, do not forget the latter.

1804. Philosophy came to be and continues to exist out of man's natural

endeavour to conceive or at least to comprehend the world. Of as long as this
endeavour lives, so shall philosophy.
1826. All my reasons remained helpless, as if before a wall or a kind of madness.

Madness knows no reasons. No comparison with other people and events was of
help. For this comparison was based on the typical and the normal, and here
everything was atypical and abnormal.
1833. Life is full of paradoxes. Thus, for example, a true man who loves and
honours others in principle goes by his conscience and cares very little about
criticisms or praise of others. Conversely, a vain man usually despises others but
secretly cherishes their opinion, hence cares about the opinion of those he
despises. We usually find this in dictators and tyrannical natures. Stalin is said to
have despised his surroundings bitterly. He was particularly disparaging towards
poets and intellectuals (Osip Mandelstam, a poet, lost his head because of a poem
about Stalin written too liberally). The logical question is: Why are they affected
by the opinions of those whom they consider beneath them and whom they
despise?
1851. Hatred is said to be blind, but so is love, in its own way. I cannot
remember truly hating anyone, but I am certain that I have known much better
the people I disliked or even could not stand the sight of. The distance I felt
towards them helped me to see all their weaknesses, lack of talent and
intelligence, basically all their faults that would have remained unknown to me
had I liked them. It is a different question whether this "knowledge" of mine (or
lack thereof) is a good thing, and should we know all the bad truths about people
close to us.
1852. A temptation that lurks at us: We sometimes feel disgust (or even hatred)
for a person against whom we have nothing to say and who is no worse than us
or those we love and respect. This unfounded antipathy towards people is a
frequent and an ugly occurrence. It is one of our temptations.
1855. Reading is, more or less-depending on the reader-a creative act, for the
reader provides his own interpretation to what he read. Ten readers-ten different
characters of Fyodor Karamazov, and with it numerous unexpected judgments
and associations, totally subjective, varying from one reader to the next. That is,
to an extent, the difference between reading a story and watching a film. While
reading we reconstruct a character (or a landscape), in film it is given and the
viewer receives it passively. While reading a novel the image is in the mind of the
reader, and while watching a film the image is on the screen. We should therefore
read, for film cannot replace that.
1861. I have always found modern painting a little difficult to understand, but it
always attracted me, like a secret. I read with curiosity everything on paintings of
this style that I could lay my hands on. And here in prison, there have been days
when I was "attacked" by a desire to understand a secret, an essence eluding me
yet feeling so near. If I had been a painter, I am certain that, feeling the
inadequacy of words, I would have painted those incomprehensible images that I
used to gaze at with bewilderment and awe. I think that at such times I did
understand modern painting, inasmuch as anyone but the creator can understand
it at all.

1863. As for the difficult, the ultimate questions, the ones on life and death,
especially the latter, some keep asking themselves and some keep avoiding
them. But neither is finding any answers. The first because there is no answer,
the latter because they are not looking. At first sight, the result is the same. Still,
the difference between those two categories of people is immense, just like the
difference between wisdom and recklessness.
1864. Is life without desires imaginable? Are not life and desires one and the
same thing? Even if you want to (are endeavouring to) overcome a desire, it is
nonetheless a desire. Thought and desires cannot be stopped.
1866. I have read writings by Tolstoy, Hugo, Dostoyevsky, Rousseau, and came
to a conclusion: none, not even people whom we hold to be geniuses, were free
from vices and weaknesses. The only difference is how much people are willing to
admit this to themselves and others. To courageously face all the sins and failures
of one's life, in a confrontation that poisons and purges the soul at the same time,
this is something that only a truly brave, great man is capable of. There are no
imperfect human beings, just insincere ones.
1869. Describing his childhood, Tolstoy tells us that the memory of that time fills
him with a sensation of something poetic and mysterious and how then, growing
up, he lost this true feeling of the depth of life. We all feel something similar.
Does not the same happen to mankind and has not mankind, when leaving its
childhood, lost that feeling (or that memory) for the mysterious or the supra-
sensory? Is not the drama (or the entire development) that mankind has gone
through repeated in human life? And this time, the development does not just
consist of advancement, but also of retrogression or loss?
1870. I do not know much about computers, but I can say with certainty that the
intelligence of computers is stupid and that it is at best a simulation of
intelligence. This simulation can be endlessly improved but it will never cross that
magic line and become spontaneous and authentic. And it is exactly that fact that
represents the endlessly great (or, if you prefer, the endlessly small) difference
between the animate and the inanimate. No human product can cross this
threshold. Only God was capable of that. "God is not reluctant to give you an
example of a fly" (Qur'an). However great our knowledge is, do we not
overestimate it at times? If all the knowledge of all the libraries of the world were
to be concentrated into a single imaginary computer, and if all the greatest
scientists of the world were to be gathered into an imaginary institute or
laboratory, and if they were to be given all the time and all the resources they
may ask for, they would not be able to produce a single swamp mosquito (a fly).
That is the message of the Qur'an's ayyah on a fly.
1872. When we try to imagine a good writer, we usually think of the qualities he
should possess: imagination, experience, talent, perceptiveness, intellect. But I
read somewhere that Turgenev made a list of flaws a man should possess in
order to be a writer. Thinking about this unexpected or the "inverted" way of
looking at things, I think that one flaw should be very high on this list: vanity. For
why does a writer believe in the first place that he should teach us or educate us
or that we should know what he thinks? Is this not a form of vanity?
1875. As for the relationship of these two histories (the inner and the outer- see
note 1613) the inner may contain the real truth about events, if it were not an
excellent field for the writer's arbitrariness, subjectivity, bias and imagination. For

what is there that guarantees to us that people were exactly the way the writer
describes them in his novels? For example, Ivo Andric is persistently reproached
for being biased against Islam and Moslems and that this bias drew all his
characters with Moslem names. In his stories, Moslems are always primitive,
dishonest, weak and idle, prone to deceit and laziness. The outer history, despite
everything, lends itself a lot less to mystification and arbitrariness of this kind. In
any case, it is more verifiable. For not all writers are as conscientious when
writing so-called inner histories as Leo Tolstoy. For example, while writing his 30-
page story titled "Why?," he is known to have read a number of books on the
history of the 1830-1831 Polish rebellion, in order to be as truthful as possible.
He wrote in his diary: "I need to read a lot in order to write five lines scattered
throughout the story." The opposite example may be the said Andric, who is said
to have totally misrepresented the land expropriation prior to the construction of
the bridge on the Dma. According to Andric, it was a ruthless grab with no
compensation and no right to complain, accompanied by violence. However,
Osman Sokolovic, a historian, found and published court archive documents that
showed that one by one the owners went to the Turks' office and how the
purchase price was determined for each lot that was taken. Sokolovic quoted
literal translations of records that were no different than the modern ones put
together on similar occasions. If Andric did not follow historical facts or if he did
not confirm them, if he drew everything he wrote on people, their character,
beliefs, feelings and relationships from his imagination (and he was undoubtedly
very imaginative) then there is in his Bridge on the Drina, The Travnik Chronicle,
The Damned Yard and Djerzelez nothing one may learn and understand about
time and people that really existed. What can be learnt from Andric' s novels is
perhaps something about people in general, about what they may have been like
and not what they were really like. But in that case his works have a philosophical
value and have no significance for what we call an inner history of an epoch.
1903. Time and use wear out most things, but there are those-like folk songs-
that go from mouth to mouth and are shaped and enriched with time, thus
becoming shorter and more meaningful.
1915. There is one thing that we want and hate at the same time: old age.
1951. There is no wisdom without experience, one's own, of course. However, if it

is true that a clever man uses someone else's rather than his own experience,
what arises is that recklessness in youth is the condition of wisdom in old age.
What follows is that young smart men never achieve true wisdom and that such
wisdom is achieved only by those who were neither very wise nor very thoughtful
in their youth.
2018. Water reduced to turbines of a plant is useful. Water that remains free and
falls free is not useful, but it is beautiful.
2019. Can something be said of "nothing"?
2076. One of the arguments of the feminist movement is that a woman has been
expressing herself as a mother and that it is now time for her to express herself
as a personality. In their argumentation, mother and personality are opposed
terms. I would like someone to explain this to me. I have always thought that
there is nothing more personal or richer in personality than a mother, that a
mother is a superb personality. Feminist dialectics is confusing.

2078. Why else do we treasure objects and memories of times long gone, if not
because they represent symbols of human continuation and tradition.
2079. If it is sincere, remorse is a moral category of the ultimate kind. In my

eyes, a man who sinned and repented is better than those who never sinned (and
there are such). I have always had an aversion to so-called sinless men and,
despite my great desire to do so, I have never been able to free myself from this
mistrust. Perhaps this is because I am neither sinless nor perfect.
2080. It is no wonder that painters paint. The world is full of shapes, colours,
light and shadow-therefore made to be painted, and a human being with eyes
and soul is made to paint. Thus a painter and his world are at each other's
measure.
2109. Real men are not rough. They have emotions and they are not ashamed of
them. Homer's famous heroes, whose heroic deeds he described so vividly, do not
hide tears. When Patroclus saw his Achaeans killed before Troy, "tears streamed
down his cheeks like water down a rocky mountain." Achilles said to him: "Why
do you cry, Patroclus, like a little girl running behind her mother and crying until
the mother takes her in her arms?" And when Patroclus was killed, Achilles "fell
on the ground.. . and cried, with such pain that even his mother Tehida heard
him in the depths of the sea." Antioch cried, "shedding bitter tears." Homer and
his heroes are no less manly because of their tears.
2135. A "better life" (as a slogan, a motto, a goal) is something a man can work
toward but not die for. One may suffer for something above the "standard of
living," despite the fact that what is "above" is in some cases an illusion, even a
delusion. It is, in fact, something that belongs to the same order of things as
death itself: love, honor, freedom, dignity, glory, idea, homeland, etc. To sacrifice
life is an irrational act, and something like that can be done only based on
emotions, and not based on reason.
2143. Decency is not just a question of good morality, but also a question of good
taste. Immoral things are usually also in poor taste.
2144. If Islam is understood correctly, it will become clear that it holds that a
true man is above a saint, that a saint is a man who has perhaps tried but failed
to become a complete man. Whoever reads Tolstoy's biography, a moving story
of "a struggle which continued for 80 years and which was participated by all
virtues and all vices, all vices but one-lie" (R. Roland), will understand how any
biography of a "sinless" saint (if such exists) would be pale, boring, even fake,
compared to the life of this true man. One can appreciate that the great writer's
dramatic life was exactly what God wanted and that that was the reason why He
ordered sinless angels to bow before a sinful man.
2153. It is interesting that some people constantly request the right to an

opinion, and once they win the right, they do not use it.
2167. Fire can keep us warm, but we can also burn in it.
2178. How can I judge people? Edgar Allan Poe, one of the greatest writers in the
past 150 years, who wrote unforgettable prose, poems and essays, died at the
age of 40, eaten by alcohol and who knows what else, practically homeless. Only
Allah can judge people.

2198. A person is not defined by his or her opinions, but by his or her feelings. A
man can change his opinion completely and remain the same person.
We can talk of a change of a person only once his feelings have changed. It can
be said that we adopt opinions with a belief that they will contribute to easier
achievement of what we are emotionally committed to or linked with.
2200. One man's death is as valuable as his life has been.
2204. "In Memoriam-Borivoj Niksic

"Borivoj Bora Niksic, Justice of the Federal Court, participant of the National
Liberation War from its beginning, member of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia
since 1939, was buried on Saturday, 18 October, at the New Cemetery in
Belgrade. Persecuted for spreading communist ideas, he remained firm and
unwavering. A warrior, a partisan, a brave son of his Srem, he fought honourably
until the final victory. Awarded several war and peacetime medals, he remained
the humble bearer of his communist ideals. Well known to the Yugoslav legal
community as a long serving judge of Circuit, Supreme and Federal Courts, he
gave full contribution to the development of criminal legislation and legal theory
and practice. Gravely ill and aware of his approaching end, he left a message for
his family and colleagues that he was to be buried with no speeches, no flowers,
no obituaries, in the presence of just his immediate family and closest associates.
A quiet departure of this long serving judge of the Federal Court, a warrior and -
above all a good man, left a huge void among his colleagues, close associates and
friends" (Politika, Belgrade, October 28, 1986).
My note: Borivoj Niksic was the vice-chair of the Federal Court Chamber that
passed the final ruling in my case. Legal qualification was changed (from
counterrevolutionary association aimed at destroying constitutional order to so-
called verbal offence-Article 133 of the Criminal Code) and the sentence was
reduced from twelve to nine years of imprisonment. According to the Criminal
Code in effect, the maximum penalty was ten years.
2215. My mind keeps vacillating and wondering, but my heart has always been
and is firmly on the side of faith. My moments of true happiness were those when
my mind and my heart were in agreement.
It is January 1st today. We have just entered 1987. What is ahead of us?
2268. Perhaps sorrow is a natural state of the soul, here, ici-bas, in this world.
2268a. What else is a characteristic of the human soul? It loves fairy tales. Why?
2275. "A man is not what he thinks, but what he does," says Mesa Selimovic
(Death and the Dervish). My comment: I am not what I think, even less what I
do. Both are clearly conditioned. I am what I want and feel. Thought is "outside
of me," my actions are even more "alien," even more "outside." Emotions are
closest to the soul, if they are not the soul itself.
2324. When you have lived and survived everything, when you have stumbled a
hundred times and then risen again, when you have given up all false hopes and
comforts and you have clenched your teeth to look the truth in the eye, only then
do you realize that the sole purpose of life is the fight against evil. Little can be

done in this fight, but that is the only thing we have left. Outside it, there is
disaster and death forever.
2330. People have not sung about wisdom, they have sung about courage. People
have dedicated their most beautiful poems to a virtue held in esteem higher than
anything else, probably because it is the rarest of all: the virtue of courage, the
contempt toward danger and death. This goes equally for folk poems of all times,
from Japan, to India and Persia, to England and America.
2341. In prison, a man has to pass a very difficult test. After years of loneliness
and deprivation, only a man of strong spirit can leave with no signs of numbness
and frailty. This is a sign that, despite all the hardship, his inner life has not been
boring, that he amused himself even in solitude with his thoughts and his plays of
fantasy. While his body has been behind bars, his spirit was able to be with his
loved ones, in his thoughts he could "see" a show at the theatre or even be in a
distant country.
2343. Have you noticed that when watching comedy, some people do not find it
funny at all? While the politicians usually get upset, some intelligent people find
comedies sad.
2354. The soul aches as much as the body. There are days when all the scars, all
the old and long forgotten hurts "light up," just- like old injuries awaken before
bad weather or bones hurt from blows you have collected in a long life and only
forgotten for a short while. In those days you are bad tempered and absorbed in
yourself, in your soul whose wounds reopened only to remind you that nothing is
lost, nothing vanishes, least of all pains and bad memories. They just whither
away for a while, withdraw into an unknown depth, just like they will this time
and you will put them behind you. Until the next time.
2355. There is only one way to avoid defeat when you are facing the world. Even
that one is not quite safe, but it is the only possible one: It is that you move the
ratio of strength between you in your favour. Instead of moving and changing
thousands of things, each of which is stronger and heavier than you, you
strengthen yourself to be "above" the world. The latter you can do, it is in your
power at least to some extent, and the world is huge and unconquerable. You
cannot cover all the roads you take with leather, you can make shoes for
yourself, you can cover your feet with leather and the result will be the same.
That is the only way to rule the world and the circumstances we find ourselves in.
Have you ever thought why old people feel cold even when they are dressed
warmly? They lack their own warmth. The best way to resist the outer cold is for
your blood to work, so that you are warm within. That is the only real solution.
2357. An ornament cannot replace content, just like a spice cannot replace food.
When content dissolves into form in a culture, we certainly become witnesses of
decadence and disappearance of that culture.
2374. A clever man knows how to speak. A wise man knows how to be silent too.
2376. One can speak of sense or senselessness of suffering, of its role in a man's
life and in history, but one is certain, we all feel it: The composition of suffering is
noble, it is made of noble matter.

2393. It is February 26, 1987, today, a day of some excitement. I was called to
the prison administration this morning. In the visitors' room, I found Lejla and
Sabina with happy faces. I guess they wanted to let me know immediately that it
was nothing bad. They then told me that Nikola Stojanovic, the president of the
Pardons Commission of the RB&H Presidency, had suggested that I should file an
application for a pardon and I would be released. The mediator was Zdravko
Djuricic, then secretary of the Commission, Lejla's old school classmate. He had
put together the text of the application. I read it. I did not sign. The prison
continues.
2401. Excessive erudition can sometimes suffocate creative thinking. A man can
possess knowledge in many fields, but with no organization, no vision. Many
learned men have lived and died without real knowledge, which can be brought to
life only by an idea. It is generally accepted that research with a wrong
hypothesis is more promising than research with no hypothesis. A pile of good
material with no plan remains just a pile. A starting hypothesis may even be a
prejudice that we shall be free from once we complete the research, just as we
free ourselves of the scaffolding once a building has been built.
2405. Do not kill a mosquito, dry the swamp.
2429. Only freedom cannot be worn out by frequent use.
2518. The "humanity" of a man is not primarily in the fact that he is good and
kind, but rather in the possibility that he may or may not be such. Therefore, not
because he is not a criminal, but because he is not necessarily, inevitably such. A
man has a way out and that is his greatness.
2529. Fasting in prison-for me, that was a confirmation of my human dignity on

days and occasions when everything around me violated it.
2547. The fact of death changes all our standards. For no rational order of
thoughts and values can cope when faced with this fact. Only strong passions-
love, faith, hatred, pride, vengeance-and they are rejected by reason-are capable
of that. That perhaps justifies them in the eyes of many.
2557. The question why something is, why is there Something and not Nothing,
for me the most far-reaching question a man can ever ask himself. I wonder:
How could a man, being in reality as a part of it, ever come across a question like
that, how could he think of it? The first time I heard it, I was astounded.
2572. Art is not worthy of that name if it merely describes, follows, copies, or
even reveals, unless it all grows in its eyes to the limits of the invisible and the
miraculous.
2581. A pure mind embodies the unity of essence and existence: It is at the same
time a real existence, and this characteristic of real existence is inherent in the
very essence of the mind, that is, it is one, unquestionable and absolute being.
The world cannot be compared with the light that expands into infinity and sheds
itself onto everything it comes across (Husserl' s views, presented in Ideen).
2703. Man is in conflict with the forces of history. These forces are blind to the
life of an individual. An individual, his life, his feelings, are victims of these forces.
"Senselessness of history and its unfulfilled promises overcasts the individual

human being" (Emile Sioran, History and Utopia). Sioran speaks about evil,
violence and barbarism as the main driving forces of history. According to him,
morality, goodness and humanist ideals have always been on the verge of defeat
in their conflict with the forces of tyranny and evil.
2735. Among poor peoples, slenderness and paleness are not held in high regard-
they remind them of hunger and poverty.
2862. Optimism sometimes sounds cynical.
2127. Unlike animals, God made us walk upright. Most people do not use this
privilege; most of their lives they bend, even crawl. Should one do that? Is it not
blasphemous to reject this great gift from God: walking upright?
2152. A man is not a "social animal." The more he is a man, the more he is a
person, the more he strives toward solitude. An ordinary (average) man is
sociable not because of his love for other men, but because he is self-insufficient.
It is an escape from emptiness, from monotony, from one's own life. A superficial
person does not like to be alone and vice versa: a truly spiritual man, a monk, a
recluse can be alone all his life.
2156. In Italy, instead of hitting a donkey thus making it move forward, which
sometimes has no effect due to the donkey's stubbornness, peasants have
thought of a trick: They fasten a stick with a bunch of hay to the donkey's head,
so the donkey stares at it and hopes to reach it. Are not many people like these
donkeys, and are there not some people who turn others into donkeys like the
ones in Italy?
2161. Envy is a misfortune that affects unhappy people. They are envious
because they feel unhappy. Envy does not soothe their misfortune, it just
worsens it.
2173. Some people consider their arrogance to be a form of self-awareness, but

the two are totally different.
2178. Real knowledge is possessed by the people who are belonging to the
majority-thus the lower, rougher nature. A better kind of people seem naive and
ignorant. I often had a dilemma: Should I respect them for their kindness, or
resent them for their naiveté. For ignorance is no virtue. And vice versa:
should I resent the experienced kind for their resemblance with the majority (for
"the majority is not good"-Qur'an) or should I appreciate them for their
knowledge and realism? Of course, I had no real dilemma: Honesty is superior to
knowledge, but I must admit that I was never able to truly forgive the naiveté
and clumsiness of good and honest people. I have always dreamed of an ideal: a
good and honest man, yet experienced and realistic. Can that be united in one
person or is it just a lucky coincidence?
2182. Just as we carry the burdens of our own children, in the same way we do
not feel our own faults and vices, but rather only those of other people.
2184. We express noisily and passionately the opinions that come from our will,
and those that come from our knowledge and conviction, we express calmly and
coldly. That is why we always rely more on judgments expressed coldly; we feel
that they come from understanding rather than passion.

2185. Interests in general truths and personal truths are in inverted proportion. If
we come across a person of great curiosity towards personal matters and lives of
their near and not so near dear ones (which is quite frequent, not only in
women), in them we will find less interest in the general truths of the world,
which are subjects of science and philosophy. With his well-known sting,
Schopenhauer observes that ordinary people, who normally do not show
particular sharpness, are "excellent algebraists in someone else's personal
matters, where they solve the most complicated equations with only one given
value."
2193. Nietzsche was a very sensitive man, not at all like his own Ubermensch. At
the age of 44 he lost his mind and-according to biographers-the immediate cause
was a scene at a Turin square, when the philosopher, upon leaving his flat, saw a
carriage driver giving his horse a merciless whipping. He went to the animal,
embraced it gently and cried, and then just collapsed. He lived for another 12
years, but he never returned to his senses. We are what we are, not what we
think or wish we are.
2228. We cannot achieve perfection. But there is one thing we can do: we can
constantly try to be more men, try for every man to be more like a man.
3054. The presence of death gives the picture of life the necessary dark shades,
without which it would have been pale and insignificant. A novel and a drama that
contain no dying seem incomplete.
3066. To a man who gives me his opinions I would love to say: I am not
interested in your ideas, your alleged convictions, nor in your views of the world,
nor in whatever you call it. The only thing that matters to me and the only thing
that matters at all is: what are you like? Are you a good or a bad person? In fact,
all your stories, even your actions, are interesting only as much as they help me
find the answer to this question about you: who are you?
3069. Even darkness may be light. Stars are invisible during the day. Their glow
is the strongest in the greatest darkness. If there were no dark nights, we would
not have known the magic of a starry sky. Even if we knew of it, we would not be
able to see this incredible sight.
3078. What is characteristic of a real writer? First of all, perceptiveness. There are
people who lived their lives as if they passed through the world with their eyes
closed. A real writer is the total opposite: sensitive as a photo-plate.
3085. The world cannot be won by rejection. This can be done only by
acceptance. In fact, acceptance of the world is the precondition for changing it or
winning it.
3103. The Japanese ideogram for the verb "to think" means "to be sad." A
coincidence or hidden logic?
3134. The problem of solitude. Some think that that is the only way for man to
confirm or to experience his humanity. Others think the opposite: Man can
become and remain man only when surrounded by other men. Patrick Suskind, a
new-generation German writer, wrote his story titled "Pigeon" only to show that
in solitude, man loses his humanity and that human existence is human only with
other humans.

3137. There are rules of the game in everything one does in life. Follow the rules,
and in order to follow them, either learn them or establish them yourself.
3140. Why do we always appreciate morality and almost always despise

moralizing? Because morale is an action, moralization is a word. Morale is a
request from yourself, moralization is a request directed at someone else. That is
why morale is always moral, and moralization is often hypocritical, thus immoral.
3179. It seems that conflict is the way life exists. A conflict-free life cannot be
imagined. Conflict can be constructive, destructive or futile (redundant). The
latter resolves nothing, nor does it serve any purpose. And many cherish only this
type of conflict.
3180. At a certain stage of their lives, salmon go upstream, back to their

birthplace, crossing huge distances, conquering rapids and waterfalls, even dying
in the effort. Why? They know they must. That is all.
3260. One night during a scientific expedition in the Pacific, three crewmembers
of the Kon-Tiki are said to have caught a snake-like fish of magic colours, unlike
anything else they had ever seen. They took it immediately to the fourth
crewmember, a marine zoologist. They woke him up and showed him the fish. He
looked at it and said, "There is no such fish," and went back to sleep. Many
people behave like this expert.
3333. People who took part in or witnessed one and the same event often see
and describe it differently. Everyone is absolutely convinced of his or her own
version (the film Rashomon is a story about that). How does one explain that? I
think that the only explanation is that our observations are never mechanical and
objective. They, as well as our views of an event, are always intermingled with
our thoughts, our emotions, desires and passions. This creates numerous views
and numerous misunderstandings.
3334. To live or to die, which is the greater problem? Perhaps Thomas Bailey
Aldrich, an American writer, had this question in mind when he stated that "we
cry when we are born, not when we die."
3340. What is the true meaning of the rational and the irrational-it is hard to say
because, among other things, the notion of ratio is not identical in different
cultures and different languages. Latin Ratio, English Reason and German
Vernunfi do not have the same meaning.
3341. What was or has been done cannot but be, it cannot be erased for that
would be contrary to the law of time.
It is March 23, 1988 today, five years of prison are over, four remain.
3375a. What should we think of Picasso's paintings, most of us standing before

them confused? It is interesting to hear what the painter himself thinks about his
art. In a letter to Giovanni Papini from 1952, Picasso wrote: "People of
sophisticated taste, rich men, idle men, thinkers, all seek in art something new,
extravagant, scandalous. I myself, starting from cubism and onwards, have
entertained those connoisseurs and those critics with all the impulsive bizarreness
that crossed my mind, and they, the less they understood it, the more they
admired it. . . . But when I face myself, I do not have the courage to consider

myself an artist in the classical sense of the word. Giotto, Titian, Rembrandt and
Goya were artists. I am just a public entertainer who understood his time and
used as well as he could the stupidity, vanity and recklessness of his
contemporaries." My comment: I do not know how sincere this confession was.
How do I put it together with the fact that Picasso prepared over 700 studies and
sketches just for his painting Ladies from Avignon, which was, as it is held, a real
revolution in Western painting? Perhaps Picasso just played a joke on us with this
statement.
3377. A writer may fight against the evil in men, if that is his goal. By describing
Macbeth, Shakespeare spoke about good and evil more than a hundred
aestheticists.
3391. Most people do evil out of interest (power, wealth, glory, love, etc.). But
there is also evil for the sake of evil, evil that is its own purpose. That is real hell.
I have unfortunately had the opportunity to get to know such evil and the people
who do it.
3439. Suffering and pain play a huge moral role in human life. It is hard to
explain but we all feel it. Of course, this is not the quality of the world, but rather
of man. With no pain and no suffering, what is lacking is the important thing we
call credibility.
3464. I was right at the wrong time.
3501. I, to them: you could hide the past. The present you cannot.
3514. A man I knew died. Reading the obituary, I thought: there are people
whom we feared for their strength or strictness, whom we respected for their
wisdom or superiority of a different kind, whom we admired for their virtues and
finally, those whom we loved for their kindness. When they die, it is only the
latter that we remember with true sorrow and with a feeling of irreparable loss.
For me, this has always been the proof that only love and kindness are the values
that defy time and oblivion more than any other, and which can be questioned by
nothing, even death itself. In a sense, love and kindness testify human
immortality.
3519. I am aware of my faults, but I live with them. However, if I see them in
someone else, then I dislike the person and the fault. This is the measure of my
"fairness" and my objectivity.
3527. A tragedian and a poet transform the rough experiences of their lives into
an exciting story, like a silk worm that transforms mulberry leaves into silk. Both
are equally miraculous.
3528. The closer you are to the stars, the closer you are to their destiny:
loneliness, distance and cold.
3540. An average aborigine (savage) from Central Africa knows the stars in the
sky better than an average inhabitant of a European or an American city. While a
primitive man tells time by the sun and follows the stars when travelling at night,
the knowledge of this kind of our average man from the street is zero. We left our
knowledge of the sky to astronomers and physicists. But the main problem is not
this knowledge or ignorance. The damage is more of a moral nature. The man

who never or hardly ever looks up at the sky loses his sense of orientation.
Without this picture, he is deprived of the sight that all the wisdom of the world
comes from. It is only in this heavenly perspective that man could assess his own
greatness and his own insignificance, never forgetting either of the two.
3548. Some complain of human ungratefulness. They are afraid that their love
will not be requited, that their kindness will remain unrewarded and
unrecognised. This is an obvious misunderstanding. No truly good deed can ever
remain unrewarded for the reward is simultaneous. Those who have ever done a
truly unselfish, that is, a truly good deed, know this very well. A good deed and
its reward cannot be separated, like an object and its shadow. The reward you
have in mind would only belittle it. Look at a child looking after a wounded bird or
feeding a puppy that followed him in the street. Does the child seek any particular
reward or does he feel rewarded already? Look at the joy in his eyes.
3559. Romeo and Juliet, Tristan and Isolde, Omer and Merima, Layla and
Marjoun, all love each other. And we love them. We love them because they love
each other. We love them although we do not know them. What follows is: We do
not love them, in fact, we love love.
3574. Man is fallible. A robot is not. In this case, the fallibility of man is an
advantage, and the infallibility of a robot is a fault or "a virtue we are averted
from."
3575a. Science should be neither praised not cursed, it should be used. In any
case, science is not pure truth, as some see it and claim it to be, but it is one of
the roads to truth.
3599. All men, even those who are unaware of it, deep inside their souls admire
courage, unselfishness and generosity. Why else would we untiringly continue to
invent characters who courageously defy destiny and death? All men are poets,
mystics and romantics, at least a little. For where does this weakness for flags,
symbols, hymns, romantic heroes who die for their homeland or the loved woman
with no regret, come from? Who are these creatures who fill cinemas where they
can see heroes who are themselves as much as they are not like us? And if it is
true that such people do not exist in real life (that they exist only in literature),
the question remains, why has the imagination of all the peoples continued to
create them from time immemorial? We do not give our admiration to what we
are but to what we are not, and what we would like to or should be.
3661. Language is said to be a writer's homeland. Strange things happen with

immigrant writers. Even when they have mastered the language of their new
homeland, they still write verse in their mother tongue. Thus, for example, after
moving to the West, Joseph Brodsky continued to write prose in English and
poetry only in Russian. Deep inside we all understand this, but it is hard to
explain.
3676. This time of ours: hard, but endlessly interesting. We may complain that
we have had it rough, but not that we have been bored. I can only regret that I
will not live long enough to see the outcome. I am talking about death. But
perhaps there is no outcome and no death. Perhaps the eyes that have been
watching it will just close and life will just continue. New births, new eyes open up
like flowers, new stories and so on with no end. God, You are great and so is the
world You created!

3677. There have been pain and suffering before, horrific and monstrous, but the
sword of repression has never before been so conscientiously pointed against the
man inside man, and the intention to humiliate and destroy men has never been
conducted with so much satanic skill and perseverance. It was-as Bloch said-"the
collapse of the upright walk of mankind."


On Religion and Morality
CHAPTER 2
20. As a historical phenomenon, every religion has two sides to it. As a science, it
is a revelation; as practice, it is the work of men. God reveals faith, and people
apply it. All that is in it that is great and sublime is of God; all that is wrong and
unworthy is of men. In this compromise to religious learning, man's role is also
dual: on one hand, he abuses, does not apply or applies wrongly, the still
uncorrupted religious learning. On the other hand, he twists, changes only the
learning. History gives us numerous examples of both.
Hegel wrote: "History of the highly educated Eastern Roman Empire, where, as
one would think, the spirit of Christianity could have been understood in its truth
and purity, is presented to us as a thousand year long sequence of continuous
crimes, weaknesses, wiliness and shamelessness. . . . Everywhere there were
scenes of killings, burning and looting in the name of Christian dogma. In a
discussion if Christ is of quality same or similar to that of God, this one letter [in
Greek these two adjectives: similar and same, differ in just one letter-my note]
had cost thousands of human lives" (Hegel, Philosophy of History). Studying a
similar phenomenon in the history of India, we never remain unmoved:
One moment we are absorbed in admiration for the depth and the superiority of
the thoughts, in the next, disgust for the incredible examples of triviality and
senselessness. And all this is mixed into an inextricable ball that wishes to be
called one and the same name. In fact, it is a tragic deviation from God's
teaching, where grains of the Revelation are clearly discernible and in the
background of human darkness they glow with an undying and untainted glow.
Still, this is not the real question of history: what evils have been done in the
name of history. The real question is: What would the world have looked like if
there had been no Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam? What would
mankind have looked like if it had not gone through these schools, the preachers
of which had not been perfect and where, in addition to sublime truths, some
nonsense and absurdity had been taught as well? It would be useful if an
impartial, fair historian could try to write "history" for the sake of all of us, of
course, if such history could be conceived and written at all.
90. A true man who abides by the law is not necessarily a moral man. Formal
correctness of behavior can be the result of habit or fear. Habit is not moral and
fear is even less so. Only conscientious actions are truly moral. Just as I must
make a conscientious decision to fast or pray, so I must make a conscientious
decision to act well and honestly, and in order to make such a decision the other
option must be open to me too. A eunuch is not an example of honesty, just as
weakness is no virtue.
91. Drama and tragedy, even comedy, sharpen the moral dilemmas of the
audience by bringing the question of the good and the evil to full awareness.
Since awareness is important, the fact that in a tragedy the good is defeated
remains peripheral. The result here is unimportant because essentially the moral
cannot lose.
In comedies, people laugh or mock themselves. They are a strong means of
sharpening the awareness of the evil and the good, faults and virtues. That is why
with peoples who do not know drama (or comedy), we find moral awareness of a

lower level, and therefore many distortions in human relations are treated and
maintained as normal and natural. For evils to be removed, the first precondition
is for them to be understood as evils.
91a. Thoughts on the essence of the tragic are pure metaphysics. For there is no
tragedy without God, there are just misfortunate events, incidents.
99. Pagan and all other fake religions are religions of gains. The revealed and all
true religions are religions of sacrifice.
203. How to resolve a logical contradiction of God's omnipotence (and universal

knowledge) and man's responsibility? How can all power be of God, and all
responsibility of man? The reply is: It can, just like the world can be finite and
endless at the same time. It is not logical, but it is so.
257a. By its definition religion is personal.
367. Religion is a request for man to behave in a way that would be harmonious
with the peace and depth of heaven. But "man is in a hurry" (Qur'an), he is petty,
frightened, greedy, selfish. All this is contrary to all that heaven testifies so
obviously.
492. Schelling's opinion that there is a correlation between Renaissance painting

and Christianity and between Greek plasticism and Greek mythology cannot be
accepted. A Greek polytheist saw divinity in a statue, thus an object, so this is
pure idolatry. Any reasonably educated Christian believer does not see divinity in
the image of the Madonna, but something that spirit is revealed in. Here, the
image is a sensory expression of supra-sensory (infiniteness presented in the
finite). Despite a dangerous Christian deviation, one can thus not speak of
Christian idolatry (the Qur'an also makes this distinction, and it can thus not be
ignored). In fact, it is a different inner motivation of creators of Greek and Roman
idols and painters who populated the churches across the world with numerous
images of saints and God-men. In the latter, it is rather an original religious
striving towards image and individuality. Religion testifies over and over again of
one world that lives, thinks, feels, sees, contrary to the objective, uniform, single
and always self-identical world, as science sees it (or has to see it). By the
relentless painting of new images, by these floods of persons streaming from
every corner of the temple, religion denies and suppresses a material, objective,
dead and impersonal world. The soul (and not the mind) sees this inner empire of
images and cannot resist the temptation of revealing it. I would thus interpret the
medieval Christian painting. Still, it should be emphasized that, irrespective of the
feeling of the painter himself, the consequence could have been the lowest
idolatry of the viewer.
495. Someone called, at the same time, Bach's Toccata and Fugue in Dminor the
greatest religious composition of all times and the most godless. The latter, I do
not know why. Toccata is here a preparation for a religious experience. It
removes obstacles between man and God, and Fugue is a realization of the
relationship with God, a moment of encounter.
497. Mechanical order seems senseless, like a clock. Only moral notions have true
sense. Those are: good, evil, patience, submission, rebellion, shame, pride,
dignity, remorse, punishment, reward, fear, loyalty, betrayal. Only a world of
these qualities has meaning. The universe is impressive, amazing, horrific, but in

relation to a drama, its endless emptiness and absolute correctness seem

senseless. This is a problem of order and sense. A telephone directory or a
foreign language dictionary is an example of order rather than sense. Compare
their "sense" with a novel by Dostoyevsky or a drama by Shakespeare.
Only human life has true sense and its meanings. That is why Man can study the
universe (nature) and remain an atheist. Without God, however, it is impossible
to understand Man and the meaning of his life. Drama remains the strongest and
the most visible trace of the divine in the world.
535. If morality were useful, God would not be necessary to understand the
meaning of life. If morality were not useful, what is, then, the meaning of
morality? There are only two possible answers: (1) morality is meaningless, (2)
God is the guarantee of the meaning of moral behavior. Another meaning is a
necessary quality of morality because morality is not purposeful and such
meaning presupposes a living God.
552. In nature there is force, time, space, interaction, speed, mutual collision,
light, darkness, coldness, warmth, constants, attraction and rejection, movement,
mass, etc. In spirit there is guilt, mercy, credit, justice, submission, remorse,
fear, anxiety, forgiveness, shame, dignity, humiliation, conceitedness, rebellion.
This other world is outside the natural one and it is superior to it. That is why
above all and at the end of all there is God and Judgment, and not nature and
entropy.
583. Morality is, if real, always linked with sacrifice and suffering. Otherwise, it is
mere stupidity and hypocrisy.
586. In a story by a Polish author, a man tortured by the Germans and knowmg
that he would be shot betrays his friend because he is afraid to die alone. They
meet before the firing squad and the betrayed forgives the one who betrayed.
"This forgiveness cannot be justified by any utilitarian ethics," comments Czeslaw
Milosz (The Forbidden Mind).
596. All inner commandments that make us human are in essence irrational.
609. The seven so-called Noah's Commandments, in fact, moral rules given to
Adam and Noah (they are in the Bible): mutual assistance, establishment of
justice, ban on idolatry and blasphemy, ban on theft, ban on murder, ban on
sexual sin and ban on cruelty towards animals.
769. Man's dignity lies in the fact that God made him worthy of his commands
and his bans, thus made him responsible.
843. Europe is too absorbed by the artistic and religious heritage of the Middle
Ages to be able to accept atheistic stories.
864. Must my religion, like all others, rest on the a priori refusal of any question
on its truthfulness? From the way the Qur'an assures, from its constant referrals
to ayyahs (signs, proofs) I would say that it will not and does not have to. In
addition, the Qur'an speaks as if it finds the ultimate reason for me (and for you)
in something close to my heart and my mind. - For what purpose would there
otherwise be in the sentences that constantly refer to observation of the outer
world?

1004. Feuerbach, the ideologue of atheism, said that the grave was the cradle of
religion. He wanted to say that religion fed on the human fear of death. Neither
biographies of the most religious men nor any personal experiences of deeply
religious ones confirm this statement.
1026. A man should love man, not mankind. The latter is an excuse for the
absence of love for a man ("Love thy neighbor").
1040. God forgive me if I am wrong, but I respect a good Christian more than a
bad Muslim. I cannot defend something just because it is Muslim (and not
Islamic), nor can I ignore good just because it is someone else's.
1047. Two faces of things: A seemingly proper man may seem to be truly honest,
and he can be a fearful Philistine who would not mind breaking many rules, but
does not do that out of fear or weakness. Some condemn the tumultuous lives of
others out of secret envy, because they are incapable of living that way. A weak
person is usually unaware of this envy and considers it to be morality, which it is
certainly not. Two men, one weak and one strong but moral, seem to behave the
same. Let us say, they do not drink or sin, the first due to either a lack of will or
fear of consequences, and the second on principle, out of desire suppressed. It is
difficult to tell which one it is, but one is certain:
only the latter case is morality. The first is weakness, and weakness is not a
virtue.
1053. Abu 'Ali Ibn Sina claims that truth cannot be reached through theoretical
thought, that is, the laws of logic, but only through mystic states.
1086. Primitive art: wild exotics, black sculpture, carvings and knits of Australia,
masks and idols of the Blacks and victorious expansion of this art to the West.
Primitive peoples' idols resemble devils (contrary to ancient Roman and Greek
ones, which are examples of beauty). They are a kind of mixture of good and evil,
for in the minds of those peoples the good and the evil have not yet fully
separated. An unclear difference between God and demons is the cause (or the
consequence) of unclear moral notions of the good and the evil. It is related in
any case.
1116. At the end of a film I saw a few days ago in the prison cinema, the
hero refuses to commit a new crime, to take money and leave, and he is hanged.
The audience were mainly criminals. I know for certain that even they cheered for
the hero to refuse treason, which practically meant death for him. They all saw
his death as his victory. They would have all left with a bitter taste in their
mouth, had the hero relented and chosen life. We left with bitterness anyway, but
it was a different kind of bitterness, the kind that includes pride to see a man
(even if just in a film) capable of doing what we want but cannot do. If we think
about this "loser's victory" and draw the right conclusion from it (and the
conclusion is a paradox) we have perhaps resolved the most profound question of
human life, even the riddle of existence. In fact, it shows that what we strive
toward, what we admire, what we respect or consider the highest form of
kindness-whatever different people may mean by this-is not life itself, but
something above life, a principle that contains a negation of interest, selfishness
and time. Faith is just a complete awareness of this, or an attempt to define this
incredible knowledge.

1120. It would be interesting to compare the understanding of God in the Qur'an

and in Herman Hesse's writing. In both the Qur'an and in Hesse's works, God is
first of all a creator. He is not just an expression of the principle of goodness, for
to be God-as Hesse believes-he must encompass the entire reality, thus good and
evil as well. How-that is a secret.
1121. Islamic understanding of a man-God relationship: In the Christian elevation

of man to God, there is the human vanity that the Qur' an so clearly rejects.
1167. Deep inside their souls, people cherish their human dignity more than
health and life. Bruno Bettelheim, who spent a year in Nazi camps in Dachau and
Buchenwald and who later described the behavior of prisoners in these extreme
situations, states that the prisoners hated much more the guards who humiliated
or verbally insulted them than those who hit or even killed prisoners. The same
author gives another interesting (and perhaps) unexpected observation regarding
the prisoners' views: "Prisoners who died in torture, although tortured for their
political beliefs, were not considered martyrs. However, those who died trying to
save others were accepted as martyrs." Some other observations: New prisoners
(up to one year in the camp) are primarily concerned with their own personality,
how to keep it preserved and unharmed, and old prisoners have already gone
beyond that and their main concern is how to live in the camp in the least bad
way. Most of them start doubting if they will ever return to the "outside world"
(B.B., Individual and Mass Behavior in Extreme Situations). My comment: for as
long as I look forward to a beautiful letter more than a food parcel, everything is
all right. And that is still the case (this is my 38th month in prison).
1326. With his critique of the power of human mind, Kant wanted to show that
there could be no reliable science on immortality of the soul, freedom of the will,
and existence of God. But Kant did not think that he had thus dismantled these
three principles. He just claimed that they could not be subject to scientific
findings and theoretical reason, however, that is why he placed them in the
practical mind. Kant says: "I, therefore, had to destroy knowledge, in order to
create space for faith, for the dogma of metaphysics, i.e., the prejudice that there
can be success in it without the critique of pure reason, is the true source of all
the non-belief which is against morality and which is always very dogmatic"
(Kant, Critique of Pure Reason).
1331. With Kant's Critique, reason assumed the most difficult of all its tasks,
namely to know itself, i.e., the powers and limits of reason.
1389. You are a skeptic, you find it hard to believe, but do seek God. Look at a
rose and think about it. Is she not God's "ayyah" (sign), even a short-lived trace
of heaven on earth? Can you find any other explanation for its beauty of no
comparison and no reason? And its seed? Can you imagine a mind that could
produce her, even if you gave him a hundred, a thousand, a million years, and all
the means he could ask for?
1398. Some views of religion or ethics, when expressed clearly, can be on a par
with a geometric axiom. There is but one ethics, just like there is but one
geometry.
1412. How to emphasize one's own human dignity without becoming conceited at
the same time? The answer is in dedication (submission) to God, who is the
model of most sublime goodness and fairness. Dedication is a feeling of dignity

that has not become conceitedness. Submission is left only for the Sublime Lord,
it is annulled for everyone else ("Fear no men, fear me"-Qur'an). Serving God is
in concord with human dignity. Without this service, human pride would turn into
unpredictable and impermissible vanity.
1432. Sometimes the great, ancient truths about God seem to me like huge
mountains. Immovable, eternal, silent, they do not care much about general
commotion and squabble, nor about an occasional hopeful thinker casting stones
at them. Clouds come by from time to time, cover them, lightning and thunder
roar, and then everything clears, and these mountains, with their peaks covered
in white snow, are even clearer against blue skies.
1444. Two completely different roads to God: through logic and through
mysticism. The first is indirect, the second direct. A scholastic lived and believed
with his mind, a mystic with his feeling.
1472. In Lessing' s Nathan the Wise, sultan Sullahuddin asks Nathan the Jew a
question: Which of the three religions-Jewish, Christian or Islamic-did he consider
true? Instead of answering, Nathan told him a story of a magic ring that could
make its owner a favorite with God and men. This ring had been passed from
father to son, until one father had three sons. The father then had two more
identical rings made, but only one was real. The brothers fought over who had
the real one, and they went to a judge. The judge told them that he was unable
to judge that, and that the real ring was with the one who was to become a
favorite with God and men. That was the only proof, and that they could achieve
only by dedication to God and by doing good. Nathan's message:
Religion is real, whatever its name, if it motivates the believer to be dedicated to
God and to doing good unto his neighbors.
1512. Voltaire was firmly against official religion (in fact, the Catholic church) but
he was not an atheist. He claimed that God existed as the beginning of all things,
but that one could not learn about God by enlightenment but by reason.
Therefore, according to Voltaire, learning about God is not the business of priests
but of men of reason-philosophers. Vol1~aire even elaborated three types of
evidence of God's existence: cosmological, theological and moral. But what
Voltaire preached was deism rather than religion. Deism was too optimistic to be
true. A contemporary writer observed correctly that Voltaire's ideas on religion
could only satisfy the feelings of those who lived in financial security and comfort:
"People who spent their lives in dens remained deaf to the teaching of deism,"
said this writer.
1556. Science tries to answer the eternal and "final" questions: God, immortality,
freedom. The result: (1) Incorrect answers and delusions we talked of, or (2)
disappointments due to the inability of the human mind to give a satisfactory
answer. Science annuls religion but cannot replace it. A historical example of this
is the state of the spirit in Europe in early nineteenth century: skepticism,
pessimism and dilemmas, even the feeling of "world pain." There were two
possible ways out: return to religion, for some completely impossible, or a
negation of the so-called eternal (final) questions: God, immortality, human soul
and freedom. The latter way out was offered by the new materialist philosophy.
According to this philosophy, reason is not unable. In it, there are no questions,
therefore there are no answers. Reason cannot give a reasoned answer to
unreasonable or wrong questions, nor can science satisfy non-scientific requests.

Instead of losing faith in reason, according to materialists, we should give a new

definition of the reality of the world, draw a line between reality and illusion.
1756. On his unfortunate heroes of noble making who suffer, Hamsun says:
"They were not made for the world, and the world was not made for them. No
riches or sudden favorable circumstances can save them because they carry the
doom inside them, in their relentless inner disharmony with the world." My
comment: nothing proves the existence of God better than this "disharmony." In
the world which is but one, there is no disharmony.
1757. All the horrors on earth are unable to take heaven away from those who
found it once-if they found it.
1764. Faith, together with everything else, has a measure of senselessness (or
irrationality), which is necessary for a man's life to be truly human.
1791. (From a conversation with an atheist.) He says that it is impossible for him
to imagine that there is reason in the universe, especially that the reason existed
before nature. I asked: Is an endless, eternal and blind universe any less
fantastic, any less of a miracle? There obviously are both reason and nature. That
is what testifies our own existence. The entire difference between believers and
atheists is in who puts what at the beginning. The believers say: "At first there
was a word," that is, reason. And this difference creates all others.
1791a. Man's reason rebels against believing in miracles, and he is condemned to

look at the miracle of all miracles every day: endless skies speckled with stars.
There is an end-there is no end. For a human mind, this miracle has been and will
remain totally incomprehensible, and the question on finiteness and infiniteness
will remain with no answer. The first that our reason will deny is the endless sky
speckled with stars, but that is not possible, it is too obvious.
1796. The world is a miracle, only we get used to it. Look at a dandelion flower,
but with desire, and not superficially as we are used to seeing everything
around us, which is why we notice nothing. The first delegation of the Danish
government, thanks to air transport, brought a bouquet of fresh roses to
Greenland, which was a great surprise. People gathered and looked at the roses
as if they were a miracle, danced around them and cried with excitement. And
the entire world is a miracle, but we do not care for that. We have become numb.
1803. Existentialism has a specific feature: There is the Christian existentialism of

Gabriel Marcel and the atheist existentialism of Jean Paul Sartre. The differences
can be found in other thinkers of this style, Kierkegaard, Heidegger and Jaspers.
Still, existentialist theists are stronger. In fact, if we ignore the subjective beliefs
of the authors, existentialism is a theist learning.
1832. What did the peasants give to the nobility? All the fruits of their hard work.
And what did the nobility give the peasants in return? Nothing but an example of
an empty, immoral life. Fortunately, the peasants were unable to follow this
example and imitate it. If they were to do so, for example in drinking, that was
total misfortune. Many a peasant son imitated nobility, always in things that were
bad.
1845. Irrespective of all the reservation with which it approaches this world,
religion has nothing in common with hopelessness and pessimism. The Gospel is

"Joyful News." Joyful news removes pessimism just like a sunrise sheds away
darkness and fog.
1874. The Christian principle of non-defiance to evil was explained by Leo Tolstoy
as follows: "Not to defy evil is important not only because man should act in that
way for his own sake, to achieve perfection, but also because only non-defiance
stops evil, absorbs it inside itself and does not allow it to expand further" (written
in Tolstoy's diary on June 12, 1898). In Tolstoy's explanation, the thought on how
non-defiance to evil absorbs evil attracts particular attention.
An interesting thought!
1939. I have endless respect for faith that seeks no proof, but if it still refers to
reasons, then they must "hold." Then, I am very critical, even cynical towards
weak arguments.
1962. The first article of the so-called Radya-Yoga consists of five rules of proper
behavior: (1) ahimsa-refraining from violence, (2) satya-love of truth, (3) asteya-
not reaching out for someone else's property, (4) brahmacharya- control of one's
own sensuality and (5) apasigra-forsaking all which is not necessary. One cannot
deny sublimity to these principles. Divine origin can clearly be recognized in
them.
1963. The principle of asceticism is rather universal and we find it in many

different cultures: in Ancient Greece-the Stoics, in Rome-Cynics, in Christianity-
monks. In India, asceticism, or tapas, is the third article of the so-called Niwama-
Yoga.
1971. There is inner parallelism between Christianity and Hinduism. Related are
the stories of Christ's alleged visit to India at a certain period of his life and of his
secret journey to India after his "resurrection."
1979. One of the symbols of Indian religious thought is the lotus flower. The
meaning of this symbol is as follows: Just as a lotus grows out of mud and
reaches the water's surface, unstained by mud or water, thus the mind, born
inside the human body, develops its true characteristics, after having risen above
the torrent of passion and ignorance. Dark sides of the deep are transformed into
the pure nectar of the lotus flower.
1983. Every religion is pure at its beginning, but people corrupt it. Listen to the
purity of faith in this prayer of the Sioux Indians (original monotheism):
Allow my respectful hands to touch the things You created, sharpen my ear to
hear Your voice. Make me wise to understand the teaching
that You mysteriously placed into every leaf, every stone. I seek strength, but not
to overpower my brothers but only to overpower my worst enemy-myself!
God, give me strength to endure the things I cannot change And courage to
change the ones I can change.
And wisdom to tell the two apart.
What a sublimity in this Indian poem despite, strangely, senseless beliefs and
rituals! Is it not similar with Christianity: the sublime learning of love and idols in
churches? It proved that in deformation of a religion, moral (ethical) teachings
are its more resilient part, while theology and beliefs were subject to rapid
degradation and decay. How can this be interpreted, if not by the fact that the

ritual part of religion was in the hands of priests. They had something "to do"
there, while they were not particularly concerned with the ethical part.
Additionally, ethical imperatives (love, fairness, respect for the elder, or all Ten
Commandments) are clear on their own, while the ritual part of religion was
always more or less irrational, and as such required the priests' explanations, and
they always further mystified and complicated them. The priests even found
interest in making it as unintelligible as possible, for in this way increased their
own exclusiveness and the dependence of the masses. In any case, the ritual
part of religious teaching was always obviously given greater importance by the
priests as well as by common believers, while the moral part was usually
neglected by both groups. The multitude of religions exists only in relation to
ritual and theology. The ethical part is their logical core-usually similar, and
sometimes identical. Finally, all this shows that religions, like all culture, do not
know real development. Their "development" and their "history" are their demise.
2006. "Any attempt to impose ideals on man ends in his rebellion" (Amos Oz). In
addition, without ideals man cannot live, at least not like a man. When it comes
to love and faith, force is of no help. "Let there be no compulsion in religion"
(Qur'an, 2/256).
2035. Wind blew, and a few fluffs (or threads) of dry dandelion fell into my
hands. Those are the yellow flowers that fields are covered with in spring, and
when they dry, they are like light, dry balls. These balls consist of several tens (or
hundreds) of seedlings of future flowers. I am looking at one of those the wind
brought to my hands. It resembles a tiny parachute made of light fluffy material
ending in a point that looks like a tiny ball with the air squeezed out of it. The
seed-the purpose of this plant and its existence. In it there is an entire potential
new plant and in it exactly the same seed with an endless number of new
generations of the same plant, and so on with no end. All this is in harmony with
its purpose, nothing redundant and nothing lacking. This is how I think: If all the
knowledge of the world was to be gathered in one place, the knowledge contained
in all the wise heads and all books of all the world's libraries, thus all the wisdom
past and present, and if a team was to be established of all the living scientists
and if they were given all the technical resources they may ask or wish for, as
well as the desired money and time, all the united wisdom and power of the world
could not produce a seedling like this. The rocket men sent to the moon is a
rough, barbaric tool when compared with this tiny seed.
2093. Dostoyevsky tests Ivan Karamazov's "all is permitted" philosophy on

murder. In this horrific experiment, the philosophy proves wrong. By introducing
the devil to the scene, Dostoyevsky shows that this philosophy is satanic.
2094. As for freedom as a precondition of moral responsibility, deserved heaven,

hell, etc., it does not matter at all if we are absolutely or partially free,
permanently or occasionally free, or rarely and at times, or even just in thoughts
and not in actions. The key question is, does freedom exist as a principle or not?
Even if we have been free only once in our entire life, in just one inner decision,
that is quite sufficient for a judgment to be made of us (and above us), for our
destiny in eternity, for our heaven or hell. We are responsible only for our one
decision, when and how were we free. All the difference between a good and an
evil man is just in that a good man loves and wishes good even when he does not
do it, when he confirms the good in neither actions nor words, but in an
aspiration or a desire in the very bottom of his soul, somewhere far, "at the end
of all ends," at its bottom. There is no man, irrespective of his social standing, his

education, upbringing, imposed philosophy or religion, who could have avoided

this test and who did not place himself among those who, despite all, were saved
or fell. There is no man who was without this minimum of freedom, and the
minimum is complete freedom, and it can be neither greater nor smaller.
2098. Ideas of Kant's antinomies are in the foundations of religion and morality,
just as antitheses are in the foundations of science. Science lies on the
presuppositions of eternity, divisibility, causality and objectivity of the world.
Without these presuppositions there is no science, and conversely there is no
morality without the presupposition of freedom. Theses and antitheses of Kant's
antinomies-culture and civilization reduced to their most distant, most abstract
premises. Further reduction is logically impossible.
Moreover, we understand that the four theses (and antitheses) of Kant's

antinomies go - together. Freedom presupposes God, just like God is the
precondition of freedom. In a world that we can only understand as causal (we
cannot understand it differently), only God could have created a free creature.
Conversely, an endless world (in space and time) is also endlessly divisible, blind
and necessarily impersonal. It cannot be otherwise. Some people can see the
world just antithetically (in the Kantian sense); all other views of the world are
foreign to them. For them, a thesis is veiled, and why that is so we cannot know
(the Qur'an mentions such a veil, Surah 2/71). These people feel quite
comfortable with their "view" of the world. To us their "view" is blindness, and it
is not so for them, for this is blindness of a special kind. No colorblind person
could ever know his condition, nor would he feel deprived of the view of a brightly
colored world, if we, "the seeing," had not told him so. And we, "the seeing," are
blind (or deaf) to so many parts of reality, such as large parts of the spectrum,
for sounds above or below a certain limit, of the scents dogs can smell, for signs
and waves our radio can receive. Atheists do not suffer, do not kill themselves, do
not fill psychiatric hospitals, and neither do their antipodes- believers.
Unfortunate are the third ones, those who seek but do not find, those whose
souls and minds are in constant and unsolvable conflict. For them, the universe is
not logical and comprehensible, it is not meaningful because it is endless and
subject to eternal laws of movement and change. Since they try to "see" with
their soul and not with their mind, they only see the "cosmic horror," wasteland
and senselessness. They provide recruits for the creators of the philosophy of
absurdity, pessimism and nihilism. Believers seek and find, atheists do not seek
and do not find, and the third seek but do not find. All three cases are about the
relationship of the soul and the mind. Every soul sees the world in Kant's three
theses, every mind in Kant's four antitheses. In some people it is the soul that is
dominant, in some it is the mind. In third the soul and the mind are in constant
conflict, with no end and no result.
2139. If there is no God, there is no man. If there is no man, there is no

responsibility. If there is no responsibility, there is no crime. If there is no God,
there is no crime. If there is no God, all is permitted.
2152. Some believe that their religious affiliation exempts them from an
obligation to think.
2171. Life is not mechanics, not even of the most complex kind. It is drama,
tragedy, comedy, absurdity, fairy-tale or myth. It is all this because there is God.
Without God, life would return to mechanics, it would become non-life.

2197. There is no rational evidence of God's existence, but there is an

inexplicable and omnipresent (at all times and in all places) need of man need for
God. Atheists say: Man created God, not vice versa. But then the question arises:
Why? Why did He create Him, not once, but a thousand times, and not in one
place, but everywhere on earth?
2216. A sentence in the Qur' an has always attracted my attention, and as far as
I know it has been interpreted differently: that everything exists, "happens,"
because the dilemma has not been resolved. If God were to remove this dilemma,
if everything was to become clear, revealed, then it would be "all done, finished"
(Qur'an). I think that a similar thought can be found in Dostoyevsky (The
Brothers Karamazov), where evil, Satan and suspicion are the precondition of
"happening." This thought is presented by the Great Inquisitor. Evil is necessary
for without it this contradiction called life would be finally resolved (decided) and
everything would stop, even vanish.
2233. Why do political mottos wear with use, and the call from a minaret and the
chime of church bells that we have been hearing for centuries are always as
exciting as the first time? Do these sounds have some of the quality of a "natural
happening," such as sunrise, whose beauty never wears out?
2148a. I once wrote about the nature of sacrifice as the central notion of religion.
It is irrational, sometimes senseless, but it is still the only way to man's self-
confirmation. There is no other way for us to "touch and feel" the soul, equally
irrational, unattainable, and scientifically nonexistent. A while ago I was reading
the writings of the recently deceased Russian film director Andrei Tar-
kovsky, on his film The Sacrifice. I think that he had the same idea in mind and
that he dealt with the same dilemmas. Tarkovsky wrote: "I know that these ideas
are not particularly acceptable, for nobody has the will to sacrifice himself, but
there is no other way if a man wishes spiritual salvation. . . . Those who do not
know this feeling, in my opinion, have not become men. They become things in
the hands of society and government. .. . The act of sacrifice may have an absurd
reflection on the material level, but on the spiritual level it is truly magnificent,
since it opens the road to regeneration...," etc. Unfortunately, I have not had the
opportunity to see The Sacrifice, but I know that neither this nor other
Tarkovsky's films were shown in the USSR. They were banned there. Tarkovsky
lived and made films in the West. He died in Paris in 1986.
2498. Plants are "finding ways" to spread their seed as far as possible and thus
ensure their survival and expansion. A dandelion seed has a kind of parachute
that helps it fly with the wind as far as several hundred meters. A Virginia creeper
plant ties a real sailor's knot, which is, when dry, stretched so hard that the plant
can no longer sustain it, and the knot breaks and launches the seeds very far
from the mother plant. How do plants know these parachute and knot tricks? It is
all a game of coincidence, say the atheists.
2519. I sometimes think that of all the writings it is tragedy that is most
harmonious with the fact that there is God. In it, villains get by and get away,
and great sincere souls get hurt. And since there is no "intellectual" operation of
declaring these eternal losers mad and senseless (for such Antigone, Hamlet,
Samson, or Jean Valjean are certainly not) the entire story, and especially its
tragic end, are suddenly uncovered as a mere first act of a higher drama that only
God could conceive and be the author of. For suffering and death, which are the
end of everything of intellect, in this case are a mere intermission between two

acts of a continuing drama. Our admiration and sympathy for a fallen hero are
totally senseless from the intellectual point of view, but-whether we are aware of
it or not-they are deeply religious. For in such experience-and only in such
experience-death and loss have totally different meanings. Tragedy is a religious
parable.
2523. The dilemma: reason-being-reason-what was first, what is the beginning-if

there is one-in the name of all religions, was resolved by the Bible in the famous
sentence: "First there was word." The reply is clear and unambiguous. Any
explanation would be redundant.
2532. Scientist-atheists claim that the target direction of physical nature cannot
be proved. And since it cannot be proved, it does not exist. Can the finiteness or
infiniteness of heaven be proved? -
2588. Religion is a radical upturn, a man's way out of an inhuman state.

However, contrary to a revolution, an objective way out, religion is always a
man's inner upturn, a subjective possibility.
2177. Moral (ethical) teachings proved to be far more resilient to historical

definitions than religion. A man who destroys everything he can reach has always
been able to inflict more damage to religion than to ethics. A good example of
this is Buddhism and Christianity (the contrast being more visible in the former).
While ethical teachings of both religions maintain their sublimity, obviously of
divine origin, their religious content has suffered sad alterations, obviously of
human origin. In Christianity, man invented a "trinity" God and masses of saints,
while in Hinduism he dreamt up a multitude of gods, usually based on his own
image.
2225. Sacrifice is the central notion of religion just like force (or size) is the
central notion of physics. That is why Jesus' suffering became a supreme symbol,
and his history (irrespective of whether it is true or not) is the very essence of
religion. For however Jesus really ended his life, the history of suffering, the
history of sacrifice is a priori true within a truly religious world. From the point of
view of religion, with no sacrifice a man's life would not be truly human. The
notion of sacrifice includes a multitude of negations, in fact, the radical negation
of the world of calculation and interest, and without the negation of such a world
there can be no religion.
2227. All our lives we try to defend what cannot be defended and what is
condemned to permanent and inevitable decay: life, health, property. In this
futile struggle, lost in advance, we forget true values which may be won or
preserved, if only we fought for them. All our lives we replace true values with
false ones, as clearly stated in the Qur'an.
2229. All things worthy in man's life, all his better feelings, all his achievements
that we admire or take pride in, are irrational. What is rational is just his
selfishness and his interest.
3090. Man's soul aspires for Infinity, Endlessness, Perfection, Good, Peace, and-
God. Is this aspiration not memory? Does it not uncover a memory of a
(temporarily) lost world?

3122. There is nothing deeper or more sublime than faith, and nothing duller or
more boring than some believers.
3127. Observing the world (Qur'an: "Observe, watch -Qur'an 56/7,56/

6-n, 88/17-21, 56/63-78, etc.) can be the most profound religious experience.
Nature is full of miracles, but I have always been excited by flower seeds more
than anything else. I used to open a blossom and always admired again and
again the cluster of tiny seeds inside. Have you ever looked at a dried dandelion
flower carefully? Each of the seedlings-and there are at least a hundred on each
flower-is a very complex system on its own. The first seed is just a tiny part of
this complex machinery. There is spare food and a tiny parachute or wings made
of the finest, in fact the most functional, matter found in nature. All the
knowledge of this world, gathered by people from time immemorial until today,
brought together in one place and placed to serve one and the same task, cannot
make a single of these seeds. For in it, so tiny, there is more than just a tiny,
mysterious spring called life (vis vitalis) but it also carries a code of the future
plant and its appearance, color, scent and the ability to procreate, thus creating
in the end more seeds for this cycle and so on and so on. Thinking about this, my
heart always trembles again. For me, this has always been a strong religious
experience. If it is true that prayer is within and not outside, in the soul and not
in words and movement, then for me, this observation of a dandelion flower has
always been a true prayer, more sincere than any other I have done in my life.
When asked about what a synthesis of religion and science was, I always gave
this example, an endless space for human research and again, at the end of it, a
secret. Like heaven, with no end.
3139. All around us there are miracles, but man is still the greatest miracle in the
universe.
3156. People are always celebrating something. They cannot but celebrate. If
they do not worship the Maker, they worship what he made. If they do not bow to
the Creator, they bow to the creature. This is the entire difference, but it is
essential.
3253. Evil is the condition of life. If there were no evil, there would be a state of
moral entropy, thus non-existence.
3309a. When asked about viruses, Jean Dausset gave an interesting reply.
Dausset said: "They are much more cunning. The AIDS virus is especially more
cunning than any other known so far. First, it attacks the very cells that are
supposed to eliminate it, it attacks man's inimunity. And second, it changes
constantly, so well that the immune system cannot fight it." My questions: who
constructed the AIDS virus as it is and why?
3346. Christian (medieval) scholastics is totally rationalist in its method. It tried

to prove God's existence through logical reasoning. I think that it thus opened the
path for European atheism.
3352. Existence, "Dasein," in Heideggerean meaning is "to be thrown" into the

world. As such, this idea is essentially religious, certainly in the widest sense of
the world.

3375. The formula "if there is no God, there is no man" is a starting point for me.
It is Euclidean-like clear, perhaps beyond proof, but also beyond challenge, just
like Euclid's axiom.
3482. Magic is not religious. Magic is the belief in forces man can conquer,
submit, make them serve him. Religion is the belief in force that man is to submit
itself to and serve. Magic always has a worldly aim or interest: harvest, rain,
protection from illness, enemy, danger, etc. Religion wants a heavenly kingdom.
Absorbed by the worldly kingdom, magic does in no way imply either the man's
value nor his eternity. It is all here (hic et nunc) on earth. That is why it is "an
illusory technique" because its goal is "practical," but its method is non-
purposeful, illusory. Religion, absorbed by eternity and deliverance of the soul, is
consequent, and magic is marked by contradiction of the goal and the way: the
goal is rational, the way is irrational. That is why replacement by work,
knowledge, struggle-religious or magic-is an illusory replacement. There is
another difference: Magic as fake religion is very widely spread, more than we are
willing to believe. True religion is a feature of a relatively small number of people,
much smaller than we assume. Despite that, replacement of true religion by a
false one is a common matter and a constant phenomenon.
3497. It is mid-May and everything is covered in dandelions, the yellow flower

that floods fields and pastures in spring. Those are the yellow balls that children
like to play with and they are called "blows." I picked a flower like that and the
breeze had already removed more than half of the seeds. Have you ever
observed or carefully examined one of those seeds? If not, do so and you will
meet miracle face to face. If you bear in mind the purpose, procreation of life of
this plant, birth of a future, next generation, then you have before you absolute
perfection. What you have before you is not a seed in the narrow sense of the
word. A seed is the thick black ending on one side. There is a stick and a
parachute made of a number of the finest threads in the shape of a multi-tongued
star, designed in such a way that the wind can carry it as far as possible and
spread it all over the world. Even the thick ending of the stick I have mentioned is
not the seed. The seed is just its smaller part. The rest is spare food available to
the seed for the initial period until it "settles." Everything about this seed is
obviously designed, nothing is accidental. The seed will fall, rains will help it
penetrate the soil, it will survive winter, and in spring it will "remember itself," it
will sprout and from it a yellow dandelion will grow, whose every petal will slowly
transform into such a seed and so on forever. When I think that all our science,
all our scientists and all our technology, even if they were to be gathered into one
place and if they were able to work together harmoniously, even in a hundred
years they would not be able to produce a single seed like this, and when I think
that they will never be able to do that, I must wonder how can people ignore this
obvious reason behind nature. And what kind of blindness is it?! How can one
explain man's indifference before such an obvious "sign" (ayyah) of God. And this
sign is just one of many, even stranger, even less explicable, even more worthy
of admiration and wonder.
3533. If true prayer is within and not outside, in the soul and not in the
ceremony, then my most intense address to God was -experienced in observing
living nature. I remember a TV documentary. It showed the amazing life of
tropical birds, their symbiosis with flowers and the endless colorfulness of the
living world. The camera moved from one flower to the other, it looked at the
calyxes, followed the flight of seeds carried slowly by the wind. At that time I felt
closer to God than I ever had during prayer-prayers can sometimes be routine

and automatic-and I wondered at God's work and living proof of His creation.
Turgenev wrote about how "flowers look at us with their innocent eyes." I was
perhaps most excited by this silent testimony with no words. There is something
truly harmless and touching in this "look" of a flower. If prayer is in the soul and
not in words and movements, then I experienced my most intense prayer during
this TV documentary.
3579. A photographer from Tula who was invited to take photographs in Not Clear
Fields asked Tolstoy: "Leo Nikolaevich, is there God?" Tolstoy asked him if he had
ever seen microbes through a microscope. "If we asked a microbe if there was a
photographer from Tula named Rayevsky, what do you think his answer would
be?"
3625. Major religions, especially Judaism, Christianity and Islam, have a special
place and role in history. After the appearance of each of them, the world was no
longer the same. It was always a new, different world. The appearance of these
major religions leaves the impression of God's direct, immediate interference with
human history and its flow. They were a direct disturbance in the rules of
continuity of history. There is no "historical" explanation for the appearance of
Moses, Jesus and Muhammad. In each of the religions they were the prophets of
which meant a totally new beginning, a new epoch, a spiritual revolution, and not
evolution.
3635. The characteristic that makes the Bible so different from all other books
before it or the books that can be located at the time when it appeared (of
course, I am referring to its original form) is its absolute originality. It is
something totally new, as if it was "brought down from heaven," which, in fact, it
is. There is an almost general consent regarding this characteristic.


Political Notes
CHAPTER 3
Political Notes
19. South America is predominantly Catholic, North America is predominantly

Protestant. We have the same division (south-north) in Europe, and what can be
noted everywhere is the greater openness to progress in Protestant rather than in
Catholic nations. In general, Protestantism is a more powerful impetus in history
than the Catholic form of Christianity.
24. The request for the abolition of the death penalty is an integral part of the
tendency in criminal law to take more care of the criminal than the victim of the
crime. The arguments are problematic. Thus, for example, they describe to you
the details of the execution of the death penalty and ask you if you are in favor of
it. They could also describe the details of the execution of the crime and the
horrible state it left on the side of the victim and family, and ask the same
question. However, this is pushed aside, as if two murders do not exist, but only
one-the death penalty that would be carried out against the murderer.
34. No doubt corporal punishment contradicts sense of honor and human dignity,
as everyone would easily agree. However, seen from the other side, experience
shows that, unfortunately, there is the existence of people without the smallest
amount of honor and human dignity. The Qur'an says there are people who are
like animals, "even worse than them." One who has spent some time in prison
with petty criminals can easily be convinced of this. It is peculiar that people in
office write criminal codes, people not usually familiar with this human "material."
It is unimaginable to think of doctors who have never stepped into a hospital or
interacted among patients. This is exactly what happens with criminologists. Most
of them, in the best of cases, have met delinquents during a hearing or during a
court trial, and what has to be taken into account is that criminals, unlike
ordinary people, have a greater power of transformation. Criminals are never
naive; there are, more or less, experienced people. Their accounts of life can be
wrong, but not due to naiveté, rather due to a commitment to evil, which in most
of them is final and incorrigible. In prison, I have seen a great number of people
serving time for pickpocketing and street robberies. Not in a single one have I
noticed a readiness to begin any type of honest work after leaving prison. On the
contrary, they encouraged and instructed each other and exchanged experiences.
I have noticed a bit of remorse only in murderers, but even among them the
penitent ones were not in the majority. In one scene of a film I watched in the
prison theater, a man was attacking a girl with the intent to rape her. While she
struggled like captured prey, the majority of the viewers- prisoners-were noisily
encouraging the attacker.
Petty thieves and pickpockets are particularly unscrupulous types of criminals.

They amuse themselves by telling each other how they, month after month, stole
the entire earnings of miners. They mentioned a case of some miner who, after
realizing he has lost his earnings, committed suicide.
One of them, showing me his hands, told me: "Can't you notice that they are not
for work, they were created for something else." And indeed, he had beautifully
sculptured hands with long fingers. I told him that some claim that it is the type
of work that creates the hands. He answered that it, work, surely did not create
his. Then I thought he does not deserve such beautiful hands and that it would be
completely just he did not have them, only to later remember that the sentence
of the Shariah would be just that.

Political Notes
Naturally, one should be very careful in sentencing, but if I were to write the
criminal code in prison, and while taking into account all of my prison
experiences, I think it would more and more look like the Shariat penal code. As I
have before had certain reservations toward corporal punishment, it seems to me
at times that God sent me here to compare His wisdom to mine.
48. While reading through the history of a nation or a period, it appears to us at

times that some events, victories or defeats, the evil or just destinies of some
nation, were a result of fortunate and unfortunate circumstances, that is, of
coincidence. However, if we examine things a bit more closely, we usually arrive
at a conclusion that the "coincidence" was not as coincidental as we were first
inclined to think.
49. I do not know, or do not sufficiently know, the past of my nation. But I know
the present, that is, the result. From this present I can conclude a lot about what
preceded it.
50. To know a nation or a period, it is in no way enough to read written histories

about it. Without Balzac's novels, not even a ten-volume history of France will
offer a clear picture of the life of French society. Only with these can we say we
know the life of French society of the nineteenth century.
Histories inform us of events, while novels, poems, epics, stories, legends, and
fables inform us of life of a man-individual, that is-of that which really existed.
The one is external, the other internal history. External history is that much more
insufficient, for it most often speaks of emperors and kings and events concerning
a limited group of people at the court and around it. And I cannot say I know the
history of a nation if I know the emperors it had, wars it waged, all the places
where it was victorious or defeated. Furthermore, I cannot even say I know that
nation even when I know its legislature and culture. I have to know how an
individual lived in his home, how he related to his wife, children, servants,
authorities. Only by combining both of these pictures, external and internal, I can
say I know, in certain measure, that nation and its past- of course, only when
taking into account all the limitations and reservations one should have
concerning writers and their texts.
52. In history, as in nature, everything is diversity and continual change. I cannot

ask for or expect a single situation or condition to become stabilized in history, for
history to stop, just as I cannot ask for one of the four seasons to be forever
fixed. In history, as in nature, there will always be forces which will cause change.
And I, with my wants and actions, am only a minute participant in one of these
continual changes.
53. Something over 100 years ago, the United States purchased a piece of land
on the west coast of Africa and founded Liberia, the first free Negro state. It was
an attempt by the United States, to an extent, redeem itself for the shameful
"black cargo" (ill-famed trade in black slaves). A number of descendents of the
Blacks who had been caught in the vicinity and forcibly taken across the ocean as
slaves had been returned to Liberia. And what happened? These returned slaves
became masters in Liberia and, in an unprecedented manner, subjugated the
mainly black population from whom they were descended. This rule of the black
caste was known as the "reign of terror of 100 families," lasting almost 100
years; it was ended only by a military putsch in 1980. After all this, we can
conclude that life sometimes makes a crude joke of noble thoughts or that
intentions, good or bad, have no particular significance in historic life. Thus will
happen that positive consequences will result from selfish motives, and negative
ones from the most noble of motives. On the other hand, the delineated case
indicates how in slaves and those who suffer lurk veiled oppressors, and how

Political Notes
much depends on circumstances. As people often say: God knows what he is

doing. People, in actuality, can be only externally divided into masters and slaves,
oppressors and victims. From the moral standpoint, in every man there exists
both a master and a slave, and sometimes it is only a matter of circumstances
what someone objectively will be, that is, which of these two possibilities can
actualize in historic life.
68. While reading the chronicles about the developed phase of one society or
civilization, we shall come across historians informing us of spiritual and moral
decadence, stating resignedly that in the midst of plentitude and luxury, there is
less and less of a man. Only moral dwarfs remain, waiting for the relentlessly
approaching demise. Here and there appear great personages, but those are only
the rare individuals powerless in the midst of general weakness. Their greatness
appears even larger the more it is in contrast with the general state of spirit.
69. Nations enter history as morally affluent and materially poor. When they exit
history, the situation is usually completely reversed. This is confirmed in the
histories of almost all significant peoples: ancient Persians, Romans, Greeks,
Arabs, even the modern Western nations. From this ensues a conclusion that a
civilization (which is only objectified, materialized knowledge) can be explained
through historical development, while morality cannot. It is precisely morality that
is not a result but a prerequisite for a historical, external power, and one could
say that people, fulfilling themselves historically, live at the expense of this moral
supply, spending it, just as a prospective plant sprouts at the expense of the
supply of food in the seed. At first, we always come across a man and with him
examples of very pure and exalted religious awareness and morality. As the
historical development proceeds, religion is either abandoned or it deteriorates, to
finally have, on the eve of demise, godlessness and complete moral deterioration.
Morality, therefore, is nowhere a product, we find it in the consciousness and life
of people in its original form, most often without the ability to explain it. It can be
found as an integral part of the "human material" that announces its entrance
onto the historical stage.
What has created this original morality? Nothing, if we take this word in its literal
sense. That morality is not the result of life, but life itself, or a source of life that
is only to begin. The debauchery and depravity that appear at the end are only
the expression of the wasting and loss of ideals. They are the gray hairs of a life
that is approaching its end. Debauchery is an expression of weakness, not
strength. Why are all young races moral (puritan), while decadent ones are
immoral? "Sexual revolution has its turn when any other positive revolution is
impossible. It heralds the time when there is no strength nor will for any other
ideal. It is a mark of the lack of true will and purpose. For everything that is good
is a laborious 'ascent up the mountain'" (Qur'an 90/11).
88. Dictatorship is immoral even when it prohibits sin, democracy is moral even
when it allows it. Morality is inseparable from freedom. Only free conduct is moral
conduct. By negating freedom, and thus the possibility of choice, a dictatorship
contains in its premises the negation of morality. To that extent, regardless of all
historical apparitions, dictatorship and religion are mutually exclusive. For, just as
in the body-spirit dilemma, religion always favors the spirit, so in the choice
between wanting and behaving, intent and action, it will always favor wanting and
intent, regardless of the result, that is, the consequence. In religion, an action is
not valued without the intention, without "intent," that is, without an opportunity
or freedom to act or not act. Just as coercive starvation is not a fast, so the
coerced good is not good and is from the religious standpoint valueless. That is
why the freedom of choice, that is, of action or lack of it, of abiding or
transgressing, is the prerequisite at the basis of all prerequisites of all religions
and all morality. And that is why the elimination of this choice either by physical

Political Notes
force in dictatorship or obedience training in utopia signifies their negation From

this the idea follows that every truly human society must be a community of free
individuals It must limit the number of its laws and interventions (degree of
external coercion) to that necessary extent in which the freedom of choice
between good and evil is maintained, so that people would do good, not because
they must, but because they want to. Without this intent for the good, we have a
state of dictatorship or utopia.
94. When one world loses the ability of great politics, diplomatic hairsplitting
"diplomatic state," as expressed by Hegel) begins.
100. People and a crowd (a crowd of people) are not the same. This difference is
well known to demagogues, so they amply use it for their purposes. People are
degraded into a crowd when they lose an internal principle of awareness, morals,
ideals. People without awareness equals a mob (crowd). A mob is an amorphous
crowd of people without ideals, a sum of individuals in which each lives for
himself and has only one's own interests or desires without the awareness of
something higher and communal, without even a name. People still have ideals, a
mob only has wants. We find it at the end of the historical road, on the eve of
demise. A typical example is the Roman lumpen-proletariat before the demise of
the Roman Empire.
103. When social life loses its true meaning, or cannot find it, individuals,
depending on their personal dispositions and character, escape into thought and
mysticism, or give themselves to sensual pleasures. The situation in which there
exist only two kinds of people-ascetics and practicing epicures-is a reliable sign
that a society is diseased.
104. When ideas are concerned, there are two kinds of prohibitions. The first is
the resistance of those in power toward advancing ideas, the time for which has
come. The second is the prohibition of something that is receding, moribund, for
example the edict of Emperor Theodosius against pagans. In actuality, paganism
was already dead, and this prohibition was only a death certificate, the
announcement of the natural death, which had already occurred. Both
prohibitions are without purpose. The former is useless, since it cannot change
anything, the latter unnecessary, since the change has already occurred.
110. When laws are concerned, it is very important that principles of some state
system or order are based on the spirit of people, for these to live in people even
in a form of vague notions that the system then only articulates, names, brings to
full awareness, makes a reality. If some fundamental values are not known or felt
by people, the noble lawmaker will be in a difficult position, since his laws may
remain empty declarations. It is one situation if people believe in the equality of
people, another if they have deep-rooted racial prejudices. In the latter case the
constitution regarding equality will be "digested" with difficulty and will have little
chance of being brought to life.
254. Democracy and stability are mutually conditioned. We need democracy

because of stability and stability because of democracy.
271. What do we need: people who believe or people who think? Do these
exclude each other?
274. If you read some publications between the wars-it was then fashionable to
find so-called sociological explanations for all events-you would, for example,
come across the assertion that the increase in the criminal act of rape is a result
of sexual repression, conservative morality, etc. Expansion of this offence in the

Political Notes
United States and Western countries, especially after the so-called sexual
revolution, shows that the sociological explanation was not correct.
285. Henry LeFebvre claims that for twenty years the Communist Party of France
has ignored the existence of Khrushchev's secret report of the Twentieth
Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
293. As in historical events, people are not only motivated by interests but also
ideals, history is not predictable. To the contrary, that would be one causality that
would differ from the natural one even if only in principle. As historical events are
interfered with by the spirit (in the form of morality and ideals, or the motives of
justice or injustice), in other words, because its actor-man- is motivated by pain
and usefulness (interest) but is not its slave, history cannot be predicted. It
continually makes its forecasters "lie." The last example is Marx's failure to
predict history. I am thinking, of course, of the absence of world socialist
revolution.
297. More than half of humanity today (end of 1984) lives in about twenty federal
states. The organization differs from one country to another. Differences are
mainly contained in the degree of independence of federal states with respect to
the central bodies of government. -
298. History has shown repeatedly that serious difficulties in every great
undertaking appear only in the later phases of its implementation. This is
indicated equivalently by the histories of Christianity, Islam and socialism.
301. In the preparations for the new post-industrial era, especially after the "oil
crisis" in 1974, two million workers were fired in the countries of the European
Economic Union, resulting in the number of unemployed rising to over 12 million
people in 1984. The question, then, is in which way are we meeting the new era
that is inevitably coming? Development, especially of the third (tertiary)
activities, offers opportunities exclusively to small, dynamic companies. It is
estimated that during the computable period since 1977, in the United States
600,000 companies are established and 40,000 companies go bankrupt annually.
Currently there is a battle that relentlessly imposes the market, and in which rule
the steel laws of Darwinian selection. Newly founded effective firms are usually
small companies with fewer than 20 workers.
315. During the Congress in Bad Godesberg in 1959, the Social-Democratic party
of West Germany abandoned Marxism as a "method of analysis of social events."
This party preferred the "welfare state" to battle between classes. Swedish social
democracy achieved this turn almost thirty years earlier.
317. Currently in effect is the process of constant decrease in purely industrial

working posts in the economy of all highly developed countries. On this basis,
Alen Turen alleges the gradual disappearance of the classic working class. The
number of unionized workers is also on the decline. In France in 1984, for
example, only 30 percent of workers were members of one of four large unions.
318. In America during the last century, a thief used to be hanged for stealing a
horse. That was considered completely natural.
319. In 1984 in San Quentin Prison (California) alone, 155 convicts were waiting
for execution.

Political Notes
329. When we speak of differences between the sexes, we think of men and
women, not feminists. Unlike women, who are one principle or element of the
world, feminists mean nothing. They are like plants pulled out by their roots, and
thus outside of any sort of comparison and consideration.
331. It would be normal to expect large differences between old and new
generations in our time. A child who has grown up with radio and television
discovers from earliest childhood that there are people at the other end of the
world who think, live, and feel differently. This should have as its result a greater
degree of tolerance and less chauvinism of every kind. For a child sees people
who believe in different things, but are equally good and evil, just like the
environment to which he belongs. Greater tolerance would be a logical result of
this experience. But, is life logical? -
332. In spite of everything, in our century there has been a democratisation of

relationships among people. The one who doubts that should read the obliging
inscription of I. Kant (in the foreword to the Critique of Pure Reason) to some
anonymous bureaucrat (or minister) in Konigsberg. Kant, "an obedient servant,"
dedicated to him "all the interests of his literary career." Meanwhile, the
expression of subjugation, deep bows ("to the ground"), was something that was
at that time encountered at every step.
333. Television keeps incessantly hammering into the consciousness of people the
standardized messages and images that correspond to the official philosophy and
ideology. That is why television is a powerful weapon in the hands of totalitarian
regimes. However, new technological developments in this area (cable TV, more
channels, satellite TV, private stations, videorecorders, videotapes, etc.) break
this ideological and political monopoly. It will be amusing to see how totalitarian
countries, which have rushed to introduce TV, will offer resistance to the
introduction of these innovations. They are already doing this, since they either
ignore or avoid these developments. It does not suit them.
334. A totalitarian society is inclined toward uniformity in the upbringing and

education of people, as that makes manipulation easier. The behavior of uniform
people can be more easily controlled, it is predictable, and it fits better with
already existing forms.
339. Every fact of life and everything that is related to a man is complex and
cannot be explained nor solved with a simplified theory. Still, this is a century in
which people believed in theories. The Bolsheviks in the workers' power, Germans
in the superior race, criminologists in the futility of the punishment (for the
behavior of the offender is absolutely conditioned by biology and social
circumstances). Further still they went in Italy when they abolished insane
asylums and let the sick people out on the Street. They believed in the theory
that illness is of a social origin and that insane asylums were purposeless.
Although there is some truth in the assertion that a disease is socially
conditioned, by abolishing insane asylums, a service was not done either to
society or the patients.
343. As can be rather well seen, every technological advance is first the advance
of espionage and the military, and then all else. It has always been so. Today that
is only more apparent.
346. During the early 1950s of this century, the president of the International
Court of Justice in the Hague, who was arbitrating a dispute between the British
and Iran, was a Briton. In this dispute he voted against his country. British people
were angry, but they have not declared him a traitor to his homeland.

Political Notes
350. High technology (high-tech), does not necessarily lead to unemployment, as

is commonly thought. Toffler states that in the period between 1963 and 1973,
Japan had the highest rate of investment in new technology and concurrently the
greatest increase in employment. To the contrary, Britain, which had the smallest
investment in machines, recorded the greatest decrease in workplaces.
351. Changes in the economic life of a post-industrial nation: in 1980, in the

United States, of the 85 million employed, only 20 million produced material
goods for all of the 220 million inhabitants of the country. The remaining 65
million "manipulate symbols" as Toffler says, that is, work in non-material
production.
352. Some leading American firms achieve greater profits-or have greater losses-
through currency and financial manipulations, rather than through production
itself. Therefore, in the majority of corporations, one often increasingly comes
across the position of the "director for international cash transactions," actually, a
man who participates in the world electronic gambling-houses. His task is to
search for the lowest interest rates, the most propitious currency transactions and
the quickest turnover.
369. Mercator's projection of the globe does not suit us well. It incites
Eurocentrism. By distorting real relationships, it made the northern, developed
parts of the world disproportionately large, and in such a way fuels the feeling of
the greatness of the colonial powers with respect to the colonies (Scandinavia
larger than Congo, although opposite in reality).
382. This persistent pressure for employment of women outside the home, her
inclusion into production, also has its psychological form: it consists of not
acknowledging all of the economic values a woman creates at home, by giving
birth, raising children, and maintaining a family. The homemaker, that worker
who puts in 10 to 12 hours daily, is represented by our statistics as unemployed
and categorized under the heading "non-working element." All of us know how
busy a woman is, and at the same time we pretend not to see it. This neglect of
woman's work is yet another, this time moral, form of pressure on a woman to
leave home and turn her back on the family. Islamic culture must head the other
way. The beginning of this would be the acknowledgment of the work of the
mother and homemaker.
383. Alvin Toffler predicts that alcoholism costs American industry $20 billion
annually, while these numbers are even more adverse for Poland and the Soviet
Union. Fyodor Uglov, a member of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union,
suggests passing a law on the complete prohibition of alcohol in the Soviet Union.
"Otherwise, the Soviet nation will disappear," says Uglov. There are over 40
million alcoholics in the Soviet Union. Each year over a million people die as a
consequence of alcohol, and every sixth child is born handicapped because one of
its parents was an alcoholic, claims Uglov (Osmica, March 14, 1985).
386. Even American Christianity was contaminated with racism. On many

churches, even around the middle of this century, one could read a sign that that
church was for whites only.
403. Even if power can be gained through promises, it can be only kept with
results.
420. Alcoholism became a first-rate problem in the Soviet Union. It has been
determined: in the twenty years between 1960 and 1980 the production and
consumption of alcohol increased eightfold. In 1980-30 liters of alcohol per capita
and 40 million alcoholics. According to one analysis of the Academy of Sciences in

Political Notes
the Soviet Union, alcohol is a direct or indirect cause of death of more than -1.5
million people yearly-which equals the effect of 13 atomic bombs dropped on
Hiroshima. Alcohol is the cause of the 25 percent decline in birthrate, and of the
40 percent growth in death-rate. Some claim the benefits of alcohol. This too has
been calculated. The gain (for the state budget) 49 billion rubles, a loss of over
150 billion rubles ("There is some good in it too, but the harm is greater than the
good" (Qur'an, 2/2 19). Ninety percent of all resources intended for health are
spent only on the treatment of alcoholics. Alcohol is the main culprit in 90 percent
of the crimes registered annually in the country. Academic Fyodor Uglov even
suggested the complete prohibition of alcohol in the country, for "otherwise, the
nation will completely disappear," he claims (Politika, Belgrade, May 15 or 16,
1985).
421. Andre Breton claimed somewhere that he would like to live in a "glass
house" in which there are no secrets, in which everything is transparent. I
presume he was a socialist fanatic.
425. I believe that the world is made of individuals, that is, that the world
consists of individual people and individual things. For everything that exists,
exists individually: nothing general exists-it is construction of our logic, and not
reality.
434. Erich Fromm defined the "socially structured defect"-which he considered an

event whereby some clear depravity or inhumanity becomes not only normal, but
even desirable in one equally depraved and inhumane society. A good example is
an aggressive and unscrupulous individual in some markedly militaristic society
(that individual is already "well adjusted" and will not become neurotic), or
pornography and marital infidelity in a society following "sexual revolution" where
marital fidelity is ridiculed, etc. That which is sick and hideous becomes normal.
435. In the nineteenth century, white traders used to send tons of opium to
China. Around 1840, there were so many drug addicts among the Chinese that
the Chinese government came to the decision to destroy 20,000 cases of opium,
after which followed a declaration of war on China ("The First Opium War"). After
the peace agreement in Nanking, China was forced to pay Britain for the
destroyed opium, open its ports to British traders and surrender Hong Kong.
Bound by contract, China had to decrease its import custom-duties, so that cheap
British goods flooded the Chinese market and thereby almost completely halted
the industrial development of China.
437. There is a conspicuous similarity between Soviet admonition of "decadent

art" (conceptual detailing is ascribed to Plehanov) and the Fascist rejection of
"degenerate art," under which Fascists implicitly included all of modern art. In
any case, this almost equivalent relationship of communist and fascist
theoreticians with modern art is not coincidental and points to deeper equivalence
and similarity.
442. Statistics tell us that every living human today has about 20 million
ancestors. This calculation has been done according to some presupposed age of
humankind.
450. Historical time is always bounded by apocalypses-many little wars between

two big wars.
451. One of the characteristics of social realism: pseudo-classic architecture, and

enormous monuments, tastelessly pathetic and violently symbolic.

Political Notes
455. Finally, there exists this inhuman, but unavoidable and relentless fact of the
power of the atomic bomb: Everything we consider must take into account this
circumstance, must adjust to this relentless fact.
456. Huxley speaks of a population of slaves who can be made to love their
slavery, and that task in today's totalitarian states is assigned to the ministries of
propaganda, newspaper publishers and teachers.
462. Sexual freedoms in the so-called socialist countries become a replacement

for political freedoms. Authorities are well aware of this connection.
467. When the Soviet Union introduced non-working Saturdays, the consumption
of alcohol rapidly increased.
476. Social realism does not paint true life, but an imagined life in utopia. The
picture is usually optimistic, but false. Realism, in spite of the dark sides which it
presents (for example, Balzac), captures us with its truth. Social realism repulses
us with its falsehood. This could be called the "unbearable lightness of utopia."
483. Some facts: In classical Greek art, the greatest development was
experienced by sculpture and drama, while we do not find music. During the
Renaissance, poetry experienced powerful revolution and, a bit later, music and
architecture as well; during Romanticism, lyricism came to the forefront, and in
the rationalist nineteenth century, the novel. Some nations seem to have certain
arts particularly suited to them: music for the Germans, poetry for the French,
artistic prose for the English and Russians, painting for the Italians. All this is not
exclusive, but some rough divisions can indeed be noticed.
510. Between 1968 and 1980 there were 6,700 terrorist actions registered in the
world, of which 2,206 occurred in Western Europe and only 62 in the countries of
the Eastern bloc (Intervju, July 5, 1985). Terrorists evidently abuse freedom.
511. In the book How to Succeed: Messages from the Most Successful American
Companies (Thomas Peters and Robert Waterman, 1984), there is a conclusion,
based on analysis of the 62 most successful American firms, that the most
significant factors of success were not inyestments or automation, but the worker
himself. The book presents the assertion: "Good management is the one which is
able to create a working atmosphere in which each individual gladly cares about
the company and society in its entirety." This conclusion, in complete opposition
to Marx's vision of development, even better confirms the case of Japanese firms
and their economic expansion.
512. Here is the "famous" sentence of Max Rafael concerning the dependence of
art and development: "A painter thinks he is completely free in his choice of
material and forms, while in reality this choice is conditioned by the state of
material and spiritual production, the artists' class, and especially by the history
of the art of painting itself." Materialists have always been passionately proving to
us that we are not free. Even where freedom is most obvious, as in this
inauspiciously chosen example of Max Rafael, they are convincing us we are
bound by three heavy chains: (1) state of spiritual and material production, (2)
class membership and (3) the entire history. Nothing in the likes of freedom
brings their vision of an enslaved world into question.
513. There are some characteristic symptoms regarding the newest developments
in the world: (1) in the Scandinavian countries, a movement against feminism
and pornography, (2) in the United States, alcohol-free disco clubs, and a new
young generation that accepts work and discipline with pride, (3) the
reawakening of an interest in religion in the youth, (4) the precipitous fall of the
influence of Communist parties, in both the West and the East, (5) critical

Political Notes
reexamination of Darwinism and especially Freudianism and (6) passing legal

measures against alcoholism (in the Soviet Union, Scandinavian countries,
England, West Germany, etc.).
531. In Norway the "Action Group Against Pornography and Prostitution" (the
opposition immediately called it "The Coalition of Hypocrites") was established in
1981; judging by its support and influence, it represents some type of a national
party. The movement gathered approximately 400,000 members (out of about 4
million inhabitants of Norway). Ideologists of this movement claim that "after the
atomic bomb, pornography is the greatest danger to humanity." They demand the
complete prohibition of prostitution. The most radical followers and advocates of
the movement are precisely the feminists, who claim that pornography (and
prostitution) is a direct attack at the human rights and dignity of women. Both
the Conservative and Social-Democratic Parties compete in offering increasingly
piercing paragraphs against pornography. It was the Social-Democratic Workers'
Party that was the initiator of the introduction of changes in the Criminal Code
that sanctioned the sale of pornographic publications, pictures, films, video
stores, etc. (NIN, Belgrade, June 30, 1985).
574. Huxley taught us two things: (1) that utopias are possible and just because
of that, dangerous, and (2) that not all people like freedom and that people
should be called to or taught freedom, just like everything which is elevated and
noble. Freedom is not a natural, but a cultivated state. The largest number of
people would easily substitute it for security and enjoyment. The history of the
twentieth century confirms this.
575. American judgments and opinions appear, at times, too naïve to Europeans.
Americans have heard of Hitler, Nazism, war, gas chambers, Stalin's clean-ups,
etc. from the newspapers, while for Europeans there were immediate and bloody
events. This is where the certain idealism of Americans and certain cynicism and
incredulity of Europeans come from. In question here is the enormous difference
in the measure of that which we call historical experience.
595. When we speak of European civilization, if exaggerated enthusiasm

sometimes carries us away, let us remember that Nazism and Bolshevism were
also products of this civilization. That memory cannot be avoided.
597. In Ethiopia, when thousands of people, mostly children, died of hunger

(between 1984 and 1986), the military spent over a billion dollars for weapons,
and, of course, did not feel the dearth (Duga, No. 299/1985).
599. Ideology asks how and from what people live. Religion asks why and what
the people who live so are like. That is where the continual misunderstanding
between ideology and religion comes from. There where ideology finds progress,
religion sees utter relapse, for it does not find any people, but beings who only
function and consume.
606. Revolution is bounded by no laws-the attitude in the classics of Marxism.
608. Some sentences of the New Testament sound anti-Semitic.
618. Gorky thought that (the disappearing) religion would be replaced by art, and
that "esthetics is ethics of future." An artist or a writer would occupy the place of
a priest. And to the question of one party official as to what will replace churches,
Lenin answered: theaters.
624. One of C. Milosz's psychological analyses (concerning the dream of Piotr):

"It was-said he-a dream about complete protection.... When a man is given to a

Political Notes
force which is stronger than him - said Piotr - he reaches a limit where that which
he hates becomes the object of admiration. He does not want to admit this to
himself. It is very unpleasant. But then, actually, there is no other salvation but
being closer to the center of that force. That is where kindness and beatitude is"
(C. Milosz, Conquest of Power). Actually, Milosz attempts to uncover individual
factors that make people suitable for the acceptance of one totalitarian system.
Milosz' s hero becomes partial to Stalinism under the decisive influence of terror,
faced with a force stronger than himself, and in order to propitiate and tame that
force, he accepts its totalitarian logic" (Nikola Milosevic in the foreword to the
Captured Mind).
625. Passion of destruction-the dominant tendency of the radical left.
626. In 1984, Latin America paid an average of about 40 percent of export

income toward the interest payment on its debts (some countries even more:
Argentina 52 percent). It is thought that, without harming development, one can
set aside a maximum of 10 percent of foreign-currency income.
628. With regard to the theory of reflection,, one can justifiably ask the question:
If art and literature are truly a passive reflection of socioeconomic circumstances,
why then is the engagement of writers and artists in socialist countries so
energetically demanded? From this request, one could sooner conclude that ideas
are creators of reality, and not the other way around. The contradiction is
obvious.
630. "They have killed your father, and that is why they appear stronger to you,"
says Teresa, in Milosz' s novel Conquest of Power. Faced with relentless and blind
force, Piotr attempted to turn the object of hate into an object of admiration. - In
the foundations of the majority of primitive, pagan religions, exists a similar
feeling as well. Primitive people did not revere their gods because of love or
respect. Personified in those gods were the forces at the mercy of which they
were left exposed. Wrestling with fear, a primitive man attempts to propitiate
those forces; he offers his submission, admiration, reverence. The same is done
today by some people before omnipotent authorities. People subjugate
themselves, not because of respect or good will, but out of the feeling of utter
powerlessness before its nature. C. Milosz has shown by his outstanding
psychological analysis how one arrives at a paradoxical result: Not having a
choice, man turns his hatred into admiration. The greatest good is to be "in the
good books" of the people from whom one can expect only trouble. Does not
Orwell's hero Winston end up loving Big Brother?
632. Herbert Marcuse, the greatest critic of capitalism outside the Soviet Union,
admits that capitalist mass democracy is not based upon terror and indigence but
on efficacy and wealth, and on the will of the majority of the governed population
(H.M., End of Utopia). Having this as his starting point, Marcuse concludes that a
capitalist regime can be overthrown only by out-of-parliament means, therefore,
by the means of terror and violence. He advocates this route.
643. According to the study of economist Ruth Sivard (conducted in 1984- 1985),
the amount of an unpaid woman's work, meaning domestic work, totals
$4 trillion a year, which equals a third of the total world production.
The majority of countries in the world today officially recognize the equality of
men and women. Women account for one-third of the world workforce, and they
realize only one-tenth of the total income. Working women, as a rule, have a
double working day, one in the office and one at home. Some statistics show that
working European women have less free working time than their husbands do, by
half. A similar case is also with working women in other countries.

Political Notes
656. There is no defeat for which the defeated nation bears no responsibility. In
the "dumpster of history" there are no innocent ones. For to be weak is a fault
from the standpoint of history. To be weak is immoral in history.
660. Is it true that only "empty stomachs set history in motion?"
664. In times past, people killed in the name of religion, today, in the name of
ideology. In this century millions of people were killed in the name of ideology.
673. Ordinary people hold the conviction that AIDS is a price that modern
civilization pays for "sexual liberation." This conviction has been stimulated by the
reminder that Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by fire from the sky as a
punishment for unnatural lechery.
674. Investments into research and development (R&D) programs in the world.
In 1985: In Milan a meeting was organized that was supposed to answer the
question of how Europe and European industry would respond to the technological
challenge given to the world by the United States and Japan. The question was in
fact, how certain countries relate to technology and how ready they are for the
upcoming technological game. Cohn Norman, one of the experts in this field,
estimated that at the end of the 1970s, over $150 billion was spent on R&D
worldwide. Of course, the main impetus of this race is the current confrontation.
The main areas of investment are: electronics (especially microelectronics), the
chemical and pharmaceutical industry and space. In the United States, these
investments (R&D) amount to more than 2.4 percent of the Gross National
Product (GNP), but together with resources invested in it by industry, this rate
increases to 4 percent. Japan follows with 2.11 percent, or 6 percent of its GNP if
the share by the economic sector is included. For space exploration in 1980,
Japan spent about a billion dollars a year, and what has to be pointed out is that
reliance on technology is the only chance Japan has, literally, the precondition for
survival. West Germany sets aside about 2 percent of its GNP, Great Britain 2.2
percent. In the USSR this work is coordinated by the Gosplan, Committee for
Inventions and Discovery and the Academy of Sciences (established in 1724, now
having 800 members). It is estimated that there are about 1.5 million scientific
workers in the USSR (in 1980, five times more than in 1958); in 1980, 23.8
billion rubles was spent on R&D. Among the countries of the Third World, only
China and India have more developed scientific and developmental politics. It is
estimated that there are about 2 million scientific workers in China and that about
1 percent of the GNP is set aside for R&D. India estimates: around 2.5 million
scientific workers and engineers. Since 1947, a continual growth of funds for
research and development has been recorded.
677. History is not mathematics, and in it there is no mathematical necessity.

Engels has stated in many articles, interviews and letters between 1891 and 1895
that the impending conquest of power by the social democratic party is a
"mathematical necessity." That did not happen, and when it did, it was no longer
Engels' social-democracy but Bolshevism, in fact, the totalitarian power of former
workers.
679. When Spain and Portugal become full members of European Union (1986),
"The Twelve" will have 318 million inhabitants-significantly more than the United
States (232 million) and the USSR (275 million). In addition to this there is a
great cultural and scientific tradition, as well as resources for development. When
one adds the investments into scientific research of only three countries-
Germany, France and England-one gets an amount equal to that invested by the
United States, and twice that of Japan. But the effect of these investments, due
to the present fragmentation, is significantly smaller. These drawbacks should be
eliminated by EURECA (European Research Cooperation Agency).

Political Notes
683. In manuscripts recently found and published, Marx said that he built his
historical method precisely while reading Machiavelli's History of Florence, in
which the history of class struggles in this city was presented. Machiavelli
separated politics from ethics. He divides morality into individual and public and
subjugates the former to the latter. Machiavelli also emphasizes "public interest"
as the aim of the community, but his theory might have served to show how
much the so-called public interest can be immoral or amoral. His The Prince is a
cynical manual for all autocrats, and "Machiavellian" a synonym for that type of
methodology of conquest and preservation of power.
686. What is the "Swedish model of welfare state," which has been being created
by the Social-Democrats for almost 50 years? On the basis of mutual solidarity,
society attempts to provide humane conditions of life for every member of
society. Every child older than 18 months has a secured place in a child-care
institution. When he goes to school, he will have free books and school supplies,
as well as a meal. When he finishes school, he will get a job, and if there are no
jobs, the state will create one for him through public work or subsidies to the
employers who hire unemployed individuals. That is why in Sweden
unemployment is less than 3 percent (1985). When he marries, he will get an
apartment or will buy it, depending on his prospects. When his children are born,
he gets privileges. If he becomes ill, he will get 90 percent of his pay from the
first day of his illness. Even if he refuses to work, society will give him minimum
support. When he grows old, he will get a pension, regardless of the number of
years he worked. If he grows weak, he can get a place in a senior citizen's home.
The downside of this system is that it is rather bureaucratised and therefore
rather expensive. Health, education and social assistance are the greatest items
in the state budget; as a result Swedish taxes are some of the highest in the
world. As is known, during the 1985 elections, the Swedish Social-Democrats
launched a program of "workers' funds." The idea is that workers pay in the
excess of their pay into these funds, through which they buy shares and so
become co-owners of the companies and factories (Danas, September 1985, and
NJN, May 6, 1985).
687. Do we want to be governed by people or events, mind or coincidence?

If people, which and what kind?
688. Separate ministry for science (or for research and development - R&D)
- Why not?
692. The 1984-85 elections in Scandinavian countries (Sweden, Norway,

Denmark) show the movement of the voting body toward social democracy. This
tendency was registered somewhat sooner in Spain, France and Greece and
finally very clearly in Portugal (fall 1985). There is definitely a difference between
European socialists and social democrats. Explaining this difference, Leonid
Zospen, the first secretary of the Socialist Party of France, said in one analysis
(1985) that social democracies in essence only engage in "better and more just
redistribution of social wealth (income). They, as a rule, do not engage with
changing the type of ownership and reorganization of the production relations in
society." "We, socialists, however, have in sight both of these components of the
socialist transformation." My comment: all such concepts are in visible recession
starting with the 1980s (I think, of course, of the latter-the socialist ones).
698. According to statistical data, during the 1970s and 1980s the number of
women in high positions declined in Western countries. There are fewer women
ministers, ambassadors and parliament members today than 30 or 40 years ago.
The only exception is Sweden, where the number of women holders of higher
functions increased.

Political Notes
717. There are occurrences (or events) that in themselves collect all the
dispersed characteristics of one phenomenon, and thus become a symbol.
730. Freedom and anarchy-two concepts destined to be confused with each

other. They are not the only example (damage-sin; useful-good; God-nature,
etc.).
744. "The results of bourgeois emancipation must be preserved. Socialism

without constitutional rights is utter nonsense."-Jurgen Habermas in one
interview (NIN, November 24, 1985). Habermas is considered to be the most
significant Marxist writer of the modern age. This was not a hindrance to his
appointment in the 1970s to the post of director at the Max Planck Institute for
Research of Life Conditions of the Scientific-Technological World (West Germany)
(in this capacity he wrote the book The Problem of the Legitimacy of Late
Capitalism). In a reversed situation (if he wrote in Communism against
Communism) he would get, like myself, 14 years in prison. That is that "certain"
difference.
754. The most important economic resource is good quality personnel whose
knowledge and capabilities are created and objectified through scientific work and
education One dollar invested into scientific research work is returned after ten
years as twelve, and in the case of information technology, even double. In
Japan, national income has increased in the period between 1970 and 1980 from
$1,806 to $12,000 per inhabitant annually, but the expense for the development
of information technology was $350 per inhabitant annually (Danas, Zagreb,
November 26, 1985).
777. French sociologists claim that alcoholism is "the mass genocide of a less
valuable and superfluous population," for the life expectancy of alcoholics is on
average 20 years shorter than of people who do not drink. Alcohol is one of the
evils that strictly conform to the "principle of equality," for it equally attacks
intellectuals and workers, young and old, rich and poor, peasants and artists,
men and women. Children of alcoholics become alcoholics themselves. In 1951,
the World Health Organization conceded alcohol the status of a "virus"-a scarcely
curable disease of society and family. Among treated alcoholics in Yugoslavia,
there is the greatest percentage among workers, around 90 percent. In
Yugoslavia, three million of people drink often and vast amounts, of whom one
million are chronic alcoholics, while only ~ to 4 percent are abstinent. Out of
1,000 surveyed students, every third one started drinking between the ages of 11
and 15, and every tenth had wine before he was five, etc. (NIN, December 15,
1985).
778. "There where a man wants to be complete, the state will never be
totalitarian" (Denis de Rougemont).
780. When Denis de Rougemont invited Europe to unite immediately after World
War II, his appeal was greeted with ridicule. But 40 years later, this unity is
becoming a reality to an increasingly greater extent, and that which is happening
in this direction is undoubtedly one of the most significant facts of this century.
791. The true differences between people, societies and political systems are not
in aims, but in methods. Therefore, do not ask much about the aims, for
proclaimed aims will always be noble and good-ask about the methods or observe
the methods. That never deceives.
814. Over 100 nations and ethnic groups live in the USSR, and they formally have
their own national republics or autonomies. The Union contains 15 federal and 20

Political Notes
autonomic republics, eight autonomic districts and ten national regions (Danas,
December 17, 1985). In spite of this, Russian hegemony is felt throughout.
815. During the last census in the United States, when asked about ethnic
background, as many as 83 percent of Americans stated some ethnic
identification, and only 6 percent stated they were Americans. In spite of the
"melting pot" theory, it was shown that ethnic identity is extraordinarily stable,
ethnic homogenization did not happen, and thus America has remained a
pluralistic community in the ethnic sense.
828. Positivists are proving that differences in the role of a man and a woman in
a society are not natural, but created by long practice and upbringing. Without
those artificial conditions, it would be possible-they claim-to equalize these roles.
Furthermore, it is claimed that even for the different choice of games and toys
that boys and girls make, where boys imitate handymen and soldiers and make
weapons and vehicles while girls make houses, dolls and pay social calls, it is
societal pressure that limits the freedom of choice, activities and toys for children
(ex. Vesna Janjevic, psychologist). The advocates of this theory claim that
children do not make this choice spontaneously, but that parents, teachers and
pedagogues habituate them to it, etc. This does not sound convincing.
831. French poet Louis Aragon wrote an ode to the Soviet secret police. His is the
verse: "Long live the GPU, the dialectical expression of heroism." He is also an
author of the "famous" sentence: "We put Stalin above Shakespeare, Rambois,
Goethe, Pushkin." Later he changed his opinion. Historical distance is necessary
to all, especially poets and writers!
836. Total population of Earth-estimates (NIN, December 29, 1985):
1985-4.8 billion
2000-6 billion
2025-8 billion
2050-11 billion
The number of inhabitants of the white race is decreasing in relative terms. In

1985, white people constituted 34 percent of the world population, in 2000 they
will constitute 25 percent, and in 2025, 18 percent. Does that signify the twilight
of the race that dominated the world for centuries?
The black population of the United States is growing twice as fast as the white.
Today, 320 million people live in the European Community, but the rate of growth
is only 0.5, so it is predicted that by the end of the century, the number of
inhabitants of the European Economic Union will fall to 280 million. The USSR
today (1985) has 276 million, but at the end of the century a number between
310 and 320 million is expected, with growth exclusively to the advantage of the
non-Russian nations.
In Algeria, every woman gives birth to an average of seven children. Of the 35

poorest countries, 23 are in Africa.
In the white communities of Europe, the United States, and the USSR, fewer and
fewer children are being born. Reasons: late marriages, egotism ("I want to live
for myself and not for a child"), career, divorces, employment of both parents,
decreased fertility, drugs, venereal diseases and mass abortions. The causes of
demographic crises are in greatest part of a moral nature.
839. Racism has no scientific basis: 99 percent of the genes that represent the
inheritance of the individual are common to all people. One percent of the genes

Political Notes
conditions the physical appearance of a human being, that is, his racial identity.
Modern genetics refuted the old explanation for the differences between races.
844. What are the driving forces of technological development: economic

mechanisms, the people who are always searching for something new, the race
for extra profit, military contention for dominance, state administration?
In the Far East a series of little countries (Taiwan, South Korea, Malaysia,
Singapore, Hong Kong) is powerfully advancing. This is an imitation of the
Japanese model, but which forces were active in Japan itself? In some cases a
desperate attempt with the aim of military domination was shown to be the most
powerful driving force (the United States is a good example with Reagan's
Strategic Defense Initiative, SDI-known as "Star Wars"). Half of the amount spent
for research and development by the United States is spent on defense. The case
is similar for the USSR. However, in the United States the results of research in
the military sector are quickly transferred to the civilian one, which is not the
case in some other countries. Can one go faster? The example of these countries
shows that one can, they have achieved a degree of development in half the time
taken by Japan. The first phase in the development in each of those countries
lasted less than five years. Its main characteristics were: reliance on the world
market, private initiative, administrative deregulation, opening up for foreign
investments, low custom duties, symbolic taxes and abolishment of different
taxes and permits. In this way, Singapore became the largest world exporter of
diskette units for computers in 1985, and Malaysia the largest exporter of
diskette electronics. The Japanese model is founded on so-called soft
government, that is, the incessant process of consultations between businesses
and state administration. In India, as opposed to other countries, the driving
force was politics. At the head of the Department of Electronics is the president of
the government himself. In the world, it is otherwise not usual for bureaucracy to
incite technological development. It is usually the force of the status quo.
845. From lack of understanding to aggressiveness is but one step.
851. For the first time in its history, humanity faced the possibility of its own
annihilation, actually self-annihilation. This feeling has a sobering effect and will
influence the behavior of all future generations. Let us hope!
868. Algerian poets are dissatisfied with the slow process of Arabization. They
know what significance the act has of returning to their country a language that
has been so cruelly taken away by French colonial politics.
913. Even since the seventeenth century, the school system in Japan was so
developed that the percentage of illiterate was the smallest in the world.
Japanese lettering is very complex. This does not depend on lettering, but on
people.
915. "When Japan opened toward the West, it invested all of its efforts into the
education of people, and in a much more liberal way. I was shocked that here in a
village, about thirty kilometers away from Paris, where my son attends
elementary school, there is no piano, no drawing lessons, and not even the
natural sciences are being taught. All of that existed for a long time even in the
smallest village school in Japan. And the French are surprised how the Japanese
could rise so quickly" (Japanese painter Jase Tabuchi, NIN, January 19, 1986).
927. One society excludes itself from the civilized world if it falls behind in the
area of knowledge (science) beyond a certain historically tolerable measure. What
are we to conclude about our future in light of this fact?

Political Notes
931. In 1985, in the United States, four-member families with an annual income
of less than $10,609 had been assigned to the category of "poor." This category
constituted 14.4 percent of the population of the United States, or 33.7 million
people. A great majority of this category consists of black people.
937. Culture is before all a sign or the evidence of the existence of one people.
939. When civilized societies retrogress, they do not return to the traditional
forms of life (traditional society), but are de-civilized. That is the customary case
when, because of insufficient material development, the trend of civilization
cannot be followed. What happens is complete material and spiritual
impoverishment.
941. One of the rules of bureaucracy: Better to do nothing, for one who does
nothing makes no mistakes, and one cannot be accountable for inaction. That is
why bureaucracy is the factor of the status quo and opposition against every
innovation.
942. No freedom is possible, or is real, if from above (decreed). Freedom is not

gained, it is taken.
947. The motto of all sailors (after all shipwrecks and damage): "One must sail."
949. Crime in the world increases yearly at the average rate of 2 percent. These
numbers continually grow, despite the fact the efficacy of the police in the last
decade has increased by 50 percent, and financial resources invested in the fight
against crime nearly doubled. This can be concluded from the report of the
General Secretary of the U.N. at the conference dedicated to the question of
crime in the world (Delhi, 1985). During this gathering, it was determined that
"Crime today is a phenomenon which exceeds national and international
dimensions, leading to the slowing down of political, social, economic, and
cultural development, and hindering the actualisation of both human rights and
elementary freedoms."
950. Democracy, by its definition, contains as well the possibility of misuse of

democracy. Who attempts to "cure" democracy from this danger kills with this
cure democracy itself. Freedom should be accepted as such, with all of its risks.
There is no choice here.
951. If a book, a record, a film, if all these are only merchandise, then uncultured
consumers decisively affect cultural politics, for they have purchasing power at
their disposal, which opens doors to trash and kitsch.
959. Newly composed music actually "newly composes" the consciousness of the
people.
972. The Italian Mafia was created in the fight against the Bourbons who ruled
the "Kingdom of Two Sicilys" (with headquarters in Palermo and Naples), which
helped it gain from the people a certain patriotic or romantic halo. But later, a
stratum of the rich separated within the Mafia (as happens with any power
without control), and under the slogan of the fight against foreigners, increasingly
concentrated power in its own hands. Since the beginning until today, the rules of
the Mafia have remained the same. These are: animosity toward authorities,
conspiring (omerba), clear social division of the powerful and obedient, and
periodic redistribution of power among families-clans (cozahe), which leads to
mutual merciless confrontations (faida). Otherwise, the Mob today is a typical
criminal organization. In 1980, only from the sale of drugs abroad, it earned four
times more than the entire public budget of Sicily.

Political Notes
975. Two opposite statements on freedom of thought: Richelieu: "Give me two

sentences written by the hand of even the most honest man, I will find in them a
cause to hang him" (writes Mrs. De Motwille in her Memories). Voltaire in a letter
to Helvetius: "Dear Sir, I do not agree with your opinion, it is revolting to me, but
I will defend your right to hold it until the end."
986. There are people who are good not out of goodness, but out of stupidity or
weakness. They are, to say so, objectively good, not subjectively. However, as
much as this goodness out of narrow-mindedness (or timidity) is without real
moral value, one cannot ignore its objective value, that is, value for other people.
Those people are at least not harmful. If they are not morally useful, they can be
socially useful, so no single realistic politic will ignore them. There where the
questions are asked about intentions and motives, and not results and
consequences, their lives are of no value. Those are two different worlds: moral
and social.
992. An odd paradox is in effect: while churches in the West are frequented less
and less, they are increasingly filled in the socialist East. According to
sociologists, in both cases this is due to the crises of the institutions: in the West
of the religious, and in the East those of the state.
1023. The Chinese "Cultural Revolution" was the most radical and far-reaching
attempt in human history to remove not only the influence of the diverse past
from present and future generations, but also to erase from the consciousness of
these generations even the memory of it itself. We do not know if anyone put
before themselves a similar ambition. Perhaps Kemal in Turkey during the 1920s.
1024. Jonedij Masuda, one of the leading Japanese experts on computers, claims
that our knowledge-rich future will direct us to replace the interest in material
things with interest in spiritual values. Within this perspective he also sees a
future world religious renaissance. As is known, Adam Smith developed a similar
thought in his work Wealth of Nations, a hundred years before. For now we know
that the optimistic predictions of Smith about man's turning toward the spiritual
life in prosperity did not come true.
1028. The Qur'an, and its spirit of mercy and justice, has become people's
feelings and the everyday philosophy of ordinary individuals. This source was
alive and active, even when it seemed it had run dry. Even then-in the times of
decadence-although it did not directly affect social-political life, it did affect the
formation of people's feelings, which will be and which are (today or tomorrow)
the source of laws. Those laws, if they express the spirit and feeling of people,
will be laws of justice and equality.
1032. In April of 1986, Pope John Paul II visited a Roman synagogue. That was
the first time in history that the head of the Catholic Church crossed the threshold
of a Jewish temple. In the Vatican it was announced that this act represented
extending a hand to a people that had, for the last twenty centuries, been
accused of the murder of Jesus Christ. Somewhat earlier, in 1965 during the
Second Vatican Council, via the declaration Nostra aetat, Jews had been officially
released of this accusation. In 1985, Pope John Paul II visited Morocco and spoke
before 80,000 young Muslims about "our common God of Abraham," which was
an argument that could have equally been offered to Jews as well. (In Rome, in
the sixteenth century, following the order of Pope Paul IV, the so-called Roman
Ghetto for Jews was established. It was abolished over three hundred years later,
in 1870.)

Political Notes
1039. It is important for a nation to always "want something." Let us take

India: In the 1950s, Nehru emphasized the motto of industrialization, in the
mid1960s the "green revolution" (the advancement of agriculture), in the early
1960s the motto "Garibi hatao" ("Root out poverty"), in the mid- 1980s the
technology (computerization) of Rajiv Gandhi. You will never achieve everything
you intend to. However, you especially will not if you do not intend anything, and
that type of apathy and inertia we find, unfortunately, in a large number of
countries.
1045. The German Kaiser Wilhelm, otherwise a very average man, wrote this
comment under some painting, "reminder to peoples of Europe to take care of
their 'holy goods' before the danger from the East." This was much before the
revolution in Russia. Hesse writes about this in 1919 (in an essay on
Dostoyevsky) and says that the Emperor felt some vague fear of the masses from
the East, which could be set in motion against Europe. This "vague fear" came
true many years later.
1052. According to data in the magazine Journal de Brazil, out of the $100 billion
of foreign debt that Brazil had in 1985, one-third, or $35 billion, had been
effectively used, while all the rest was "eaten-up" by the mechanism of
"refinancing of original loans" (Vjesnik, April 14, 1986).
1107. There exist two terrors of the twentieth century: the Gulag and Nazism.
1113. That which we sometimes see as a disease of an individual, is in fact a

disease of times or society.
1115. Even the most beautifully invented institutions grow old after a certain
time, are petrified, lose their internal life, even their true and original meaning.
1127. Mind (or human spirit)-is it the ruler and lawgiver of life or only its
interpreter?
1128. Are laws at variance with freedom? Do both morality and laws limit
freedom? Will life, if it is freed from the laws, start acting against itself and self-
destructing? Do we have experience with this situation, and what does it say to
us?
1146. The iconoclastic attitude of Islam has two meanings and both are relevant.
The first is literal-fight against the concretion of God, against his degradation to a
painting or statue. And the other: against many little Gods, infallible, all knowing,
magnificent, "one head above the others," untouchable, sons of God and sons of
the leaders, Fuhrers, the greatest ones, etc. This multitude of "little Gods" was
abolished by Islam and it was proclaimed: La illahe Illallah - there is no other
divinity but God1. These two iconoclastic meanings "Al-Akida" are in mutual
relationship and complement each other.
1166. There are many parallels between Nazism and Stalinism, but one is both
more conspicuous and more important than the others: In both systems the
individual does not exist and means nothing. From this fundamental equivalence
followed all others.
1
Note from editor an of the OCR-ed version of this book:
A translation closer to the traditional translation of "La illahe Illallah" might be "Nothing is Holy, except
for Allah (God)" or "Nothing is worth worshiping except Allah (God)". IH

Political Notes
1182a. Conflict and social dissatisfaction in the ten most developed countries of
the world 1973-1982.
Country Conflict Inflation Unemployment Social

Index Dissatisfaction
Austria 1 6.3 2.0 8.3
West 3 4.9 4.2 9.1
Germany
Japan 6 8.1 2.0 10.1
Sweden 3 10.9 1 .6 12.5
France 16 11.3 5.1 16.4
United States 35 9.0 7.7 16.7
Great Britain 39 14.9 6.1 21.0
Spain 68 1 7.1 6.2 23.3
Italy 100 17.2 7.2 24.4
Notes: Conflict Index = relationship between days of strike and total employment
(Italy = 100); Social Dissatisfaction sum of percentages of inflation and unemployment.
Source: Table composed by the Italian economist Paolo Silos Labini-NIN, May 11, 1986.
1183. Paolo Siles Labini (see the table in the previous note), Italian economist,
and author of the book The Social Classes in the Eighties, a bestseller in Italy in
1986.
Main ideas:
(1) Economic, social, and political inequalities have been progressively
decreasing in the last two centuries; there is, therefore, no inescapable
social polarization of the society, as announced by Marx. Impoverishment
(proleteriatization) did not happen as well, just the opposite-class
differences were reduced.
(2) The class problem is a characteristic of European societies that had passed
through feudalism. In the United States, which did not pass through
feudalism ("in which not even blood was of the same color"), class
divisions did not have the significance they had in Europe. In India and
some Asian countries, class division follows from castes.
(3) Development is characterized by drastic diminution of the agrarian class
and the rise of the urban, as well as by the increase in the number of
clerks and continual decrease of the number of workers.
(4) There exists a permanent revolution-but a revolution in education. "A
monopoly on the highest education was the first element of the
domination of social groups," claims Labii.
(5) What is noticed is a continual diminution of the difference between the
average pay of clerks and workers: at the start of this century in Italy this
relationship was 4:1, and in the United States 2.3:1; today (1986) it is
1.2:1 (Italy), and 1.3:1 (United States). Labii believes that prospects are
that a worker's pay will surpass a clerk's pay;
(6) There no longer exists the acute "peasant question" that for long
preoccupied political parties before World War II. Reason: not that the
conditions have noticeably improved, but that the peasantry has
practically disappeared as a class. Thus, today in the United States,
independent farmers account for only 1.5 percent of the population (in
1890: 22.7 percent), in Italy 7.6 percent, in France 6.2 percent, in Great
Britain 1.3 percent, in Greece still 29 percent, in India 50 percent, in Egypt
34 percent. Will the same happen to the working class (and the "worker
question")?
(7) Class differences in highly developed and post-industrial societies are
expressed as cultural differences. Even in general, holds Labini, class

Political Notes
battle was politically relevant because it was intellectually relevant. Those

who have insisted the most and worked in the direction of radicalization
were intellectuals, not workers.
(8) The working class is changing quantitatively and qualitatively-the latter
especially under the influence of informatics and robotization.
(9) In the United States, the main contrarieties are not class ones, but racial
and ethnic. The ethnic picture of the United States in the 1980s:
Anglo-Saxon group one-third, Hispanic group around one-quarter, Blacks
about 12 percent, and one-third of different little groups from Slovaks to
numerous Oriental peoples. Even the particular kinds of crime are
ethnically determined.
(10) Three ideals of the French revolution, equality, liberty and fraternity, are
still topical today, the first two being in the foundation of all aspirations
and topical political movements in the world, while the third-fraternity,
"sounds pathetic, and as opposed to the first two, cannot be easily
institutionalized." The coexistence of the first ideals is difficult but
necessary since in egalitarian societies without freedom, different forms of
privileges and inequalities soon take roots, and crude shows of economic
inequality autocracy lead to autocracy.
(11) Social picture of Russia before the revolution: 80 percent peasants
(including kulaks), 14 percent workers and craftsmen, 6 percent
bourgeoisie (traders, landowners, and imperial functionaries). In this
situation equality, and not freedom, was the first ideal. However,
repression of freedom in today's USSR is becoming a problem, not only
politically but also economically: development is halted. "Weakness in
technological innovation is the Achilles heel of the Soviet Union." There
exists almost no technical innovation that the USSR has exported to the
West. The reverse is the rule. During the last two decades, stagnation in
the economic development of the USSR could be noticed. The main
problem is the ruling class of the "nomenclature"-the ruling people in the
state and party apparatus, directors of larger companies and academics.
They, alongside the power, enjoy significant material privileges as well
and show no readiness to renounce them. These privileges have outlived
all other political and economic changes in the USSR (so-called reforms).
It is thought there are around 700,000 members of the nomenclature.
That is the strongest conservative force (force of the status quo) in the
USSR.
(12) A shocking fact: The average life expectancy in the USSR is on the
decline. The death rate of newborns has increased as well in the period
between 1965 and 1981 from 23 to 28 per thousand. (13) In the West,
there is an increasing number of workers and union organizations among
the owners of joint-stock companies. Additionally, the increasingly
greater development of small companies, which show themselves to be
very effective, takes away all allure from nationalization, which was so
popular immediately after the war.
1189. Erich Fromm has shown (in "Escape from Freedom") that dictatorship,
totalitarianism and a state of the lack of freedom in general do not have a base
only in social and political institutions, but also in a man himself, in his character
structure. Freedom is not something that is understood by itself or realized as a
value. People need to be taken or called to freedom as true religion. For some
people, freedom is an excessive burden. Therefore, escape from freedom. Fromm
reminds us of Germany in the 1930s, when "millions were as eager to surrender
their freedom as their fathers were to fight for it" (p. 19).
1203. At the foundation of all the progress and power of the West in the last five
centuries is the cult of work, which appeared at the beginning of this historic
period and remained a main value in the eyes of the greatest number of people

Political Notes
until the present. Linked with it is a particular concept of time, as something

valuable, that cannot be wasted. In Niirnberg, even since the sixteenth century,
clocks sounded the quarters of hours, which reflected a new feeling for time,
which is passing and needs to be economized. The first law of morality became
industrious and honest work, and the first sin indolence and unproductiveness.
The main objection to both clergy and monks was that they were not productive.
What are the origins of this new spirit that suddenly reigned over millions of
people? It is most often ascribed to Protestant ethics. However, regardless of its
source, one thing is certain: it contains the main factor of superiority of Western
civilization.
1214. Communists claimed that classical freedoms have only formal nature and
no value. What is the value of freedom of religion, that is, the right to believe
according to your own choice-they say-when an individual loses an internal ability
to believe in anything that cannot be proven? Or, what is that so much praised
freedom of speech for, when much of what man thinks and says is in actuality
that which others think and say. Or, what is it worth to you that you are free from
external authorities (kings, dictatorships, church) when anonymous authorities
such as public opinion and the press have even more authority? These internal
authorities have greater power over man than the external, etc. My response to
this: Give us as many of those "formal" freedoms, and do not worry about our
health. It has been shown, namely, that this objection to formalism of freedom is
in fact justification for a totalitarian system of government. For, those who have
talked of formal freedoms did not instead of those give real ones, but have
abolished both the one and the others. This hypocritical game continues and
repeats itself, surprisingly with success.
1216. The principle of true capitalism is not spending, and therefore not luxury or
prodigality, but accumulation and, on the basis of it, new, increased production.
1221. In authoritarian systems that last, and where the prospects for resistance
and change of conditions have been reduced to a minimum, resignation appears
and, with time, acceptance of such a state of things. In Poland in 1985, a turning
away from "Solidarity" was noticed, not because of the rejection of the movement
as such, but because of the loss of hope that even after ten years of resistance
anything could be changed and that every violent attempt would end up with
further aggravation of the conditions (for example, direct Soviet occupation, such
as in Czech lands.) Dictators are not usually satisfied with only the absence of
resistance. They demand to be glorified and celebrated, and usually succeed.
Psychoanalysis gives the following explanation: Suppressed feelings of hate turn
into acceptance, and even into blind adoration. This reversed (sick) logic was
shown by Orwell in his 1984, and E. Fromm in Escape from Freedom has very
convincingly written about it as well.
1224. Hypnosis and similar techniques prove how - we can experience some
suggested thoughts and feelings, which have no objective basis, as our own (for
example, a hypnotist suggests to the subject that the potato he holds in his hand
is a pineapple, and the latter eats it, enjoying it as if he were eating a pineapple).
Television, with constant repetition, becomes something similar. Millions of
viewers accept, as their own, opinions that sometimes have no real basis and are
often completely foreign to them. This is mass hypnosis, which is achieved
through persistent repetition of some opinions and attitudes.
1230. "The right to expression of opinions has meaning only if we are able to
have our own opinion" (E. Fromm, Escape from Freedom). Beautiful thought, is it
also true?
Can the free expression of an "imposed" opinion in Western democracies be
equated with the prohibition of expression of any different opinion in the countries

Political Notes
of the socialist stock? Even if theoretically this seems very similar, the practical
difference is large, especially since an imposed opinion is never imposed in its
entirety. Even when accepting some opinion, an individual himself has had some
contribution, has colored it, even to a certain degree, with his personality. It is
hypocritical to equate the position of the citizen in a democratic society, where he
is exposed to the influence of commercials, TV, partisan propaganda machinery,
press, which "help" him accept (actually impose) some kind of thinking, with a
citizen of some totalitarian state, where only a single opinion is served and all
others are persecuted and rendered impossible. Pluralism itself, which is
characteristic of democracy, and the freedom to think differently (as theoretical
as it may be, and hindered with many real limitations) draw a boundary between
these two different situations in which an individual can find himself.
All culture and upbringing are in a certain sense limitation of spontaneity and
freedom: a request to do something (because it is good and beautiful), or not to
do it (because it is bad and ugly). Looked at from the outside, culture is
repression and is in opposition to freedom. Does there exist an imposed behavior
that is in accordance with freedom? Is every externally imposed opinion (or
behavior) a limitation of freedom? Is a parent's insistence, for example, that a
child brush his teeth or treat adults respectfully an attack on the child's freedom?
Impeding expression of opinion for a long duration in the life of an individual or
society leads to the disappearance of one's own opinion. People will avoid
developing thoughts and feelings that they will not be able to express or that will,
furthermore, represent a burden, even danger.
Finally, it is possible to imagine human beings without opinions. How much they
are still human beings is another question.
1237. Adjustment is the greatest negation of one's own "I." It is forcing one to
want what one must want, or accept as good and beautiful that which one has to
consider as such, or finally, to accept another's opinion and taste as one's own.
As long as you express that opinion aware that it is another's and that it has been
imposed on you, things are not hopeless. Manipulation is complete when you do
not notice that those are others' opinions or tastes, or you start to deceive
yourself that they are your own.
1266. I wrote somewhere: "Hamlet cannot be translated into scientific language,

nor <text missing> But there have been attempts. Hegel attempted to make a
philosophical analysis of Hamlet and Antigone, wanting to show through this
interpretation how ideas in these poetic works are identical to those from his own
philosophy. How successful this analysis was is another question. Besides, it is
not difficult to prove that the reduction of a work of literature to an idea, to a
rational concept, leads to the abolition of literature (and art in general) and, as a
further consequence, to an absolutism of ratia. All this, in the end, is an integral
part of the authoritarian spirit.
1269. Not all that a Marxist is writing is Marxism, nor is everyone who thinks he is
a Marxist one. If we compare what individual Marxists in this century wrote and
said about some important questions, we will find more differences among them
than similarities. In general, we are often victims to a fallacy that subjective and
objective attitudes match, and that is much more rare than we think.
1279. Reading novels confounded Don Quixote's mind. He stopped differentiating

imagination from reality, truth from the story, dream and waking state, past and
present, finally, that which is written in books and that which is real. But it was a
fallacy of a noble kind.

Political Notes
1327. England-industrial revolution; France-political revolution; Germany-

philosophical revolution. That which the English and French have done in the field
of economy and politics, the Germans did in the field of thought.
1382. Moliere, with his cutting satire of the vices of the ruling classes before the
French Revolution, prepared the confrontation with them. It was not the
revolution that created Moliere, but Moliere that created the revolution ("In the
beginning there was a word").
1422. Herman Hesse clearly expresses his own view of history when he puts
words into Tegrearus's mouth, according to which history is "something so
revolting, at the same time banal and devilish, at the same time horrible and
boring, that it cannot be understood how can a serious thinker engage with it. Its
content is only human selfishness and the eternally same fight for power, for
material, brutal, animal power. . . . World history is a story without an end of
violence of the stronger over the weaker. Race with time, race for profit, for
power, for wealth. . . . Spiritual work, cultural work, artistic work, on the
contrary, is completely opposite to that, it is always an escape of man from
temporal slavery to another plane, into the eternal and timeless, divine,
completely nonhistoric, and even against the historic" (Hesse, The Glass Bead
Game).
1428. What is world history? Is it a continual shifting of the center of gravity? Are
we not standing now before one such shift?
1434. "In the beginning there was a word"-it has always been so: the French
Revolution (1789) was preceded by the "philosophical revolution." In 1776 David
Hume died, and in 1778 J.J. Rousseau. The printing of the Encyclopedia (Diderot,
D. Alambret, etc.) was completed in 1780. Kant's Critique of Pure Reason came
out in 1781. Great political events that have changed the world and started with
the French Revolution were preceded by human thought.
1451. The state in Italy (especially Florence) at the end of the thirteenth century:
"Popes and Emperors have for long forgotten the great aims their predecessors
were led by. Ambition, thirst for power and wealth, were the only motives of their
actions. The Church stopped protecting the oppressed and had long since taken
on the role of the oppressor. Bribery and the rights of the powerful ruled the
courts, ministries were given to lechery and priests would go from night orgies to
church to perform services" (Cohen, History of West-European Literature).
1461. Copernicus's discovery was a cultural-historical, as much as an

astronomical fact. It was not only a turning-point in the field of astronomy, but in
culture as well. Copernicus had shown to man that not Earth, and not even he
himself, is the center of the universe. This realization affected his dignity, as well
as his haughtiness. On that basis, a different feeling about the world was born,
and thus also a different culture, which had to have different life and moral
concepts and political views.
1465. Anti-Semitism in Germany is very old. Even at the beginning of the

sixteenth century, renowned German humanists Reuchlin (1485-1522) and Urlich
Kohn Guter (1488-1523) wrote piercing discussions and pamphlets against the
Jews and advocated an imperial decree for the confiscation and destruction of all
Jewish books. In this conflict, intellectual Germany was divided into two camps.
The University of Cologne supported action against Jewish manuscripts, and the
University of Erfurt put itself in defense of freedom and against any persecutions.
This was more than 400 years before Hitler appeared.

Political Notes
1471. During the entire Middle Ages, Jews were the object of the cruel hatred of
Christian society. They were deprived of the right to participate in public life and
were left with nothing else but to dedicate all of their attention to earning an
increasing amount of money. In that way trade and banking became the main
occupations of Jews.
1474. In The Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare dealt with the centuries-old

problem of the West-anti-Semitism. In the strong character of Shylock,
Shakespeare paints a Jew as he sees him to be during that time: biblically well-
read, a passion for wealth and money, vindictiveness, fickleness, formalistic
respect for tradition, formal understanding of the law (the letter but not the
spirit), but simultaneously: dedication, perseverance, diligence. Shylock sends
word to the Christians: "The villainy you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go
hard but I will better the instruction" (III, i).
1482. In Shakespeare's tragedy, Caesar is a worthless personality but is a carrier

of the principle that triumphs. And vice versa, Brutus is a great man, "the most
honorable Roman," but he represents a concept that has been historically
destined to defeat. For in that moment, republican thought was already dead,
people were ready for slavery, they could not imagine Rome without emperors,
regardless of the name of that Caesar (people asked Brutus to be Caesar).
1489. Milton's celebrated tract on freedom of the press, which appeared in 1644,
is equally topical even today. His was the idea that censorship presumes that the
censor is smarter than the writer, which is preposterous. Censorship humiliates
the writer and readers, as well as the censor himself.
1496. The English Revolution happened under the influence of two contradictory
teachings, which is normal for England. It at the same time proved the sanctity of
the principle of the monarchy and the sovereign power of the people, two, at first
glance, inconsistent principles. The clearest explanation of the former can be
found in Hobbes' s Leviathan, and the latter in Locke's discussions on knowledge
and civil government.
1504. Read Moliere's comedies and you will get a picture of the spiritual and
moral state of French society in the seventeenth century. Cohen, describing the
state in France after the death of Louis XIV (the beginning of the seventeenth
century), writes in his History of West-European Literature the following:
"Searching for pleasure became the only impetus in life of the higher classes.
Religion was ridiculed, the family did not exist, marital fidelity and love were
considered lower virtues. And besides all this, the failed aristocracy kept using
extraordinary privileges and rights. Their representatives were given high
functions in the state. Both external and internal government of the country was
in their hands. They kept looking disdainfully onto the rest of population, valuing
above all their only advantage-heredity. Both legislature and state power served
to support their privileged position. It is not necessary to point out that the
aristocracy never even thought of using those advantages for state interests.
Higher officers rarely went to their garrisons and had spent most of their time in
Paris. Also reveling in Paris were aristocratic landowners, completely neglecting
their estates in the provinces. Bishops were not far behind, spending a greater
part of the year outside of their parishes. Thus the country was almost without its
higher officials, as they enjoyed themselves in Paris, squandering and reveling."
1505. The results of our actions do not depend much on our intentions.
Rousseau, for example, was explicitly against revolution and violence, but his
Social Contract became the gospel of the revolutionary movement, and
"revolutionary leaders brought his conclusions to a terrible end by themselves"
(Graham Grey).

Political Notes
1506. Rousseau's abstract "state" religion based on his "social contract" had two
main principles: belief in God, and belief in the afterlife, where the good are
rewarded and the bad punished. His social science changed the world; his
religion, because artificial, was quickly forgotten.
1517. The main characteristic of the capitalist system: free game of talent and
personal abilities. From this follow all good and bad human sides of capitalism.
Beaumarchais illustrates this nicely in the character of Figaro: "People disturb my
work-says Figaro-and I take revenge by disturbing theirs. That's what everyone
does. Well, could it be different. There is a mob before you. Everyone wants to
catch up with another, they rush, push, choke, curse one another: those who can,
succeed, others struggle. It has always been like that" (The Marriage of Figaro).
1518. The Thirty Years War set Germany back. Contemporaries spoke of the
unruliness and general spiritual backwardness that marked the entire second half
of the seventeenth century in this country. The recovery started at the beginning
of the eighteenth century, with the awakening of people's awareness, revival of
Germanic tradition and resistance to foreign influences. Every rebirth starts with
the feeling of respect toward oneself. If it is true, it does not implicitly include
fencing off the rest of the world, rejection of every form of communication. It is
the choice of one's own path and two-way communication with the rest of the
world. That is true rebirth. -
1522. In the world mainly two models of the fight against drugs exist:
rehabilitative and legal. According to the former, the offender (who can be one
who grows, produces, distributes and uses drugs) is re-educated, according to the
latter, punished (in some countries very severely). In theory and practice, the
first model was for a long time predominant, but with very poor results. Recently,
the course of punishment can be noticed everywhere in the world. One group of
American authors who used to be known as liberals now advocate criminalizing
even when only the use of drugs is in question. Some have experienced this
change as society's admission of defeat in this fight. Taken generally,
undeveloped countries are mostly the producers, and developed countries the
users. There form the different aspects of the problem.
1532. Let us notice how much more convincing and more powerful are the words
of Karl Mor (Schiller' s "Robbers") when he speaks about the overthrow of the old
order than when he speaks of the building the new one. When he appears in the
role of the preacher of positive ideals, the words of Karl Mor turn into undefined
dreams.
1533. Let us pay attention to the following facts: the freethinking ideas of the
Encyclopedists in France ended in revolution, and in Germany-with great
philosophical and artistic works. In the former case with practice, in the latter
with theory.
1535. Goethe was not an adherent to violent overthrows. He wrote somewhere

that people should "drucken" (press), but not "uberdrucken" (oppress).
1537. The French Revolution and Encyclopedist ideas brought to the society of
the early nineteenth century double disappointment: first, with the power of the
human mind, and second, with the practical results of the social overthrow.
People were convinced that neither the Revolution nor reason fulfilled their
promises: reason did not open a path for the creation of the ideal society, and the
revolution did not establish freedom, equality and fraternity in the world. The
reaction to this was Romanticism.

Political Notes
1538. Completely unexpectedly, since it fought against dogmas, Rationalism

established its own dogmatism, nothing short of the dogmatism of the Church.
Someone humorously noticed that just as Louis XIV ordered the trees at
Versailles to be trimmed, and thus subjected nature to rules and order, so the
French Encyclopedists trimmed historical facts to fit into the framework and
boundaries of their theories.
1540. Intentions and our personal feelings have no influence on the world of
politics. Metternich, an absolutist, and other protagonists of the St. Alliance,
known for their cruel politics, were Romanticists. Romanticists awoke the interest
for the past and history, and thus inadvertently stimulated the development of
Realism, that is, ensured the premises for the shift to Realism.
1542. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, as a consequence of the

economic disturbances of the Napoleonic Wars, there was general
impoverishment in England. One contemporary wrote that the majority of the
population of Manchester lived in sod-houses. In order to get into a sod-house,
one needed to descend a couple of steps into the ground. In those pits, there
were often continuous puddles; through the muddy floor, dampness perpetually
exuded; the air was teeming with stench. And still, entire families lived in those
sad holes in the ground; they slept one next to the other, on the wet and dirty
floor (Cohen, History of West-European Literature, p. 341).
1545. How poorly Romanticists see reality is well illustrated by the case of Lord
Byron. He saw in the Greece of that period the "spiritual leader of the people." It
was shown that this had nothing much to do with reality. A great poet, but no
politician. Fantasy is necessary for poetry, but detrimental to po1-itics.
1546. Two different views of freedom: for Rationalists "freedom is a right to do

that which laws permit" (Montesquieu), and for Romanticists, it is freedom from
all laws and limitations (for example, the freedom that rules in a wild tribe or the
freedom of some hermit under the wing of nature). The latter was described by
Rousseau-who else?-in his New Heloise.
1549. A wolf lives in a pack, a lion is a loner. What can be said for man?
1557. Although industrial civilization was in close relationship with new rationalist
and materialist philosophy and with the ascendance of science, it still affirmed
human spirit and man as a spiritual being. The predominance of machines, which
are the products of the mind, impressively symbolizes the predominance of
human awareness over matter.
1558. Capitalism, thanks to the automation of production (or the continual

technological revolution) creates enormous wealth, but at the same time also
posits the problem of the distribution of that wealth. In its creation participate
both capitalists and workers. How to divide this wealth among them? Originally,
these two groups were in opposition to each other. The capitalist had to lean to
the increase of profits, and according to Marx, he could do that only by
decreasing wages, therefore, through exploitation. Only much later, it was seen
that this relationship is much more complex, and that the impoverishment of the
working class is neither inevitable nor the only route in the development of
capitalism.
1563. Sometimes I have an impression that almost all new ideas for which the
New Century is famous for were born in England. France accepted and translated
them into a practical program, and then turned them over to Europe.

Political Notes
1566. In the first half of the nineteenth century, England was an example of
economic exploitation and political oppression. English poetry of this time
"registered" this state. The poet Ebensher Eliot paints horrible pictures:
deterioration of the poor family, auctioning of its miserable property, intoxication
of the father of the family who falls into despair, mother who while in a state of
mental disorder kills her hungry child, daughter who due to destitution gives
herself to prostitution. Those dark pictures end with a curse on the wealthy: "0
God, why is bread so expensive, and body and blood so cheap! ?"-a seamstress
asks herself, ill with overwork and destitution in the Poem on the Shirt by Thomas
Hood, written in 1844. "Work, work! Work, as soon you hear the first cocks, work
even if your stars shine with blood! The one who wears this shirt will not know
the price paid for it." This state was faithfully and universally represented in the
realistic novels of England and Europe of the nineteenth century (Dickens and
Thackeray in England, Balzac and Zola in France).
1578. For the indigent world whose income is constantly smaller than the
necessities, especially for homemakers whose husbands do not earn enough,
one's entire life turns into an "endless arithmetical task"-continuous calculation of
how to make ends meet.
1580. The question is: should social institutions or human hearts be changed?
The only true answer is: both. Still, where is one to start? The heart, of course, if
that is possible, and if you know how.
Political Notes 79
1589. North-South scientific key:

Switzerland invests $361 "per capita" for research and development, Pakistan
only $0.49. These facts say and explain all (source: Politika, Belgrade, July 22,
1986).
1593. French Utopian Fourier (1772-1837) is the author of the expression

"negative production," under which he implies the production of goods or services
that do not serve to the satisfaction of man's natural and justified needs. Not all
production is useful.
1598. Competition among firms is a new form of "war of all against all," with all
that war signifies.
1601. From whichever angle one observes work, it will not be able to be reduced
to a single dimension. At the end of the analysis, one will always find two
contradictory components, (1) work as means of survival and (2) work as a pure
human function. In the former case, the purpose is external, in the results of
work, and in the latter case, work serves its own purpose. The moral significance
of work is no less than the material one.
1614. In nineteenth-century France, battles were not only waged between the
adherents of republic and monarchy, proletariat and bourgeoisie, indigent and
wealthy. An equally bitter battle was waged between the adherents of Classicism
and Romanticism. When Hugo's play Ernani came out in theaters (around 1830),
destroying all classical canons, two opposed camps were created, no less fanatical
and bitterly at variance than were the Republicans and the Royalists. This
spiritual conflict, actually a fervent interest of the public in one question of spirit
and arts, indicated that great days were coming for France.
1617. Paradoxes: In contemporary (capitalist) civilization, the superhuman

exertions and merciless competition of minds and talents leads to the unimagined
development of science, technology and art but also simultaneously stimulates

Political Notes
egotism, mutual annihilation and perishing of the weak, all this not as a
byproduct, but as the condition or the inevitable consequence of the former.
1631. The true patriot is not the one who puts his homeland above others, but
the one who acts so it would be worthy of that praise. More than glory, he cares
about the dignity of his homeland.
1634. E. Zola (1840-1902) was a typical bourgeois both by descent and way of
life-he earned significant wealth early on and filled rooms of his palace with the
glaring luxury of the parvenu-but that did not stop him from becoming a very
cutting critic of bourgeois society. He is not the only example of spiritual attitude
not being very dependent on "class."
1647. One different opinion about democracy: "Democracy levels and vulgarizes
humanity, makes it crude, and drowns it in economic interests. . . . Victory of
democracy will bring the rule of metal craftsmen, tanners, and peasants who hate
everything that is beautiful and that is above them" (Przybiszewski in Homo
Sapiens).
1658. Democracy in society and realism in literature went side by side and
supported each other. I think a similar parallel can be drawn between socialist
ideas and naturalism in literature. Democracy to realism is as socialism is to
naturalism. Socialism is naturalism in politics. These relationships are not
abstract. For it is obvious that socialism is the child of democracy just as
naturalism is the child of realism.
1677. Marx was Darwin's student more than he might have been aware of.
- ,~ Darwin proclaimed the ruthless battle of species in the biological world. Marx,
the ruthless battle of classes in social life. In both cases, ethical considerations
have no part, neither in the battle nor its outcome: not the better but the
stronger wins, moral values are proscribed by a winner. Socialism does not
triumph because of some ethical considerations, but because it represents a more
advanced form of social life, reasons Marx. Marx's reason is utterly Darwinian.
1686. A lie in personal life is immoral. However, it has been shown that in many
cases the lie is an unavoidable actor in social life or the condition of stability and
peace in society. Unfortunately.
1699. In the mid-80s of this century, the movement that aims to push the state
from the area of economy and property is in full momentum. That process is
present, in its own way, as well in the Socialist East, Hungary, China, even the
USSR. This is a true renaissance of private entrepreneurship. The state is accused
of being the main obstacle to swift technological development and innovation and
the main cause of accumulation of budget expenses, that is, taxes. In Britain,
they even want to privatize the national water-supply network, in America
prisons. The "sell-out" of the state is talked about. Great Britain, which went
furthest with it in the era of socialization, is now the quickest to move in the
opposite direction. The government is preparing to hand over almost all state
property to private auctioneers. Twenty giant companies found themselves in
private hands, among them TELCOM (the complete system of
telecommunications), as well as many giant automobile, gas, and airplane firms,
docks, etc. The minister of finances stated that the initiated program would
continue until all the industry in state ownership is returned to where it belongs-
the private sector. A similar process is happening in several developed capitalistic
countries. In Japan, privatization of the railway is being prepared, while the
French government, since the elections of 1986, is preparing, as a first step, to
privatize the 65 largest companies and banks, the value of which is estimated at
$40 billion. (All situations pertain to the end of 1986.) In the United States, the

Political Notes
increasing role of the state in American economy was characteristic for decades,
and then Reagan won twice, promising to "take the state off the people's back."
In Spain we have a paradox: conservative Franco nationalizes an entire line of
companies that the socialist government is returning to the private sector. The
practice in socialist countries has shown that alongside nationalization of the
economy came "nationalization" of political and personal freedoms.
1749. "To be able to rule over them, one must be one of them," the king says
resignedly in the Eternal Fable by Przybiszewski, after realizing the futility of his
efforts to raise the people and warm them to noble causes. "The true victory is
not to force slaves to obedience by force, for they will remain slaves anyway. The
true victory is to escape from them into pure contemplation," ponders the king.
1753. In Czechoslovakia the number of divorces in the entire postwar period has
been increasing. According to some data, every second marriage in Prague
disintegrates. Having the same laws, more divorces happen in the Protestant
Czech part of the country than in Catholic Slovakia. That is probably one of the
causes of the significantly lower birthrate in the Czech part. As a result, the share
of Czechs in the total population of the country is decreasing. Among other
things, it is thought that the main reason for the disintegration of families is the
economic independence of women. One-third of the children in Czechoslovakia
are children of divorced parents (Politika, Belgrade, August 31, 1986).
1839. Socialism announced the withering away of the state. But what is actually
happening? Instead of the state, the economy is withering away. The state, on
the contrary, is growing fat and strong.
1842. Poland, one of the victorious countries in World War II, after the "victory"
was left "smaller" by 79,000 km2. At the end of the war, the USSR annexed
about 180,000 km2 of Poland's territory (in the east) with 12 million people, and
as compensation gave Poland the "western provinces" with an area of 101,000
km2. It is thought that during and after World War 11(1939-1956), in the area of
prewar and postwar Poland, 22 million people were moved from their homes
(Arso Milatovic, Five Diplomatic Missions).
1858. There are people of continuity, but also those who are "break-through
names" in the history of science, art, politics, and so on.
1862. Gunther Grass invited writers to deal with modem problems, not to seal
themselves in ivory towers, to illuminate the background of events, their human
dark side, and "catch politics before it camouflages itself as history" (from the
exposition at the Congress of International PEN in Hamburg, 1986). Clearly, in
politics "camouflaged as history," many important aspects of life are no longer
visible-one cannot see living people, their habits, vices, fallacies, hesitations,
enthusiasms, prejudices, etc. Only the surface is visible, events, phenomena and
results. Perhaps Alexander the Great was not great at all, and Ivan the Terrible
might have had some human feature. Perhaps many little, ordinary people (which
history did not record at all for they were that nameless mass who fought and
died) were true heroes, while heroes wreathed with glory, about whom children
learn in schools, were cowards, etc. The latter can be revealed to us by literature,
not history.
1878. To Dostoyevsky has been attributed the statement: "Save me, God, from
fanatics!"
1883. Yes, although Bosnia is "both fasting and bare, cold and hungry, it is
defiant from the dream" (Mak Dizdar).

Political Notes
1888. Anti-Semitism first consisted of religious antipathy toward Jews, later to

gain the character of racial hatred. Ghettos appeared in the Middle Ages. Jews
were called "Christian murderers," "ritual murderers," "devil's children," etc. Jews
were banished from England in 1290, from France in 1306, and from Germany,
Austria and Spanish cities during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. As is
known, they lived freely in Muslim Spain, and after the Inquisition they suffered
the same fate as the Arabs-exile. A large number of Jews then found haven in the
Balkans, in parts under Turkish rule. Bloody Cossack pogroms over Jews were
recorded in Poland in the seventeenth century. Where literal banishment was not
in effect, all kinds of restrictions toward Jews were everyday occurrences. Anti-
Semitism appeared in a very cruel form in the twentieth century: the physical
destruction of six million Jews under Hitler. Depending on the political needs of
the persecutors, Jews were pronounced capitalists, a communist danger, or
sometimes both (for example, in Nazi Germany). They were blamed for lost wars,
stimulation of liberalism, for revolutions, intellectualism, moral decadence, for
vulgar materialism, spiritual pacifism, and freemasonry, and what not.
1893. Europe is strange. It considered itself the cradle and teacher of democracy
and has simultaneously shown an extraordinary "ability" for dictatorships and
totalitarian ideas.
1894. The majority remained the highest, if not the only criterion in democracy.
It is true, it is beautiful, it is moral-that which the majority says is true, beautiful,
moral. The majority, though, does not have the reliable criteria of truth and
goodness. It is governed by passion and desire. Democracy is the process that
cannot be halted. What could the final result be with democracy itself?
1906. Analysis of the movements in the most developed countries of the world
show that small businesses have 25 times more innovations than large ones, and
through the introduction of modern information technology, they achieve a
reduction of up to 80 percent of business expenses. That makes them much more
competitive. In the United States, those little companies launch more than three-
quarters of new products on the market.
1908. J.S. Huxley wrote somewhere that a nation is based upon the fallacy of
common descent and on the feeling of aversion toward neighbors, therefore two
negative facts: fallacy and aversion.
1912. The truth and light of the idea are turned by people into the lie and
darkness of ideology.
1914. Many followers of Sigmund Freud joined Marxism (Freudian Marxist groups
of Wilhelm Reich and Otto Fenihil).
1940. In all schools in the Muslim East, I would introduce classes of "critical
thinking." As opposed to the West, the East did not go through this cruel school,
and that is the source of its many weaknesses.
1993. If Western Europe or the "welfare states" are observed, one comes to a
paradoxical conclusion, that different socialist aims in health, education, leisure,
culture, a standard in general, are achieved in capitalism. It seems that only the
capitalist economy was productive enough to sustain these large expenditures
and still remain capable of extended reproduction. Socialist economy could not
answer to both of these demands.
1997. Anti-Semitism is a phenomenon of Christian countries. The current

confrontation between Arabs and Jews is not of that kind. It is interesting how the
Israeli writer Ephraim Kison explains this phenomenon: "Christians usually think

Political Notes
that Jews are the people who killed Jesus, forgetting that he himself was a Jew.
For two thousand years the Christian Church narrated this and I call it anti-
Semitism. When I was in Japan and talked about this, everyone was amazed, no
one understood what I was talking about. They have no complexes about Jews,
because they do not belong to the Christian Church" (from an interview with a
Belgrade newspaper, October 1968).
2015. Even socialist societies have, somewhere openly and somewhere curtailed,
offered unlimited sexual freedoms as a compensation for denied political
freedoms. It is interesting how some traditional societies under socialism have
quickly traversed the gap between sexual strictness to abolishment of all
limitations. It has been shown that these latter "freedoms"~ are not dangerous
for the ruling classes, but on the contrary serve as a good vent for emptying
social and political tensions. Only the government that believes in itself and in its
path can take the risk of denying the "social sedatives" such as drugs, alcohol,
sexual freedoms and other tranquilizers.
2017. The one who does not understand the value of individuality and freedom
should read Huxley's Brave New World. However, there are some who will be
thrilled by the delineation of Collectivity, Sameness, and Stability. There is no
help for those. It is futile to speak of the beauty of a rainbow or a sunset to one
who was born blind. Do not respond to one asking what is wrong with the "brave
new world." His question reveals that your every effort is futile.
2021. Propaganda, indoctrination, is based upon the psychology of conditioned

reflexes, thus, on animal psychology. It aspires to the creation of the "associative
pairs" in consciousness. Thus, for example, in atheistic propaganda, the concept
of religion is persistently linked with the concept of backwardness and
superstition. This is done since day one in school and continued. For someone
who has been "processed" like this, even the mention of the word "religion"
inevitably (therefore, automatically) invokes as its twin one of the mentioned
associations, of course always negative. Prejudices of that kind are so deeply
rooted in the consciousness that they are maintained even in spite of sometimes
utterly evident inaccuracy. I had an acquaintance who had been brainwashed that
religion is nonsense, and he believed it. However, he at the same time loved Leo
Tolstoy very much, claimed he was his favorite writer. It has never become clear
to me how he reconciled these two obviously contradictory things, and it seems
to me he did not even notice this contradiction. In fact, he was a victim of
"conditioned reflex," that is, an associative pair: religion-superstition.
2033. Reject idols, keep ideals!
2057. For the simple reproduction of population, it is necessary that every woman
who lives through her reproductive years gives birth to a little over two children
(precisely 2.15 children).
2058. It is time to stop speaking badly of Germans. There are Goethe's Germans
as well. These better Germans are in exceptional prevalence.
2077. In economy, one phenomenon was manifested: the stronger (harder) the
state, the weaker the currency, finally, they both perish.
2081. Development sometimes strays into a blind street, from which there is no
further path. Examples are socialist states. One can feel the absence of spirit and
meaning, and some monstrous enormity. Are these not a historical error in the
development of society, like dinosaurs in biology or the zeppelin in technology?
The main trouble with these "mistakes" is that this is where further development

Political Notes
is stopped, that one must return to the crossroad from which the deviation
originated.
2117. The integration of the EEU is advancing. In 1992 the internal borders of 12
countries that were in the past at war with each other will be open.
2118. For some, pornography is one form of freedom and democratization of

society. Pornography is underestimating the moral integrity of another person,
especially woman, etc. There are two international agreements on combating
pornography; it is characteristic that they are both from early in this century:
1910 in Paris, and 1923 in Geneva. After that, as far as I know, there are none.
"Democratization" does not tolerate them.
2125. One Indian economist calculated that in his country, more is spent on
astrologers and fortune-tellers than on schools. Some are convincing us that the
situation is no better in other countries as well, including some developed ones.
Sounds incredible.
2129. I do not want democratization, I want democracy.
2140. What has overthrown feudalism? Many things, but before all-gunpowder.
2141. I think that the time of armed revolutions, at least in the developed part of
the world, has forever gone. Due to the complexity of the weapons the modern
state has at its disposal, chances are on the side of the authorities, and almost
none on the side of the insurrected people. During the American and French
Revolutions, there were very small differences in the weapons that were at the
disposal (or could have been at the disposal) of the people and the weapons with
which the groups in power defended their positions. Let us compare that to
today's state: tanks, rockets, airplanes, helicopters. What revolution can take that
into account? Tactics and methods of future overthrows will have to be
completely different: passive resistance, general strikes, civil disobedience of
mass proportions, etc., simply everything that is not in the form of weapons.
Armed rebellion suits power-holders since it gives them a 100 percent chance.
2142. On the frontispiece of Gandhi's autobiography is a picture of all the things

Gandhi owned at the moment of his death. It is estimated that all of it together
was worth about 5 pounds (G. Orwell in his essay on M. Gandhi).
2145. Regarding the word "Satyagraha," usually translated as "passive

resistance" in the West, Gandhi opposed this translation. In the Gujarati language
that word means "perseverance in truth."
2158. History is mainly a just judge. There are no undeserved defeats. People
come down from the historical stage with fate they deserved. The same thing
with civilizations. They do not live through violent death. They die of their own
diseases. The raid by barbarians is only the coup de grace for a civilization that
has lost the ability to live and to protect and defend itself.
2162. Men are (as a sex) more often than women unsuccessful, frustrated and
maladjusted. One of the interpretations is that a man is a "more complicated
machine" and that his social role is more complex and difficult.
2182. Why is the EEU so important? It is not only a significant political integration
but also a strong epicenter of concentration of economic and intellectual
(technological) forces.

Political Notes
2236. In the confidential report that a Moscow administrator delivered to the

authorities of that day, he wrote, among other things, "Count Tolstoy is scribbling
something." For the authorities of that period, War and Peace and Resurrection
were "scribbling."
2244. Only in the Russian Soviet Socialist Republic are there about half a million
illegitimate children born annually. The Russian family is in crisis mainly because
of the changed position of women. In a family, a woman dominates, and in some
fields even in society: There are six university-educated men for every ten
university-educated women. Divorces are on the agenda. A new very widespread
problem: the loneliness of a woman. The motto of a young woman: I want to be a
mother, I don't want to be a wife. After youth passes, this wish changes (Politika,
Belgrade, January 4, 1987).
2263. The excessive emphasis on the social character of man as a social being
leads to the negation of individuality, and from there to dehumanization. From
the claim that we are "social animals," that we are members of the herd, to the
"logic of the herd" is only one step. The true preparation of man for life in society
leads via the opposite path: the development of his individuality. The social
animal never becomes a social human. All human experience confirms this.
2266. In 1952 Japan had $162 and in 1986 $12,000 of national income per
inhabitant (Danas, January 13, 1987, p. 53). It is thought that Japan can thank,
above all, the high level of education and two traditional characteristics of the
Japanese, diligence and thriftiness, for this "miracle." Even today, the Japanese
have the largest number of working days in their calendar and the greatest
savings per inhabitant. In addition to this, during the entire postwar period,
military expenses were extremely low (only 1 percent of national income).
2281. In the book Farewell to the Proletariat, Andre Gorz (Marxist or post-
Marxist) claims that the working class in the West is integrated in the system of
reproduction of capital, that is, that it participates in the "game of the
development of capitalistic production forces." Revolutionism cannot be expected
from such a working class. According to Gorz, this is not some subjective fault of
the working class but is about technological development, especially automation
and robotization, which change the content of the concept of "working class"
itself. Work in the classic sense is increasingly disappearing.
2304. The economy of Sweden according to the concept of a "welfare state":

around 85 percent of the economy is in private hands. When compared to other
Western countries, unemployment is low (around 2.5 percent) but inflation and
working expenses are greater, which reduces the competitive ability of the
economy on the world market. Pol-Martin Meyerson in the book Eurosclerosis:
The Case of Sweden analyzes the Swedish model and points to its deficiencies. He
recommends "re-modeling" the Swedish model, transforming an unwieldy state
apparatus and abolishing some forms of pre-dimensioned social care that is
expensive and de-stimulating. In Sweden, around 85 percent of the workers are
organized within the Union, which is not the opposition, but an equal partner in
the triangle: capital-work-state (employer-Union-state). Will transforming
actually mean "dismantling of the welfare state?" Since the Napoleonic Wars,
Sweden has not been at war. The gross national income per capita is $11,400
(1986). In some companies and banks, employees participate in the profit, but
they get it in the form of stocks that they cannot cash until after retirement. It
has been shown that the worker-co-owner works and saves better.
2308. The word "holocaust" is originally from the Bible, and was derived from the
Greek words "holos" = "whole, entire" and "kaustol" = "burnt."

Political Notes
2323. Social salvation is always communal, morality is by its nature personal,

individual. That is because moral salvation depends on the man himself, because
only he, and no one instead of him, can deserve it, not even actualize it. Social
salvation as well as social ruin often does not depend on the man who is caught
in it. They happen without merit and without fault.
2371. Many analysts consider the phenomenon of the disappearance of the

classical worker as related to a rapid decline in the authority of the Communist
Party (CP) of France. As opposed to the Italian and Spanish CPs, the French CP
held itself closer to dogma and continued to emphasize its "worker" character,
while the workers this party had in mind and was referring to decreased in
number as the days progressed (more on this: Vjesnik, February 8, 1987).
2393. In France, after the victory of the right, denationalization of state

companies followed. Among other things, the Saint Gobain Company, a glass
giant, one of the ten largest companies in France, employing 150,000 people in
16 countries, changed to private hands as well. Privatization was accomplished by
the sale of 30 million shares, which were bought off by 1.5 million Frenchmen,
mostly young depositors, and the demand for shares was 14 times greater than
the number of shares put on the market. A similar thing happened with shares of
the French bank, Paribas, which were acquired by over three million people. "I
think the French are now promoting a new system of popular people's
capitalism," stated then general director of Saint Gobain on this occasion. The
price of a single Gobain share was 310 francs.
2404. Strictness and clarity of thought are the products of Western civilization
and the standard of thinking that it established. Therein lies one of the sources of
power of the West.
2423. Lawrence Durrell called the Mediterranean basin "the womb of civilization
because of the large number of cultures and spiritual revolutions that had their
cradle exactly here or in the near vicinity.
2428. International PEN held a symposium, "Writers for Peace," on March 3, 1987
(PEN day). The topic of this symposium was: "Falsification and misuse of history-
source of conflicts and crises." Writers of the world should fight for truth in
history, for the veritable representation of the past.
2431. Modern society feels increasingly less classed. Classes from societal poles
are disappearing in favor of something that could be called the middle class.
2434. To the question of one journalist whether the revolution will soon inflame
Switzerland, Lenin, who resided in this country as a refugee, answered:
"In a country with 3.5 million inhabitants and 3,800,000 saving accounts, this can
be hardly expected."
2437. Marvin Minsky, mathematician and psychologist, one of today's best

experts on artificial intelligence, considers psychology and artificial intelligence as
"the same thing." Obsessed with an idea of constructing a robot who thinks,
speaks, and sees, he once presented a thesis that hundreds of little machines and
mechanisms without some center operate in our head. "The individual is," says
Minsky, "actually a cooperation of all those mechanisms, all those machines"
(from In Mind's Company). My comment: the same positivistic position that too
easily slights some questions, for example, how does a machine "learn"? A
machine can be unusually complex, but its essence is that it does not learn.
Regardless of its sophistication, it remains incapable of learning.
2445. Non-sovereign people will atrophy politically.

Political Notes
2447. Two coefficients, employment and fertility of women, stand in a reciprocal

relationship. Some nations could pay a high price in the race for the increase of
social wealth. Perhaps the ominous prediction that everything will be there except
people will come true. The question can be posed: How much material wealth-
steel, automobiles, rockets-is a happy childhood worth? Does a happy childhood
with a mother have a price, and can it be compensated for by something else?
2453. Totalitarian regimes quickly understand that stupid, incapable and cowardly
people pose no threat, so they support and encourage them.
2480. For, what else is this much-vaunted "state cause" in our times but the
expression of the same will or self-will of the power, expressed in the ancient era
by "Quidquid principi placuit habet legis vigorem" (Everything the ruler orders has
the force of the law). The essence of authoritarian power, named differently in
different times.
2489. The way in which Marsilili (1280-1342), a legal theoretician from Padua,
saw "people" of that time: he divides them into popolo grasso (fat people) and
popolo minuto (thin people). The former is the aristocracy, and all the rest-the
poor.
2492. When it has weapons and power, stupidity does not appear that stupid.
Then we see it as strictness or danger. When it loses that power, stupidity
becomes what it has been-stupidity.
2512. The origin of the names "right" and "left" is linked to the debate about the
Constitution in the French Assembly in 1789. The advocates of large
empowerment of the king sat to the right of the president, while the advocates of
the large empowerment of parliament sat to his left. That division later acquired a
general meaning, with those on the left being those asking for changes, and
those on the right for the status quo. The left-right division has other meanings,
this being only one of them.
2517. The position of the ruler, or authority, is almost an unmistakable measure

of the civilization of one people. Tyranny over truly civilized people is not
possible. Such people traversed all those complex degrees of internal and
external development that are necessary for government to be put under the
control of law. With primitive peoples, the government is always above the law.
According to this criterion, all so-called socialist countries are still at the level of
barbarism.
2526. Before the end of the Empire, the Roman military consisted only of cavalry.
"They conquered the world as an infantry, lost it as a cavalry."
2533. Hugo Grotius (1583-1645), the greatest jurist of the Western world, did not
consider slavery neither unnatural nor unlawful. For him freedom was alienable
good.
2553. As opposed to materialists, for us a man is always the cause of things, and
not the consequence. For Marx, "It is not the consciousness of people that
determines their being but vice versa, their being determines their
consciousness"-man is a product, a consequence. In the world in which the first
postulate of philosophy is that man is a consequence, "clean-ups" and "Gulags"
are an unavoidable (law-abiding) result.
2559. Hegel yet discovered the role of wars in consolidating the state, the fact
that was known to conquerors from before. "Happy wars, opposite from the
wonderful time of peace, prevent internal unrest and help in consolidating the

Political Notes
power of the state, although they put its existence at stake" (Hegel, Foundations
of Philosophy of Law).
2560. "World history is the world court"-Hegel's renowned saying according to

which the power of ideas, states and movements is only evaluated according to
their destiny in world history, that is, practice.
2573. Exponential growth is characteristic of human knowledge. It is thought that

all knowledge produced up until 1900 was doubled by 1950, then this knowledge
was doubled by 1960. The same now happens every 7-8 years. Through
qualitative change of the educational system, in a short time, decades and even
centuries of normal development can be leaped. The example of Japan and South
Korea confirms this. At the end of the last century in Japan, after the famous
Meiji Revolution, there was sudden expansion in education. The Constitution of
Japan at that time had only five articles (!), and the last ended with the sentence
"knowledge should be acquired wherever it can be found." This sentence played a
crucial role in what is known as the Japanese economic miracle.
2710. In politics it is not important what really is, what exists-it is important what
people believe is, believe exists.
2711. The British believe that sometimes not only unsuccessful, but also
successful governments should be changed-for they will either become ineffective
or become oppressive. Not a single government that stays too long is good-
according to British thought.
2732. In the Far East a miracle is happening, and some are beginning to
remember a few ancient prophecies. The Far East is today the most productive
industrial area of the world. It seems that inhabitants of those countries can
produce everything we can-only cheaper and better-says American economist
George Goodman. They called them yellow-colored Americans. These countries
are Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and. Hong Kong. One of the explanations: the
specific quality of the culture of the Far East, which is 2.5 thousand years old and
which to these people is an inheritance of a tradition of work, education,
modesty, thriftiness, and natural loyalty. In monetary terms there is the
expression "Confucian capitalism," which synthesizes all these characteristics.
2737. Galbraith' s prediction that we are approaching the exclusive power of large
corporations did not come true. On the contrary, small elastic firms adapted
better and faster to the demands of new technologies and are winning a battle in
the competition with large corporations.
2842. When Margaret Thatcher was appointed the Prime Minister of Great Britain
in 1979, it was expected that more women would be in significant political
positions. But this did not happen. Only one woman came to the position of
assistant Minister.
2848. In the 1987 election campaign, Margaret Thatcher promoted the slogan of
so-called people or mass capitalism. She said that capitalism is a superior system
because it creates possibility for an increasingly larger number of people to create
goods available previously only to some, and that, by continuing down this path,
a day of general ownership will arrive. Nationalized companies were sold to small
shareholders, which today number 10 million in Britain.
2858. I have heard that in America even a piano concerto by Tchaikovsky on TV

is interrupted by commercials. Still, you can choose between 30 and 40 channels,
so my objection does not stand in the American case.

Political Notes
2860. The number of computers in use is doubled every three years, the cost of
their production is cut by half. The third medium-term plan by UNESCO (1990-
1995) speaks of developed countries establishing general control over less
developed ones through education. The global social relations will first depend on
the strength of individual countries in the area of education, science and
communication. This is global promotion of intellect as power. At stake are not
only the massive participation but also the quality of education. Fast
"informatization" of education by introduction of microelectronics is being done.
The emphasis is on natural sciences and foreign languages. Current trends in
production, actually constant introduction of progressively newer technologies,
forces people to adapt during their working lifespan or even change their
specialty, always with increasingly stricter criteria of knowledge. Even Americans
are dissatisfied with their system of education. In 1983, a report with the panicky
title "Nation at Risk" appeared, prepared by the National Commission for
Education. A series of radical changes in education was suggested, with an aim to
prepare the American nation for the expected global "economic war." Massive
reforms are currently in effect in the USSR, West Germany, Japan and England.
The "brain drain" from undeveloped to developed countries continues, which
further intensifies the already existing gap. Where are we?
2870. The amount of coercion in a state is in an inverse relationship with its true
authority.
2871. One of the declared aims of the feminist movement is "fight against the
glorification of motherhood."
2873. The participation of women in the parliaments of some Western countries:

Italy 7 percent, West Germany 15 percent, Ireland 8 percent, Norway 30 percent,
West-European Parliament 20 percent (in 1986-1987). In Italy, there are 52
percent women and 48 percent men in the general population, and there are
more women at universities and higher-education institutions. Still this is not the
case for the decision-making positions. One of the reasons: when women vote,
they do not vote for female candidates, but for men.
2875. In the nineteenth century, books over 20 (double) pages in length were
excepted from censorship, it was assumed that only a few people read them, so
they could not be dangerous.
2898. One interesting explanation for the stagnation of Oriental societies: the
absence of the so-called middle class. It is interesting that the same reason-
absence of a middle class-explains still another phenomenon: eruption of the
"social revolutions" in Russia, China, Ethiopia, Cuba, etc.
2899. Progress is a contradictory process. The idea of social equality is as old as

man, it had a large impelling force, although it is in a literal sense pure illusion.
Every progression is expressed through differentiation in which the
more able and strong win.
2921. Medieval folk culture-it is a mixture of folk tradition and official church
doctrine.
2133. In Carter's time, the Law on Ethics was passed in the United States,
concerning the behavior of the government. The purpose of this law was to return
the shaken belief of the public in the holders of responsible functions after
Watergate. Still, during the first four years of Reagan's government, more than
100 officials were faced with investigation due to warranted suspicion that they
transgressed the norms of ethical law. Government either dangerously corrupts
people or offers an opportunity to corrupted people.

Political Notes
2135. First we had military-political colonialism, then economic, and now finally,
so-called technological colonialism, that is, the almost complete technological
dependence of less developed countries on the most technologically developed
ones. The gap is incessantly widening. The progress is so fast that particular
technological solutions become antiquated in three to five years. Where are we?
2203. Impersonal, collective humanism does not exist, and neither does
impersonal, collective freedom. Every type of humanism and every freedom is
before all freedom and humanism of a free individual, a free person.
2237. The conservatism of workers and radicalism of the so-called middle classes
are now being mentioned, while the Marxist Habermas states that the "utopia of
work lost the power of persuasiveness."
2238. It is beginning to be understood that the position of the woman in the so-
called civilized countries has changed but not improved. On the long list of
imperiled categories, alongside the inhabitants of regions with no perspective and
youth with poor qualifications, in first place are women, because their
emancipation was followed by the disproportional increase in professional and
social responsibilities and obligations.
2239. The origination and development of new social necessities is linked to the
great oil crisis of 1972-1974. This was undoubtedly the turning point for the
accelerated movement toward new technologies.
3059. I have read somewhere that in Cleveland, Ohio (United States) as many as
eighty different nationalities live, each of which is proud of its symbols, it
cherishes them, and respects those that are different. No one is cramped for
space in Cleveland.
3060. When water comes up to the throat, it is not advisable to undulate.
3070. What is the difference between a statesman and a politician? Answering

this question Churchill said: "A statesman thinks of the state, and a politician of
the following elections."
3076. Law and justice are not always in accord. If that is not the case, for a true
man, the former is the latter.
3095. Legend says that it took 40 years for Moses to lead his people out of Egypt.
Why so much time for something that could have been done in a week or month?
Because the legendary "departure" was not mere travel, but a rebirth of one
people. Egypt here is not a country but a metaphor for slavery, just as the
"Promised Land" is metaphor for freedom. The path from Egypt to Palestine is the
path from slavery to freedom. One people started from Egypt, and after
wandering and suffering, another arrived into the "Promised Land."
3096. High Yugoslav official Draza Markovic writes at one point in his memoirs:
"One comes to the old question if Yugoslavia is the state of Yugoslav people, or is
it a state of Slovenians, Macedonians, Montenegrins, as well as a state of
Albanians, Italians, Bulgarian, Hungarian, Slovaks, etc." (Diary Notes, Belgrade,
published in NIN, September 6, 1987). Where are the Muslims here? Draza
mentions Italians and Slovaks, but is "blind" to a people of over 2 million
individuals. Why?
3102. Why is the destiny of utopias to produce tyrannies? The link is indubitable,
but what are the real reasons. Maybe in an answer to the question: can an

Political Notes
"earthly kingdom" be conceived without God and against God? Every utopia
implicitly or explicitly advocates just that: kingdom without God.
3105. In Stalinism, the Marxist, anti-individual philosophy and the imperial,

autocratic, despotic tradition of imperial Russia "happily" met. Stalinism is a
synthesis of European doctrine and Russian notions of relationship manpower. Or
more simply: Stalinism = Marxism + Russia. Stalinism is a product of these two
factors.
3107. It is estimated that since the end of World War II, in the period between
1945 and 1987, more than 100 local wars have been waged, mostly among less
developed countries and on their territories. In these wars, about 22 million
people lost their lives.
3109. In the book The Control of Foreign Politics, Dr. Smilja Avramov emphasizes
that the brutality of the two world wars and barbarian methods of totalitarian
systems instigated the odium of common people toward the state, whereby the
state was identified with violence and trampling of elementary human rights and
freedoms.
3114. Tourism, following the oil and automobile industry, is becoming the third
most powerful economic branch in the world. However, many analysts point also
to its negative consequences for the host countries. The opinion is being
expressed that "tourism devours lands, nature, cultural goods as a new colonizer
and destroyer of environment" (Josta Krippendrof, Traveling Mankind). -
3133. Adam Smith noticed as far as 200 years ago that the man who cannot
acquire property has no other interest but to eat as much as possible, and work
as little as possible.
3145. On the 1977 world map, deserts make up 2 percent of European land,
19 percent of American, 31 percent of Asian, 34 percent African and 75 percent of
Australian land. About ten countries in the world are exposed to a high risk of
desertification, among which are Iraq, Pakistan and Turkey. Through comparison
of satellite pictures of Sudan from 1958 and 1975, it was determined that the
edge of the desert extended an entire 100 km. This expansion of the desert is not
a natural process. It is mostly due to the human factor (excessive grazing,
irrational wood clearing, lowering the level of subterranean waters by intensive
drilling though underground currents, etc.).
3147. In Animal Farm Orwell has shown what happens with equality when pigs
are the ones deciding on it.
3149. Wars destroy, but also create. Peter Kalvokrezi and Guy Vint in the book
The Total War (Rad, Belgrade, 1987) showed how the unprecedented competition
of the warring sides in World War II accelerated the development of technology
and achieved new breakthroughs, in the areas of aviation and shipbuilding. These
efforts led also to creation of new industrial branches and revival of economic
development of many undeveloped fields. In the concluding chapters, the writers
gave an account of the deep changes the war instigated in the area of
technology, demography, international relations, the way of life and political
philosophy of people.
3151. Prof. Rasi Batra in the book "Great Depression 1990" announced that in
three years the world would undergo a much larger crisis than the one in 1929.
We shall see how realistic (unrealistic) the prognoses are. The writer is of Hindu
descent, and is an assistant professor at Southern Methodist University in the
United States.

Political Notes
3154. "It was our turn, getting onto bus, taking our seats. Behind us two young
men who were, while waiting in line, completely unnaturally and unpleasantly
raving about, and now they sat, put on earphones from their walk-mans, and
disappeared. Listen, my friend said,. . . in this country, only Blacks know how to
enjoy life, only they know how to be happy, to truly rave about, to express
happiness they are alive. This is one human desert in which New York is somehow
like a miracle, like a mirage, like a giant saguaro cactus in the Sonoran desert....
And this here is not a way of life but a strained, frantic attempt to live, to be
alive. Black people try, through crime, through their money, through their
religiousness, to prove to themselves they are alive, and every such
demonstration is realized in exaggeration" (from the travelogue of New York by
Tvrtko Kulenovic). My comment: there surely is truth in this description, but it is
not all truth. I do not know why all foreigners see America through New York.
Who are, and how do they live, the millions of people in the little cities outside
New York, Chicago, and Detroit? I think that, mostly, they live a normal life. The
strength of America rests on them.
3155. Why can one's country not be abandoned? It cannot be done, since tombs
cannot be taken with us, and the tombs of our fathers and grandfathers are our
roots. The plant pulled by the roots cannot live. We have to, therefore, stay.
3157. Traditions correct the negative influence of civilization. That is why one
must treasure them. According to some information, for four decades in a row,
crime in Japan has not increased. In 1986, almost the same number of offenses
was recorded as thirty years before. Pickpocketing is almost unknown. The
institution of the type in Japan is unknown. If there is a robbery or theft of a
wallet, the perpetrators of the crime are regularly foreigners. In Japan, there is
270 times less stealing than in the United States. However, not even the
Japanese are immune to some types of crime such as tax evasion, bribery,
business fraud and machinations (information from the article "Japan: The Safest
Country in the World," Novosti 8, November 12, 1987).
3158. According to some information, 50,000 rapes are reported yearly in West
Germany, in the United States almost 250,000. It is interesting that the so-called
countries of sexual freedom are at the same time at the top of the list for the
number of rapes. The actual number of these offences is most likely larger, for
many attacked women, especially from conservative environments, do not report
the attack. The data show that rapes are about one hundred times more common
in countries of sexual freedom than in those which we call conservative.
3187. The status of the so-called continual neutrality of Switzerland had been
determined at the Congress of Vienna in 1815 on the basis of the decision -by the
Swiss Confederation and the international agreement, signatories of which were
the great powers of that time. After World War II, a similar status was gained by
Austria, also through international agreement, in 1955.
3190. For the inanities you sometimes hear from the mouths of politicians, you
cannot always blame just them. Often their public is "more deserving" than that.
A politician sometimes, against his own convictions, says things that are expected
to be heard from him. True and intelligent messages are often unwanted and the
public would not accept them. That is how the wisdom of people having leaders
they deserve is realized. But that is why we have the appearance of intelligent
but hypocritical politicians, on one hand, and the refusal of intelligent and
honorable people to be involved in this work at all, on the other. In authoritative
regimes there is less political hypocrisy, but it is not about the honesty or
morality at all. In question here is ignoring the public. We do not pretend before
those whose opinions we do not care about.

Political Notes
3192. Hannah Arendt wrote somewhere that totalitarianism - both leftist and
rightist - is based, among all else, on pedocracy, the mobilization of the youth,
which is always invited to overthrow the "old world."
3212. They elect themselves (self-elect) and bestow honors upon themselves.
3214. You and I would have difficulty in convincing people that communism leads
nowhere. Only communists could have convinced them of that, with total and
complete success.
3237. Technology produces forces, both productive and destructive ones. The
latter with even more success. For, today's technology cannot create, but is able
to destroy the world. When the destructive force of today's resources is in
question, we usually have in mind the sight of deadly weapons of mass
destruction. We forget the more subtle ones-television, for example, which
steadily destroys the traditional way of life and which brings crime and violence
into our homes, bringing up our children.
3256. It is normal that in every dogmatist, mental activity weakens. What can I
think, when everything is already thought of? Thinking, in that case, is
necessarily experienced as retrogression, as an inevitable introduction of
confusion into something that is clear and certain.
3269. According to the definition finally adopted by the General Assembly of the
UN in 1946, genocide is "an action which has as its aim the complete or partial
destruction of some social group (national, religious, or racial)"; this action can be
carried out directly or indirectly, therefore not only by physical destruction, but
also indirectly by "placing a group in such living conditions which lead to the
disappearance of its political, social, and cultural institutions." Genocide is
considered an international crime against humanity.
3271. While we would hope that disturbing facts about stories are the products of
a sick imagination or horror story, it is not always the case. For instance,
prostitution in Brazil. In a report from the "International Federation for Human
Rights," prepared by a group of researchers for the OUN, it is reported that in
Brazil there are about 7 million underage girls (age 8-12) who make their living
from prostitution. In the region of Dorado (Mato Groso), there are over 1,200
brothels, of which police recently closed down 400 only because there were
underage girls, under ten years old, employed in them. It is estimated that in the
city Recife (around 2 million inhabitants), there are over 90,000 prostitutes
(official information; it is believed that the real number is larger). Almost all
suffer from venereal diseases. According to a report from the Brazilian Ministry of
Health, about 6 million Brazilians suffer from sexually transmitted diseases, of
whom 200,000 have chronic syphilis. Now the disease is expanding with a
geometrical progression. Film director Glauber Roca writes: "Girls from poor
families quickly enter the world of prostitution. Parents sell them, masters rape
them, and pimps use them to amass money. After that, they die very young from
tuberculosis, hunger, knife wounds, gun shot wounds, venereal diseases. They
give birth to their first children when they are 11-12, which they then leave on
the doorsteps of churches or orphanages, on the streets or garbage dumps.
Others kill their children, claiming they died, as the result of an unfortunate
accident, to accumulate some change which, according to folk custom, is doled
out at the funeral" (Duga, Belgrade, January 9, 1988). Can there be any horror
story to equal this one from reality?
3273. While destroying the Weimar Republic in 1933, the Nazis claimed that the
Weimar Parliament was a mere prattle-house (parliament-prattle-house), and
discussions in it empty babble.

Political Notes
3276. During the last years of Cromwell's power, the wisest Englishmen were
invited to take over power. This "cabinet of the saints" or "cabinet of the sages,"
as it was called by the English, soon disintegrated and was compromised,
showing that perhaps the sages are not the most suitable people for solving the
entangled problems introduced by life.
3278. Plagiarists of the great artists always lived better than the artists
themselves. That is the rule.
3282. About a hundred years ago, the main raw material for energy was coal,
50 years ago that place was taken by oil, and now that important place has been
taken over by gas. The country with the greatest reserves of gas (according to
present information) is the Soviet Union, followed by Iran, the United States,
Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Canada, Mexico, Holland, Qatar and Norway, but the
reserves of the first two countries (U.S.S.R. and Iran) make up 60 percent of
world reserves. In the future, gas will be used more as a petrol-chemical, rather
than energy producing raw material (Vjesnik, Zagreb, January 16, 1988).
3287. A certain immaturity or naïveté of America that is mentioned here could be

a consequence of the fact that America did not have a Middle Ages. It did not go
through this cruel school that was traversed by Europe and that can be felt in the
views and style of America. It does not even have the almost two thousand years
of Christianity that Europe possesses. That is probably why its religiousness is
slightly strange and perplexing to Europeans. German writer Martin Walser noted
in one interview (1987): "The worst thing I have seen in America is their relation
to religion. Their television preachers are something much worse than can be
possibly imagined. In spite of that, their influence is enormous. For me it is one
special disease of the capitalistic entrepreneurs, which are treated as religious
entrepreneurs, large religious companies which literally sell religion, in a way
unimaginable to Europeans."
3288. The five "w's" -five laws- the five golden rules of the press: who, what,
when, where, why. Actually five rules of truthful, timely and complete
information. As in other cases, laws are there to be broken.
3316. From the report of the EEU, which illuminates the current situation in
Yugoslavia: "The agreement signed in Belgrade in 1980 [reference to the
agreement between Yugoslavia and the EEU, my comment] is defined as an
agreement sui generis, in the sense that political motivations prevailed over the
economic ones, firstly due to growing tensions in the country, then due to the
increasing role of the SEV zone in the Yugoslav external trade, and due to the
delicate political moment which followed the death of president Tito. Based on
motivations of political nature is almost a complete lack of obligations of
Yugoslavia in the reciprocity of concessions" (written in Article 2, point 17, of the
report by Giorgio Rosetti, an ambassador in the European Parliament, submitted
on behalf of the Commission for Foreign Relations). The report was accepted at
the session of the European Parliament, in January 1988 (Integral text of the
report in Star, February 6, 1988, pp. 6 1-63). A clear example of a pragmatic
approach in lieu of one that is principled. Europe has stopped fighting for the idea
long ago. Everything has turned into a calculation.
3336. According to Ortega Y Gasset, the leading minority of one people can be
neither too small nor too large. If it is too small, it is powerless to direct the
majority in the desired direction. If it is too large, it will be divided, and start
dealing with itself, becoming exhausted with mutual rivalry and conflicts.
3342. The quality of the laws and the respect for them are often in inverse
relationship with their number and long-windedness. These facts comment on

Political Notes
this: The Decalogue (God's Ten Commandments) that changed the world contains
fewer than a hundred words. The longest constitution in the world is that of
Yugoslavia (406 Articles), and the shortest is the American with only seven
Articles (with 36 amendments added during the 200 years of the existence of this
Constitution). The country that is taken as an example of a legal state- England-
does not even have a constitution in the formal sense of the word. Nicaragua has
a voluminous Constitution-336 Articles. I presume that legality is not
proportional. The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Montenegro, a federal
unit of Yugoslavia, which has half a million inhabitants, is larger than the
Constitution of India, which has 700 million inhabitants, around 30 federal units
and a large number of different ethnic and religious groups. A short constitution is
most often a sign of the continuity and stability of the system.
3343. Goebbels called radio the "spiritual weapon of the state," of course a
totalitarian one. There is no reason not to believe him (in this respect). Still in
1925 he proposed that every house in Germany should have radio.
3344. For ancient Greeks, barbarians are the ones who still cannot even speak,
which can be seen from the etymology of the word "barbarian." one who stutters.
3359. According to predictions of Igor Bestuzhev, a director of the Institute for

Social Prognostics and Social Design of the USSR, the population of the Asian
parts of the USSR, inhabited mainly by Muslim peoples, increased by more than
three-fold from the end of the war (in the last 40 years), and will double in
respect to the present number in the next 15 years. In the remainder of the
USSR, the opposite process exists: depopulation, single-child families, a large
number of single people, unstable and easily disrupted marriages. In his opinion,
about 60 percent of marriages are destroyed due to the alcoholism of one of the
partners (Danas, Zagreb, March 15, 1988, pp. 74-75).
3366. "Pornography-theory, rape-practice," words from one women's manifesto

against pornography.
3367. The creation of the so-called people's capitalism in Western countries is

done in accordance with the continual expansion of the number of small
shareowners. The system created by this has been shown to be economically very
effective. The number of shareholders in Great Britain in the last couple of years
(1980-1988) rose from 2 to 9 million. In 1982, the British government sold the
state transportation company, National Freight Corporation, exclusively to the
workers employed with the company. The shares of that firm, which had
previously been working at a barely profitable level, are today worth 50 times
more, thanks to the direct interest of the employee-owner. Excellent economic
effects have also been recorded in 16 other large state firms that the British
government sold to private individuals (among the other renowned firms Jaguar,
British Airways, PTT, airports, etc.). The main characteristic of this process was
that the shares were bought by millions of small investors. In France, a similar
process was put into action after Chirac' s arrival to power. In three years the
number of French shareholders increased from 1 million to 5.5 million. It is
interesting that neither the Labour government in Great Britain nor the socialist
opposition in other European states claims that it will, if elected, again nationalize
that which the governments of the right put into private hands. The idea of
nationalization and state ownership, sometimes very popular and "revolutionary,"
seems to have completely lost its attraction after an evidently bad experience.
3369. Democracy (and freedom) is not in that we do everything we want, but to

want everything we do (according to Tolstoy).

Political Notes
3370. Why does the so-called sixty-eight, which blew over the world like some
fever, remain only as a memory? It had to remain so. It once again attempted
that which was not to be achieved, that which history had already surpassed. It
attempted to bring to life ideals of the past, and those ideals were no longer
realistic. Everything that occurred later-the conservative movement in the West
and religious renewal around the world-shows that the ideals of 1968 were out of
its time and the general historical trend. The ideals of the generation were not as
innocent as they were at the start of the twentieth century, for they were already
weighted down with the sins of their application.
3384. Hegel thought we lived in the time of the twilight of art and that perception
about art is becoming more important than art itself, as intellectual reflection
replaces spontaneous creation. Hegel stated this over 150 years ago. Once again
the prognoses failed. Events did not confirm this claim of Hegel's. History cannot
be predicted.
3386. There was someone who said "we only have differences in common."
3388. A man cannot be a resource. Every use of man is misuse.
3392. The French Revolution called to Reason, and in name of Reason guillotined
thousands of reasonable ones.
3404. Whoever goes to the people to teach, but does not to learn from them as
well, is a conceited fool. That meeting will not bring him or the people any good.
3409. I have just read that the centers for the posture, movement, and balance
of the body are in the cerebellum, and for human creativity in the cerebrum.
Some people obviously have a more developed cerebellum than cerebrum.
3440. True democracy is not only a government of the majority. Just as every
right is the protection of the weaker, so is democracy the protection of the
minority. Without the latter, the government of the majority would be a tyranny
like any other.
3446. In the Western world, work gained its dignity for the first time in one of
Luther's 95 celebrated theses. That thesis runs: "Ora et labora" (pray and work).
This is the basis of the renowned Protestant work ethic. Formerly, work was until
then equated with suffering and slavery, and physical work unworthy of the free
man. With "ora et labora," Luther placed work in the same line with prayer as
also one of the ways to serve God, and thus established the practical foundations
of Protestant ethics, and even the power of the people who accepted it.
3447. Genghis Khan-the "atomic bomb of his time" (as called by one historian)-
destroyed Afghanistan's state and the civilization brought to it by Islam in the
thirteenth century. He burned the cities, destroyed beautiful edifices, dams and
irrigation systems, turning prosperous lands into desert. Even today, Afghanistan
still has not recovered from this misfortune: Great parts are today still deserts
due to this unprecedented devastation.
3449. Bosnia and its "dark beauty" (Andric's expression)-"land of historical-

civilizational discontinuities."
3456. In the period starting from 1961, around 7,000 Afghanis finished military
schools in the USSR and countries of the Eastern bloc, which practically amounts
to the entire staff of Afghanistan's army. If it is worth mentioning at all, political
indoctrination accompanied military training. The result is known.

Political Notes
3463. Developed countries earmark significant resources for different programs of

social protection of the poor and underprivileged classes of the population. In
1987, in the United States, $491 billion was provided for these purposes, $511
billion is predicted for 1988, which amounts to 11% of the gross national product.
These resources will be spent for health protection of the poor and unemployed,
subsidies for rents, vocational training, additional education, as well as for direct
help in terms of food by granting "food stamps" and the gratuitous distribution of
agricultural excesses that the state bought from farmers. The greatest part of this
sum still goes to social, health and pension insurance. In the United States the
poverty limit for a four-member family is an income of $11,000 a year. It is
thought that one-fifth of Italians have a standard of living that necessitates help
from the state. Statistical data for France states that 15 percent of the population
lives in poverty or on the border of it (according to their standards). According to
EU standards, those who have less than 50 francs at their disposal daily are
considered poor. It is thought that in West Germany there are about three million
poor people, with the same amount surviving exclusively on social aid. An
additional 2~2 million receive help to cover rent, food, or clothing. The most
important institution for this kind is the obligatory contribution of 2.3 percent of
income from all employees and employers, which provides 50 billion DEM yearly,
the initial purpose of which was to help the unemployed. Out of 56 million
Britons, more than 8 million receive some kind of assistance or have some social
privileges, for which $90 billion a year is set aside ("New Poverty," Danas, May 3,
1988, p. 8).
3466. (Anti-Semitism-some historical facts that concern the territory of present

Yugoslavia): Between the fifth and eighth centuries, Byzantium passed laws that
forcibly converted many Jews in Macedonia to Christianity. In Dubrovnik, in 1502,
11 Jews were accused of "ritual killing." As a result of the trial, one was strangled
in prison, four were burned alive, three died from torture, and the rest were
exiled. In 1797, the "Council of the Entreated" passed a law that prohibited Jews
from entering cafés. In Split, in 1553, all Jewish holy books were burned and
Jews were ordered to wear a yellow sign, first introduced in Venice in 1314. In
the area of Slovenia, all Jews from Koruska, Stajerska and Ljubljana were exiled
by the decree of Emperor Maximilian. In Vojvodina, they were not allowed to
inhabit cities, in Serbia the opposite: Milos' s son, Mihajlo, prohibited Jews from
leaving cities and going inland. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, Turkey prohibited
them from dressing like Muslims-wearing a turban and dressing in green; they
were also not allowed to ride a horse in the city and wear weapons. At the
Congress of Berlin, Jews were formally granted all civil rights.
3483. In the book Macedonian Muslims, Then and Now, author Jakim
Sinadinovski, professor of sociology at the University of Skopje, opposes the
thesis on Macedonians converted to Islam that claims that Muslims in Macedonia
are a separate ethnic group that significantly developed under the influence of the
religious factor. Muslims differ from Macedonians in linguistic expression, dress,
custom/moral norms, culture of residence and food, and even the type of
economic life-which gives this group a separate identity. The book caused a
strong reaction in those who claim that Muslims in Macedonia are Macedonians of
Islamic faith, that is, Macedonians converted to Islam and as such, a part of the
Macedonian people. The book was issued in early 1988 in Skopje.
3486. Some want to literally equate a man and a woman, not in rights and
human dignity, but in the way of life, type of work, dress, behavior, thus in
everything in which these two sexes differ by their natures. On the other hand,
even psychologists claim there is even a "masculine" and a "feminine" way of
writing, masculine and feminine literature, even a "masculine" and a "feminine"
way of reading. Milorad Pavic wrote two versions of his Hazar Dictionary- one
"masculine" and the other "feminine." When you travel by train through the

Political Notes
Soviet Union, along the track during a winter storm at minus 20 degrees Celsius,
you see track-workers, women, not as an exception, but hundreds of them. That
is that "equality."
3501a. A program and people are often in disagreement. Often quality people
advocate a completely unrealistic and retrogressive program, and vice versa:
good program, bad people.
3504. "Let us build trade, and a historian of the world will see that trade was the
principle of freedom, that it colonized America and destroyed feudalism, that it
made peace and that it maintains peace and that it will abolish slavery"
(Emerson, Diary). Compare the Qur'an: "God allowed trade and prohibited
interest" (2/275).
3505. "The harvest will be better kept and will last longer if it is in private
storage, in the shed of every farmer and basket of every woman, than if kept in
state granaries. In the same way, the same amount of money will last longer and
be better used if every man and woman use it for their own needs, feeling that
the money is theirs, than if it is spent by a powerful Governor or state
representative of the Minister of Finances. If you take away the feeling that I
have to depend upon myself, if you give me even the slightest indication that in
reserve I have good friends and assistants who will support everything readily, I
will immediately loosen my diligence,. . . and certain slackening will expand to the
conduct of all of my work. Here is a $100 bill. If it comes into the hands of a
profligate, who did not earn his estate and who knows how to spend. you will see
how little change this will cause in his affairs. At the end of the year he will be as
far behind as ever. But if it goes into the hands of a poor, sensible woman, every
little part of it will be used to reduce debt, or add to present or permanent
comfort, fix a window, buy a blanket or fur coat, or get a stove instead of an old
hearth." This was written by Emerson in his Diary in December of 1842. I give
this long quotation for it took 150 years and the wandering of 100 million people,
the loss of trillions in national income, to understand this simple truth.
3506. Weak people are the advocates and support of authoritarian government.
They lack the feeling of self-worth, from which the desire for freedom and
independence stems. A weak man runs from freedom and responsibility. An
authoritarian government is a refuge from this burden, without which one can
comfortably live. The precondition for this is known, why repeat it?
3515. Strong and spontaneous aspiration for knowledge, as in the case of

American lyceums in the mid-nineteenth century, most eloquently speaks of the
great future of one nation. A lyceum, one type of a public university, is a specific
American movement that flourished between 1830 and 1860. A group of citizens
would associate, collect money and invite lecturers to be guests in their homes
during winter. When this movement was at its height, there were over 2,000
lyceums in America.
3516. They like to speak of independence of state, but reluctantly speak of

independence of citizens. That independence, without which there is no freedom,
can be hindered (destroyed, taken away, reduced) equally with intimidation, as
well as with persistent persuasion and "brainwashing." Regardless of what
method is used, the result is the same: a dependent, un-free man who is
everything, but not a citizen.
3517. Napoleon had predicted the great future of America as far back as the early
nineteenth century ("in 25 years, the United States will dictate the political order
of the world"). Clearly, he was not only a great soldier. He had an undeniable
sense for history. He is known to have made a similar prophecy before the Battle

Political Notes
at Valme: "A new period in human history is beginning, and you can say you were
present" (cited by Goethe).
3520. What is the meaning of the story of the creation of the first man in the
Qur'an (Qur'an 2/30-34)? It contains at least two critically important things:
(1) All people are, if not brothers, then some far cousins, and as such, equal, and
(2) First there was a man and woman, and then persons and people. Ensuing
from this is that "human rights" are older (and more important) than peoples,
tribes, communal and state ones. Human rights are primary, the rest are
deduced.
3523. In her book The Real World, Marguerite Duras dedicates the largest chapter
to the home as a woman's universe.
3524. From the General Declaration on Human Rights: "Everyone has the right to
freedom of opinion and expression. This right includes the freedom of keeping
one's own view and accepting information and ideas from all media regardless of
borders" (Article 19 of the Declaration).
3525. The most widespread form of violence in the world is the one happening in
the family. However, this violence in the greatest number of cases remains
undiscovered and unpunished, for it happens within the walls of the "inviolable"
home and private life.
3526. It is interesting how, in one study, the inhabitants of the future United
States of Europe (the present EU) made a list of the ten values they find worthy
of their personal engagement. In first place they place the equality of sexes, then
in declining order: protection of the environment, peace in the world, battle
against poverty, national defense, religious freedom, unification of Europe,
personal freedom, human rights and (in tenth place) revolution. The study was
done in early 1988 (Vjesnik, Zagreb, May 28, 1988, p. 5).
3568. Politics (after all, like life itself) is full of paradoxes. For example, only
certified anti-Communists, Nixon and Reagan, could agree with the Soviets and
even make certain concessions. Anyone else would be accused of selling out to
the Communists or being politically naïve.
3572. Americans gave $93 billion to different charities in 1987 (Oslobodjenje,

June 29, 1988). Giving to others, mutual help, is a natural thing among people. It
appears everywhere in the world as an integral part of civilized life.
3577. Marie Ebner-Eschenbach said that the greatest enemies of freedom,

alongside tyrants and bureaucrats, are happy slaves. Danko Plevnik commented
on this thought: "These are those plain little people who add to the pyre of
bureaucratic short-sightedness their dry twigs of blind faith in their inanities."
3624. A man of self-realization and original spirit is either a hermit or an apostle,

says Leo Beck. A hermit relates passively (introverted), an apostle actively,
dynamically toward the world. The former changes only himself, the latter
attempts to change the world, that is, the people around him. This latter,
dynamic type can predominate in one group or people. According to Beck, Jewish
people are a specific example-perhaps most pronounced-of such dynamic
personality. Furthermore, such spirit can exist only in a small community or small
people.
3627. (Factor of time): An American asked an Englishman how he manages to

grow such wonderful grass. "Nothing simpler," said the Englishman. "We water it
regularly and cut it every morning and evening." "That is the same thing I do,"

Political Notes
said the American, "but my grass is pitiful." "Yes," said the Englishman, "but we
have been doing it for 400 years."
Today my little granddaughter Jasmina turned five. She was born on
August 11, 1983, during my trial. My dear Jasmina.
3641. Japanese industry developed quickly. Thus, for example, the motor vehicle
industry was started in 1930. That year only 458 trucks and buses were
produced. In 1965, around 1.9 million vehicles were produced, and in 1986, 12.3
million. Japan today (1988) is the largest producer of automobiles in the world
(followed by the United States and West Germany).
3648. Human communion is specific. Some animals, for example, hunt together,
but eat the catch by themselves. While all animals provide food only for
themselves and their young, group distribution of food is characteristic only of
humankind. Anthropologist Glina Issac says: "If a chimpanzee could describe the
characteristics of human behavior, he would first point out that that being shares
food with other members of the group."
3654. American psychologist Carl Rogers, in the book How to Become a Person
presents an "efficacious rule for discussion," which is, according to Rogers, this:
One can speak for oneself only after one correctly repeats the ideas of one's
collocutor, and in a way that satisfies the one who spoke before. "But if you
attempt to do that, you will discover that it is one of the most difficult things you
have ever tried to do. However, when once you are able to understand another
person's point of view, your own judgments will be drastically changed.
You will also find that emotions are disappearing from discussions, that
differences are reduced, and those which remain are rational and
comprehensible," writes Rogers. To be a person, therefore, means, among other
things, to be able to understand one another in the best way possible, that is, to
be able to put yourself in another's position, live for a moment in someone else's
skin. That is one of the reliable signs of a mature person.
3656. West Germany paid 9,000 DEM to Romania annually for every member of
the German minority who was allowed to leave the country. In this way, West
Germany, as reported by the BBC, "bought back" around 100,000 fugitives. When
this was discovered, many reacted with bitterness, especially Hungarian
intellectuals whose compatriots were also endangered in Romania. In the
statement by the Democratic Forum of Hungary in August 1988, it is said: "We
are filled with apprehension, for people are turning into worthless goods. The
price is not only a cash amount, but moral and political support to one of the least
humane dictatorships of this century" (Vjesnik, August 25, 1988). In relation to
this, one could cite a statement by Prof. Ivo Banac, an American historian of
Yugoslav origin, author of the book The National Question in Yugoslavia, who
speaks of an unexpected paradox of the unsolved national question in almost all
socialist countries. He said: "I will be ironic: today one can speak of 'proletarian
nationalism' and 'bourgeois internationalism.' Just observe what is happening in
the Soviet Union, what are the relations between Hungarians and Romanians, not
to mention Kosovo" (Danas, August 25, 1988).
3658. "Culture demands slaves, and if there are no slaves to do the ugly, difficult,
and boring jobs, culture becomes impossible. Human slavery is wrong and
demoralizing. The future of the world will depend on mechanical slavery- the
slavery of machines" (Oscar Wilde). Currently, there are about 180,000 robots in
the world. This, which Wilde stated, might perhaps explain the persistence of the
institution of slavery, which was abolished only in the nineteenth century (slavery
and culture).

Political Notes
3662. The development of criminal law and the related sciences (penology,
criminology, process) was marked with what it usually called "humanization" in
the last one hundred years: the mitigation of punishment and conditions of its
execution, abolishment of corporal punishment, especially the death penalty. But
what have theoreticians of criminal law who advocated these ideas known about
the people who were perpetrators of criminal acts? The greatest number of those
theoreticians, even prosecutors and judges, most often did not know the life and
the kind of people about whom they spoke. They wrote books without ever
getting to know the offenders, who those people are, what they are in fact like,
what kind of "human material" they are made of. That is one side of the problem.
Due to this, humanization on the side of the perpetrator most often meant
complete indifference or complete oblivion toward the victim. The abolishment of
the death penalty clearly represented a great relief for a murderer, but has surely
also meant diminishing the security of innocent people, potential victims of the
crimes. Humanism toward the perpetrator meant inhumanity toward an innocent
man-a potential victim. As a reaction to this, a separate discipline was recently
developed-victimology, which attempts to establish a balance and observe the
crime from the position of the victim as well. One should expect that this new
discipline will introduce more justice in criminal law and act as a redress to the
continual tendency to give understanding and mercy in circumstances where
there is little cause for consideration and mercy.
3663. We are not only divided into good and bad people, but into good and evil
within ourselves. The division does not go between people, but through them.
There is also a division into good and bad people, but it is a secondary one,
derived according to some balance of good and evil in a man. The primary
division is on the good and evil which resides in people. That conflict is thus
imminent, internal, dramatic and not externally social. True conflict is in the soul.
3667. To the spirit, and even culture, the principle of hierarchy is imminent. It is
foreign to democracy. The question, then, should state: What is the relationship
between culture and democracy?
3671. In the book Nations and Nationalism, Ernest Gellner expressed an opinion
that nationalist activity is not a permanent characteristic of people, but that it
becomes topical in the time of crisis.

Political Notes

Islam Between East and West
CHAPTER 4
On the Margins of the Book
For the reader who has never looked into the book "Islam Between East and
West", for a better orientation and understanding of the notes that follow, I will
briefly present its contents. The main theses are: There are only three
perceptions of the world, and there can be no more: the religious one, the
materialistic one and the Islamic one. Everything has been created in pairs
(Qur’an). Man is a dual being: body and soul. The body is nothing but “the bearer
of the spirit.” The bearer has evolved, consequently, it has its history, while the
soul has not, it was inspired by God’s touch. The first side of man is subject to
science, the second to art and ethics. Therefore, there are two stories and two
truths about man. In the Western world they are symbolized by Darwin and
Michelangelo. Neither does Darwin speak about Michelangelo’s man nor the other
way around. Their truths are different, but not exclusive of each other. Through
time they are projected as opposites, civilization and culture, respectively.
Science and technology belong to civilization, religion and art to culture. The first
is an expression of human needs (how do I live?), the latter of human aspirations
(why do I live?). This is the contrast between utopia and drama. Utopia is not
about personality, drama or morality. The entirety of the scientific method leads
to the denial of God and man, while the entirety of art is essentially religious. If
there is no God, there cannot be man. If there is not man, humanism, human
dignity and human rights are empty words without substance. Civilization does
not know the notion of duty; the entire culture is an affirmation of the victim.
Civilization aspires toward the “earthly empire,” utopian equality; religion aspires
toward the “heavenly empire.” This is Campanella’s Civitas solis versus St.
Augustine’s Civitas Dei.
There is no moral order without God. Morality is just “another state of

aggregation” of religion. Civilization is evolution, history. Religion and art have no
real evolution. Every religion was pure in the beginning (pre-monotheism). Its
history, as with art and morality, is the history of its decline. Hence the
opposition: Jesus and the Church. Every true law is dual, and medicine is never
just a science. Drawings made by cavemen or masks made by Polynesian
aborigines are works of art equally exciting as the creations of the “Moderna.”
The entirety of human life is marked by that primary dualism the “signs” of which
can be found in every phenomenon related to the name of man. That is the differ-
ence in the spirit of the Old and the New Testament, between Moses and Jesus.
One is the leader of his people, the other a moral preacher. There are two
different justices and goals they strive for: the Promised Land and the Divine
Empire. The two opposites are reconciled in man and in Islam. Islam is a
synthesis, a “third road” between the two poles that mark all that is human.
3. “The nature of the spirit can be recognized by means of its total opposite. As
the substance of matter is its weight, the substance or the essence of the spirit is
freedom” (Hegel, Philosophy of History).
7. “Because that what exists is the individual and not man in general, because it
is not man that exists, but a certain man” (Hegel, ibid.).

10. According to Hegel, art, in its most dignified part, shows “the divine and the
spiritual in general” (Hegel, ibid.).
13. Hegel noticed, “India, in spite of its rich spiritual accomplishments that reach
the greatest depths, has no history” (Hegel, ibid.).
15. “Consequently, the history of the world is an exposition of the spirit over
time, same as the idea is exposed in the space” (Hegel, ibid.).
25. Controversies about abortion show that it is a moral, metaphysical issue. It is

about our understanding of man. Darwinists are not against abortion for the same
reasons for which they are not opposed to euthanasia. The underlying philosophy
is materialism. That is an issue of the sacredness of human life declared by
religion but abolished by Darwinism. Abortion contains the denial of human rights
in its very premises; it is a denial of the human right to life.
29. Studying and meditation are two different spiritual activities, turned in
opposite directions. The first is turned toward the outside—toward nature—the
other toward the inside—toward the spirit or Myself. Here India comes to my
mind. Sometimes it seems that a minute effort of thinking, even a single clear
thought, could destroy the entire miraculous structure of the Indian spirit. How-
ever, the deepest meditations known by that spirit have not even grazed it.
Thought leads to history, meditation leads away from it.
36. The poetic and the primitive perceptions of the world have something in
common. Nature and dead objects are personalized in both. While science re-
duces the personal to the impersonal, the living to the lifeless, proving that
personality and life do not exist, the poet and the primitive are equally perse-
vering in inspiring life to dead objects and attributing will and desire to uncon-
scious things. For a primitive conscience, a rock can represent a deity or
incarnation of a deity; more often it is fire, the sun or a star, all inhabited by
some ghosts, good or evil; for a poet, everything in lifeless nature is living, loving
or hating, bringing oblivion or cherishing memories, suffering and sympathizing
with the poet. This relation with the primitive conscience proves that there is a
strange link between poetic art and the infancy of humanity.
This is how a poet (H. Hesse) sees characters in nature:
Hot summer days burnt like flags in flames. . . . It seemed that the mountain was
crying, torn by pain. . . and along the road, stunned by the summer day, dozed
bright yellow houses, while metal white willows, bent and half-dead, spread their
heavy wings along a dried brook over golden meadows. . . . Old giant trees, as in
love with their own picture in the mirror, hung over a dark-green willow vaulting
it with darkness. Incredible vegetation, lianas, cork oak and other strange plants,
stood impudent, shy or sad on a pasture covered with flowers, while the white
and pink lights of village houses floated on the distant banks on the .other side of
the lake. Everything was charming and close, cheerful and friendly, inspiring
health and trust. . . . The ancient village of Kareno, cramped, dark, Saracen, with
its somber stone caves under the dark faded bricks, its narrow streets like
nightmare impasses full of darkness, and then a small square like a sudden cry
under the dazzling sun.

64. Hegel maintains that India does not know about the science of history. He
says that the Indians became famous in geometry, astronomy, algebra, phi-
losophy and grammar and concludes: “History is completely neglected, it does
not even exist. . . what exists of history is absolutely useless because it is mixed
with imagination. For example, it says that some kings ruled for seventy thou-
sand years or more. Some kings left the throne to withdraw to a fairy tale and
then reemerged after spending ten thousand years in solitude.”
76. A thought came to my mind several times that the creator of the Sphinx
might have had the same idea: an animal body inspired with the spirit, that is
incarnated by the head. For the Sphinx is like a man, “an ambiguous creature”
(Hegel, Philosophy of History, p. 186), a spirit that moved into nature, into the
animal. And if this idea of the dual nature of man, of its two origins, was to be
illustrated by a symbol, it would be a Sphinx or something very similar to it.
92. The ancient Greek and Roman spirits—these represent the soul and the
intellect, or the culture and the civilization.
96. Culture and civilization—Athens and Rome: Hegel comes to a conclusion that
“the first Roman community was constituted as a state of bandits. . . . Roman
virtus is bravery, not a just personal one, but bravery expressed in com-
panionship.. . that can be connected to all kinds of violence. . . . According to
tradition, Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, were bandits abandoned by
their family and deprived of family affection.” “It is to the un-free, heartless and
spiritless side of the Roman world that we owe the creation and development of
Law. Romans discerned, to a certain extent, the line of separation and discovered
the legal principle, which is external, free of conviction and heart.
Their religious interior did not reach for our spiritual and moral contents, for itself.
It could be said that their worship did not evolve into religion. . . . That is why
Roman religion is quite a prosaic religion of restriction, purposefulness and
usefulness. . . . Similar differences can be seen in the way the Romans and
Greeks organized their games. Romans were just the audience... . Instead of
human sufferings in the bottom of their hearts and souls. . . Romans watched the
cruel reality of physical sufferings. Let me mention augurs, auspices, Sibyl’s
books to remind you how the Romans were restricted by all kinds of superstition
and how they cared only about their goals” (Hegel, Philosophy of History). My
comment: The statement on Law is controversial. The Law is never just external,
in essence it is the idea of the justice it is striving for (Islamic nature of Law).
98. The skill of writing appeared very early with the Romans (probably in the
seventh century B.C.). It is obvious that the Romans had an alphabet—not oral
tradition—from the beginning. A culture can exist without an alphabet, but
civilization cannot.
105a. (In the “Chart of the Opposites”): The promised land from the Old
Testament and the Heavenly Kingdom from the New Testament—two Testaments,
the Old one and the New one, and two different symbols, it could not be
otherwise.
106. Darwin (and Engels) connect the creation of man, and his humanization, to
physical facts.

107. In this glorification of man, Christianity got carried away, it exalted man to
God, identified him with Him (Christian “God-man”). The mission of Islam was to
repeal that sin and untrue unity and, confirming the relative value of man (angels
bow before man—Qur’an, 2/34), to establish the absolute sublimity of God (“did
not give birth, was not born”—Qur’an, 102/3). We could say: Christianity made
final the revelation of man, while Islam made final the revelation of God.
108. All religions made a revelation of God and Man, and these two ideas are
interconnected, since “if there is no God, there is no man,” but both revelations
had to be confirmed once again, for the last time. And the order by which they
came had to be as it was: the revelation of God had to be and was the last. In
that lay the connection between Islam and Christianity and their final meaning.
113. “The Isaurian king, Lion, persevered in chasing idols and by the end of 754
A.D. he proclaimed idolism the devil’s invention. Queen Irene introduced them
again at the Nicaea assembly in 787 A.D., while the empress Theodora confirmed
them finally in 842 A.D., acting energetically against the enemies of pictures.
However, the West had rejected idolism at the Frankfurt Church synod in 794
A.D. and, though keeping the pictures, criticized the superstitions of the Greeks
most severely. Only in the late Middle Ages did idolism meet general acceptance
after silent and slow progress” (Hegel, Philosophy of History). My comment:
Considering the clear personal character of Christianity, the victory of idols and
pictures was a natural outcome of the conflict.
115. Greek education and, in particular, the philosophy of the Greek and Roman
worlds mediated in the creation of the Church. Through councils and church
fathers, who were fully educated in Greek and Roman philosophy, the Christian
religion became an almost dogmatic system, as if the church became a fully
developed hierarchy (Hegel, Philosophy of History).
116. Tacitus gives a positive picture of the morality of the wild Germanic people.
125. Christianity, by its internal logic, had to affirm the principle of victim to the
greatest extent possible. In the story of Jesus’ suffering the principle of victim
assumed its highest form.
128. Opposite to the Church, as the organization of spiritual life, there was (and
inevitably so) the perverted feudal system as the organization of the earthly, real
life, a sort of Christian “oblivion” of history.
131. The Christian values were reversed within the institution of the Church.
Finally, in the crusades, we see the Pope acting as the emperor, the head of the
earthly power (Hegel, Philosophy of History, p. 359).
132. Orders were not created with the Church, but in opposition to the Church, in
opposition to the secular character of the Church (Hegel, Philosophy of History, p.
360). Though being in opposition to the Church, they corresponded to the spirit of
Christian teachings. That explains their relentless spreading throughout the
Christian world. They could not be prevented even by the opposition of the
Church.
133. The Church became learned. The Scholastic Anselmo: “If a man has
reached the faith, it would be negligent of him not to use thought to become

convinced of the contents of the faith.” Fully in accordance with the spirit of the
Church, but not at all with the spirit of Christianity.
141. The Reformation did not reach every corner of the Catholic world. It first
appeared in Germany and was accepted mostly by Germanic peoples.
152. “As far as the moral feeling is concerned, the reconciliation between religion
and law was achieved by the means of the Protestant church. There is no saint or
religious conscience that would be separated from the secular law or it even
would be opposite to it” (Hegel, Philosophy of History, p. 407). My comment: The
same goes the other way around.
155. Islam is the unity of faith and the world, but it is “an unstable compound.”
The split between Islam and the State began relatively early. The Omeid State
was an almost completely secular state. But what was characteristic is that the
weakening of political power took place in parallel with another process:
the development and progress of Sufism. Islam was divided into two compo-
nents: religion and State. All Turkish sultans appreciated Sufism, which was not
just accidental. It obviously suited them better. It is closer to the Christian for-
mula: what is God’s goes to God, what is the emperor’s goes to the emperor.
The spread of Sufism as a religion for the masses is just the reverse of this basic
split.
156. Let us recall the main characteristics of Sufism: man is just a soul, not a
body; monistic pantheism, love for God instead of fear of God and, finally,
identification between God and man (does this remind you of something?). Some
Sufi orders introduced music and dance into their rituals, advocated celibacy and
exaggerated Muhammed’s moderation, describing him as ascetic. The Sufi scholar
Suhrawardi criticized Ibn Sinna’s thesis on the distinction between God and man,
while Ibn Arabi (1165—1240) elaborated the idea of the universe as a “micro-
personality” and of man as a “macro-anthropos” (el-insan-el-akbar). Tensions
between the orthodox system and Sufism as a religion for the masses are the
basic characteristics of the intellectual history of Islam.
174. The unity of humanity originates from the unity of God.
175. Muhammad a.s. as the Islamic prophet was bound to succeed. He could not
afford perishing, otherwise he would not be a prophet of Islam. FazlurRahman
noticed well that Western biographers were reluctant at the very thought of
Mohammed’s militancy. They were so obsessed by pathetic stories of suffering
and crucifixion that the very idea of success was disgusting to them.
177. The difference between Jesus and Muhammad lies primarily in the fact that
Islam had to be realized, that performance and success were component parts of
the mission. The difference is derived from the very nature of the two teachings,
as well as from their missions. The former gets fulfilled through suffering, the
latter through victory. That is why Christ’s suffering (and the cross) became the
greatest symbol of Christianity. On the contrary, only one month before he died,
Muhammad ordered a military campaign to the north.
181. Just because it was bound to succeed, Islam had to be realistic. It could not
declare any grandiose, yet unrealistic visions. It had to be connected to the
current level of historical development in order to follow up. It could not, for

example, declare abolition of slavery, because the time was not right. As we
know, it would have taken take another 12 centuries for this to occur. Islam had
to find a fulcrum in the real world. How did Islam achieve this? It introduced
significant changes into the existing way of life, approving all the rest tacitly.
181a. The Qur’an, in one of its sections (su’ras) published in Mecca, which was
rather early, rejected the statement on the divine nature of Christ.
265. Dual character of Islam: on the one hand it gave birth to Sufism, while on
the other hand many critics perceived it as an extremely rational and non-
emotional theology (F.R., pp. 336—337).
270. The animal is superior to man in some skills. A master is more likely to get
lost in a forest than his dog. Most animals are better hunters than men. Some
animals are familiar with the order, punctuality, organization (ants, bees),
division of labor, etc, but not with morality, because morality requires free,
conscious opting for good and against evil. Animals cannot make that choice and
are not free; they are completely innocent, but this is not what morality is about.
Morality belongs only to man. As well as the immorality, naturally.
289. Only thanks to the cruel experience of the Middle Ages, the Western world
could embark on “the western adventure of man,” as Denis de Rougemont calls it.
290. Art has no history, it knows only about the “now.” For art, there is no time
or space. Picasso said that he had understood the meaning of the paintings in his
encounter with ancient masks made by African wood-carvers. Almost all great
artists of his generation were inspired by works of art created by primitive
cultures in Africa, America and Oceania. Contemporary art, such as it is, cannot
be understood without that inspiration. At the exhibition “Primitivism in the 20th
Century” (New York Museum of Contemporary Art, 1958), works of modern
European art and those of anonymous artists from the most underdeveloped
parts of the world were standing next to each other. This “ignoring” of time and
space which are so important for science and civilization—was a manifestation of
the general human character of art.
303. Researchers noticed long ago the strong impact music had on men of
primitive tribes during rituals. Moreover, rituals accompanied by music are used
in some modern methods of treatment of health problems—so-called ritual music.
305. The World Health Organization, in its program “Health for All by 2000”
published in 1976, wrote a special report entitled: “Traditional medicine and the
broadening of health care.” Starting from the fact that the number of doctors in
most underdeveloped countries was absolutely insufficient, this organization ac-
cepted the participation of lay healers in its program, along with professional
physicians. According to some data, there is one doctor for every 40,000 in-
habitants in Africa, and one healer for every 500 people. Most of the types of
treatment in traditional medicine are a combination of rational methods and
religion. Among them are: Unani (a method created in Arabia, but used mostly in
India and Pakistan), Ayarveda (which can be found in India and some East Asian
countries) and traditional Chinese medicine (the most famous form of treatment:
acupuncture). We can suppose that traditional medicine has much to offer in
psychosomatic treatment, which according to some data is the case (diabetes,
ulcer, bronchial asthma), and vice versa: that is the domain in which scientific
medicine proved to be the least competent.

Acupuncture was devised in China 2,500 years ago. Will science ever fully
examine all its secrets? Is it a rational method at all, and can it be explained by
rational means? The question can be formulated otherwise: Is an ailment just a
condition of the body, a disorder in secretions, matters and functions or is it a
condition of the soul at the same time?
311. Psychology is not a science of the soul. Recent successful application of

computers in psychology supported the behaviorist theory of psychology as a
pure science, since computers operate only with numbers and values and rep-
resent an example of a pure quantitative method with corresponding results.
312. (Culture and civilization). For example, what does culture have in common
with Toffler’ s six principles of industrial civilization? I believe that the principles
of culture could be derived by reversal of the arguments. Or, like the difference
between the body and the soul.
322. In the epic Gilgamesh, which is over 4,000 years old, there are thoughts on
human destiny, life and death that are equally exciting and deep as those of
Shakespeare or Goethe. Culture remains beyond history.
323. Cyclic and linear time: cyclic time belongs to culture, linear time belongs
to civilization. The former is a constant circling, permanent returning, repetition,
illusion of time, even timelessness itself. Only linear time is a real course,
symbolized by the clock. It is astronomic and physical time, a sort of special time,
that is, of the time that we can comprehend only as a movement, that is, as
space.
324. The poet Lucretius, famous for his atheism, elaborated on a kind of atomistic
philosophy. That suited his atheism.
327. Descartes suggested that every problem that is under consideration should
be “divided into as many parts as possible.” By this, Descartes defined the
essence of the scientific method. In art, everything is exactly the opposite.
338. In the spectacle of the Hajj, the genuine human aspiration for equality is
reflected. It will never be fully achieved, but it will be always a part of the human
dream of a better world. The Hajj is a sort of utopia, a moment of universal
brotherhood and equality.
345. Completely organized “social care” for people undermines the social
(humane) behavior of individuals because it gradually reduces (or deforms) pri-
vate care for others. The society “takes care” of everybody, so that instead of
man’s care for man, there is total indifference and absence of care. This is one of
the ideas from Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita and from Kundera’s novels.
The Unbearable Lightness of Being is about the total irresponsibility of the
individual within a social project of well-being, which creates a feedback effect on
the society and its “care about that man.”
353. Cognitive theory teaches that there is a correlation between the subject and
the object, that the entire cognitive process takes place within that correlation
and that there is no cognition beyond that correlation. That does not go with art.
“The one who asks material questions about art, should be questioned himself”
(Kandinsky). Is the object just a reason to initiate imagination with colors, sounds
and shapes? Wagner states that music has its own logic—”the logic of music.”

“The struggle between motifs in music is similar to the struggle between

principles in the life of a drama,” said Wagner.
354. Feruccio Busoni states that music does not develop by passing through some
historical periods. It is always one and the same, “non-historical unity.”
357. The main result of civilization was the turning of the world into a market.
That was its “mission.” That mission obviously does not have much in common
with culture.
358. Art callnot be interpreted. Berlioz wrote a program for his Fantastic
Symphony with the aim to help listeners to “understand” it. That was a failure, in
the same way as Balzac’ s earlier introductions to his great novels.
359. In this relation: Christianity—Islam—socialism; Islam both separates and

connects these two extreme entities.
361. Man, even if he wanted to, could not reject his body and heed only his soul.
The one who rejects his body becomes its victim. That is man’s destiny, or it is
“what it is meant to be.”
363. The comparison between craft and art shows the following: craft is intended
for the consumer, art for the viewer or listener. A craftsman’s product has a
usage value, while art is “aimlessly purposeful.” Craft is intended for the body and
it meets a need; art is intended for the soul and meets an aspiration. Both, taken
together, reflect and confirm the dual nature of man.
364. The “reversed” nature of life: previously generally accepted and—one must
admit—quite a logical assumption that complex organisms originate from simple
ones has been challenged recently. Biologists are announcing a completely
opposite thesis, that is, that simpler forms of life (e.g., bacteria and algae)
originate from the more complex ones. The life witnesses of a “reversed” logic—a
reversed, “negative” development. Compare with this a similar “negative”
development of art: “Since the time of cave-dwellers, art has kept regressing,”
says the Spanish painter Joan Miro, a contemporary of Picasso and Dali.
374. Biblical texts served as a background or inspiration for many chorales,

cantatas and oratories in music and for innumerable paintings and literary works.
376. Duality (and unity) of body and soul is the fundamental, the greatest and
the oldest human experience. No human philosophy could ignore this problem.
Since prehistory until the present, every human thought is marked by this
relationship and deals with it.
380. A member of utopia is not a man, but Huxley’s or Orwell’s humanoid.
390. So-called holistic medicine dealing with “health as a whole” (similar to

Gestalt medicine in psychiatry—Gestalt therapy), a movement based on the
conception that health depends on the integration of the physical and the mental.
This movement does not exclude medical quackery. “Up until several years ago it
was inconceivable for a government to sponsor a health conference covering
topics like treating illness with religion, iridology, acupressure and Buddhist
meditation,” wrote Science magazine. Nowadays this is possible.

391. A new notion, “holism,” has been created—meaning comprehensiveness,

synthesis, integration as the opposite to analysis, one-sidedness, separation.
Holism can be understood as a criticism of the one-sidedness of Christianity and
socialism, or of their underlying philosophies.
396. Every culture is oral in its pure nature. The alphabet is a necessary evil in a
culture. On the contrary, a civilization cannot be imagined without an alphabet. If
we continue further with that “oral” character of a culture, we will find out that it
avoids the word as well as much as it can. The word is replaced by the picture.
This tendency is especially perceived in Christianity, which is the spiritual
prototype of any culture. China remained illiterate of its philosophy, poetry and
drama for almost three thousand years. The Chinese invented gun-powder, but
they used it to make fireworks for celebrations (cultural events). Only the
Europeans began to use it for “civilized” purposes.
400. A photo of your grandmother can incite emotions in yourself only because
you inspire life into it with your vivid feelings and memories. Anyone else would
remain indifferent or pretend to be interested. However, an artist’s painting of
your grandmother would incite emotions in all those who look at it. The reason for
this is because a painting portrays the personality, the soul, which concerns every
man.
401. A psychologist from the U.S. National Institute for Mental Health states that
in the United States there is no family without some form of mental disorder.
“Psychological disorders are raging through American society which is confused,
divided and concerned about the future,” wrote Toffler. Communists lost no time
stating that it was the human side of the general crisis of capitalism, a symptom
of the decline of the capitalistic system, etc. Naturally, it would be appropriate to
ask them, the Communists, why there are 40 million alcoholics in the USSR. As a
matter of fact, it is not about capitalism or socialism, but about something that
they have in common: civilization, or its unavoidable byproduct.
402. Herman Rauschig wrote that Nazism “was a will to create a superman.” He
says that Hitler confided in him: “I saw a new man and he is indestructible and
cruel; I stood frightened before him.” Nazi racism is like a derivative from Darwin
and Nietzsche. God was against such a vision, so history had to be against it as
well.
404. The other, non-civilization, cultural meaning of life is in internal living, in a

kind of strengthening and purifying of the consciousness.
407. The “Cultural Revolution” in China began with an attack against the historical
drama, Hai Pui Dismissed from His Duty. Drama and a revolution of that type
cannot tolerate one another.
408. There is no doubt that drawings on the face and body (tattoos) that can be
found with all primitive peoples have the purpose—deliberate or not—to
emphasize individuality. With civilized peoples, that role is played by fashion.
Striving for difference—against leveling—is found in the very nature of man. This
is an expression of a typical human aspiration for individuality. Unfortunately, the
aspiration for uniformity dwells within man as well. Man is created from heaven
and earth alike.

410. Art is religious even if the artist is not. Picasso may be a drastic example.
But Chagall, too, who painted some of the most “religious” paintings, when asked
about God by a tactless admirer, gave quite an indefinite answer. If we switch to
the scientific domain, we will find some opposite examples. There we will
encounter the deeply religious Kepler and Newton, who objectively defined an
atheist universe.
411. The middle road is not mediocrity. The optimum is always somewhere
between the extremities. Because “the extremities are the frontiers beyond which
life stops” and “every extremist passion in art, as well as in politics, is nothing but
a disguised desire for death” (Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being), the
most intensive historical life developed in the so-called moderate zone.
412. In art there is no “forward” or “backward” in the historical sense of the

word. Those who debate on whether the Americans, Germans or Italians got
further than the French in modern art just demonstrate that they have no clue on
the subject they are talking about. I never learned that anybody explained what
“advancing” or “lagging behind” in art could mean. Moreover, the famous Spanish
painter Joan Miro (the greatest contemporary painter, besides Picasso and Dali)
stated exactly the opposite. According to him, there is a history of art, but a
negative one. History is not a development, but a decline. In one place he says:
“Painting has been declining ever since the times of the cave-man.” One of the
conclusions drawn from that view is that the painting (art) has no essential
relation with civilization and so-called progress. The same goes with religion and
man. Historical development could be defined as well as the decline of humanity.
414. Some call our civilization “hygienic” (“this impersonal, technical, hygienic
civilization”). This is a well-chosen adjective. Culture is neither dirty nor
“hygienic.” We recall how Jesus, the great prophet of culture, was reluctant to the
pharisaical “washing of hands and wooden vessels” and scornfully refused
pharisaical hygiene. On the contrary, Lenina in Huxley’s Brave New World stated
proudly that “Civilization is sterilization.” Sterile cleanliness prevails in the Brave
New World.
431. The animal did not live in Paradise, nor it was driven out from it. That is why
the animal is innocent.
433. The Bible, the Qur’an and the Communist Manifesto are said to be “the three
most decisive books for humanity”—do they not correspond to the three
fundamental views of the world?
436. In the Book of Job (Chapters 7 and 14), Job says that there is no life after
death: David, when his son died, said the same. As a matter of fact, neither Job
nor David said so. This denial was a subsequent creation of the Jewish spirit
turned towards this world (justice “here and now”).
460. Greece and Rome in the Ancient World, Europe and America in the Modern.
They mirror the contrast between culture and civilization. Nowadays, that fact is
clearly expressed in the cinema. The cinema is at the same time an art and an
industry. “Europe is the cradle of the art of film, America is the home of the film
industry”(Andrej Zulavski, Polish film director).
463. Richard Gregory, director of the Neurological Laboratory in Bristol, a devout

materialist, states that the human mind is a product of the physical functions of

the brain and insists on the analogy between the human mind and the computer.
Similarly, Tomazo Pogio concludes: “I am convinced that it is necessary that we
understand man in order to be able to understand the computer, and vice versa—
that we understand the computer to be able to understand man.” My comment:
once again, it is an “homme-machine.” Can science, in spite of the obvious
limitations of that approach, perceive the problem in a different way at all? The
human brain weighs about 1,400 grams and contains about one hundred billion
neurons. Every neuron has a number of branches connecting it to other nerve
cells, which form an inextricable network, “unparalleled in complexity in the entire
known universe” (Nobel prize winner David Hubbell). Luigi Agnuati (from the
University of Modena): “A neuron itself is equally complex as nerve circuits of
higher levels. That is a micro-world in itself” Tomazo Pogio: “A neuron is not, as it
was believed until recently, a sort of a transistor, but a real microprocessor.”
There is no answer to the question how the brain managed to acquire the
property that is difficult even to define: to recognize itself, that is, to acquire self-
awareness. No increased complexity could explain this. There is a certain analogy
between the brain and the computer with regard to some other properties and
capabilities, but the computer will never be able to recognize itself, i.e., to
become aware of itself.
469. Leibnitz considers that “beautiful is a vague apprehension of perfection and

harmony,” while Hegel believes that “a work of art is somewhere in between
sensuality and the ideal thought.” That is why it is for him an inferior form of
cognition; this idea is not very acceptable. This is a result of a linear (or monistic)
understanding of man and the world, where sensuality is on the bottom of the
scale, while the ideal thought, the pure idea, is on the very top of it.
473. “When an individual feels something in the soul, the structure of the entire
society begins to crumble”—says Lenina, a resident of the Brave New World. Isn’t
this sentence the answer to the question why, in some of the “real” utopias of our
time (e.g., in China during the so-called Cultural Revolution), the love between a
man and a woman was avoided as an issue. In utopia there is reason and order,
but no love.
474. With American Indians, marriage is concluded once for good (the husband
and wife cannot be divorced). The Indian word for such a relationship means
“forever.”The permanent character of the marriage represents an element of
culture (and religion). Civilization will always and necessarily have the opposite
view. Islam stands “in between”: “Divorce is the most hated thing allowed by
God” (Muhammad a.s.).
480. Generality is not real, only individuality is real. Art does the best at
indicating that any general story about man is false and worthless. Only a story
on an individual, specific person, or on a specific object, phenomenon or situation
is really genuine.
484. Someone once said that the difference between science and art lies in the
fact that science is looking for the truth, while art is trying to act by means of the
truth. The conclusion is wrong. The scopes of science and art are different, and so
are their respective truths; besides, art is active, but this is not its purpose. It is
similar to confession: in its essence, it is not intended for a third person.

486. Cubism is not a “transmission of the art into science”—like some believe.
There is no such connection between art and science.
489. In Phenomenology of the Soul, Hegel does not consider art as a separate
domain. Similarly, in the first edition of the Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sci-
ences, the very notion of art is found only in the compound word “Kunstreligion,”
“artistic religion.” Art cannot have any other contents but religion. It is the
“infinity shown in the finite.”
501. Venturi, in his book From Giotto to Chagall, writes: “Humanism, in the first
place, was a moral issue that dealt with the reform of the religious tradition.
Starting with St. Francis, i.e. from the twelfth century, the Italians were as
interested in theology as before: they dreamt of a human brotherhood and liked
earthly things with a renewed emotion that projected Jesus and his work into
human life. That gave birth to a new trust in man in the early fifteenth century.
Man is glorified as the center of the universe, he is even deified.” My comment:
Humanism, perceived in this way, is a direct continuation of Christianity. Only
with utopia, an inhuman world, deprived of God and Man, emerges. Utopia is
equally contrary to St. Augustine’s Christianity (Civitas Dei) and to the spirit and
aspirations of humanism.
502. Objectively, things are neither beautiful nor ugly. There is no natural beauty.
Only when they are perceived by our soul do they become beautiful or ugly,
harmonious or disfigured. A musical composition affects our soul because it suits
it. The soul recognizes itself in the composition or discovers in it something that
has been present in itself.
505. It would be wrong to speak about the theory of art; it is even less true that
such theory is based on the history of art, as it is believed by materialistic
thinkers (e.g., Max Rafael in his work Towards the Cognitive Theory of Concrete
Dialectics). Strictly speaking, there is no theory or history of art. There are only
artists and their works in an uninterrupted flow that shows some differences but
no development.
506. Marx’s statement (made in his Theory of Surplus Value) that capitalist
production is essentially hostile to poetry and painting is not correct for two
reasons: first, because it conditions the spiritual production by the material one
and second, because it is contrary to the facts. The development of capitalism has
refuted it. It is enough to look at the long list of great poets and painters of the
twentieth century.
514. (On Sigmund Freud). Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis was compared to the
revolutionary discoveries made by Copernicus and Darwin. Modern critics of Freud
call it “pseudoscientific religious instruction.” In 1905, Freud treated his friend’s
son, a young boy called Hans Graff. Hans had a neurotic fear of horses and
refused to leave the house. After psychoanalytical treatment, Freud made a
strange and far-reaching diagnosis: the neurotic fear of horses was due to the
boy’s feeling of guilt caused by his hidden desire to have sexual intercourse with
his mother! The boy held back his incestuous lust, explains Freud, because he
feared his jealous father’s punishment, and so on. Freud presented the results of
this case analysis in the publication entitled An Analysis of a FiveYear-Old Boy’s
Phobia, which his followers believe offered evidence toward Freud’s theory on the
Oedipus complex. Freud’s disciple Kurt Aysler, who lived in New York, said with
enthusiasm: “The moment little Hans confessed his Oedipal desire to his father

was a starry moment for all of human kind.” I do not understand why the
destruction of the myth of motherly love would be a “starry moment for all of
human kind.” Even if it were true, it would be an ugly truth. But, with the atheists
and materialists there is some inexplicable wish to destroy everything that is
sacred and which helps us to look at the human being with respect. This analysis
of Freud’s was challenged later on. The psychologist Christopher Eschenreder, in
his book "Where Freud Went Astray", offered a completely different explanation of
the boy’s fear of horses. As a matter of fact, just before he was struck by the
neurosis, the boy saw a workhorse falling down helplessly, fettered in harnesses,
which shocked him. Echenreder concluded that Freud’s theories were mere
“prattling and fantasizing” and that they did not offer any scientifically acceptable
evidence for the psychoanalytical hypothesis. British biologist and Nobel Prize
winner Peter Medawar believes that doctrinaire psychoanalysis is “the most
terrible deceit of the twentieth century.” As we know, Freud himself gave up on
this theory (the theory of incest). “All psychoanalysis relies upon Greek
mythology,” concluded the surrealistic painter André Mason.
516. There is one more piece of evidence that man has a soul: unpredictability
(or impotence) of upbringing. The same conditions (causes) do not give the same
results (consequences). Some will successfully prove that a traumatic childhood
produces insecure, neurotic personalities, a statement that is generally accepted.
However, in recent research undertaken by British, American and Swedish
sociologists, the following findings were discovered: unpleasant experiences in
childhood—problematic family relationships, neurotic and coarse parents,
adoption and so on—had results opposite to expectations. Many such children
became firm individuals, while, on the other hand, well-cared for and nice
children grew up as unstable personalities. If man were an animal, the result of
upbringing would be predictable and powerful. The same conditions would always
give the same or similar result. To the extent to which man is not an animal, to
which he is a personality, to which he has a soul, in a word—to which he is a
human being, he is free and it is never sure (or predictable) how he will respond
to external stimulus. The law of conditional reflex does not apply to man.
518. Freud’s “biology of the soul” could end up only with the denial of the soul.
519. Given that Hegel perceived art historically, as a sensual way of knowing the
world, he could not avoid coming to the wrong conclusion on “the end of art.” For
him, real art existed only in the past, and its time was over for good. However,
developments that took part in art after Hegel proved that he had been wrong in
his predictions, as well in his historical approach to art.
524. Max Bense, in his Esthetics, states that “every literary text can be translated
into a logical configuration.” Such an opinion is due to Bense’s materialistic
approach.
526. It is also wrong to state that “classical art builds its artistic reality on
feelings, while modern art builds it on thoughts” (as many materialistic thinkers
do). Art is impossible without immediate experience, while every thought is
mediated. An artistic work that starts from a thought (not from an emotion) is
constructed, it is not a piece of art but its imitation.
536. One of the most interesting questions for historians, theologians, scientists
of ethics and many others, is why the Jewish people, the bearers of the religious
message and mission, kept objectively generating materialistic philosophy and

atheism throughout history. The explanation should be sought in the exclusive

orientation toward this world, toward “the Promised Land” (hic et nunc), instead
of the dream or myth of the “Kingdom of God,” without which religion and moral
thought cannot exist. The myth of the “Heavenly Kingdom” was replaced by the
myth of the Promised Land. These two great symbols— the Promised Land and
the Heavenly Kingdom—stand opposed to each other and designate two worlds,
two directions, two human destinies on Earth. At the same time, the suffering of
the Jewish people through history has been a constant source of disappointment
in God and moral laws. From that disappointment, the spirit of doubt and
rebellion was born. That spirit accompanied the Jewish people through history
and was the consequence of unrealized (and unrealistic) hopes and expectations
about the “Heavenly Kingdom,” a reward for serving God. The main Jewish
assumption that justice must prevail in this world—being wrong and remaining
unfulfilled—generated the spirit of rebellion and doubt, which is only one step to
atheism. Franz Kafka and his book A Reflection on Sin, Suffering, Hope and the
Right Way are an expression of that spirit. You could study Kafka for ages, but
you will still remain in a dilemma about him being a believer or an atheist. After
all, Kafka himself offered the best answer in his famous sentence: “God does
exist, but He is mean.” Obviously, that is not atheism, but it is not religion either.
The Austrian Marxist philosopher Günter Anders called Kafka a “shy atheist” (in
his work “Kafka—pro et contra,” Munich, 1951). Kafka reversed Jesus’ words:
“The door will open to he who knocks at it,” into: “He who seeks will not find.”
“Kafka did not know which world or which heaven he should belong to,” says
Anders, describing in general terms the internal dilemma of all Jews. Jewish
atheism is strange: It does not deny God, but refuses to recognize and celebrate
Him. Kafka was considered equally by atheists, mystics and existentialists as one
of them. Every religion believes that this world is not a reward but a temptation.
That is not the way the Jews feel, and that is their atheism. Jews were
disappointed in Jesus Christ for that same reason. His history of sufferings is in
total contrast to the Jewish hopes and expectations and represents a striking
denial of all of their assumptions on happiness for righteous men in this world.
Here we can notice that Islam is a religion “turned toward this world” as well,
which is true, yet Islam did not get lost or forgetful while caring about this world.
Its strongest and most dramatic message is devotion. The idea of the Kingdom of
God is strongly emphasized and maintained.
544. All the classical culture of China, almost 2,000 years old, with undisputed
accomplishments in the domains of philosophy, religion, literature, religion, lyrics,
drama, narrative prose, is expressed by oral tradition. China used to have a
highly developed culture in a more distant past, while its population was almost
100 percent illiterate. Only limited circles in the privileged castes could read and
write: emperors, court dignitaries, mandarins and higher government officials.
They made up less than 1 percent of the overall Chinese population. The Chinese
alphabet consists of almost 44,000 ideographs, 4,000 of which are regularly used,
but are still very complex. The alphabet is a necessary evil in a culture, but it is a
necessary condition for every civilization. However, there is a curious fact that
deserves to be mentioned: the Chinese Encyclopedia Ku-kin-Tu-Tsi-Cheng
includes over 2,000 volumes. It is an arranged collection of tradition that passed
from generation to generation since ancient times. The Chinese book Shi -King,
meaning “Book of Poems,” represents one of the most valuable collections of
poems in world literature. It consists of 305 rhymed poems written between 1500
and 1600 B.C. Kong Fu Tse (Confucius) and Laotse were contemporaries. While
Confucius was a pragmatic and socially active person, Lao-tse preferred isolation

and meditation.
The two personify two opposite aspects of the Chinese spirit. Lao-tse was also a-
typical prophet of culture:
We shall get to know the world,

Without going out through the door,
We shall discover the meaning of the sky,
Without looking through the window,
Who goes furthest will know the least.
The verses are a good example of looking inward, toward the soul, instead of
outward, toward the world.
There is a phenomenon in Chinese poetry that is characterized as the incom-

pleteness of Chinese poems. An anonymous Chinese (folk) poet makes a sketch
or draws a picture, deliberately incomplete, aiming toward the involvement of his
audience. He lets them use their imagination to finish the picture and make the
experience intimately theirs; he makes them create instead of listen or read
passively, and become poets themselves.
The superiority of that illiterate culture was something amazing. Every conqueror
of the area would forget his own and adopt Chinese customs and views. Chinese
culture was not influenced by any other culture, but it exercised a significant
influence upon others. This influence is especially visible in Japan, which, unlike
China, developed its civilization. The Japanese did not have their own philosophy
or religion. Shintoism is of Chinese origin. The relationship between China and
Japan reminds one of the relationship between Athens and Rome in Ancient
times, or between Europe and America in the New Age. Japan is Asian America,
and this analogy is sometimes almost complete.
550. Basho (who lived at the beginning of the seventeenth century) is considered
by many as the greatest Japanese poet of all times: he belonged to the Zen sect,
which has maintained the true, genuine spirit of Buddhism the longest. He
insisted on completely frank and sincere expression of feelings. A poet must not
think about the effect or the impact his poems might have upon others. In his
traveling diary, Saga-Nikki, he wrote: “I am alone and I am writing for my own
pleasure.”
551. The listener or the viewer “participates” in creating of a work of art without
being aware of it. Our enjoyment in music is actually participating. We “sing” with
our interior voice and we “listen” with our interior ear to a composition that was
not made by us. Without this active attitude, the work of art remains unnoticed,
non-existing.
560. There is an important point of contact between art and existentialism.

Existentialism, like art, deals with the concrete, individual, specific human being,
specific thing or specific situation. Existential philosophic problems are solved by
artistic means. Existentialism is an attempt to perceive the world in an artistic
manner. Existentialism is in eternal opposition to society, which is another point
of contact with art.
566. Controversies about music: H. Helmholz believed that the auditory effect of
music is due to the physiology of the hearing organ and acoustics— which is
wrong. Similarly, Sietman explains “similarity between the tone movement and

the movement in a physical organism” (materialistic explanation), while Riemann

states the contrary: “It arises as a live feeling in the composer’s spirit and
immediately turns into a live feeling and spiritual experience for the listener.”
Beethoven wrote his Missa Solemnis and other symphonies when he was totally
deaf; professional musicians can understand and enjoy a musical work by reading
it, using their eyes instead of ears, a result of using their spirit.
“If the composer and the listener of a musical composition belong to the same
social class, it will naturally contribute to the liking,” says Ivan Focht, expressing
his Marxist view of the issue, which seems to be rather forced. Most of musicians
deny, in principle, any possibility of a scientific interpretation or analysis of music.
581. Art interprets the world—if it does at all—by means of details. Science does
it in a completely different way: by generalizing, by reducing everything that
exists to one unit. Heisenberg’ s theory of the unique field represents the ultimate
scientific truth, its ultimate thesis: everything that exists can be reduced to one
unit. So science put its final abstraction covering the entire world against the
concrete nature of the world of art.
613. Man has an intrinsic resistance against an exclusively rational interpretation

of the world. He also has an innate inclination to the secret and the irrational.
614. Scientists’ inconsistency: Pavlov, author of the theory of conditional reflex,

went to church every Sunday. There is nothing so irreligious as the premises of
the theory of conditional reflex.
619. Nietzsche’s slogan “God is dead” had to be followed—by inexorable logic—by

Michel Foucault’ s “Man is dead.” If there is no God, there can be no man either—
they are interrelated.
634. Expansion of social democracy in Europe and (in particular) in South

America: socialists came to power in Greece, Spain and France. In Latin America,
socialists are in power in the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Costa Rica, and
Peru. There are strong trends toward social democracy in Brazil, Argentina,
Panama and Mexico. As a matter of fact, there are developments toward the
center, with alternate, but not significant, shifts to the right or to the left. In
politically mature societies, the extreme (radical) political solutions remain on the
margins.
669. About hygiene: St. Ambrose never took a bath in his life, in order not to
succumb to the “pleasure of touching his own body,” while the “odor” of Louis
XIV’s feet could be smelled at a distance of several meters. Leonardo da Vinci
went to bed with his boots on and, since he did not like to take them off, he
considered them “his second skin.” Isabel of Aragon maintained that “one should
take a bath upon birth and before the wedding.” Given this information, the
magazine Europeo (from 1985) concluded: “So it is obvious that in Central and
Southern Europe there was not a strong tradition of personal hygiene. The
Catholic preaching about shame and carnal sin was much closer to those inhab-
itants of Europe than the Roman baths from pagan times.” Medical historians
found out that the drastic reduction of the rate of death was not due to new
drugs, but primarily to higher levels of hygiene. Typhus was curbed at the
beginning of the twentieth century, long before the discovery of the correspond-
ing medicine.

It was similar with tuberculosis, where the death rate had been significantly
reduced before a vaccine was invented, thanks to progress in hygiene.
671. Celibacy was introduced only by the decision of the Lateran Council held in
1139. It is not a religious dogma but a disciplinary measure, yet complying fully
with the spirit of Christianity. The explanation offered by the Lateran Council says
that marriage was forbidden to priests “in order for purity, which is God’s will, to
be spread among priests and religious orders.”
680. Through a careful study of the nature of nudism and naturalism we could
discover some religious roots. Some sects advocate and practice nudity referring
to the “return to Adam’s innocence” or associating it with life in Paradise before
the famous “fall.” However, after the “fall” everything changed, so the com-
parison makes no sense.
693. In Europe, and in the West in general, “the right of the victim” was
advocated by the rightists, while the leftists, as a rule, tried to excuse the de-
fendant. For almost two centuries, from the rationalists and on, the victim of the
crime was more or less forgotten. An absurd situation was created: Peaceful
citizens were threatened and criminals were defended by all. It became fashion-
able to invent theories that explained crimes and excused criminals. This was a
reaction to the current criminal codes that remained extremely cruel for centu-
ries. The dilemma was about the genuine, even metaphysical issue of man’s
responsibility (or irresponsibility) for his actions. The fact that the victim was
forgotten had to do with the theories of man that relied on or originated from
Darwin. Darwinian man has no freedom, he is the result and victim of circum-
stances. Religion, which stated that man has a soul, that is, freedom, was stricter
and demanded his responsibility. Atheism and religion became divided on this
issue: Atheism took the criminal’s side, religion took the side of the victim.
705. The English Parliament restricted the power of the monarch, but did not
abolish the monarchy. The French Parliament believed that it could insure itself
against the monarchy only by destroying it. These were two different spirits.
706. All we know about the ancient Egyptians shows that they were obsessed by
thoughts on the purpose of life and on the meaning of death. Nothing has
changed in the last five thousand years.
707. The pituitary gland, which is considered the most important gland in the
human body, weighs only half a gram and has the dimensions of about 5 X
13mm. That gland, together with the hypothalamus, has the function of a control
unit—or a central switch—that regulates growth, the function of the thyroid gland,
adrenal glands and sexual glands, as well as the production of milk and the
quantity of water in body tissues. One thing is certain: such a complicated and
perfect “device” was not created by chance.
708. “The pain of the world” belongs to culture, not to civilization. Civilization
does not know about such “pain.”
709. Science knows about evolution and has its history. Aristotle’s physics seem
naive to us. However, it is quite contrary with Aristotle’s Metaphysics. Unlike his
physics, it remains equally interesting nowadays; the main concepts of
metaphysics were described and explained for the first time in Aristotle’s
Metaphysics.

711. In the book Crime and Human Nature, written by two Harvard professors,
James K. Nilson and Richard Hernstein, criminal behavior is explained by the
factors of the make-up of the body (which reminds us very much of Lombrose).
According to the authors, criminals are most often young men with a strong
muscular build, with an intelligence quotient below average, of impulsive nature,
focused on the “now,” which makes it more difficult for them to think about the
future and consequences. The authors state that the research they carried out
leaves no doubt that factors of bodily constitution are directly connected with
criminal behavior.
725. Malarmé’s famous Sonnet on X (middle nineteenth century) has 14 verses

that remained completely unintelligible to his contemporaries as well as for his
modern readers. The poem is full of puzzling elements and represents the very
top of his “hermetic phase.”
751. A computer can know a lot, it can be proficient in many skills, but a
computer is stupid. Computers of the so-called fifth generation represent the
famous artificial intelligence, of which one was to be completed in the Laboratory
of Artificial Intelligence at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1987. But,
even if the human mind could be copied (which competent experts doubt), one
thing is for sure: Computers will never be able to, even theoretically, write
poetry.
784. According to Kierkegaard, death is the fruit of freedom. Death was born
from Lucifer’s rebellion. In Byron’s drama Cain, Cain wonders about his parents’
guilt and their expulsion from Paradise, expulsion resulting in the loss of eternal
life. Innocence is the state that existed before the knowledge of possibility of
choice, that is, of freedom. Along with freedom come Rebellion, Guilt and Death.
787. Every utopia is totalitarian by its definition. Besides external relationships, it

always includes planning of the human psyche.
801. The asocial character of art is not a “certain negation of a certain society,”
as suggested by Adorno (in his book The Social in Art). Every form of art in every
society is asocial in a certain way.
821. Even the ancient Greeks required two things: knowledge and skill. They
expressed it very picturesquely in their requirement for man to be able to “write
and swim.”
823. Artists create art when they “make” their works, not when they philosophize
(theorize) about them. Their potential “explanation” of their own art usually
makes the understanding of their works more difficult. Balzac’s preface to his
Human Comedy is a good example of this. DUrer could be another example. In
his book on painting, he defined art as a sum of everything that is based on
“measure, number and weight.” This was a definition of physics, not of art. He
should rather have said nothing.
848. Mahabharata, the 3,000-year-old ancient Indian poem of 100,000 verses, in

which all the wisdom of a civilization is condensed, is the greatest poetic creation
of human kind. The poem describes the great dream of Vyasya’s about the
destiny of the world. His companion is a boy who asks questions on life and the
world. These childish questions are as equally “wise” as the answers of the wise
hermit Vyasya, the hypothetical author of Mahabharata.

852. Aristotle describes the task of philosophy like this: “What was always asked
and will always be asked and disputed, namely: what is being, or what is
existence?” Aristotle in his Metaphysics defines this question, the book thought by
some as the cornerstone of philosophy. Heidegger believes that what Plato and
Aristotle achieved “was maintained in different forms in philosophy.” Some call
Aristotle’s Metaphysics the “book of books,” the “decisive moment of all of West
European history” (Tomislav Ladan, translator of Metaphysics into Serbo-
Croatian).
856. The metaphor is basically a comparison. The question is whether the

computer, as perfect as it can be, will ever be able to think metaphorically. How
could it distinguish between the literal and metaphoric meaning of a word?
896. In Tonio Kroger, Thomas Mann deals with the problem that permeates his
entire work: the attitude of art (and artists) toward normal life, or the attitude of
beauty toward the laws and requirements of a “normal civil society.” The artist
does not live, he reasons about living. Art is an adventure of spirit that is in
discord with existence, and the artist is an unhappy, alienated man, burdened
with the curse of knowledge.
908. We cannot talk about Darwinian man. His man is nothing but an intelligent
animal. We could even assert that Darwin does not speak about man, as his
creature is not torn apart by aspirations or doubts. It is made all in one piece. It
will achieve utopia and live in it like a fish in water—if that were possible, of
course.
911. In the Catholic Church of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries there were
some ideas to proclaim Plato a Saint.
932. Fromm said somewhere that man of the Middle Ages could be considered
happy.
938. Euthanasia—”murder out of mercy”—has not been legalized in any country

of the world. That happened once only—Hitler’s laws on killing invalids, exhausted
elderly people and debilitated children. According to the evidence presented at
the Nuremberg Trials (1946—1947), 275,000 people were killed under those laws
(Intervju, 31 January 1986).
945. To the moral norms of Judaism, Christianity opposed the moral character of
Jesus Christ, to the dead morality—living morality, to laws—life, to rules—
personality.
967. As for the Islamic understanding of man, we can speak of what that
conception is or is not about. Here is one example of the perception of man by
Albert Camus that is contrary to Islam: “No ingenious work has ever been created
out of hatred or disdain. That is why the artist, at the end of his journey, forgives
and does not condemn. He is the eternal defender of the living man just because
he is living. He advocates love for his neighbor, but not love from a distance that
degrades today’s humanism to the catechism of judiciary. On the contrary, a
great deed (work of art) confuses all the judges. By it, the artist at the same time
pays tribute to the noble human character and bows before the worst criminal.”
So Camus reasoned and idealized. It is essentially the Christian way, no matter

whether Camus was aware of it or not: that love for a neighbor, the rejection of

the court and law (“catechism of judiciary”) and, in particular, “bowing before the
worst criminal.” Had Camus really known what “the worst criminal” is like—as
Allah knows it—he would not have written those words. Islamic respect for man
and his dignity is not expressed by love and forgiveness in the first place, but by
the principle of human responsibility. Man is responsible, and the punishment for
a crime incorporates both, the human rights and human dignity of every man,
including the criminal.
970. Even Adorno recognized the connectedness of art to religion (superstition, as

he put it). He designated it as “a vice of art,” because art thus keeps aspiring to
return to the myth from which it came.
971. Even now, we get equally excited about reading the Epic of Gilgamesh,
which has remained “contemporaneous” after 4,000 years.
981. A computer of the so-called fifth generation (on which the Japanese are
working) will be able to talk, understand language and pictures, to learn,
associate, conclude, decide and behave the way we believed only men could do.
This is what the developers insist. It will be an “intelligent machine.” Some,
however, maintain that it is impossible. Their arguments: thinking requires cre-
ativity, and no machine can be creative. Intelligence requires one type of ex-
perience that can be acquired only through interaction in the real world with
similar people. Intelligence requires autonomy, and no machine can be auton-
omous. Even when it has accomplished a task, the machine will not be aware of
it, and awareness is an important component of intelligence. Some believe that it
is possible to offer mathematical proof that a machine cannot be intelligent. Yet,
intelligence is not the “most human” quality of man. It is a part of a man’s soul,
of his humanity. Intelligence was not what was given to man by God’s touch
(Michelangelo). It is not the ruh (“He created the soul and made it capable of
doing good and evil”—Qur’an). We are witnessing the human endeavor to create
artificial intelligence—intelligent machines, machines that think. People who are
experts state that such an incredible thing is possible. In any case, there is no
essential difference between a classical machine and a computer.
1011. The simple belief in responsibility after death—that people will be held
accountable for their deeds, for the way they exercised their freedom—that
thought to me today seems to be the only real idea, the only thought that gives
sense to this world. All the facts of physics—Newton’s or Einstein’ s—all the
knowledge of astronomy, biology and psychology, can leave us indifferent. Only
the idea of accountability is exciting and true. There are two separate orders of
things: Kepler’s laws on the one hand, and the truth of Shakespeare’s tragedy on
the other.
1021. The difference between a painted portrait and a photo: the painting shows
how one person is different from another, photographs show how similar we are.
A photo is a portrait without a soul.
1033. The English writer Doris Lessing describes in her novel Diary of Jane
Romers (published under a pseudonym) the loneliness and isolation of elderly
people in civilized countries, especially in Europe and America. In an interview
about the novel she said: “It is characteristic in the rich Western societies that
the elderly are left on their own. Much is done to keep them alive, but it is not
life.” Lessing thinks that this is typical behavior of Western society. “In Africa,
where I grew up, elderly people are never sent away from their homes, nor would

they accept to be put in nursing centers where they can do nothing but wait for
death. I met many Indians and Chinese who were very upset about the way the
elderly are treated in Europe.”
1036. Could it be said that the Chinese culture “has been living” uninterruptedly
for 4,000 years?
1046. What is culture if not an attempt to tame the animal called man?
1055. Even the ancient Arabs stated that philosophy is extended Aristotelianism.
That is true for any kind of philosophy.
1057. A poet from Muslim Spain (Abul Walid al Waqqasi from Toledo, 1107—
1195) says in one of his poems that men have only two sciences: one that is real,
whose borders they can never reach, and one that is false, which is useless.
Some believe that by these two sciences Waqqasi meant metaphysics and logic.
1061. The Greek Galen (129—199) exposed the famous theory on four organic
liquids that are present in all organisms: blood, mucus, gall and black gall, while
in the inorganic world there are four basic elements: air, water, fire and earth.
According to Aristotle, there is interdependence between the four organic ele-
ments (liquids) and the four inorganic elements. How deep Aristotle’s meta-
physics and how naïve his physics! -
1062. As early as in the sixth century B.C., Alkmeon and later on, Plato and
Galen, later, believed that the brain was the center of spiritual life and thought.
The tradition that gives that role to the heart is even older: this view was re-
corded on Ebers’ papyrus (1550 B.C.) by Egyptian doctors and adopted later on
by Aristotle, Ibn Sina and Ibn Tufayl.
1075. Science progresses if it is supported by society. This is the opposite with

art. Society’s support smothers it. The Dutch painter Dibets complains about the
very favorable situation of art in the Netherlands. “If you want to be an artist, the
state will fully support you. It is too easy to survive, especially in the first years
that are usually the most difficult for a real artist. This sounds very nice but, on
the other hand, it brings about problems. The best artists do not want to accept
such support and often leave the country, while the favors provided by the
government attract scores of lousy artists. Serious artists ‘suffer’ most, because
the government treats them as equally as the bad ones. In the Netherlands it is
much more difficult to be successful than in other countries where one has to be
very good just to survive” (in an interview for NIN, 20 April 1986).
1079. The dual nature of man has been always symbolized in popular un-
derstanding by two organs: the heart and the brain. The heart will become the
symbol (and bearer) of spiritual life, and the brain of the psychical. The soul and
the psyche are not from the same world, like the heart and mind were not so in
primal human conscience. When the primitive wanted to point out his deepest
inner feeling, faith, devotion, love, life, intention, soul, he pointed at his chest,
not his head. The Qur’an says: “He knows what is in your chest.”
1091. Which is the way for the earth to reconcile with heaven?
1110. There is also the contrast between “homo sapiens” and “homo ludens,”
since man is both of them, and it is being both that makes him man.

1154. Reading Hermann Hesse, I noticed that he was absorbed in the same
thoughts as myself, except that he was better at expressing them. The problem -
of polarity or “the middle-of-the-road” is a constant topic of Hesse, and he varies
it in many ways and forms. Here is one of those situations (Plinio addresses
Knecht, trying to define their relationship): “You are on the side of privileged
upbringing, I’m on the side of natural life. In our struggle you have learnt to trace
the dangers of natural life and to target them: your duty is to show that natural,
naïve life without spiritual upbringing must end up in muck and become reduced
to the animal or something even worse. I, on the other had, have to keep
remembering how fruitless life is if oriented solely to the spirit. Alright, everybody
has to defend that of which the primacy he believes in is: you the spirit, I the
nature.” Knecht replied: “We should not escape an active life for the
contemplative, nor the other way around, but we should alternate between them,
to take part in both and feel at home in both.”
One critic noticed the psychological basis and structure of Knecht’s personality is
conceived and established as “uninterruptedly pulsing polarity” (Zoran Gluscevic,
An Epilogue to Herman Hesse ‘s Essays). This principal problem in Islam (polarity
of everything that exists and necessity of synthesis) was made the principal topic
of Hesse in his literature. In his last great work, The Glass Bead Game, on which
he worked ten years (1933—1943), he sharpens this issue to the extreme. The
main character of the novel, Knecht, develops gradually from a one-sided person
into a complex (and contradictory) personality who learns and adopts from his
adversaries the elements that fit into the entirety of polarity. In the novel there
are a number of crystal-clear views that look like definitions of what we are
talking about: “But, you should never forget what I told you so often: it is our
commitment to clearly recognize the opposites, first as the opposites, and then as
the two poles of one single unity.” Or: “Remember, man can be a strict logician or
grammarian, but still full of imagination and music. He can be a musician or a
player at gold beads, but yet fully devoted to law and order.” In reconciliation of
the opposites, what Knecht is aiming at is the supreme psycho-technique of life.
In the personality of Knecht, Hesse put two tendencies that are directed against
each other. This is how Hesse himself formulated these two tendencies: “Two
principal tendencies, or poles of his entire life, his Yin and Yang, were, on the one
hand, the tendency toward preservation, fidelity, unselfish service to hierarchy
and, on the other, toward ‘waking up,’ advancing, the reaching and accepting of
reality. . . . He served a spiritual community whose strength and purposefulness
he admired, but he saw a danger in its tendency to see purpose in itself, to forget
about its task and cooperation with the entire country and the world and to finally
perish in a great separation from the entirety of life, a separation that gets
increasingly condemned to fruitlessness.”
In a new encounter with Plinius Designori, after a long period of separation,

Knecht and Plinius renew their friendship and through conversation they remove
some earlier misunderstandings. But a strange thing happens: a transformation
and exchange of opinions. Plinius, who used to be a passionate advocate of the
world, finds himself in a crisis and feels the need for something he does not
have—for Kastalia, while Josef Knecht, on the contrary, is about to embark upon
the “other” world from which Plinius is seeking help and spiritual supplement from
Kastilia. In the clash of these opposing views, or even worlds, Hesse shows the
fruitfulness of synthesis and the great potential it entails. Without an opposite yet
complementary view, no single view makes sense for itself. Exactly as in the
Qur’an. For Hesse, an expression of that dualism is also the cultural polarity
between East and West, where “in spite of their equality, there is obvious

supremacy on the part of the East” (Z. Gluscevic). Is this not a way to overcome
the syndrome of Eurocentrism and an incentive to the highest possible form of
tolerance?
1150. Each of the characters in Hesse’s Steppenwoif: Biography of the Soul

represents one of the conflicts of the author with himself. The entire literary work
of H. Hesse is autobiographic. Hesse himself called his works “a biography of the
soul.”
1199. (Renaissance culture without civilization). This can be concluded on the

basis of humanist writings of that time, which are witness of the feelings of
strength and dignity, as well as of insecurity and desperation.
1201. Mirce Eliade tried to discover the sacred in the profane. Science does the
opposite: It looks for the profane in the sacred. All of Eliade’ s opus is marked by
the idea of the eternal return to the beginning, and the beginning is sacred. In
the story entitled “With the Gypsies,” Garsilesku (the main character) realizes
that he did not spend just a few hours with them, as he believed, but twelve
years. In his play Adio, there are two separate courses of time for the audience
and the actors, who perform behind a closed curtain
1207. The principal characteristic of the Reformation (and Luther’s teachings):

man achieved independence in religious issues. Luther deprived the Church of its
authority and transferred it to the individual. This contributed significantly to the
development of political and spiritual freedom. But, what may seem rather
incompatible with this is that Luther, in his works, stated that man’s nature is evil
and vicious and that he can only be saved by God’s mercy. A similar seeming
contradiction can be found in the Qur’an. Both man’s responsibility and God’s
mercy are true.
1210. Calvinism also offers examples of some “contradictory” doctrines being

very vital and constructive in real life. There is an obvious contradiction between
Calvinist teaching on absolute predestination (fatalism) and the very expressed
requirement of necessity of constant human efforts in the outer world. In that
pronounced human endeavor, Max Weber identifies an important link between
Calvinism and the spirit of capitalism, that is, its extraordinary dynamics in the
early period. As for that contradiction, only theorists and analysts discovered it.
People who practically accepted Calvinism and lived in it found no problems with
these two contradictory requirements. How could this be explained? Only by the
fact that life itself manifests a similar antonym that sets it apart from an ideal, a
thought, that is from non-life. All analysts fail to offer an explanation to the
tireless activity of the people who believed that everything had been
predestinated even before birth and that, consequently, no effort could change
anything. Calvinist doctrine prevailed as a predominant teaching in the period of
early capitalism, which was one of the most active periods of human history.
1213. For E. Fromm, new religious doctrines (Protestantism and Calvinism) were
“the response to psychological needs caused by the decline of the medieval social
system and the beginnings of capitalism.” They were “to prepare Man for the role
he was going to play in the new industrial system” (E. Fromm, Escape from
Freedom, p. 105). For others, these doctrines were the response to moral
deviation within the official Church. The former view is a good example of the
materialistic, the latter of idealistic explanation of ideas and beliefs.

1219. Taoism—the oldest authentic Chinese religion. Principal teaching: there are
two complementary forces, yin and yang, whose interaction and eternal balance
maintain the harmony of the world. Jang Ling who lived in the second century
B.C., is considered the founder of Taoism (tao = way). He was an alchemist (in a
way, similar to Muslims, several centuries later). Lao-tse defined the basic
premises of the religion (sixth century A.D.). It is interesting that Taoist monks
laid the foundations for traditional Chinese medicine, exact sciences and
astronomy (similar as in Islam); and, even today, Taoist temples are schools of
Chinese fighting skills that, through Japan, developed into karate and judo. Yin
and yang reflect the idea of contradiction in a unified world. All religious cer-
emonies in Taoism are -oriented towards establishing or maintaining harmony
between these two principles.
1227. As poetry is older than prose, which is not very logical or expected,
metaphysics preceded physics. If man had been “created” as thought by Darwin,
this would be inexplicable. Darwinian man understands only physics; genuine
man understands metaphysics.
1228. Violence as the absolute means is promoted in a series of Lenin’s works

(with mind-boggling openness in his Sotchinenie). Totally bare violence stood
inevitably at the opposite pole, against Christian love and compassion. It is all
about principles.
1229. Some of Hitler’s thoughts in his Mein Kampf sound very Darwinian-like.
“While Hitler and his bureaucracy enjoy their power over the German masses,
those masses are being taught how to enjoy their power over other nations and
how to use the will to rule the world as their driving force” (E. Fromm, Escape
from Freedom, p. 203). Hitler justified his expansion by the explanation that the
will for power was in the very root of the eternal laws of nature and that he only
recognized and complied with those laws. Here, besides Darwinian, we discern
some of Nietzsche’s sources of Nazism. This becomes even more obvious in
Hitler’s speech on the German rule of the world, which should lead to “peace
which is not supported by palm twigs of weeping pacifist mourners, but peace
brought about by the victorious sword of a nation-master, put in the service of a
higher culture” (Mein Kampf, p. 598). In the instinct for survival of species, Hitler
sees “the prime cause for education of human communities” (ibid., p. 197). Hitler
celebrates nature as “the cruel queen of all wisdom,” whose law of survival is
“tied to the iron law of necessity and to the right of the best and fittest to prevail
in this world” (ibid., p. 396).
1236. People are equal, but not identical. In this context, equality and identity are
two different categories. To God, we are equal, in nature, we are identical.
We are as equal as God’s creatures, which means that we have equal value as
human beings and that every individual has a priceless value. If it were possible
for us to be identical, we could be so only as a product of nature, in what makes
us natural beings, in what we get from nature. As souls (individuals) we are
equal, as bodies we are (or could be) identical.
1238. The law is not a weapon for the strong, but for the weak. The strong do not
need law. Force, by its nature, tends to be unlimited. Let us recall Lenin’s defini-
tion of a proletariat dictatorship as “power, not limited by anything and relying
upon violence. . . etc.” (Sotchinenie). E. Fromm states that history witnesses that
“justice and truth are the most important weapons used by the helpless in their
struggle for freedom and progress” (E.F. Escape from Freedom, p. 256).

1239. Reducing characters to contentment (or discontent) and connecting them

to the prime erogenous zones (mouth and anus—oral and anal characters), Freud
comes to the conclusion on man’s vicious nature and to the interpretation that all
of man’s “idealistic” motives are actually very low. Marx applied similar ideas on
history, so he concluded that, for instance, Protestantism was a response to the
economic needs of developing capitalism, and so on.
1242. (Culture and history): Compare the relevance of Aristotle’s Physics and
Poetics (or Metaphysics), or some of his judgments in these two domains, in
order to comprehend the “historicity” of science and philosophy. The concepts
from Aristotle’s Poetics remain “contemporaneous” even nowadays and are used
in modern analysis of literary works. This is not the case with his Physics.
1256. Jesus and the Inquisitor in the Great Inquisitor (The Brothers Karamazov)
can be understood only as archetypes.
1265. According to Hegel, the essence of art is more real than reality in its
everyday sense because art is a meaningful and shaped reality. A historical
“bringing” of mankind to its senses is achieved by means of art, religion and
philosophy. -
1268. A similar “Islamic” problem can be observed in the dispute over the rational
or irrational nature of art, or in the contrast between logos and mythos in
literature. Each of these tendencies, brought to extreme conclusions, leads to an
absurd result. In the former, any sensible contents of art are lost, it becomes
totally arbitrary, existing only for itself and its creator, unintelligible to others,
and nonexistent. In the latter, art is lost because it is reduced to scientific and
philosophical knowledge. Only the unity of these two principles, mythos and
logos, can explain the real nature of art (like in architecture—the unity of con-
struction techniques and style). That unity is seen in supreme works of art. It is
about the way in which life itself begins and continues. Logos is the body and
mythos is the soul of art (Aristotle: “Mythos is the main part and the soul of
tragedy”).
1271. The famous pair of notions—the form and the contents—belong here as
well. The form helps shapeless matter to be “something,” to be a thing. This
example of a maxim from Aristotle finds the most obvious example in sculpture.
Dichotomy: the form and the contents—are both members equally active, or is
one of them passive (“passive member of dichotomy”)?
1277. It is not a coincidence that Leonid Timofeyev, a literary critic of Marxist

orientation, believes in the omnipotence and universality of the word and
thought: “Everything that is accessible to thought is accessible to the word;
thought encompasses all domains and sides of life, which makes literature a
universal art” (L. Timofeyev, Theory of Literature).
1284. Fairy tales prospered in the illiterate age of humankind. So did the epic.
1285. In the world of fairy tales the laws of causality do not apply. Milivoy Solar:
“There is no difference between the real and the unreal in a fairy tale:
miracles happen, but nobody is amazed, people move naturally in unnatural
situations, they encounter fairies and witches, fight sorcerers and devils; dragons
and dwarves live like men. Animals, plants and things talk to people without any
problems” (M. Solar, Idea and Story).

1292. “In some periods art moves towards science, while sometimes science
turns towards art,” says Arnold Hauser in his Social History of Art and Literature,
I, p. 325. That is true, but these two phenomena will never become equal or
merge. If it happens anyway, that will mean the disappearance of one of them—
art or science, but more likely of art. The latest crisis of the novel (designated as
“the death of the novel”) is essentially due to the modern novel getting closer to
science. In the modern novel there is less narration, less mythos, but more
education, science and philosophy. This is not a good sign. That is why the
modern novel represents a decline compared to the classical novel, where the
balance of elements that make up a novel existed. This scientific orientation
appeared in the naturalist novels from the late nineteenth century—the so-called
experimental novels, the most famous author of which was Emile Zola.
1293. In a simplistic approach, we could say that romanticist literature idealized

man (man is more than man). Realistic authors saw in man all the good and the
evil meant by the word (man), while naturalists viewed him as an animal (Zola:
Man = Beast). The Moderna movement added the last level of degradation,
lowering man to the level of a thing. From an angel in romanticism, man was
reduced to a thing in the modern novel. That is why Solar was right concluding
that Maupassant’ s and Zola’ s characters look much more human that those of
Joyce and Beckett.
1294. The entire history is a part of what is called our destiny. By being what it
is, including its presence in our conscience, history determines our relationship to
everything that exists and defines indirectly our personal and social situation.
1298. Science itself cannot comprehend the meaning of life. By using its method
of endless analysis, for every analysis is endless by definition, science is
confronted with “nothing” in the end. All scientific novels, as well the modern
novels with a thesis—the “semi-scientific novels” by Camus, Sartre or Hermann
Broch confirm this clearly. They are a product of scientific consciousness or of a
scientific approach and, in the end, they produce the awareness of absurdity. This
is the only possible outcome.
1301. In order to be able to express all the facts about consciousness, and in
particular to explain language as a means of expression, we would need a meta-
language.
1302. In the modern novel, often defined as “the novel of the flow of con-
sciousness,” man or personality is not reflected as in a classical novel. Neither
does it mirror consciousness, rather just that what is mirrored in consciousness.
There, the world is a minor, but we do not get to know anything about the minor
itself.
1303. Marxist dogmatism brings many things into shallow waters. For instance,
hopelessness, absurdity and a fragmented approach in modern novels, all of
which are a consequence of science being misplaced, for the Marxist Lukacs is a
result of the wrong political orientation of writers (G. Lukacs in his study on
Today’s Significance of Critical Realism). This is a very simplified and wrong
explanation.
1307. Physical time is an eternal presence, it is not time, because from the point
of view of physics, the universe is endless in both space and time. The physical
universe can be imagined as existing only in eternity, that is, beyond time.

1311. The problem of time in the modern novel. In Kafka’s novels the action has
neither a real beginning nor an ending, everything runs in a circle. In Joyce’s
novel Finnegan ‘s Wake, all that is happening tends to be condensed in an
instant, while in Faulkner’s Sound and Fury, time is in complete disarray. There is
a parallel narration about what is happening now and what happened in the past.
It sometimes seems to me that classical novels happen in Newton’s, and modern
in Einstein’s world. In any case, the times do match.
As to man being turned into a thing in modern novels, that happens in the
relation between the cause and the consequence. As a matter of fact, the con-
dition for man to be fit for the scientific analysis he is subject to in a modern
novel is to be not a personality, but a thing. Only as a thing (not as a man) can
he be a subject to the analysis he is exposed to in modern novels.
1315. Hauser wrote about Dostoyevsky’ s novels: “His novels take place on the
eve of the Final Judgment. . . everything is waiting to be cleaned, calmed and
rescued by a miracle—waiting for a solution that is not based on power and
sharpness of spirit and dialectics of reason, but on denial of that power and on
sacrificing the reason” (Hauser, Social History of Art and Literature II, p. 351).
What does this human drama have to do with events described in a scientific
novel or in a social-realistic “production” novel describing enthusiastic masses of
people building a collective farm?
1319. With regard to amazement and admiration as the only genuine cognition of
the world, we must note that in modern novels there is not a single trace of such
feelings. They have been substituted by an analytic approach that divides reality
into classes, layers and parts. The “spot-light technique” is a method used in a
modern novel to highlight a detail, which is then endlessly dissected and
analyzed, while the whole of the world remains unknown. God, love, death, guilt,
responsibility, crime and punishment, all remain unnoticed. If possible to say, this
is the atheism of the modern novel.
1336. The wife of Vitold Gombovic, a seriously ill man, used to say that his pains
were alleviated to some extent only by talking about philosophy. For him,
philosophy was a sort of therapy.
1341. A prerequisite for any ethics is freedom. A prerequisite for any natural
science is a mechanism. How can the two sciences, whose premises exclude each
other’s, exist at the same time? The only possible answer would be that two
different worlds exist and that we inhabit them simultaneously.
1380. Miroslav Krleza said on one occasion that everything that is not in-
dividualized in art is “equal to zero” (in his Podravski motivi).
1384. For the preface to the book Islam Between East and West: I am not in a
situation to write a long preface. I will only make some observations: I am
concerned about the experts and their reading “line by line.” I expect that a
reader who follows the vision, roughly sketched or just hinted in the book, will be
able to discover more than a meticulous analyst. As a matter of fact, it is just an
attempt to offer a new philosophy of Islam. I am perfectly aware that the attempt
has remained incomplete and just insinuated, even incoherent in some places. As
for its incoherence, that refers mainly to the inconsistency regarding categories. I
am not sure if the reader will find it justifiable if I say that the inconsistency was
conscious, sometimes even deliberate.

For this is not a geometric drawing, but a quick painting in which, though a
landscape is discerned, the paintbrush strokes are far from being mathematically
perfect. I would be happy if my ideas could be clearly discerned at least. Finally,
this is just a testimony brought in favor of one perception of the world.
1385. History is not “a process in which man became man,” as stated by

Marxists. Man has no history. He was in the beginning what he is now and what
he will be in the future. This is the difference between Darwin and Michelangelo.
Darwin’s man is a result of a process, Michelangelo’s was created by God’s touch.
1386. Fasting is an exclusively human choice. Both, man and animal eat (feed
themselves). Only man is capable of fasting. Fasting clearly draws the difference
between man and animal. Eating (feeding) is done following an urge, a law of
nature. Fasting is the highest expression of will, it is an act of freedom. This
freedom, rather than any medical reason, is the greatest significance of fasting.
1387. Soul—psyche. The difference is not terminological, but essential. “The

psyche is a scientific aggregate of features. The standards of health and illness,
and not of purification or sin, apply.”The soul does not know what illness is, just
as the psyche does not know what sin is. Explaining the meaning of T.S. Eliot’s
drama Murder in the Cathedral, a critic noticed that the psyche as a means of
motivation was omitted. “The psyche was omitted and replaced by soul,” he
concluded (Radovan Marusic in the article The Problem of Christian Martyrdom).
1394. The idea of human accountability is the greatest and the most important of
all ideas connected to the name of man. Its origin dates back to the Prologue in
the heavens, consequently before history. The same could be said about human
rights.
1425. Not to have the world is one thing, not to want to have it is another. Not to
rule the world, and not to want to rule it. Not to know the world, and not to want
to know it. The latter is a religion,, but that religion is not Islam.
1426. The two worlds of Herman Hesse (in the encounter of Plinius Designorio
and Jozef Knecht): “Sometimes,” said Plinius with resignation, “it seems to me
that we have not only two different ways of expression and two languages, each
being translatable into the other just with insinuations, but to be completely and
generally different beings who can never understand each other, who are actually
men, real and of full value, you or we, or whether any of us is a man—I was
always suspicious about that. There were times when I looked at you... like at
something superior, with some respect, with a feeling of inferiority and envy, I
saw- you like gods and supermen who were always cheerful, always playing and
enjoying their own being, beyond the reach of any suffering. Sometimes, you
seemed to be worth of envying, or of compassion, another time you deserved
disdain, you eunuchs, kept artificially in your artificial childhood, childish and
innocent in your world of games, passionless, clearly fenced, nicely cleaned
world, where. . . any unfavorable excitement of the senses or thought is silenced
or suffocated, where harmless and bloodless games are played all the time and
where every sublime feeling, every real cause, every mutuality of hearts is
controlled, suppressed and immediately neutralized. The instinctive life has been
tamed by meditation, dangerous, reckless and seriously responsible undertakings,
like economy, law, politics, have been left to others for generations. And, to avoid
boredom, such a world reconciles with all these learned specializations, syllables

and letters are counted, glass beads are played on and with, while outside, in the
world sludge, crowded people live real lives and do real work.”
Responding to this criticism, Knecht described his world as “a certain, nicely

arranged world of clear forms and formulae, of pure abstractions and politeness.”
Pointing at the night sky, partly covered by clouds, he says to Plinius: “Look at
that landscape of clouds with their night ribbons. At first sight, one could think
that the darkest parts are depths, but the next moment it becomes clear that the
dark and soft parts are clouds, and that the universe and its depths begin only at
the edges and fords of those mountains of clouds and sink into infinity, where
stars stand solemnly, as the highest symbols of clarity and order for us, human
beings. The depth of the world and of its secrets is not where the clouds and
darkness are; the depth is in the clear and serene. Let me ask you something:
before going to bed, look at those bays and straits with so many stars and do not
dispel thoughts and dreams that might come to you” (Hesse, The Glass Bead
Game).
1439. The Blessed Jerome (died 420) called Rome “the New Babylon” and “the
courtesan in a purple robe.”
1440. The separation of the Christian clergy as an independent authority took

place only in the third century but has remained, until present time, continually
developing and becoming stronger. This is a sign that it was a natural process
that suited the nature of Christianity and its mission in the world. “The Western
clergy became a superior authority, the mediator between God and men; they
took over the responsibility—-that later was turned into their exclusive right— of
being the sole interpreter of God’s will and meaning” (P.S. Cohen, History of
West-European Literature). Furthermore: “Basically, monastic orders came into
existence together with Christianity. It could be said that in the first three
centuries, the life of all Christians had a monastic character to a degree” (ibid., p.
18).
1442. The Gothic style is a full expression of the Christian perception of the
world. A Gothic vault, so light and pointed, pulls the entire structure of the temple
to the heights, towards the sky. Heine wrote:- “When we enter an old church, we
hardly suspect the exotic meaning of its stony symbolism. . . . We feel the
elevation of the spirit and the deadening of body.. . and our spirit rises towards
the sky together with the huge vaults of the temple, separating itself painfully
from the body which remains on the ground like heavy clothes. When we look at
those Gothic churches from the outside, those huge edifices, so light, so
translucent, so airy, we understand all the power of those times which managed
to conquer even the stone and make it look as if inspired by the spirit of
providence, so that the roughest material becomes an expression of Christian
spiritualism.”
1445. Medieval knights—”the armed force in service of the non-armed truth”

(Church). Knights were a military religious order. However, while monastic orders
survived and became stronger, the military did not, as they were contrary to the
spirit and nature of Christianity. They were an accidental and anomalous
phenomenon in one of the stages of the history of the Church. This fact could not
be changed by any ritual ceremonies, and armed formations of the Church were
destined to disappear.

1457. Dante, the most Christian poet of the Middle Ages, did not place Popes into
Paradise. In the eighth circle of hell we find Nicholas III and Boniface VIII. He
punishes them because they were unscrupulous carriers of Christian ideals.
1459. From the artistic point of view, the second and the third part of the Divine
Comedy, “Purgatory” and “Paradise,” are far behind hell. Satan’s kingdom in
Milton’s Paradise Lost is also depicted with much more strength than Paradise and
its inhabitants. The same could be said for literature in general.
Does this not tell us something more about the relationships between life, art and
the truth?
1463. Rising against the extremities of the medieval Catholic views and de-
veloping as a protest against them, Humanist literature went to the other
extreme. It celebrated the body and ended up in extreme cynicism and
debauchery. The writer Antonio Becadelle (Italy, fifteenth century) openly
advocated debauchery.
1490. Milton wrote a treatise in which he defended divorce. The English “middle
road,” Baconian dualism in the thought and work of John Milton: (1) In his
treatise on divorce he refers to God’s will and the Holy Scripture and considers
marriage a human institution; (2) at the same time, he defends the principle of
authority and human reason; (3) in his argumentation he sometimes refers to
theological postulates, while sometimes resorting to rationalist arguments. Milton
is opposed to scholastic education and very much in favor of education covering
nature and real life phenomena. However, the contents of his famous poem
Paradise Lost describe the fight between Satan and God, imbued with deep
religious inspiration. In the poem, the strict Puritanism and secular ideas of the
Renaissance are intermingled—though seemingly incompatible; all in all, a typical
English case.
1497. In -his theory of cognition, Locke had a strong and decisive influence upon
Voltaire; however, what eventually happens: the English (Locke) believes in
Revelations as the source of truth and does not see any contradiction in it, while
the French (Voltaire) remains consistent. He acknowledges only one principle: the
reason as the only source of all our knowledge. These are the two different spirits
or approaches.
1510. (History and morality). Tacitus relates how he enjoyed staying with the
wild Germans and lovingly describes their innocence, gentleness and simplicity.
1513. Materialism leads to determinism, they are the same in a sense. Diderot,
the French materialistic thinker, remains consistent (which is not the case with
many other materialists). Here are some of his ideas: There is no such thing as
human freedom. All of man’s actions are predetermined. The notions natural and
unnatural should be used instead of moral and immoral. Bad or good char-
acteristics of a man do not depend on himself. Everybody is born with bad or
good characteristics; every man inevitably succumbs to the general course of
events that take some to glory and others to inevitable disgrace. Self-esteem,
shame, remorse, they are all worthless and based on the ambition and stupidity
of a human being who attributes to himself the merit or the blame for what is a
consequence of the inevitable, and so on. Another Frenchman, Rousseau, takes a
completely opposite standpoint and preaches the so-called “religion of heart.” In
one episode in his Emile (Confessions of the Vicar of Savoy) we can read the
following lines: “I see God in all His acts, I feel Him in myself, I see Him around

myself.” Or: “The very fact that evil and injustice are triumphant in this world
proves the immortality of the soul.” Rousseau takes the immediate man’s feelings
as a witness to freedom. “No matter what philosophers say, I will never give up
on the honor of thinking. It is not the word ‘freedom’ which is meaningless, but
the word ‘inevitable.’ To assume an action as taken by a human being without his
willful decision means to look for the action without a cause, which is nonsense.
What is our moral feeling about? Do we not feel spontaneous admiration and
respect for great works and noble characters?” Rousseau and Diderot—they
represent opposites or two irreconcilable poles of the French and the human spirit
in general. They stand opposed in everything—as a thesis and the antithesis.
1519. Aristotle set the three famous elements of the unity of drama: place, time
and action. Aristotle’s principles were considered to be the “natural laws of
tragedy” by many. There is no history.
1527. Respective “competencies” of religion and of science should not be mixed

up. Religion provides the answer to the question on the purpose of living, while
science studies life and nature as phenomena. Neither science can answer the
question regarding the purpose of living, nor can religion define the laws of
nature. Science that pretends to offer absolute knowledge ends up in denial and
nihilism. Let us remember the introductory monologue in Faust.
1528. Goethe’s Faust is about the duality of human nature. “I am the face of a
deity,” he shouted at first, but concluded later on: “I am a worm crawling in the
dust.” Obviously, he is both.
1550. Following the flight of an eagle disappearing in the boundless distance,

Manfred (as a matter of fact, Byron) says: “We are a union of dust and deity,
neither meant to fly nor to creep; we struggle with our dual nature all our life.”
1559. Two pieces of Kant’s criticism: Instead of striving after the discovery of the
original cause of phenomena, science limits itself to explanations of what is
happening before its eyes. It ceases to deal with the question why something is
happening and limits itself to description and, if possible, explanation of how it is
happening. This is physics, not metaphysics.
1562. In his work, The Spirit of Christianity, Chateaubriand (1768—1848), a

French romantic poet, proves that Christianity is “the most poetic religion.” He
underlines the huge impetus that Christianity gave to poetry and to art in
general. It is true that art was and is a great argument of Christianity. While the
atheist civilization built a diversified and dynamic world, Christianity built an
equally rich inner-world. However, these are two completely different worlds, two
lives and two treasures. They do not prove each other.
1591. The greatest representatives of the realist and social novel in England,
Dickens and Thackeray, who mercilessly attacked the rich and whipped the vices
of the English aristocracy and high capitalist classes, remained moralists rather
than social revolutionaries. They did not ask for a change of social order but for a
change of people. Today, more than a century after their famous books were
published, we can ask ourselves if they were right about the method. Looking
back at all that happened in those hundred years, at all the dramatic attempts
and their results, and in particular taking into account the real situation in
modern England and Russia, we could say that history has confirmed the
rightness of the so-called middle road.

1603. There is more than one evolution. There are cosmological, geological,
biological and sociological evolutions. The scientists of evolution say so. When I
think about man, religion and art, I do not see any of those evolutions.
1626. Kant took the middle position between the empiricists and the rationalists.
He believed that our notions could apply only to empirical phenomena, while at
the same time he considered that a priori thinking is characteristic of our reason.
These are a priori functions of our conscience, that is, our particular constitutional
ability to recognize all impressions in specific forms. Their competence is limited
to empirical objects. However, the logical notions, which are the only framework
within which we must (and can) think, existed before the experience (a priori). By
this, Kant did not deny any world existing above and beyond nature, but he did
deny the possibility of its, cognition. Later on, philosophy went back to pre-Kant
metaphysics (Fichte, Schelling and others). A. Hegel: “Absolute reason, in order
to get to know itself, takes nature as something else, separated from itself. In
that way, nature is its ‘other being,’ its relative opposite. That what exists as the
object of a thought is conceivable and we cannot know anything else but what is
conceivable. Cognition is possible only on the basis of equality or coincidence
between who thinks and what is thought about (the subject and the object).
Consequently, being and thinking is the same,” concluded Hegel.
1626a. An artist (painter) said: “What matters is not that what a creator thinks
he knows, but that what he does not know. If it happened that one day he
comprehended what he did not know, he could leave his easel or chisel, for it
would be the end of creating.”
1638. According to Zola, the writer has to stick to the truth. Of course, Zola
meant the scientific truth. “What would we say about a poet who maintained that
the sun orbits around the earth, though science discovered that the earth orbits
around the sun,” explains Zola (Experimental Novel, p. 142). And I could ask:
What would be left of poetry if from it we eliminated everything that is
contradictory to scientific views? What kind of a poem would it be if it spoke
about the moon as a cold satellite, where freezing and wasteland prevail, which
keeps orbiting the earth without any visible reason?
1640. Critics used to object Zola stating that he was not good at depicting
positive characters. When he tried to (in his Dreams), it resulted in a forced
drama. Zola is good at writing about (painting) “the eternal animal” in human
nature.
1641. The history of the European culture is a story of the Western thought that
kept swinging, like a pendulum, from one extreme to the other. For example,
only in the nineteenth century we witnessed both the end of classicism and the
victory of romanticism. That victory, however, was quite temporary. The Eu-
ropean spirit soon returned to realism and, seeking its extremities, reached the
naturalism of Zola and Hauptman. In the 1 880s, however, naturalism was in
crisis. The Western thought turned to new extremes: Nietzsche and symbolism
entered the scene. Naturalism lasted very briefly: Zola, its most important rep-
resentative, witnessed its beginning as well as its end. The more extreme a
thought is, the stronger its “flash” gets and the shorter its life is. The naturalist
cult of the masses replaced the aristocracy of personality, while the so-called
scientific method in literature was rejected in favor of fantasy and “poetic li-
cense,” etc. Sometimes I think that this pendulum is the fate, or maybe the
mission, of the West.

1643a. The internal drama in Maeterlinck’ s play Intruse. Behind unimportant

events and talk, a drama is developing: everybody feels the presence of death,
everybody thinks of it and keeps silent about it. The real drama is not seen, it
exists in looks, in the silence, in the fear everybody feels but nobody shows.
Death is the main character of the play, but the main character remains invisible
while at the same time occupying all the space on the stage and the souls of all
the actors. As a matter of fact, it is about showing (or hinting at) the unspeakable
in the spoken and the invisible in the visible.
1667. Describing the merciless fight for survival, Darwin showed us nature in its
heartless greatness: “So, the highest phenomenon that we can imagine, the
creation of the highest forms of life, originates directly from that eternal fight,
from hunger and death.” What Darwin is telling us and what Christ is telling us
are two hopelessly contradictory statements. Darwin showed the interdependence
of living and dying, and in particular the function of death in the general progress
of life. Death, which produces only the darkest thoughts in any human being,
according to Darwin, is a precondition to the continuous improvement of the
entire organic world and of all the beauty of that world that we admire. If there
were an Anti-Christ, it would be Darwin. For him, the law of egoism is the highest
law of nature. That law is not only the right, but also the duty of an individual.
“Darwin’s theory of evolution brought about such a turn in human perceptions of
the world and life, and no other great discovery that preceded it could be
compared to it” (Cohen, History of Western European Literature III, p. 38).
1694. The incentive repeated in many places in the Qur’an to “contemplate” (the
Qur’an, 2/164, 6/95—99, 21/33, 22/45—46, 26/7, 50/6—11, 56/63—71, 88/17—
20, etc.) cannot be interpreted otherwise but as a firm conviction (and promise)
that the testimony of the senses and reason will not suppress the soul’s belief,
and that, consequently, at one point, at some horizon, science based on obser-
vation and religion based on revelation are no longer conflicting and that they can
even support each other. That horizon is what I call the horizon of Islam.
1696. For Maeterlinck, the task of poetry is to introduce us into a higher world—
inaccessible to reason—where we can “eavesdrop on the voiceless talk of souls.”
“The most sublime means of communication among men, the most secure way to
the human soul is—silence.”
1703. According to Maeterlinck, life is not in action, but in the soul, it is not
external, but internal. He illustrates this with a strange example: He asserts that
Hamlet, as an artistic character, is superior to Othello because he does not act,
“he has time to live.” The purpose of the theater is to reach the inner sense of a
phenomenon. Maeterlinck introduced the theory of the “silent dialogue” that takes
place simultaneously with a loud one. The silent dialogue is essential as it is the
soul’s speech which actually defines events.
Maeterlinck’ s plays (Tentasile ‘s Death, The Blind, The Unwanted, Pelleas and
Melisande) contain that double course; two dramas that happen simultaneously
without having much to do with one another. The first one is the outer drama,
usually poor in contents and action, while the other is the drama of soul, poor in
language but full of suggestive silence and guessing. In the outer drama
everything is usually insecure, hesitating and contradictory, while in the drama of
soul, everything is sure, consistent, reliable and correct. That is Maeterlinck’s
point of view.

1707. If there is a message in symbolic poetry, it reads: Our senses and our
positive thinking, based on experience and observation, offer false, deceitful
cognition of the world. The unconscious activity of the soul, on the contrary,
represents the only genuine source of knowledge.
1708. The most important things in life remain unsaid. Language is incapable of
expressing them. I believe that this is the sense of the Christian “sacred secret.”
1708a. The statement that morality is useful is very close to the statement that
morality is a derivative of our interests (even if they were not individual, but
general, not accidental, but permanent), which is a denial of morality. Morality as
an autonomous value for itself, independent from interests and benefits, can be
only based on the principle of duty, which is of religion.
1713. Big cities: Zola’ s Nana feels some “sweet poison in the air” and it seems to
her that Paris bridges emits some “flaming stream that slithers down her thighs.”
1737. American paleontologist, Dr. Stephen Jay Gould, the author of the famous
book The Mismeasure of Man, asserts that there is a major misconception about
Darwin: Namely, Darwin never stated that evolution meant necessarily progress,
he even avoided the word evolution. All that Darwin did state was that the
organism adapts itself, that is, that changes in the natural environment cause
changes in the organism. That is the so-called theory of local adaptation. “The
idea that evolution represents a general progress, that it is the advancement from
ameba to human being, is nothing but a cultural prejudice,” says Gould.
1738. Regarding evolution, there is the theory of the “missing link” in the
assumed transformation of the anthropoid ape into man.
1739. Evolution could lead only to the intelligent humanoid, not to Man. Man
could only be created by God.
1741. Talking about man, the clash between nature and culture is the clash
between the inherited and the acquired, between genetically determined
properties and properties that have been acquired, that is, between determinism
and freedom. In this context, an interesting question arises: Is the current
superior position of a male (over a female) determined biologically or culturally,
that is, is there a gene of male domination, or, are the different positions of
genders in a society a result of different social developments?
1783. Learning about man’s guilt is actually learning about his greatness. In order
for man to be guilty, he has to be capable of sinning, and that capability
presupposes man in his supernatural dimensions. The denial of guilt, of the
Original Sin, as well as of any other, is based on the perception of man in his
natural, that is, Darwinian, dimensions. Darwinian man is not guilty because he is
not capable of sinning, he has no idea of sin, he is beyond good and evil.
1794. A building, as noticed by a writer, is a complex drama where human

desires and needs are entangled with man’s dream of beauty in an inseparable
web. Otherwise, it is not a example of architecture, but an ugly structure, brew-
ery, livestock farm, industrial plant.
1813. The main existentialist feelings: anxiety, restlessness, fear, guilt—what do

they have to do with Darwin and materialism?

1818. This dualism, usually connected with Descartes in the European culture
(“Descartian dualism”), does not spare anybody. We- can find it, maybe unex-
pectedly, even with Samuel Beckett, in his very strict separation between body
and spirit.
1847. Darwinian man, as well as Marx’s society, is predictable and logical— this is
a geometrical world after all. Only the soul—if it exists—disturbs that universal
geometry and brings a different logic into that world. Let us remember Jesus,
Greek tragedians, Islamic sufis, or in Europe—Nietzsche, Dostoyevsky, Ibsen and
Strmndberg.
1856. (Portrait): Indians believe that they can steal your soul by painting your
portrait.
1879. Science is trying to explain or construct a process, while the theater tends
to create a character—two activities striving in different directions.
1880. One theater critic about Brecht and his work: “Berthold Brecht is a
dramatist who becomes gradually and inevitably outdated. His so-called epic
theatre is no longer -exciting for anybody; there are other issues today. Brecht’ s
theses and intentions, Brecht’s proletarian feelings and exaltations are a dried up
aesthetic potential.” My explanation: The proletariat addressed by Marx and
Brecht does not exist anymore. There is a working class, but the social conditions
and psychology of that class have changed greatly, so that they do not respond
to the old calls and slogans.
1887. Art has no evolution in the historical sense. Sketches for the painting
Young Ladies from Avignon, which mark the beginning of modern painting (the
painting dates from 1907), show a visible influence of African sculpture. The
sketches were exhibited for the first time at a London exhibition in 1986.
1890. Marx admired the ancient (i.e., slaveholders’) art and, surprisingly, did not
notice a strange paradox: disharmony between his “base and superstructure.”
Marx wondered how Greek poetry could, though the social conditions in which it
had been created belong to distant past, give us aesthetic pleasure even now-
adays. As far as I know, Marx did not find the answer to this question that
essentially challenges his doctrine on the interdependence of the base and su-
perstructure.
1890a. A French critic stated that Kafka’s work was so conditioned by regional
facts and circumstances that, even only one hundred kilometers away from
Prague, nobody would understand it. He was wrong. It turned out that Kafka was
probably the most universal writer of the twentieth century.
1890b. “Slaveholders’ “art of Ancient Greece was an unparalleled model for the
artists in the times that followed. For, a genuine piece of art, no matter how
significant of a certain time and space it may be, remains generally human and
universal, for all times and all spaces.
1916. There is one predominant principle in Western culture. That is the principle
of human dignity. The European culture owes this principle to Christianity. If
somebody asked me what makes the Christian foundations of European
civilization recognizable, I would answer: the predominant principle of human
dignity.

1917. Polish philosopher Bogdan Suhodoiski also developed a theory of two

histories. Besides political history, the history of things, there is another history,
called by Suhodoiski “the history of man.” He explains that history as “history of
ideals, history of religion and philosophy, history of science and art, history of
community and morality, is the history of a man’s inner growth.” He also calls it
“the human history of the world,” unlike “the history of fighting and wars,
domination, heroic victories and monuments built for kings and great chiefs, etc.”
1955. It is interesting that Indians include some forms of psychical life— mind,
intellect and the feeling of Myself-—in the eight members of the lower nature of
man (“pracrits”). The five remaining elements are: earth, water, fire, air and
ether. Therefore, the idea that intellect belongs to the lower nature of man, to his
biology and not to his human side, is very old and is found in a distant and
completely different civilization.
1956. Here are two completely different positions. “The material world is real to
the extent to which it contains ideas” (Plato) and “The thought cannot be
separated from the thinking matter” (Marx).
1967. “The greatest yogi is the one whose vision is always the same: when the
pleasure of others is his own pleasure and when the suffering of others is his own
suffering” (Bhagavad-Gita, VI, 32). My comment: We find the same morality
starting from Indian Vedas to Kant’s categorical imperative.
1970. (Morality and religion beyond history). Romans found with Druids and
Gauls, whom they considered barbarian, a fully developed doctrine on reincar-
nation, that is, on immortality, and high moral standards. The Gauls gave a
condemned prisoner five years of life so he could prepare himself for the future
life through meditation.
1981. It is believed that acupuncture is almost 5,000 years old. It is a mixture of

science, philosophy and mysticism. In recent times, it has been almost entirely
accepted in the West.
1984. Man’s dual position in the world is a permanent theme. An old Chinese
ideogram shows three elements: Earth—Man—Sky. Man is torn apart by the
earthly and cosmic forces, of which he is a part.
1985. Objective versus subjective: what flutters, the flag or the wind? Or,
perhaps, is it just a fluttering in our spirit? Does the scent of a rose exist in-
dependently from the person who smells it? Does the Ode to Joy exist regardless
of the ear listening to it? Either: There are two people listening to it; one of them
does not hear it, since it does not echo in his soul. Does the music exist in this
latter case and, if it does, what is it? Or: an exhibition of paintings. A visitor
comes to the exhibition out of his own snobbish motives, he just strolls by the
paintings disinterested (or falsely interested), while another is fascinated and
cannot take his eyes off the paintings. Do these paintings exist for both of them
in the same way?
1987. Two attitudes toward nature: the Western one—mastering nature, and the
Eastern one—fitting into nature. The first obviously originates from the Bible. In
the Book of Genesis it says: “Reproduce and multiply, settle on the earth and
subdue it to yourselves! Master the fish in the sea and the birds in the air, and all
living creatures that inhabit the earth.” The Buddhist Metta Sutte sends a

completely opposite message: “Like a mother who protects her son against
misfortunes with her own life, so your thoughts should be embracing all that
lives.” Eastern painting does not know about natura morte (still life). It shows a
flower or an animal as living, inseparable from the environment of which it makes
a part. When a man from the West climbs up a mountain peak, he “conquers” it.
He fights with the cruel mountain and defeats it, following the order from the Old
Testament. A Japanese man or a Chinese man believes that the mountain we
climb to the peak becomes our friend, and so on.
1990. The paintbrush cannot make two identical moves. In painting there is no
repetition, every move is new.
1991. In Western painting there is something that the West owes to Christianity
that could be called “obsession by portrait.” The endeavor rose to the highest
secret of the world—the human face. In Renaissance painting, the landscape
(nature) is just the background on which man and his face dominate in their
absolute greatness. In Eastern painting, in particular in that of the Far East, it is
the other way around: on the landscape, here and there, there is a hint of a
human figure, usually hardly discernable. That is not a portrait, but merely a sign
that in nature there is man who lives there, not as its master or the culmination
of God’s creation, but as an integral part.
2002. “A guru is he who at every moment resides in the greatest depths of

himself” (Ramana Maharashi). Generally, the West and India are two opposite
poles or two different examples of human aspirations. While the Westerner has
turned toward the external world, the Indian has turned toward the inner world
and discovered an endless world in his own depths (in Himself). All it takes is to
get an insight into the science of Yoga and one will gain a bit of that unique
experience.
2005. The Jewish Kibbutz, a perfect community the socialist authors of the
nineteenth century dreamed about, perfectly suits the Jewish spirit and it is no
surprise that it was there that it came about. It is no coincidence. “The Kibbutz is
the most original Jewish creation in the past hundred years,” says the Jewish
writer Amos Oz.
2008. Austria is an example of order, well-being and legal security. However, its
most important drama writers, Wolfgang Bauer and Thomas Bernhard, are
witnesses of another Austria. They bring in the focus of their interest the phe-
nomenon of the so-called accidie—laziness of the heart, lethargy of the soul,
emptiness and senselessness of human existence. The characters of their plays
(Magic Afternoon, Change, Gespenter and others) are trying to fill this emptiness
with sex, drugs and other nonsense, yet fully aware of all of that being absolutely
useless and to no avail. Futility and aimlessness of living lead their characters to
eruptions of brutal violence. Martin Esslin (the author of the epilogue to Bauer’s
plays written between 1975 and 1986) wrote that the characteristics of the
spiritual condition of the entire Western population found their clear literary
expression with the Austrian writers (a phenomenon that first had occurred in
Scandinavia by the end of the last century—Ibsen and others).
2022. Cleaning and cleanness in Islam obviously do not belong to its religious,
but rather its secular aspect of civilization. Absolute hygiene prevails in utopia.
“Civilization is sterilization”—one of the hypnopedic formulae that make part of
the “processing” of human individuals in the Brave New World. Culture does not

have to be dirty, but it is not necessarily clean either. It is possible to imagine

culture in the dirt, as was often the case (Middle Ages, “sacred dirt” of some
monastic orders, dirty reservation in the Brave New World as an island of culture
in contrast to the civilization of the artificial world of Huxley’s utopia). It is similar
with soberness. The attempts to impose prohibition in some modern countries
were requirements of civilization. Cultures get drunk.
2030. Culture deals with eternal topics. They are genuine: love, birth, marriage,
motherhood, victim, death. There is a clear contrast between the principles of
male and female. In culture, man is man and woman is woman. On the contrary,
civilization declares obliteration of the difference, which, from the point of view of
culture, is the worst sin and in total contrast with the original image of the
expulsion from Paradise.
2036. One of the hypnopedic formulae forced into the minds of Huxley’s twins by
endless repetition while they sleep is on collective living, against detachment
(loneliness).
2042. “I am convinced that one day we will create living robots, but not during
my lifetime,” said Isaac Asimov, scientist and writer. Are they going to construct
life or its imitation? If it were life, which I do not believe at all, all books of
religion, philosophy and ethics and all works of art should be burnt, as a pile of
nonsense.
2059. To the question on which philosophy one should choose, Alain Bosquet
answered: “The inner peace full of passion.”
2060. Philosophy as “geometry of the spiritual.” This slogan made in Branislav

Petronijevic’s Principles of Metaphysics tells the reader that the way to his system
leads through mathematics, more precisely through geometry.
2066. “The wish to change the world has become predominant over the wish to
understand it” (Margaret Jursenar). Could we say: human culture is an aspiration
to understand the world, civilization is a tendency to change it? It was not a
coincidence that it was Marx who drew the ultimate conclusion: “So far the
philosophers have been interpreting the world, but it needs to be changed.” With
this sentence, Marxism defined its attitude towards culture and civilization and
made its choice, recognizing itself as a consequent conclusion of civilization.
2068. As a matter of fact, Dostoyevsky novels are dramas. One of them is “a

drama of the human mind.” The human mind strains to get to know the absolute,
that is, the truth about existence, and is defeated.
After having read Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, Dostoevsky transferred his
antinomies to the moral-religious level, transforming the dispute that makes the
very core of Kant’s Critique into a dramatic conflict between the heart and
intellect. In his The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoyevsky ridicules the pretensions of
intellect, which considers its knowledge as absolute. That is the substance of Ivan
Karamazov’s nightmare, who does not and cannot believe in anything else but the
mind, while the nature of the conflict is such that it cannot be resolved by means
of the mind itself (without the participation of the heart).
2074. For the murder of Fyodor Karamazov, the human court convicted Dimitri,
while “God’s court” found Ivan Karamazov guilty. The reader knows that none of
them is the murderer. This is about two kinds of justice.

2080. In totalitarian systems love and intimate lyrics are undesirable (forbidden)
themes. Why? The only possible explanation is that these feelings belong to man
as an individual rather than as a member of a society. A man loves his woman
only as an individual. Utopian societies do not know about such feelings and do
not tolerate them.
2092. Strictly looking, the artist has neither a predecessor nor a successor. If
there is any learning, it is about technique, not about art. Where the craft stops,
art begins, and there is no more learning. Having crossed that border, the artist
continues on his own.
2097. Philosophy in the works of Dostoyevsky is not science but religion. Duplicity
and nightmares in Ivan Karamazov’s personality are not due to psychological but
moral problems; therefore, they are not about psychological, but rather ethical,
that is, religious-moral issues.
2097a. There is another paradox about Kant’s antinomies. The thesis: the world
is finite, man is immortal (infinite); antithesis: the world is infinite—man is finite.
As if the finiteness of the world were a condition for human infinity (immortality).
2102. If we read an explanation or critic’s review of a painting, we will notice a

strange paradox: a complicated and highly intellectual explanation in contrast
with the simple or even naïve character of the painting. That is why it is good to
see the painting and interpret it by oneself, because highly sophisticated ex-
planations are of little use. A painting cannot be told. The only way to understand
a painting—if we are ever to understand it—is to see it.
2102a. Through a constant and prolonged tendency to reject the unnecessary,

through our aspiration to reach the very essence, the line, the form that is nec-
essary, without which the painting is not what it is, we came to the point where
all that remained of a painting was the white canvas. This aspiration for the “pure
painting” ends up with the denial of the work. At the end, the work disappeared,
only aspiration remained. There was no event, only experience. There was no
line, no colour, and no hand movement, just movement in the artist’s soul. The
painting ended up as an aspiration.
2112. Culture knows nothing but questions. The number of questions increases
until their sum becomes condensed into the great enigma of human life and
history. At the same time, the number of answers decreases. More and more
questions, fewer and fewer answers—that is the “progress” of human culture.
2119. There is a parallel between metaphysics and mathematics. With regard to

the method, metaphysics remains physics, and in it lies both their strength and
their weakness. The motto of the first part of Branislav Petronijevic’s The
Principles of Metaphysics (published in Heidelberg in 1904) reads: “Exact math-
ematical notions are a key to the solution of the world’s enigma.” These meta
physics can be theology as well—these two sciences are related—but they will
never be able to give any final answers to the so called “ultimate questions.”
2120. Hobbes and Rousseau stand at two opposite poles regarding their views on
human nature: man is evil by his nature (Hobbes) and man is good by his nature
(Rousseau).
2137. Hitler is obvious proof of how the instruments of civilization: scientific

achievements, discipline, planning, organization and so on, can be efficiently used

against all that is culture.
2138. Orwell believes that Huxley’s book Brave New World is a parody of H.G.
Wells’ utopia. It is an attack against the hedonist and rationalist vision that Wells
developed in his works.
2157. Orwell noticed a lack of artistic talents with the English, with the exception
of literature, as well as disinclination to a systematic philosophy.
2160. The opposite of architecture is tecture—”dwelling machine.”
2169. Newton discovered that gravity is the main law (or force) ruling the
material universe. Which is the main law that governs the moral universe? I
believe that it is the law of freedom. Freedom is in the moral world what gravity
is in the material one.
2177. Is it possible to discuss scientific ethics without religion? The French

Scientific Ethics Committee has recently launched a dramatic appeal to biological
science to stop irresponsible experiments with the human embryo, because its
research work “has come to a crossroads from where it might go astray and
jeopardize the entire human genetic heritage, including the very future, of human
kind.” Can science be subject to the judgment of ethics, whose scientific character
it does not recognize? On the other hand, ethics based on scientific principles
would not ban such experiments, and the circle is closed. A scientist without
religion assumes inevitably the role of Mefisto.
2198a. The focus of Christian morality is on love, while the focus of Islamic
morality is on doing good. The Gospel says: “Love others.” The Qur’an says:
“Do good things for others.” The former is a feeling, the latter is an act. The
Qur’an mentions doing good things as often as the Gospel speaks about love.
2214. Both Christianity and Islam know and recognize the duality of the world.
But, if Christianity is all extremely sharp cognition of the contradiction of the
world, Islam is a teaching on its resolving.
2229. What was the barbarian morality like as described in the poetry of non-
civilized peoples? Homer’s characters, as well as those of pre-Islamic poetry, are
kind to their friends and cruel to their enemies, generous in peace, ruthless in
war, hospitable to a traveler, open-handed to the poor and orphans, obedient to
their parents and the elderly, yet rebellious and untamable. These are characters
we encounter in the poems and tales of the ancient non-civilized peoples all over
the world.
2230. Arabian pre-Islamic people, prone equally to sacrifice and the joys of life,
as their pre-Islamic poetry shows, were predestined for Islam in that sense as
well.
2231. The spiritual awakening of Latin America, obvious by the appearance of a

series of great names in literature, should be a signal of this continent coming
into the social and political scene. South America could represent a good example
to examine the connection between spirit and power.

2251. The relation between soul and body. A group of the Japanese suffering
from cancer will try to conquer Mont Blanc. Jiro Itam, a Japanese doctor from
Osaka, who intends to prove with this experiment that cancer can be defeated by
the will to live and by setting new goals, leads the group. The same group
climbed Tudji, the highest mountain peak in Japan, in 1985. The group, The
Association to Cure Cancer with Life Goals, was founded in 1984 (Borba, Bel-
grade, January 5, 1987).
2261a. In his novel The Name of the Rose, Eco made an interesting point:
Christ never smiled. In any testimony of him or any of the later countless artistic
interpretations of his countenance, we do not see Christ smiling.
2278. Nature is one large pharmacy.
2279. One fact has been often noticed, but insufficiently examined and explained:
In the Islamic culture there is a certain aestheticism of daily life based on
sensuality. Through that sensuality the aesthetics acquire a truthfulness and a
specific realism, different from Western. There is no doubt that this kind of sense
of beauty has to do with the teachings of Islam, and in particular with the fact
that sensuality is not rejected in Islam.
2296. Nihilism is not deprived of spirituality. In Beckett’ s novel The Unnamable,

there is neither world nor man anymore, just man’s soul, inexplicable and
inexhaustible. Everything else is nothingness.
2302. Arabia between the fifth and seventh century, with its severe living
conditions and its desert, was predetermined for “the science of the skies and
earth.” The study of the poetry of pre-Islamic “non-believers” can confirm this.
What prevailed there was a spiritual climate very close to Islam, which would find
its ideological reasons and fulfillment in Islam. The pre-Islamic poetry of the
Bedouins clearly pictures the ethics of a healthy people. It describes the strength,
virility, generosity, protection of the weak, solidarity, struggle, courage, respect
for women, family morals, chivalry, honor and so on. Francesco Gabrielli, the
author of many important books on Arabic literature, wrote about pre-Islamic
Bedouin ethics as “having two faces: chivalrous and cruel.”As a rule, Bedouin
poets were also warriors. In the Arabian Bedouin, nature had built a type of man
who, for his physical and spiritual traits, was predestined for or very receptive of
the new science. In Qur’anic teachings he could discover all the reasons and
explanations for what he already was. Therefore, all that happened immediately
upon the appearance of Islam, the unparalleled military, political and spiritual
expansion, proves that Islam was accepted and carried on by an exceptionally
healthy people and that the new teaching found its “image” in that already
existing type of man. If we seek to recognize the man who emerges, now
vaguely, now quite clearly, from the verses of the Arabian preIslamic poetry, the
man celebrated and put on a pedestal by that poetry, we will find out that it was
always a type of man very similar to the one from the Qur’an. It is neither a
thoughtful Hindu mystic, nor a skinny Christian ascetic, nor a cruel Roman
soldier. It is a brave knight, “gentle to the righteous, ruthless to the tyrants”
(Qur’an, 48/29).
2309. The famous painter Renato Gutuzo (died January 1987), known as a
militant and engaged leftist intellectual and member of the Communist Party, re-
embraced Christianity before he died. The press called his conversion shocking.
Considering all we know about art and painting, the question is whether a

religious conversion of an artist comes as a shock or if the famous painter simply

managed to reach his home, after being lost.
2325. Asceticism is Christian by its nature even when practiced by a Muslim. That
is the case of the Divan written by the famous ascetic poet and devout Muslim,
Abu-l-Atahi. In his poems, Christians recognize their kind of piety and their
perception of man and his destiny on the earth.
2337. Even in the spiritual segment of life there are many contradictions and
contrasts. For instance: On the one hand there is folk wisdom, on the other— the
arrogant and unintelligible scholasticism, that is—crudeness of a beginning and
the decadency of a culture. The world of love, hate and revenge, the entire living
reality of life, versus sophistication and elegance. Heroic greatness versus the
anemic and pale compassion, a multitude of very real, alive, almost caricature
characters from everyday life and pale, anemic faces with noble and regular
features. The medley of sumptuous, somewhat disheveled forms, firmly
embedded and fixed to the earth, in contrast to the classical forms, cold and
inaccessible. Included are poems from market places and fairs, and court poems,
having no connection with the real life, and so on.
2344. If art were a reflection of socioeconomic or historical circumstances, as it is

advocated by Marxists, the question of how it is that Greek poetry is still equally
exciting for us as it was for the populace of Ancient Athens, though social and
living conditions have changed completely would remain without answer. Yes, the
conditions have changed, yet man has remained the same; art belongs to man,
not to history.
2375. Whether an act (action) is instinctive or intelligent depends on whether the

subject is at all aware of what he is doing. Direct action, taken without any
interference of the prospective aim, is instinctive. The result of an instinctive
action can be better than the result of a conscious action (and is often the case),
but only the action preceded by the idea (or picture) of the aim is intelligent.
Based on this criterion, can some actions taken by animals be characterized as
intelligent? A number of sociologists, ornithologists and anthropologists assert
that most animals do think. Donald Griffin, a zoologist and lecturer at Rockefeller
University in New York, collected a great deal of evidence in favor of this thesis
and published it in his book La Pensée Animale. Christopher Beosch (an expert in
primatology), who spent several years with a group of chimpanzees in the Ivory
Coast, summed up his research with the conclusion that chimpanzees have the
intelligence of a nine-year-old child. The animals he observed used selectively
different sizes of rocks to break nuts of different size and hardness, and passed
their knowledge on to the next generation.
2377. Asin Palacios compiled a selection of writings of Abou Hamid elGhazali, one
of the greatest Islamic theologians of the classic age, named “the Witness of
Islam.” Some modern interpreters of Ghazali point at some kind of Christian
spirituality—in my view, with good reason—in Ghazali’ s work (e.g., Gabrielli,
History of Arabic Literature, p. 225.) When all that is new and specific, that is, its
interest in this world, is removed from Islam, when its core, its foundation is
reached, what is found there is nothing else but “Isa’s (Jesus’) faith.” That is “the
common word” mentioned in the Qur’an (3/64). Naturally, there is no congruence
in dogmatic issues. It is only about the spirit of the teaching. Fanatics burned
Ghazali’ s book Ihya in a square in Toledo, because in their view it was not
Islamic enough. In Gabrielli’s opinion, Ghazali’s works were spiritually nurturing

for Muslims in the coming seven centuries. In my opinion, that nurturing turned
the Muslim world away from the real, daily, social issues, including science. It
turned the coming centuries into “the Middle Ages” of Islam.
2381. We can think whatever we like of humankind, but we will be closer to the
truth if we do not idealize it. Voltaire’s concepts on mankind are certainly more
realistic than Rousseau’s. However, it is also true that it is a race that admires
most what itself is not, but what it should be. I cannot have a bad opinion of
creatures whose greatest idols were losers. The hero is from a poor family, brave
and noble, his love is idealistic, he often fights hopelessly and dies in an unequal
fight for a just cause—this is a simplified scheme of a thousand stories, poems
and epics that were made and passed on through generations by people living at
all meridians and in all times and that thrilled and excited them most. This is one
of the typical characteristics of humankind and that fact contains a partial answer
to the question about the human being—who and what is that being that we call,
with disdain or pride, man.
2407. Chinese acupuncture was described by somebody as “a prick into the heart
of Western man’s logics.” -
2418. Benedetto Croce wrote about the “universal cosmic” nature of aesthetic
intuition.
2448. What is the purpose of education: a completely developed human per-

sonality or a highly professional specialized industrial working animal?
2450. (Chart of the Opposites): “Love for all that lives” had to find the opposite
principle—class hatred.
2464. The ancient Greek polis was a community characterized by a common cult
rather than common territory. It was spiritually determined from its beginning.
2481. The idea of law, as well as “the earthly kingdom” that should be regulated
by law, is alien to Christianity. The attempt to regulate the earthly kingdom, from
the point of view of Christianity, is not only a vain endeavor, but also one of the
malignancies that should be eradicated.
2482. Lactaritius (250—325), called the “Christian Cicero,” tried to interpret the
stoic natural law by means of the Ten Commandments.
2485. The Christian position on the State was most consistently exposed by St.
Augustine. According to him, “the worldly State” originated from sin, that is, from
the human act, word and desire that are contrary to the “eternal laws.” The
worldly State is a large association of sinners (magnum latrocinium). It was
founded on fratricide: the idea that Romulus repeated Cain’s crime.
2503. Chart of the opposites: “the oath of dirtiness” as opposed to “the sterilized
civilization” of Brave New World. The middle option is the Islamic ablution as
spiritualized cleanness.
2513. Law cannot be based exclusively on Christian doctrine, because law is too
narrow for Christian love. Christ refused to be a legislator and judge.
2514. Nature is not about what should be, but what is. “It is not that five plus
three should be eight, but they are eight by themselves” (Luther).

2531. Baumgarten defined science as “deriving the certain from the certain”
(“Scientia est certa deductio ex certis”). “Cartesian philosophy fully developed the
teaching of Francis Bacon (1561—1626) on the removal of all ‘idols,’ as deceits
that prevent our reason from reaching the truth by means of causal science” (Lj.
Tadic, Philosophy of Law, Zagreb 1983, p. 77).
2535. Hobbes asserts that the laws are not there because they are just and
reasonable, but because of the power of the authorities that impose them. This
smells very much of Lenin’s later definition of “law as the will of the ruling class.”
Hobbes requested that “the poison” of ancient philosophy be eliminated from high
schools. It bothered him.
2545. Pascal’s (Blaise Pascal, 1623—1662) request on bringing together force and
justice, in order for what is strong to be just, and what is just to be strong. As far
as history (reality) is concerned, the result is paradoxical: “Since it was not
possible for what was just to be strong, it happened that what was strong became
just” (B.P., Thoughts). My comment: As justice was not able to acquire force, the
force did not want to acquire justice. It simply proclaimed itself as justice.
2556. While absolute mechanical action prevails in nature, this clear causality
dissolves in the phenomenon of the living so that it seems that the organism
carries the reason of its survival in itself and that it is its own cause and con-
sequence at the same time. In life, there is no clear cause-consequence relation,
which is present in inorganic nature; nor a clear order, since cause and conse-
quence intermingle, overlap.
2558. Hegel considers that the freedom of personality began developing with
Christianity, because for him “the individual as such has infinite value” (Ency-
clopedia of the Philosophical Sciences). According to Hegel, the principal legal
imperative reads: “Be a personality and respect others like personalities” (An
Outline of the Philosophy of Law).
2561. For Hegel, “punishment is a human right of the criminal” (Hegel, An Outline
of the Philosophy of Law). For, punishment (as revenge) is a consequence of
freedom; by the punishment, the punished criminal becomes man and affirms
himself as man.
2579. According to Kant, morality of the “categorical imperative” is autonomous,

a priori morality. It is valid for itself, is not derived from any other postulate or
experience. On the contrary, other moral attitudes are derived from it.
2580. In regards to law, two things are clear: (1) law ceases to exist when
reduced to mere force and (2) law ceases to exist when reduced to the idea of
abstract justice. There is no law without the fact of force and the idea of justice,
but these two extremes (poles) do not contain any law, all that remains are its
premises. The experience of the German legal theorist Radbruch, who advocated
his legal positivism and relativism only until World War II, is interesting (and
educative). Before any experiences with the Nazis, Radbruch wrote: “Those who
are capable of enforcing law prove that they are competent to impose it”; Hans
Kelsen, who shared his views and was the most famous advocate of the positivist
theory, says: “It is nonsense to state that in despotism there is no legal order to
deny it its legal character is nothing but naïveté of natural-law. . . . What is
interpreted as autocracy is just a legal option (possibility) for an autocrat to make
decisions by his own will. . . and to cancel or amend his norms, general and

specific ones, at any time he likes” (H.K., Allgemeine Staatslehre, p. 335— 336).
After having experienced Nazi legislation and practice, Radbruch changed his
mind radically and, in total contradiction to positivism, wrote the following lines:
“There are principles that are stronger than any legal regulation, so that the
legislation which contradicts them has no validity. These principles belong to
natural law. Exacted compliance (coercion) may be founded on force, but
propriety and validity certainly cannot” (Radbruch, Philosophy of Law).
2582. The ideal side of law, the idea of justice, resists definition. I suppose that
Schreier had this in mind when he said that the definition of law is “metajuristic in
the right meaning of the word.”
2586. Heidegger also talked about “man being thrown into reality,” that is, the
fact that “being thrown” is man’s way of existing (Sein und Zeit, p. 88). Man is
thrown “in-der Welt-sein”(into being in the world).
2587. How come that both—Darwin and Michelangelo (i.e., science and religion)—
”are right,” though their statements on man’s origin are as divergent as they can
be? This is possible because Darwin and Michelangelo speak of different things.
Strictly looking, neither Darwin nor Michelangelo talks about man. Michelangelo
talks about human spirit (he “paints” the human spirit), while Darwin speaks
about the “bearer” of that spirit. We could say that it is a story about two
different aspects of a human being. Man is the third, the contradictory synthesis.
That contradictory “creation” is beyond our comprehension. Only God could
create something like that. All subsequent history is just a projection of the two
aspects of human existence, two giant shadows projected through time like
culture and civilization: All culture is Michelangelian, while all civilization is
Darwinian. The contradiction continues without ending or hope in sight that it will
ever be fully settled or resolved.
2690. Dualism is a necessary way of our perceiving the world. Existentialistic

philosophy, though it teaches that “self-being and its world” (Heidegger) or
“Myself and other-than-myself” (Jaspers) are indivisible, still talks about cate-
gories of duality, that is, of “the subjective being in the objective reality.” The
categories are the same, only the perception of their mutual relationship is dif-
ferent. Is it possible to think about man beyond these categories at all?
2690a. Somebody noticed that the whole of Heidegger’ s ontology “threatens to

turn into the mysticism of being.” As we know, something similar did eventually
happen.
2693. The idea of a higher instance in law will reappear over and over again:
either like the idea of natural law or a moral imperative that is above any law, or
like the contrast between legality and legitimacy (what is legal is not necessarily
legitimate.) After World War II important efforts were made to renew natural law.
Some believe that it happened under the influence of Scheler’ s and Hartman’s
teachings on values, that is, under the influence of ethical teachings.
I personally believe that this change was primarily due to the horrible experiences
Europe went through under Nazism and Stalinism. After all the crimes, committed
in the name of the courts and laws, how could anyone state any longer that every
factual authority (the authority that has power to enact and enforce laws) was at
the same time a legal authority? It was also perfectly “lawful” that Nazi and
Soviet legal theorists finally got to an almost identical negation of the law (that is

always a positivist denial). In the Nazi legal doctrine we encounter the slogan:
“The law is what is of use for a nation,” which corresponds to Lenin’s maxim on
law as “the policy that is useful for the victory of the working class.” As we know,
both doctrines were put into practice as unprecedented autocracy of the
authorities (ruling cliques) at the expense of both—the nation and the working
class.
2706. Inhuman nature of all utopias—from Plato’s to Marx’s.
2712. The world of morality—that is, the “world-of-what-should-be,” unlike “the

world of being.”
2714. I would mention here Maihofer’s teaching on “the nature of things,” whose
first thesis is about the “non-legal source of law.” The positivists eliminated this
second condition of law and reduced it to legislation, that is, to fact, to force, that
is, to non-law. All pretentious reasoning -on law has not been able to annul this a
priori idea of law and it always reappeared as the new-old idea.
2715. Sartre repeated Kant’s categorical imperative more than 100 years later.
“We cannot choose the evil, we always choose the good, and only what is good
for everybody can be good for me” (Sartre in his L ‘existentialisme est un hu-
manisme). I.F. Bolnow, called this quoted thought of Sartre’ s “the existentialist
repetition of the categorical imperative.” Morality has no history. There is only
“eternal recurrence.”
2716. Does the law rely upon the reason or the will? Every genuine theory of law
includes, to a lesser or greater extent, reason as its essence. An opposite
statement would be a shortcut to the negation of law, both in terms of theory and
practice, that is, to the elimination of the difference that exists between
lawfulness and lawlessness and, in consequence, to the affirmation of violence in
theory and practice.
2718. Is art just reproducing this “real world,” or is it creating yet another
comparative world? This question expresses the essence of the split in the phi-
losophy of art.
2719. For Marx, law is “modern mythology,” whose contents are: justice,
freedom, equality, and so on that should cover up social reality, which is: law-
lessness, injustice, inequality, lack of freedom. In his essay on the Bourgeoisie
and the Counter-revolution, Marx wrote: “Our ground is not legal ground, it is
revolutionary.”
2723. The main issue in any philosophy of law is the issue of legal personality.
Hegel expressed this in his famous formula: “Be a personality and respect others
like personalities.” A legal subject possesses self-awareness and free will, which
are pre-requisites for the status of a legal subject. According to Hegel, the idea of
absolute value of the individual is “the basis of the law of subject introduced by
Christianity.”
2853. (Punishment and “defense sociale”) Following the theory of “defense

sociale,” Swedish criminal law cancelled the very concept of punishment. It was
replaced by the term “brottspafoljd,” which means “the consequence of the com-
mitted act.” This may be wrong, yet it is fully consistent.

2855. Not science or religion, but science and religion—that is Islam.
2863. In his Duino Elegies, Rilke speaks directly to the angels.
2902. The law cannot be destroyed. Socialist countries are trying to, but to no
avail. They tolerate it but keep pushing it to the margin.
2123. An analysis of medieval folk culture will lead us to an interesting

understanding on the mixing and intertwining of Christian religious ideas and the
rather worldly aspirations of the masses. This is well illustrated by the idea of the
sanctity that prevailed throughout the Christian medieval world. Aron Gurevic,
who studied specific phenomena of the Middle Ages, wrote: “The cult of the saints
in the Middle Ages developed to such an extent that it assumed features of pagan
idolatry and, though contrary to the concepts of the Church, was accepted by
it.... The relationship between the people and the saints was clear. For their
prayers and gifts, parishioners expected to receive immediately the full reward in
return, in the form of a miracle. The saint who could not make miracles did not
enjoy popularity and respect, and vice-versa, if the parishioners did not fulfill
their obligations, the saint turned into a merciless avenger. Local saints were
present in every town, village or province and were active among the people, so
that their mutual relationships were very close, much closer than the
relationships with the distant and inaccessible God” (A.G., in his book Problems of
Folk Culture in the Middle Ages). My comment: Popularity of the saints among the
people is due more to their belief that saints have some secret powers to help
and protect them, than to the respect for the sublime life of the saints.
2139. John Roberts (the author of a television program on European civilization)

proves that in the heart of European civilization there are two visions that had a
decisive influence upon its course and development. The first one is the idea that
man has the freedom to choose, to govern his life and his destiny. The other
vision is the idea of history—perceiving things in time. The former is based on the
“syndrome of bad conscience”—the feeling of imperfection that brings about the
need for perfection and the permanent aspiration to change things. The concept
of the value of man as an individual, as a personality, which is clearly Christian, is
connected to this idea. The latter is based on the idea of “the chosen people” and
its painful journey through the desert towards the “Promised Land.” This is a
picture of a people moving in order to change their condition, moving in a
direction, toward freedom, toward a purposeful life in which man stops being a
slave and becomes the master of his life and his destiny. “The Promised Land” is
the first utopia. The Promised Land is Civitas Solis—The Kingdom of the Sun
(Campanella). Every utopia is of Jewish origin.
And the Promised Land lies in its background, as its original image and original
idea. That is why Western civilization is a Jewish-Christian civilization.
2142. The trial stone of a society is its attitude to the adversaries (opponents), to
the sick, the needy and the elderly. In a utopia, where there is no humanism,
these categories of people are condemned to extinction. Maybe not explicitly, yet
implicitly. They do not exist there.
2147. Ten white canvases exposed by Clam as pieces of art can only mean
extreme proof, brought to absurdity, that art is still just an aspiration rather than
the very work. Unless this is the meaning of the ten canvasses, they either mean
nothing or represent a great fraud intended for snobs.

2151. In Christian morality, Nietszche sees “defamation of the world.” “Have you
understood me?—Dionysus against the Crucified” (Nietzsche, Ecce Homo).
2170. In the German language, the adjective gemein means simple, common and
general. It is not a mere coincidence.
2172. Trends in modern art (e.g., informal, conceptualism, abstraction, ex-

pressionism, surrealism, “new image,” “new geometry,” etc.) are not about the
essence of the art. They are about the way the artist tries, while creating his
work, to address some philosophical issues, primarily those of the meaning of the
language of art and of his own belief. The artist who belongs to a specific trend—
for some do not—believes that his personal efforts are subject to a broader,
universal context iii which the essential dilemmas of the time get reflected. That
is why the ideas, rather than the very art, are reflected in a trend.
2174a. It is wrong to say that religion does not change the world. It changes man
and, therefore, changes the world, sometimes very radically. The world inhabited
by people who respect the Ten Commandments, or at least know about them, is
essentially different from the world where there is no such concept. Changing the
man—that is the revolution brought about by religion.
2176. Somebody defined architectural work as “useful sculpture” (sculpture that

has its function).
2180. The difference between mechanism and organism is visible, besides others,
in the different relations between the form and the matter. In case of a
mechanism, the form is imposed by force (externally) on the matter to which it is
alien. In an organism, the form and the matter condition one another and make a
whole. Or: unlike the mechanism, where certain alienation of the form and matter
is visible, the organism manifests certain mutual penetration of the form and
matter, internal submission, natural unity.
2190. It has been proven that the so-called magnetic lines, or magnetic storms
caused by the activity of the sun, guide migratory birds. It sometimes happens
that they begin their migration earlier, because they “believe” that the fall has
come. How and why?
2191. Somebody called Jesus “the most challenging personality in human

history.” He certainly is.
2195. “We can deny it, but monsters and demons are creatures close to us, that
we can love or hate, fear or accept as our guardians. We are their parents and
their children. Since the beginning of the world until now, we could not do without
them”—Jovica Acm in his introduction to the topic Monsters and Devils.
2198. Poetic personification of the world: “Bewildered Lime Tree” in a poem by

Ana Akhmatova (Poet’s Death).
2200. Marx spoke about two empires: the empire of necessity and the empire of
freedom. The latter was supposed to be based on material abundance. What an
illusion! Such vision of the empire of freedom is given as a function of the
production and enjoying the results of production.

2213. New parts of a town, with their uniform buildings and monotony, represent
the so-called “urbanism of mere necessity.” Urban areas of a society are a picture
of its principal values and characteristics. The soul of a society, or its absence, is
reflected in the urbanism and architecture of a society, as in a faithful minor.
2214. Every artistic work is autobiographic in a way—it is a story of oneself.

When the Swedish director Ingmar Bergman directed the movie Fanny and
Alexander and, later on, Shakespeare’ s Hamlet, critics and spectators recognized
the story of Bergman’s childhood in the former, and of his youth in the latter. He
even had engaged a young anonymous actor, who looked very much like him, to
play the role of Hamlet.
2218. Even Marx noticed this specific characteristic of English development. From
his “class oriented” point of view, he saw England settling in the “middle class” in
the future. In one of his writings he concluded that England “is the most civil of
all civil countries, where the civil aristocracy and bourgeois proletariat are
formed.” These are essentially the same opposites and the same ways of
reconciliation, seen and expressed in the category of “classes.”
2222. Art is the name for disharmony between man and the world, in a double
sense: (1) it is man’s expression of anxiety, a protest against the world which is
not made to his measure, and (2) it is the artist’s attempt to create a parallel
world in accordance with his dream. Art is that new and different world, the
poet’s dream that came true.
2224. H. Miller says somewhere that he is firmly convinced that art will disappear
one day, while the artist will remain. The work will disappear, but the feeling will
remain.
2231. Why does the law, in spite of the efforts made by all governments to
destroy or at least to subdue it, still survive? Why does the bare “will of the ruling
class” never prevail? This is not about law, but about man. The feeling of what is
just and unjust is a component part of what we call human nature, and that
feeling is as genuine as religion or artistic aspiration. Only with the destruction of
man can law be destroyed. Utopia, as a metaphor of non-law, therefore, is
impossible.
3044. Plato speaks about causal relationship between music and the destiny of
the State: “The principles of music cannot be touched without shaking the highest
laws of the State. The lawlessness settles in silently and penetrates secretly the
character and the capability, getting stronger and spreading over to citizens’
lives, and from there it takes hold of the law and constitution with such
impudicity, oh Socrates, that at the end it overturns all private and public life,”
(The State, IV, 3—4). Several centuries later, Boetie stated, “disharmonious
music gives birth to the worst distortions of views.” Shakespeare (through
Lorenzo’s words) stated, “one who does not feel the harmony of gentle tones was
born to betray, cheat and steal.”
3049. Karl Popper was right saying that in the final analysis there are only two
forms of the State: the one where it is possible to dismiss the government by
vote and the other where it is not. This is what the principle criterion of
democracy is all about. It makes no sense to argue about words or names. If the
authorities are so constituted that their dismissal is both theoretically and

practically impossible, it is a dictatorship and tyranny. Even if it was not so in the

beginning, it will become so in time. The possibility of dismissal is more important
than the ruling party, the right, the left, workers, capitalists, and so on, which
often occupy us too much. Every government that can be replaced is very
motivated to act to the satisfaction of its people. And vice versa: even the best
government, if it cannot be dismissed, will be spoiled, because it is not motivated
to remain good. -
3050. The phenomenon of the closeness between art and religion becomes
almost obvious in the case of the recently deceased Italian painter Renato Gu-
tuzo. The exhibition of his works that took place in 1987 under the title “Feeling
of Spirituality” was seen by some people as a scandal (betrayal), because the
painter was known as an active communist, that is, an assumed atheist;
however, all 49 exhibited paintings, made between 1938 and 1985 (almost 40
years) pictured biblical themes. Gutuzo the man could be consciously an atheist,
but Gutuzo the artist could not. Some critics, offended by this “hypocrisy” of the
painter, requested that the real value of his works be re-examined; Renato Gu-
tuzo is celebrated as one of the greatest Italian painters of the century. Further
proof that critics know all about art, except for its essence.
3051. How is the balance of girl and boy babies maintained in humankind? The
answer: by a genetic code. So, everything is very simple and clear: there is the
code; nobody asks where or how the code was created.
3068. Most of the teachings, ideologies, theories and religions failed, because
they wanted the world to be something else, something that it is not. That wish
might have been—and often was—sublime and noble, yet it was in vain, and its
preachers were destined to defeat. This can be witnessed throughout history.
3075a. Milan Kundera about the Jews: “The only small nation that survived the
barbarism and destructive course of history.”
3082. In his The Wisdom of the Heart, which talked about the drama of Christ’s
life, H. Miller, came to a conclusion that “the hierarchical sequence of events runs
in adirection that is contrary to the course of history, counterclockwise” (p. 178).
3084. Balzac spoke all his life about a strange experience from his childhood
when, as he believed until his death, he had been visited by an angel at the
College de Vendôme. For Balzac, this event was his experience of the other world,
on which he, as a mature man, wrote in his book Serafita. Henry Miller said of
that book that he accepted it unconditionally as “a mystical work of the highest
order” (H.M., Heart Wisdom, p. 177). The same goes, undoubtedly, with his
autobiographic study Louis Lambert, where the famous French writer is described
as a devout believer of esoteric doctrine.
3089. “Everything strives for the harmony from which it originated,” says a wise
Buddhist saying. Everything is moving in the direction of overall entropy—
growing chaos, says science. Religion and science perceive the world in absolutely
different ways.
3092. For the poet, every big city in the world “smells up to the sky.”
3101. The “educated” church and its Jesuits reached, in some aspects, the
opposite poles, which is a negation of Christianity.. Reading Loyola’ s Jesuit

Principles, written more than five centuries ago, we discover sentences that
represent a kind of anti-Gospel. The most famous is certainly the one stating that
the endjustifies the means (for Jesus it would be exactly the opposite).
Furthermore: “In order to always stick to the truth, we should consider as black
what seems- white to us, if it is judged so by the church authorities.” Or: “In
order for the company to be properly governed, it seems very useful for the
father General to possess the full control over the company.” Stalinism and the
Inquisition applied similar logic and practice in the name of completely different
principles. It is characteristic that both insisted on admission of guilt, which
makes sense in case of the Inquisition but not in the case of the purge inspectors,
where one would rather expect to see the principle of objective responsibility.
Nikolai Salmanovich Rubashov, a character from the novel Eclipse at Noon by
Arthur Koestler, clearly explains this “contradictory similarity.” In one place,
Rubashov says: “For us, the question of subjective intention does not matter. One
who made the mistake, must pay for it. That is our law. History teaches us that it
is sometimes better served by lies than by truth. We have been compared with
the inquisition of saints, because we were, like the inquisitors, constantly aware
of the burden of our responsibility for the super-individual future.”
3112. The philosophy that underlies the so-called new or “pure architecture,”
defined by Le Corbusier, was materialistic. The famous Athens Charter (1943)
says, for instance, that “searching for the measure of man means determining
man’s needs. They are few; they are same for all people, because all people were
made by the same from the same mold.” What logically followed was the
definition that the home is a “dwelling machine,” which means: “bathroom,
sunshine, warm water, cold water, desired temperature, canned food, hygiene,
standard house, standard furniture.” For the sake of his vision of a healthy town
with sunshine, recreation, green plants and broad roads, Le Corbusier advocated
the demolishing of the old core of Paris, that had been constructed on different,
often opposite principles. However, after a period of enthusiasm that did not take
long, the first challenging voices were heard in the 60s and 70s, coming not only
from the inhabitants of the “new town,” but also from city planners and
architects. Sarsde, a suburb of Paris with 80,000 inhabitants, built according to
this recipe, became a synonym of all the negative aspects of the new “radiant
town”: now it became a “dormitory,” a “silo for people,” “termite hill,” “con-
centration camp’ ‘—terms that express discontent with the life in these geomet-
rical and standardized settlements.
3118. The discrepancy between the Old and the New Testament, that is, between
the Jewish and Christian spirit, is reflected almost literally in the opposition that
exists between principles of the Old Testament and the New Testament. Christian
recognition of the Old Testament was and had to be just verbal. From the point of
view of the spirit, the Old Testament was completely alien to the individualist
spirit of Christianity. The figure, the character, as a confirmation of the
individualist principle of the world, was bound to finally defeat the iconoclast
principle of early Christianity. Origene and Clement of Alexandria, as well as
many others, were its advocates and they kept on struggling for their principle for
long, against ever-stronger supporters of icons and pictures, in a struggle that
had been lost from the very beginning. As history shows, this struggle was not
only limited to bitter polemics. It turned into a real war and physical
extermination of the opponents. All the highly praised religious painting and
sculpture of the most glorious centuries of Christianity were in grave violation of
the first Biblical prohibition (“Do not make a figure of yourself, that would look
like anything in the sky, on the earth or in the waters beneath the earth.”) As far

as Islam is concerned, it is appropriate to consider that the ban remains in force,

as it was repeated in the Qur’an, but only with the purpose of rejecting idolatry. I
believe that beyond that function, this prohibition has no sense or meaning.
3129. Alexander Rotchenko exhibited his work Last Painting in 1921. It was
“black on black,” a disappearance, a denial of picture, that supposedly was to
mark “the end of painting.”
3130. The victory of the principle of the icon in the Christian world (with some
exceptions that only prove the rule) obviously had some deeper reasons. It would
be right to say that the victory was inevitable, that is, that it derived from the
very nature of Christianity. Nothing so clearly shows the different spirits of the
Old and the New Testament like this inevitable breakthrough made by the figure
and face into the culture of the Christian world. It was an indisputable triumph of
the figurative principle, in spite of the unambiguous proscription imposed by the
Old Testament. One must ask himself: was individualist Christianity able to
observe it, being what it really is?
3142. Critics and their reviews can be interesting, I myself read them with
pleasure sometimes, but I think that we have some misconceptions about their
function. Critical reviews have no influence upon the course and development of
literature (or art in general). Creation always precedes criticism. I do not believe
that a single writer ever changed anything in his style due to critics’ views.
Critiques do have an impact upon the writer’s reputation and sale of his books,
that is, upon his material status, but not his creative work. Naturally, provided
that he was a real writer.
3163. It is little (or insufficiently) known that the cult of Satan is very developed
in the civilized world. In 1956, the most important Satanist organization located
in the United States was established by the movie actor Anton LaVey (he played
the role of devil in the movie Rosemary’s Baby.) In San Francisco there is the
Church of Satan. LaVey is the author of the so-called Satanic Bible, whose main
message reads: “Blessed are the strong, because they shall rule the earth” (a
paraphrase and antithesis of the sentence from the Bible: “Blessed are the poor
in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven”). In their rituals that stir up animal
instincts, they recite Baudelaire, take part in orgies and celebrate Satan as the
master of “eternal evil.”
3195. The contemporary English painter Francis Bacon, a representative of the

“renewed expressionism,” on painting: “It is something mysterious, it is an
occurrence... . Look at Rembrandt, his self-portraits. What could be said about
the style they are painted in? Nothing, almost nothing. You look at them, and
that’s it.” Furthermore: “I never liked modern expressionism, as a matter of fact I
like Egyptian art the most. That is the greatest art in the history of humankind”
(Vjesnik, Zagreb, December 5, 1987). Nietzsche found “unreachable models” in
ancient Greece. Bacon, as we can see, traced the climax of art back to a more
distant past, to the very beginning of history or even to the verge of prehistory.
3198. Rationalized Chaos—another name for the alienated world of civilization

(author: Filip David, Yugoslav writer).
3210. What are tragedy and pathos doing in the Darwinian-Euclidean world? Who
are the big losers and why do we admire losers, if this is the only and the last life
we have? What is the origin of our admiration for fallen heroes that has been

following us since the prehistorical epics of the Iliad and Gilgamesh? Even the
low-budget Western movies—do they not take advantage of our innate sympathy
for the victim (i.e., loser), and against material interests? Sympathy for the
victim does not reside in the mind, but only in the soul, that is, in the principle
that does not belong to “this world.” I say sympathy, not understanding, because
it is not and it cannot be understanding. There is no way to understand, or to
explain in rational terms, the sacrifice made by a hero for a just or right cause. All
our reasoning and wisdom could not explain nor justify a single case of sacrifice
made by a hero for the sake of justice and truth. Something that is so close and
understandable to the soul of every man cannot be explained by any science or
philosophy. Between the act that is justified and the justification of it, there is no
interpolation or mediation of reasoning, no weighing of reasons for and against
and, we could even say, no time. That is just an immediate reaction of the soul to
the good and just, to something it identifies itself with. In the world that atheists
call the only one, the tragic and tragedy are not possible. In such a world there
are only incidents and accidents.
3211. De Chirico’s classical period painting is also called “pittura metafisica.”
3238. Marx wrote (most likely when he was young): “since the root of man is
man himself.” How can this idealist sentence be put in accordance with the theory
of reflection and full dependence of spiritual facts of life on material facts? The
only possible answer is that Marx is not in agreement with himself, or that the
“mature” Marx discredited the young one and renounced him.
3250. “They want to get out of themselves and not to be men” (Montaigne).
Who? Well, both. Christians would turn men into angels; materialists state that
we are animals and that we will remain animals. What about man? Man is
superior not only to animals, but to angels as well (Qur’an, 2/34).
3283. Remaining faithful to its “theory of reflection” and applying it to the

problems of logic, the so-called materialist philosophy defines the notion as “a
semantic reflection of essential (necessary) properties of material things.” So, for
instance, the notion “houses” is a reflection of all essential (common) properties
of all houses. For the spirit (according to the philosophy that supports this theory)
must always come after the material reality, it must be in a passive, dependent
relation to it. However, this theory became stuck at the first step. We have
notions on different psychological phenomena and feelings that are not material
objects, such as joy, anger, shame. We also have very clear ideas on various
abstract concepts (point, fraction, square, unreal numbers) or some fictitious
concepts (fairy, witch, Paradise). These “objects” are neither material nor
psychological. They could not be “reflected.” How do we get notions of them?
3308. Poet Miodrag Paviovic wrote a book titled The Poetic Nature of the Ritual of
Sacrifice, in which he tries to get an insight into the very essence of the sacrificial
offering. In his opinion, by understanding the ritual we get closer to
understanding the symbolic forms of human existence and works of art. NOLIT
named the book as the best book published in 1987.
3309. “We proved through genetics that all men are different. The environment,
though they have an identical genetic code, shapes even identical twins, real
twins, differently. Therefore, they are also different beings” (Jean Dausset, French
Nobel Prize winner, in his interview with Start, February 6, 1988). My comment:
Obviously, God likes diversity.

3360. By definition, socialism is characterized by “technological optimism,” that

is, the belief that technique and technology will make people happy.
3374. (Purge and punishment): “Purge” is the attitude toward a thing, pun-
ishment toward a man. In order to be exposed to a purge, man first has to cease
being man and to become a thing or animal. In that sense, Darwinism was a
precondition for Stalinism. A purge could be developed deliberately and syste-
matically only in a world where there is no God, therefore no man either.
3448. There are phenomena that cannot be rationally grasped or fully under-
stood. The game is one of them. It obviously has some cosmological component
or presentiment. The philosopher of game, the German Eugene Fink, noticed,
“the human game is just an instant of the game of the cosmos.” Fink further
elaborates on this thought by stating, “the game is not an anthropological phe-
nomenon, as it is usually thought of, but much more than that—the way in which
infinity exists.”
3455. The anarchists elaborated the doctrine on crime as conditional on the social
situation to the furthest conclusions. Petar Krapotkin stated that in a socialist
society there would be no criminals of any kind, since crime is due exclusively to
private property—based relationships and an authoritative government. Based on
this doctrine, Bakunjin and Krapotkin requested that all prisons be closed down.
Krapotkin especially advocated the view on the inefficiency of prison punishment.
In his article “Prison and Its Effects upon Prisoners,” Krapotkin advocated the
thesis that “who has been once in prison, will certainly come back as repeater,
but on much more serious charges.” We might share his view on the inefficiency
of prison punishment, but no better solution has been found yet.
3460. The greatest Greek tragedy writers lived in the fifth century B.C. Aeschylus,
525—456, Sophocles 485-406 and Euripides 485—406. This incites us to think
about the relationship between history and art. Unlike science, art does not
evolve.
3465. Some American corporations now (in 1988) employ only 10—12 percent
“ordinary” workers. The rest are computer experts, specialized experts, scientists,
researchers, designers, and so on.
3470. The Arab scientist Al Birouni taught, five centuries before Copernicus, that
the Earth revolved around its axis and around the sun. He was neither proclaimed
heretic because of his statements, nor was his teaching considered contrary to
religion. That was not due to a more liberal attitude of the society. Copernicus’s
heliocentric system was in collision with the Christian feeling of the world. It was
not about the Earth and its position, but about man and his position in the
universe. Copernicus placed man, together with the Earth, at some peripheral
circle. Neither the Earth nor man represented the center of the universe any
longer. This could considerably upset Christianity, but not Islam, which was not
encumbered with any lofty idea of man. However, a teaching that was ready to
identify man with God (“man-God”) must have seen Copernicus’s theory as
unforgivable heresy and attack against one of its favorable concepts. This
explains the different reactions toward and the different destinies of Copernicus
and Al Birouni.

3477. Art is knowledge of the particular, the philosophy and science of the
general.
3494. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in his diary, on July 30, 1835: “You assert. . .
that Jesus was a perfect man. I bow before him with true respect.... But, if you
told me that he fulfilled all the conditions of human existence, that he developed
all the human possibilities to the maximum, I would withdraw my consent. I do
not see joy in him, I do not find love for the natural sciences in him, I do not see
any inclination towards art in him, nothing that would remind me of Socrates, La
Place or Shakespeare. A perfect man should remind us of these great people.” My
comment: this is a minor misunderstanding. Jesus was supposed to be a victim, a
martyr, the greatest symbol of that sort. And that he was.
3502. Wolves live in herds because it makes them stronger. But if one wolf gets
hurt or starts limping, the others will devour him without hesitation. This is
obvious proof that the herd is based on interest and instincts. It has nothing to do
with solidarity, comradeship or mutual help. Nature does not know of such things.
3510. Exaggerated Christian idealism leads to hypocrisy. As people cannot meet

its extremely elevated requirements, they begin to pretend. So, instead of a real
sacrifice, we have its imitation. This is a simple fact of life, something that derives
inevitably from the unchangeable relation among human forces:
body, mind and soul. Yet the Christian requirement, though it has not been fully
met, helped the world and man to become better. Without the experience of
Christianity, mankind would be less human and it is hard even to imagine how
much poorer, spiritually and morally, it would be in all respects.
3528. A famous psychiatrist, who examined the relation between art and psy-
chiatry, or more precisely, the creations of insane artists, noticed that Van Gogh,
the painter of unbalanced mind, painted the lightest -landscapes. What is the
explanation for this and similar phenomena related to artistic creation? This is one
of the answers: “There is only one art. It does not ask if it is created by a mature
man or a child, if it derives from the spirit of a man of white, red or black race. It
does not mind whether the artist comes from the Paris boulevard, Nubian Desert
or Eskimo ice, nor whether it is made by a mentally sound or insane artist.. . the
strength of the artistic genius is such a force in the human spirit, that it cannot be
broken even by mental insanity” (Marko Peic, a psychiatrist who studied the work
of insane artists).
3529. Art reached its climax at the boyhood of humankind—in Ancient Greece,
maybe just because it is the boyhood home of humankind.
3535. Regarding the ritual character of art, I found many facts and good points in
the books Poetics of the Ritual of Sacrifice, Talking of Nothing and Talking and the
Ritual Act, written by the poet Miodrag Pavlovic. From one of his interviews:
“Studying human nature seems more difficult than studying the star, mists in the
depths of the cosmos. . . . A work of art supplemented the ritual, but it also
replaced the ritual in the early periods or substituted for the sacrifice offered in
the ritual.”
3538. (Man and machine): There is some inexplicable internal contrast between
man and machine. The development of machines (the introduction of a new
machine, engine, electricity, air traffic) has always been followed by the arbitrary
reactions of people. The latest phenomenon, called cyberphobia, proves that the

reactions were not only due to the fear of losing a job. A study conducted in the
United States in 1987, based on a survey of the behavior of 462 managers and
computer experts, showed that a relatively high percentage of people using
computers manifest signs of “computer related nervousness,” while a number of
them suffered from a new disease called cyberphobia (symptoms: in the presence
of a computer, they panic, feel terrorized, breathe with difficulty, tremble, lose
control and smash the machines). We should also mention here “the Orwellian
paranoia,” unreasonable fear of high technology.
3541. If we were to judge by Plutarch’s heroes (if his stories had been true), man
has regressed through history. Nowadays, there are no individuals of such human
and moral significance (greatness) like the characters from Plutarch’s Biographies
(25 centuries ago). It may be true that 90 percent of scientists, of all who have
ever lived, have lived in our time, but ten-tenths of all really great men lived in
the times that preceded ours. The ratio seems to be reversed here. History is the
progression of society and civilization, yet it is the regression of man and culture
(Compare: Qur’an, 56/13—14).
3542. It is in our soul that respect for man is written down. But Emerson was
right saying that it was not respect for man, but for the related soul. “It is the
soul that respects itself,” says Emerson. If we look at man, who he is and what he
is like, we can only agree with Emerson.
3561. The culture of pre-Columbian America encompasses a period of 3,000

years (from 1500 B.C. until the Spanish invasion in 1521). All the art of that
culture is marked by religion.
3590. Art, just as life, resists defining. It seems that art that is defined would not
be art anymore. All great artists are aware of that. The following statement is
attributed to Picasso: “If I knew what art was, I would not tell anyone. I would
keep it for myself.”
3591. Edward Kotsback wrote somewhere that Christianity and Marxism rep-
resent the “bi-polarity of human destiny,” convinced that neither of them is able
to reach the whole truth by itself and that by mutual permeation they open new
social and political prospects (see the article “Deaf Power” by Zeljko Kruselj,
Danas, July 12, 1988).
3607. We were all born with the same moral feeling, whether we came to life in a
royal palace or in a log cabin. It was discovered, for instance, that children of the
convicts from Botany Bay, the former English penal colony in Australia, had
equally sound moral feelings as other children. Subsequent life, education and
circumstances do their part, so that the same could not be said for adults;
however, the initial moral capital we all get at the birth is the same.
3610. “Society is conspiring everywhere against the human nature of each of its
members” (R.W. Emerson in his essay Self-confidence). According to Emerson,
only the individual possesses the ability of moral improvement, while “society
never makes progress.”
3611. Life cannot be reduced to only one principle, therefore even the wisest and
the farthest reaching teachings on life always seem somewhat contradictory. The
author of Society and Solitude, R.W. Emerson, says that strict consistency

“haunts limited minds, and is highly valued only by trifling statesmen, philos-
ophers and priests.” For, after all, it is about the conflict of names, titles and
definitions, while life is something more complex than them.
3630. We should forgive, because that is the only way to break the chain of evil.
We should not forgive, we should punish evil, fight evil with evil, otherwise it will
spill over the world. Which of the two statements is true? Where is the solution?
What should we do? The only right answer is: punish and forgive. All those who
have lived long enough and observed people and the world with eyes wide open
and without prejudices, accept these two, at the first sight contradictory, truths.
If life was founded on a single principle, then there would be only one answer and
one choice: either punishment or forgiveness. This example mirrors the mutual
relationships among Moses, Jesus and Muhammad, or among the Old Testament,
the Gospel and the Qur’an. The first one is in favor of punishment, the second of
forgiveness, while the third is in favor of both.
3637. In Hinduism, divorce is prohibited—another, quite logical overlap with

Christianity.

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Polity Ezania - The Islamic micro nation -



Communism and Nazism: Some Facts That Should Not Be Forgotten
CHAPTER 5
Communism and Nazism:
Some Facts That Should Not Be Forgotten
347. General Zhukov' s decree to the soldiers upon their conquering Berlin in
1945: "You, the Soviet soldier, take revenge! Behave so that the assault made by
our armies be remembered not only by today's Germans, but their grandchildren.
Keep in mind that everything owned by those inhuman Germans now belongs to
you. You, the Soviet soldier, do not have any compassion and mercy!" (NIN,
March 3, 1985).
438. (The losses of the USSR in the "purges" before World War II and during the
war). A.I. Solzhenitsyn, referring to the estimation of Prof. Kulgakov, claims that
the people of the USSR lost 66 million in the years of terror and 44 million in the
war. It is believed that these numbers are exaggerated, but even those moderate
estimations are not less shocking. The Soviet demographer M. Maksudov carried
out analyses and concluded that in the period between 1932 and 1949, a total of
43 million people died from various causes, out of which on the battlefield and
from the consequences of the war about 20 million soldiers and civilians died,
which corresponds to the official data. The difference of 23 million refers to those
killed in the years of Stalinist repression and starvation before the war. According
to Maksudov' s estimations, during Stalin's rule, one in two men and one in four
women did not die naturally, that is, did not live as long as they could have
(according to Roy Medvedev, The Unknown Stalin, excerpts in Duga magazine,
Belgrade, April 16, 1985).
453. (Bolshevism vs. Nazism). In 1940, the Soviet Academy of Science, in the
review published by its astronomical section, states that the theory on the
existence of some sort of relativistic social peace is "enemy fiction of the agents
of world imperialism and abominable propaganda promoted by a dying ideology."
It is indicative that both official Nazi and Bolshevik propaganda shared negative
views on Einstein's relativity theory. Dr. Walter Gross, the state advisor for the
"aryanization of science" in Hitler's Germany, stated in 1940 that Einstein's
theories are the "product of the frenzy of polluted liberalism and democratic
idiocy, absolutely unacceptable to German scientists."
459. In the article by Roy Medvedev published in the Roman magazine La

Repubblica (May 1985), entitled The Faults and Merits of Comrade Stalin, there is
the following statement: "In 1943, Stalin legalized the Orthodox Church and re-
established the Archbishopric, by which he succeeded to use not only all the
Soviet forces but also all the force of Russian patriotism. But, at the same time,
he gravely affected the Muslim population of the Crimean, Caucasus and the
Volga River basin, who had been forcefully deported to Siberia and into the
Caucasus. Hundreds of thousands of lives were lost during this horrible
evacuation."
517. "The labor camps in the USSR enjoy a great reputation as institutions for the
re-education of thousands of people"-American journalist Ana Louise Strong in
1973. My comment: to these words, the millions of victims of these camps are
turning in their graves.
576. "...and the fathers of the families, instead of letting them go back home for
dinner, were sent to the areas where climate suits the white bear, not people."

592. Socialist realism (Soc-realism) in literature and the agricultural collectives in

the economy go hand in hand.
593. "Purges" disregard people, they deal with "human material," and "human
material" has neither personality nor soul.
627. Trying to appease the ruling Stalinist regime in Hungary, Gyorgy Lukacs in
his presentation before the Hungarian Academy of Science, held in June 1951,
stated that Stalin's works in linguistics (published in 1959) have historical
significance and criticizes his own colleagues who are trying to sell certain
politically unacceptable views. This, Lukacs' criticism of his own colleagues, was a
mere denouncement. In his paper, he supported the most vulgar form of theory
of reflection, reducing art and literature solely to socio-economic relations.
629. In his book The Sentenced Group of Six, Mensur Seferovic tells the story of
six communists who were sentenced to death by the Communist Party in 1942
because they had refused to carry out the decision made by the Party to execute
several renowned citizens of the town of Bihac. The sentence was later turned
under one condition: within a new, delayed, deadline, the six men had to carry
out the order. The decision had later been suspended and the sentenced men
rehabilitated (Oslobodjenje, September 1, 1985).
637. "Lenin is more alive than all the living" or "Lenin is more human than all
humans"-such and similar slogans could be read all over the USSR. Later, it
would be Stalin, then Krushchev, then Brezhnev.
641. In the book Heavy Wings by the Chinese writer Zhang Li (translated in the
West), life in the Peoples' Republic of China is described in grim colors:
corruption, intrigue, broken human relations, women being subordinated. All the
heroes of the book are dissatisfied with their lives. All the positive characters of
the novel are apolitical. The writer herself spent three years in an educational
reformatory institution during the so-called Cultural Revolution. In an interview
with the German magazine Der Spiegel, Zhang Li describes the condition in that
institution: "I was awfully skinny and, despite of that, I had to carry out the
hardest work that only men could do" (the Zagreb magazine Danas, August
28, 1985).
642. Janez Stanic, in his book The White Stains of Socialism (published by
Globus, Zagreb, 1985), describes what is usually considered as the deformations
of socialism in Russia and China. Some drastic examples include the
collectivization of agriculture in the USSR carried out in the 1930s, known also as
the "liquidation of the kulaks as the class," the actual physical extermination
which took over 6 million lives (deportation and death in Siberia), events that
many historians, even those Soviet, Mikhail Geller and Alexander Nekhritch,
consider to be one of the greatest genocides in the twentieth century. Soviet
agriculture never recovered: The country with the greatest area of fertile soil in
the world is now incapable of feeding her own population and has become one of
the biggest importers of food. The second example is the so-called "Great Leap
Forward" in China at the end of the 1950s, when tens of millions of people were
evicted from their villages to build factories, railroads, dams, and the like (in the
official propaganda, it was called "the release of the creative energies of the
masses"). One of the actions of the "Great Leap Forward" was known as the
"Campaign for Steel." In rural communities, this campaign resulted in the
construction of around two million small, primitive steelworks in which, at the
peak of the campaign (195 8-59), over 60 million people were employed. During
this time, China produced around 11 million tons of steel, of which the real
steelworks produced 80 percent; the primitive ones not more than 20 percent. In
addition, there was an enormous disproportion in labor; in the larger steel-works,

approximately one million people worked, producing about 9 million tons of steel,
while about 60 million workers produced the remaining 2.2 million -tons. These
data were published later within the process of the "correction of errors." The key
problem and harm were done because these people stopped cultivating their land
(Danas, Zagreb, August 28, 1985).
645. In his book Punished Nations, the Soviet writer Alexander Nekhritch
investigates and describes Stalin's genocide of the small nations in the USSR.
Soviet General Grigorenko was thus removed, pronounced insane and put into a
psychiatric clinic because he advocated the rehabilitation of Attars from the
Crimean and the permission for them to return to their island.
654. In his Tales of Kolyma (about Stalin's camps), Varlam Shalamov gave a
description of the life and death of Siberian camp inmates. These stories are
almost impossible to retell. Most of them are improbable, said Predrag
Matvejevic. "Shalamov' s stories hold a very odd measurement: the manual for
the endurance of material, applied on men" (Sinyavski). In most of the cases,
culture in those camps soon disappears, faster than one could have thought. In
the Gulags, there are no heroes. "I was a mere corpse and lived in accordance
with the psychology of a beast," says Shalamov (p. 251). "Among other things,
Shalamov offered the answer to the questions such as: how could this have been
possible? An unpunished requital where millions of people succeeded because
those people were innocent" (Predrag Matvejevic, NIN, August 11, 1985).
718. What else could I expect from judges (prosecutors, investigators), who have
based their knowledge of law on the Marxist premise that "law is the will of the
ruling class transformed into statutes," a formula that is a cynical contradiction to
the very idea of law.
719. The classical principle: It is better to leave a hundred guilty men unpunished
than to sentence one innocent person. Lenin confronted to the opposite principle:
"It is not so important to punish a crime severely, but not to leave a single crime
unpunished," cites Boris Elesov, Deputy Minister of the Interior of the USSR, in a
1985 interview with the magazine Panorama. According to the same source, 10
percent of crimes remain undiscovered in the USSR, that is, go unpunished. As
far as I know, in the United States the situation is quite opposite. It is a different
story to establish the price of this "efficiency" and the number of those who have
been sentenced in this way.
746. "Given that among 9 million Bulgarians, ethnic minorities make up 12.5
percent of the population". . . "the integration of minorities" started as early as
1956. Since that time, as many as 1,299 mosques and other religious and
national symbols have been destroyed. At the tenth Bulgarian Communist Party
Congress, in 1971, the creation of a "single socialist nation" was proclaimed and,
another curiosity, citizenship and ethnicity were merged. What followed was the
action of changing Muslim names to Bulgarian, all under the aegis of socialism,
communism and patriotism. Those who opposed were told: "Those who do not
wish to continue living in their native villages and wish to move, competent
authorities will provide the possibility to move within three to four hours." These
words were uttered by Stanko Todorov, Politburo member and the speaker of the
National Assembly of Peoples' Republics of Bulgaria, at the beginning of 1985
(published in Slovensko Delo, March 12, 1985).
748. The basic premise of Leszek Kolakowski is that the historical role of Marxism
has been completed. The project of the revolutionary change of the world has
proved a failure.

749. In the mass expulsion of people, the method as well as the scope varied
(Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, "the boat people," etc.). Romania, however, set a precedent
in this respect. In the spring of 1985, Romania passed an administrative decision
pronouncing a large group of citizens (roughly a thousand people) personae non
grata and deported them. They simply loaded them on planes and sent them off
to West Berlin and Stockholm. Authorities in these two cities did not know what to
do, as the deported people arrived without passports and it was impossible to
establish their identity (from the Belgrade weekly Interview, November 22,
1985).
813. The oppression of minorities is a sort of "natural state" that can be

constrained by culture and civilization. We have found that in our century typical
ethnic oppression is-perhaps paradoxically-carried out in the countries of the
"peoples' democracy"-Bulgaria, Albania, Romania and the USSR. Hundreds of
thousands of Turks, Macedonians, Serbs, Roma and Kurds in Bulgaria have
ceased to exist overnight by way of state decree. They became Bulgarians, with
new Bulgarian names. In Albania, at the same time, roughly 120,000
Macedonians, Montenegrins and Serbs were reduced to no more than 3,000
Macedonians living in nine villages. At the same time there were growing tensions
between Hungary and Romania over the destiny of two million ethnic Hungarians
in Transylvania, the group the Romanians are trying to assimilate (Danas,
December 17, 1985). The slightest inquiry from their homeland about their
destiny is understood as "interference with internal affairs" of the country in
question. The tendency to assimilate seems to be "natural." How could this occur,
as a delayed phenomenon, in the countries of this type, where one would not
expect "ethnic criteria" to be predominant? The reason lies in the fact that this
natural "instinct to assimilate"-actually to subordinate and suppress-has no
hindrance in the legislation. On the contrary, even the disrespect for human and
all other rights, a trait inherent to these political systems and ruling ideology,
opens the gates wide to the savage nationalism of the majority that meets no
resistance whatsoever. In this type of country, this disrespect for the rights of the
citizens -goes even a step further: The very laws of the country are being
disregarded. What rules is the pretext of voluntarism that originates directly from
the well-known formula proposed by Marx (and Engels) on legislation as the
expression of will of the ruling class.
863. In 1939, Europe was faced with the most difficult dilemma in her history: to
choose between "Evil with Hope"-Stalinism-and "Evil without Hope"-Hitlerism.
That is how it looked, but only virtually. Both were evil and both were hopeless.
891. Soviet artists, members of registered associations, were obliged, as stated in

one of the statutes, to "present life in light of socialist ideals" (one of the
postulates of socialist realism). Emotions and experiences that were not related to
work and socialist development, from the socialist viewpoint, were neither of any
merit nor interesting enough to become the subject of art.
892. There are many reasons to believe that, in the case of the "Cultural
Revolution" in China, the expulsion of people was, thanks to the endless wealth of
Chinese traditions and their immense imagination, "enriched" by new,
unprecedented forms of terror. The Cultural Revolution was very un-cultural; it
was the greatest barbarism of this century, not only because of its violence, but
also for its massive repression. It is estimated that, one way or another, over 100
million people suffered from its cruelty.
893. When it comes to the banning of books, the fact that there are indexes of
banned books is not the greatest problem. It is even worse when there is no such
list, so that all books, except for those officially approved, are either suspicious or
banned, that is, when instead of an index of banned books there is only the index

of those approved. It is destructiveness at its maximum. Such a situation was

created by the Chinese Communists between 1966 and 1976.
960. During the "Cultural Revolution" there was the establishment of
"Committees for the Surveillance of Bourgeois Monsters." These monsters were
primarily writers and artists.
989. In his speech at the twentieth Congress, Krushchev cited that, out of 139
members and candidates for the Central Committee, selected at the seventeenth
Party Congress, 98 had been arrested and executed. Stalin was the author of the
notion "enemy of the people," which served as the excuse for the cruelest
violence and executions without charges lodged or trial.
1029. Viewed historically, the credit for introducing the institute of the criminal
act of enemy propaganda, i.e., the ban on the freedom of speech, belongs to the
first socialist state in the world-the USSR. In the proposal for modifications of the
Criminal Code of the USSR, in May 1922, Lenin claims that enemy propaganda is
one of the six new criminal acts carrying the death sentence. Along with this
proposal, Lenin offered this explanation: "The idea is clear, I hope: we need to
grant the most extensive possible formulation because it will be the revolutionary
consciousness that will eventually determine the appropriate implementation of
this provision in practice" (in a letter to the Judiciary Commissar, Dimitri Kursky,
in the Belgrade daily Politika, Svijet, March
18, 1986).
1031. (Nationalism in socialism)-After the October Revolution, the Cyrillic

alphabet spread even to the nations who had had their own alphabet and had
been literate, such as the Kyrgyz, Uzbeks and Kazakhs. The explanations offered
were that it was ancient literacy "built on foreign linguistic grounds." This mainly
forceful approach made Cyrillic the basic alphabet of some very ancient nations,
far beyond the borders of the republics inhabited by the Slav population. Even in
present-day Mongolia, Cyrillic is used.
1044. In The Brothers Karamazov Dostoyevsky showed-or at least wanted to do

so-that the emerging Soviet man, embodied in the Karamazovs (all very
different: Alyosha, Dimitri, Ivan and Fyodor), is equally capable of great deeds as
well as evil, equally ready to create both the Kingdom of God and the Empire of
Satan on this earth. The latter happened.
1081. The suffering that mankind has gone through could be understood as God'
s punishment for man's attempt to create heaven on earth without God and
against Him. Such a project reached a planetary scope in the twentieth century,
and consequently the punishment had a planetary character. The attempt ended
up with the creation of the greatest inferno in human history.
1099. In the twentieth century, so proud of its name and its achievements, we
have become introduced to a literature known as "camp literature" that emerged
from the horrible circumstances of Stalin's and Hitler's concentration camps.
Readers have different feelings about this literature; most of them would rather
not read it at all, closing their eyes and shutting their ears to it, in order not to
"know," if they had the right to ignore it. Faced with the description of human
suffering, we could agree with the writer who said that "the extreme insight into
the fact that people, even at the lowest level of humiliation, discover the
indestructibility of their humanity, therefore, as a supernatural fact" (Jovica Aéin,
Delo, Belgrade, No. 4-5/1986, p. 9).
1108. "You know, once one has spent years in camps, one needs nothing, and
everything becomes a pleasure to him," wrote Margaret Buber-Neumann, the
German writer, who spent two years in a Soviet concentration camp in

Karaganda, Kazakhstan, and then, after Stalin handed her over to Hitler (she was
Jewish), she spent an additional five years in a Nazi camp.
1162. Varlam Shalamov, the Russian writer who wrote tales from the
concentration camps ("Tales from Kolyma"), was born in 1907 and died in 1982,
having spent almost 25 years in the camps-from 1929 to 1934 and from 1937 to
1957. This martyr-writer writes that a horse loses strength much faster than man
and that there is no horse (except for those from Yakutsk) that could endure
what people endured in Stalin's Siberian camps. Following this thought, Shalamov
even claims that man is the animal who can endure most, physically, and that
this is the reason (neither his mind nor his soul) why man distanced himself from
the animal world and became human in the first place. Perhaps it was the hope
that kept man in the hardest of conditions, continues Shalamov, because animals
know nothing about hope, whereas man, thanks also to a certain measure of
foolishness, continues to hope-and survives.
1169. (On political rulings). It often happens that the public considers those
charged with a political offense guilty for "selfish" reasons. This is a kind of
defense mechanism. People refuse to accept the fact that they live in a world
(society) in which man is protected by law and order. Then, for them, the
question arises, how could they keep silent? That is why they have to believe that
those sentenced are guilty, at least have breached the law, and that otherwise
they would not have been sentenced and imprisoned. If a man is sentenced even
if he is innocent and sentenced unlawfully, then the one who- is thinking about it
is no longer secure; such is the option people instinctively-in self-defense- tend to
reject. This conclusion is easier to impose upon oneself-and to accept- the more
severe is the sentence in question. In the absence of evidence the severe
sentence itself becomes the proof of the existence of guilt. This is how ordinary
people reason-if someone were not guilty, he would have been sentenced to two
or three, not to 15 years of prison. It is exactly this viewpoint that those who
have decreed the sentence have counted on (naturally, it is not the court but the
committee). If guilt is not clear and obvious, then a mild sentence becomes
suspect and shows that the authorities lack self-confidence. With a strict
sentence, such doubt is out of the question. Thus an innocent man is punished
twice. This is an old trick, also used by the Nazis, who applied it not in the
duration of the sentence but in the cruelty of its execution in their concentration
camps. (They would not treat him so cruelly if he was not a traitor, would they-
this is how this idea was approached by the ordinary German.)
1171. German concentration camps were extremely inhuman, though rational,

based on a sort of demonic science. Torture and humiliation of camp inmates was
rational in the sense that it was calculated so that in the shortest time possible a
man's personality and will for resistance was broken. The same method was
applied by the Gestapo and in the arrests, that is, in the selection of those to be
transported to the camps. They were mainly the groups and community leaders
for whom there were grounds for suspicion that they could become opponents of
the system. If that would not suffice, the circle of those arrested expanded. In a
relatively short period of time and with relatively few casualties, Hitler succeeded
in suppressing resistance and channeled the people of Germany towards the aim
he had defined. For the Soviet concentration camps, as for the method, one can
say that they were equally cruel and inhuman, but, unlike the Nazi camps, they
were not rational. It was cruelty for cruelty's sake, torture with no purpose
whatsoever, and arrests without any grounds and logic. Still, German camps
remain a grave accusation against the perception of civilized man and show that
without ethics the acceptable humane and human matrix could not be created.
"Once the inmate," wrote Bruno Bettelheim, a Nazi camp inmate himself,
"reached his final stage of adapting to camp conditions, his personality would
have changed and he would start accepting the SS values as his own." One of the

"rationalities" of the German concentration camps was their attitude toward those
inmates incapable of labor and the ill. The Gestapo considered it useful to
liquidate them as soon as possible, so they were either murdered or else
everything was done to see them die as fast as possible. This "rational selection"
buried all the weak inmates as early as the first days of their detention.
Bettelheim calls those camps "Gestapo laboratories for the subordination of free
people," where "laboratory" is a rational, even scientific, but not always human
and humane term.
1173. In the Soviet concentration camps, people often caused injury to

themselves in order to, at least temporarily, gain admission to the hospital and
thus escape the insufferable living and working conditions of the camps. But, once
those cases became too frequent, the camp authorities discovered what was
happening and only those injuries that could be proven were accepted. All other
cases were defined as "premeditated self-inflicted injuries" and as such they
qualified as sabotage that led to an additional ten years of prison. Gustav Herling
Grudjinski wrote about this in his article Resurrection (Delo, Ljubljana, 4-5/1986).
1174. With their concentration camps and their monstrous atrocities, both Nazism
and Stalinism remain a grave accusation against western civilization. Whatever
we might think, these monstrous methods and the people who applied them were
one of the possibilities of this civilization, a possibility that, alas, had materialized.
1360. In Lenin's famous definition, "dictatorship of the proletariat is a boundless

authority and power relying on violence. . ." and so on ("Sotchinenia"), one can
sense the praise of violence, not as the means, even less as an urgent necessity,
but as the principle or an aim that is self-sufficient. This ode to violence does not
make us angry, it shocks.
1946. Vladimir Bartoshewski, a Polish writer (who suffered detention in

Auschwitz, between 1940 and 1945 and was then, between 1946 and 1953, a
prisoner in Poland, only to be imprisoned again, from 1985 to 1986, as activist of
Solidarity), wrote: "He who saves one life, saved the whole of mankind."
Compare this with the Qur'an: "He who kills one man, is as if he killed the whole
world" (Qur'an, 5/35). Bartoshevski was awarded the German Publisher's Peace
Award in 1986.
2004. Stalin claimed that social democrats were the greatest threat to the
communists and banned any electoral collaboration between the communists and
social democrats. Thus the Germans, voting in Prussia against the social
democrats, helped Hitler's rise to power.
2048. In ancient Rome there was the law known as Damnation Memorial, which
ordered the deletion of the names of criminals and traitors from all the history
books. Following this law, the names of two emperors were also erased:
Caligula's and Nero's. A similar practice, only in a more radical form, can be found
in the USSR: the practice of re-tailoring and re-forging history. But the most
obvious aspect of this re-tailoring, literally, using scissors, is the reshaping of
photographs. In the beginning this photo-editing was aimed only at presenting
the leadership and their results in development in a better light, namely, to
create a sort of propaganda in the form of pictorial hagiography. From the 1930s
onward, its purpose was to erase the unwanted. People who had been eliminated
from political life disappeared from the photos (most often it meant physical
liquidation as well). In 1986, at the Museum of Modern Art in Paris, there was an
exhibition of photographs that falsify history. Included in the exhibition were a
great number of those retouched Soviet photos. The exhibition proved that this
had always been done, but this massive, systematic and brutal form of it had only
been a practice of the socialist countries of the twentieth century. Most of the

photos originated from the USSR, China, Cuba and Albania (Start, Zagreb,
November 14, 1986).
2136. H.G. Wells, in one of his books (written in the 1920s), caused Churchill not
to trust his own propaganda about the Bolsheviks being beasts with blood on
their hands, and the like. Wells writes that Churchill feared that the Bolsheviks
would bring about a new era where common sense would prevail, along with
scientific achievements, and that "there would no longer be room for the men of
Churchill's breed."
2149. Each ideological state (even an Islamic one) indoctrinates, to a greater or

lesser extent, its subjects, imposing its own system of beliefs and opinions, but
indoctrination in socialist countries today is essentially different from the
communist type. This current indoctrination has no defined system of values.
From its subjects it demands the daily acceptance and confirmation of the new
"truths" tailored to meet the needs of the authorities. Needs of the present may
be opposed to those of the past. The Soviet propagandists told one story about
Hitler and Nazism before the signing of the Soviet-German pact in 1939, and one
completely different after. The whole nation was expected to turn some of their
beliefs 180 degrees after the signing of the pact. Then, in 1941, at the beginning
of World War II, the Soviet agitators offered a completely new, third, "truth"
about the Germans, and again the nation had to believe it. Again and again, the
story continued.
2155. A fact that acquired an almost global significance is that the socialist
movement did not find room in itself for a humanistic culture, which was almost
always in conflict with writers. It would be wrong to assume that this was the
case only in the socialist East. In the West, particularly between the two world
wars, we can find the same phenomenon. And it was by no means by accident!
2232. Socialist realism is one side of the world; the flip side is the Gulag. An
idealized image of the world is compensation for the naturalistic reality.
Oppression desperately needs the lies; it generates lies just as freedom generates
humor. In this analysis, one can start from the other end and find that
totalitarianism cannot stand humor (remember Kundera' s Joke).
2237. Soviet writer and poet Bulat Okudzhava' s mother spent nineteen years in
a Soviet concentration camp.
2240. In Leningrad, in one of the city's oldest churches, there is now the
"Museum of Atheism" (NIN, January 4, 1987).
2262. We were taught at school that man has entered history, that he has
become a "historic being" once he learned how to write. But he became what he
is, that is, man, once he learned how to speak, to express his thoughts. Then
some people emerged and forbade man to speak, invented the notorious "verbal
crime," the crime of words, and sent man back to the dark pit he had emerged
from.
2267. The Soviet biologist Lysenko once stated: "We, in the Soviet Union, are not
giving birth to men, we are producing organisms and then we make them cooks,
doctors, mechanists, roads maintenance workers, engineers, etc." ("Interview,"
January 16, 1987). Believe it or not, he said this with pride.
2291. Socialism is forced optimism.
2306. In 1925, in the USSR, a society called "The Association of Militant Atheists"
was established. From 1922 to 1941 they issued the paper Godless, and from

1925, a magazine with the same name. At the same time, the papers Atheist and
Militant Atheist were also published. Within the Academy of Social Science
(attached to the Communist Party Central Committee), a special institute for
scientific atheism was formed in 1964; in a USSR Communist Party program
dated 1961, it was written that the Party would use all the available means of
ideological action to make people "remedy their religious prejudices" ("The Dream
of Atheists and the Awakening of Believers," Borba, January 31, 1987).
2310. Some statistics on the USSR: In 1920, three-quarters of the population

were illiterate, 82 percent of population living in rural areas. Shortly after World
War II, there were 20 million more women than men; now they outnumber men
by ten million. Men live shorter lives. The reasons: vodka, accidents, difficult life.
One-third of the population in big cities lives outside wedlock. This is known in the
USSR as the "phenomenon of the lonely." From a divorce rate of 2.3 per 100
marriages 50 years ago, in 1986 divorce had moved to 34 per 100. This is the
average for the whole of the USSR. In the European part of the USSR the ratio is
even worse, as divorce is still quite rare in Central Asia. The most frequent cause
for divorce is the husband's alcoholism. The second is the heavy burden on
women (they are employed and also work in the home). In the USSR there are
135 million people employed and 58 million retired; 6 million engineers, of which
only 2 million of them have an adequate workplace. Secondary school is
compulsory for all. Out of the 135 million employed, 34 million have a university
(or other relevant) degree. There are fewer and fewer children. The measures put
in place in order to boost the birthrate did not produce the desired results (from
the presentation of Igor Bestuzhev Lade, Soviet sociologist, NIN, February 1,
1987).
2449. Bolshevisation has become the denomination for the comprehensive and
total control of all paths of life.
2451. At a session of the Association of Moscow Writers, the decision was made
to exclude Boris Pasternak from the Association of Writers of the USSR and
condemn his literature. From the records of this session (held on October 31,
1958), one can read shocking statements made by mainly anonymous writers
against a colleague who was in every sense much above them. S. Smirnov who
demanded individual members to vote chaired the session. "I fully agree that the
novel Dr. Zhivago is trash and I think that this internal emigrant, B. Pasternak,
should be expelled from the USSR," said Smirnov; he proposed to submit the
request to the Soviet government to evict Pasternak from the USSR. L. Oshanin,
I. Zelenin, V. Pertsov, A. Bezymensky, A. Sofronov ("He should be sent from our
country"), S. Antonov, B. Sluatsi, G. Nikolayev ("The story of Pasternak is the
story of treason"), V. Soloukhin ("That book is the Cold War weapon against
Communism"), S. Baruzdin ("Our people have not known Pasternak as a writer,
but they will remember him as a traitor"), B. Polevoy and many others spoke
along the same lines. Twenty-nine years later, at the beginning of 1987, in the
same hall where these actions happened, Pasternak was to be rehabilitated. This
time, again following the orders, albeit different, of the authorities, writers sang
odes to Pasternak. Has what they really meant ever been spoken?
2455. Ana Akhmatova's Requiem has been finally published. The comment from
the daily Politika (March, 13, 1987): "Ana Akhmatova's poem has, for a long
time, been the clandestine, illegal hymn of all who suffered Stalin's terror. The
Soviet literary establishment which, in 1984, accepted Ana Akhmatova back in
the Pantheon of 20th century Soviet writers, has just approved the publication of
her poem Requiem, the illegal hymn of those who had fallen as victims of Stalin's
terror in the 1930s. The poem has been published in its entirety in the March
issue of literary review October." Prior to that, Soviet readership had the chance

to get to know only parts of the poem. Requiem is dedicated to the poetess's son,
who was killed in Stalin's camp. One part of the poem reads:
For seventeen months I have been calling you

asking you to come home, begging
Oh, my son, my terror crawled
before the executioner's feet
Everything is forever messed up
so much, so that I no longer know who is the man and who the beast nor
how much time is left to the execution.
Ana Akhmatova, who had been praised, in the decade before the Bolshevik
Revolution, as one of the leading Russian poets, died in 1966. Her husband was
executed in 1921.
2456. Some things are known about the casualties of the communist system in
the USSR and China. According to estimations in the West (in the East, of course,
if there are any, such information is not publicized) in the Stalinist purge of 1936-
1938, eight to ten million people died. For the duration of Stalin's rule, from 1924
and 1953, the death toll rose to about 15 million people. When an Italian
journalist noted in 1980 that Stalin had, in these purges, killed more people than
the "Cultural Revolution" did in China (1966-1976), the Chinese leader Deng
Xiaoping responded, "I am not sure about it, I am not sure at all." Hu Yaobang,
recently deposed secretary general of the Chinese Communist Party Central
Committee, disclosed for the first time in 1980, to Yugoslav newspaper
correspondents, the fact, unknown until then, that the "Cultural Revolution" took
a toll of three million victims. Together with members of their families, their
relatives, friends and acquaintances, who were persecuted because of them or
along with them, the estimates are that about one hundred million people
suffered this police and political action (Danas, March 17, 1987).
2843. After the conflict between the Yugoslav Communist Party and Informburo
(IB) in 1948, forced migrations of Yugoslav ethnic minorities occurred in Bulgaria,
Hungary and Romania. Jaksa Petric, Yugoslav representative to the United
Nations, informed the UN about the inhuman dislocation into the cold regions of
Baragan, actually a desert, of the Serb minority in Romania, carried out with
extreme cruelty, resulting in the deaths of many in the severest imaginable
conditions (Danas, June 16, 1987). In Romania, the communists were in power in
those days, under absolute control of the USSR.
2846. It is interesting that the Nazis and Stalinists have equally opposed jazz.
They called it the "cannibalistic music."
2888. When we think about culture and man (about "cultural and civilized man"),
we should not, we cannot, it is not permitted, to avoid one question:
How could it be that the rage, the madness, the frenzy, the shamelessness and
inhumanity that have been "given" to this world by two totalitarian regimes
- Nazism and Stalinism - happen in this century of culture and civilization? The
answer to this question should make us question once again all of our notions and
ideas that we usually link to the notions of culture and civilization.
2889. We cannot pull down the Berlin Wall, but we can hate it and despise its
builders. One day, our condemnation will pull down this shameful symbol of
barbarism in the twentieth century.
2890. What could one think about the country where scientific disputes end up in
Siberia?

2891. Gumilyov, a Russian poet, husband of poetess Ana Akhmatova, was

executed in Petrograd, after the October Revolution. He was rehabilitated after
the twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the USSR.
2901. Mao Tse-tung has openly proclaimed tenor to be the law of the communist
system and claimed that the Cultural Revolution needs to be repeated every 20
years in order to prevent the aging and sclerosis of a society (Danas, July 14,
1987).
2126. The journalist Alexander Vasinsky wrote in Izvestia about the phenomenon
of "homo duplex," thinking one thing and speaking another, imposed on a great
number of intellectuals in the USSR. Vasinsky calls it "thinking awry." Princeton
University's Professor Robert Tucker, one of the greatest U.S. experts on the
USSR, said in one interview: "The origin of this phenomenon is in Stalin's
tyranny, in the tenor of the thirties. If one has not learned to be silent, to behave
in public in accordance with the prescribed scenario, one's disappearance was
very probable" (NIN, July 19, 1997).
2130. The German critic of culture, Max Nordan (1849-1923), wrote a book
entitled Perversity, where he interpreted the emergence of European Moderna in
psychopathological terms. It is interesting that the Nazis and the Marxists had
equally accepted his concept of "perverted art."It is evident from the polemics led
in Russia, by the beginning of the century, with symbolists. Nordan's notions of
"healthy" and "sick" (perverted) art were to be found later in the articles by which
the orthodox Stalinists fought against the opponents of social realism. In an
article against Verlain, Gorky expressly refened to Nordan.
2132. One of the fruits of social realism in Russia is the "production novel." The
first such stillborn was delivered to this world by Gladkov. His novel had the
appropriate title: Cement.
2138. Communists confronted the principle of "revolutionary justification"

(opportunism) to the rule of law and legality, which became an alibi for endless
lawlessness and arbitrariness, because what is revolutionary justified at some
point, was decided upon by the leaders (most often, one man) in power. As it is
known, at a certain point they have concluded that it is justified to destroy the
independent judiciary, organize staged trials, introduce censorship, decimate the
intelligentsia, occupy other peoples' countries, force millions into exodus, and the
like. All this thanks to the theory of revolutionary justification instead of the rule
of law.
2163. In 1937, two grand exhibitions were opened in Munich: first, the "Great
Exhibition of German Art" (actually the Nazikunst), and a day later, the exhibition
of the "perverted art" (Nordan' s term). The latter presented 730 pieces
(paintings, sculptures, prints) by 112 artists. The European Moderna was
presented here as a psychopathological phenomenon.
2206. Very few people know that Hitler's Minister for Propaganda, Goebbels,
wrote praise to Lenin (in his Lenin oder Hitler?) and that he recommended Nazi
film directors to study the Battleship Potemkin, while the Soviet writer Vassily
Grossman (in his novel Life and Destiny) deals with the shocking revelation that
Leninism and Nazism resemble each other like twins. In the novel that is a
variation of this theme, the SS officer Lis speaks about a captured Russian officer
and an old Bolshevik Muscovite: "Believe me, the one who finds us terrifying is
equally terrified by you."
3075. Immediately after the war, Borislav Pekic (the author of the Golden Fleece
and other world-renowned novels) was sentenced to 15 years in prison because
of his membership in a youth organization of a social-democrat orientation. He

served five years and described them in the novel with the characteristic title, The
Years Swallowed by Locusts.
3119. "Pressurized by this environment," (referring to the situation and condition

of the Partisan units in Herzegovina in 1942, my note), in the Partisan HQs and
among the party leadership, a belief had been generated that behind the Chetniks
there was the Kulak Fifth Column, whose physical extermination was the primary
task of the Partisans, according to correspondence between the Operational HQ of
the Kalinovik Sector within the Supreme Command HQ of the Peoples' Liberation
Movement during April 1942, as well as reports sent to the Supreme Command
HQ by the Operational HQ for Herzegovina. On the assault on the stronghold of
Borac, the commander of OHQ for the Kalinovik Sector wrote in his report: "Upon
the evacuation of Borac, the houses fell one by one. . . . I think that we need to
cleanse all the volunteer units, disarm the necessary number of them and
execute some. In the zone of operation of this HQ this is already being done. . . .
After the fall of Planina and Bjelimici, we intend to destroy the Fifth Column in
Trnovo, then Zagorje.. . because this is the fortress of Kulaks and Greens.. . . It
would be good if you could send some of your political activists to this area in
order to explain to the people this operation of cleansing the Kulaks." Informed of
this campaign, the Operational HQ of the Kalinovik Sector of the Supreme
Command of the PLM issued, two days later, the following instruction to
commander Rade Hamovic: "All those who have sabotaged the struggle in Borac
must be liquidated. This is your personal responsibility. . . . Also, you must
cleanse the entire Fifth Column in the area. Therefore, you must act most
energetically." The commander of the Kalinovik Sector responded urgently to the
Supreme Command: "We shall ruthlessly kill all those of the Fifth Column, and
the village of Gradina shall be burnt down. . . The stamina that has taken our
comrades from Herzegovina has also taken us, because one can go nowhere
unless we uproot not only the Fifth Column but also those who shall belong to
them in the next 20 years." (All quotations from the book The Muslim
Autonomous Movement and the 13th SS Division, by Enver Redzic).
3137. Some took the myth on the development of a new society on the "ruins of
the old one" literally, and they never stopped destroying. This destruction most
frequently turned into the destruction of tradition and the ruthless eradication of
cultural values.
3142. Andrei Sinyavski, a Russian émigré-writer, former camp detainee, now

living in Paris, says that one of his wardens had said, in a moment of
earnestness: "All writers, from the greatest to the smallest-Shakespeare, Tolstoy,
Dostoyevsky, each and every one of them, without exception, I would put into a
lunatic asylum; they disturb the normal course of life."
3143. In the USSR, for the writer who was accused of something, there was a
special legal status prescribed: "particularly dangerous state criminal." This was
the qualification for Andrei Sinyavski and a number of other writers who had been
put into camps.
3161. The official name for the Soviet institution in charge of censoring literature
and printed material in general is: the Committee for the Protection of State
Secrets in the Press (Danas, November 10, 1987).
3197. The description of the trial to Joseph Brodsky, the Nobel Prize laureate for
Literature in 1987: "We have just witnessed a fantastic play in which nothing was
preserved by the form. Yes, the trial observed all the rules: on the podium, in
their high chairs and engraved wooden USSR coats-of-arms, seated, there were
the legally appointed peoples' judge as well as the two judges selected by social
organizations, lawfully nominated peoples' jurors. Everything followed the

prescribed order: the questioning of the defendant, statements of the witnesses

of the prosecution and those of the defense, the public prosecutor's and defense
lawyer's address, the judges' deliberations in the special room, the solemn
pronouncement of their ruling 'in the name of the Russian Federal Socialist
Republic,' even the audience's applause after the ruling and the guards taking the
indicted from the courtroom. One fraud after another" (from the documentary
chronicle Notes of Non-Conspirators by Efim G. Etkind (London, 1977).
3286. The Communist Party of Italy has more members in the less developed
(semirural) South than in the industrial, that is, workers', North, which is an
anomaly in Marxist terms.
3290. "It is estimated that in the USSR there are about 18 million employed in
administration. At least two-thirds are redundant. However, behind those 12
million redundant clerks, there are at least 10 million dependent on them-their
children, parents, relatives, close friends. They all receive some of the benefits
and privileges-special storehouses for supplies, special hospitals and outpatient
clinics, villas, chauffeurs, etc. They are the fiercest opponents to any change"
(from an interview with Abuladze, director of Redemption (NIN, Belgrade, January
31, 1988).
3301. When the famous anti-Stalinist movie Redemption, directed by Tenghis

Abuladze, was shown in Tbilisi, Georgia, a poli was conducted; audience members
were full of praise, but there were exceptions still. Who were they? In an
interview, Abuladze responds to this question: "There were exactly 27 of them,
mainly jurists and judges, aged between 60 and 70. Weren't they the bullies and
torturers my film dealt with?" wonders Abuladze. There is violence and injustice in
every society. The specific trait of communist oppression was its lawlessness
nicely packed in legislation and form. It is this hypocrisy that generates total
confusion. Some people live and die in such systems, never learning the
distinction between the truth and a lie. Putting their naïve confidence in the press,
authorities, and official statements, they live in constant delusion, involuntarily
and unconsciously supporting the lies and injustice. It is from these people that
you often hear, flabbergasted, the naïve explanation: "It was in the newspapers."
Stalinism and this uninformed and unenlightened crowd go hand in hand and
make each other possible.
3305. Once he had carried out, at Stalin' s order, scores of atrocious tasks in the
purges at the end of the 1930s (the last being the execution of the entire
leadership of the Komsomol, the Communist Youth Organization), the chief of the
secret police, NKVD, Yezhov was accused of treason himself and executed (I think
it was in April 1940). On the liquidation of the Komsomol leaders, see Politika,
February 15, 1988.
3313. It is not about the simple, say, feudal, early capitalist or medieval
poweriessness of ordinary people. This time it is the case of the deliberate,
premeditated, organized lack of powerlessness. In our time of mass literacy,
mass media and mass communications, this powerlessness can only be deliberate
and organized.
3317. Ethnic minorities in the states of the so-called real socialism (The Soviet
Zone): At the International Conference on Human Rights held in Venice (at the
beginning of February 1988), the Germans accused Poland of the persecution of
Germans in Poland after World War II, referring to the "disappearance" of Poles in
the USSR, the Turks demanded the condemnation of Bulgaria for eradicating the
Turkish minority there by the simple change of their names into Bulgarian, while
the Hungarians strongly criticized Romania for the discrimination against
Hungarians in Transylvania, the Italians were objecting to the low status of the

Italian minority in Yugoslavia, and so on and so forth. In a word, ethnic minorities

were persecuted in the "a-national" communist systems of Poland, Russia,
Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Yugoslavia. Instructive!
3324. In the countries of the so-called real-socialism (the USSR and its satellites),
there is a party personnel monopoly realized through the system of the so-called
nomenclature. The nomenclature is actually the list of most influential positions in
politics, economy, culture, and so on one is appointed to and dismissed from
solely with the permission of the Party Committee. The nomenclature is actually
made of two lists: the list of posts available exclusively with the approval of the
party body in charge and the list of individuals who could be elected for those
posts. Both lists circulate only internally (see Vladimir Goati in his study Position
of the Party in Socialist Countries' Political Systems). The nomenclature implies
privileges structured according to the caste system; for the Politburo there are no
limits in privileges; below that stratum, there are various benefits (high salaries,
dachas, special train compartments, special schools for their children, access to
exclusive medical institutions, special storehouses for their supplies, etc.).
Privileges are distributed according to rank, decreasing in quality, choice and
scope from top to bottom (NIN, February 21, 1988). In the book Social
Inequalities in Yugoslavia, Eva Berkovic described the system of similar privileges
in our country (salaries, villas, apartments, cars, cheap holiday resorts, et alia)
that spread from the federal to the republic level. "Each public, even strictly
internal party, debate on the privileges was hindered as anti-socialist and anti-
state," wrote Berkovic. The fact that the existence of the nomenclature denies
any meaning to the elections and turns them into mere farce for naïve people
does not deserve further explanation.
3362. Since Gorbachev's rise to power, a lot of unknown facts of the Stalinist era
have been unveiled. It was confirmed, among other things, that Beria's men used
to kidnap young, pretty women in the street, put them into the car and take them
to their boss. These women would disappear forever afterwards! (Danas, Zagreb,
March 15, 1988).
3372. What characterizes Stalinist oppression, distinguishing it from other, similar

forms, is its massiveness. Stalin was not very choosy. In his persecutions, it was
not just intellectuals, writers, politicians, generals, businessmen, managers, or
Jews who suffered and lost their lives. The suffering encompassed scores of
ordinary people, particularly peasants. Millions of them died from starvation and
inhuman conditions in the mass transportation and the inhuman working
conditions in the camps. The special chapter in this mass tragedy was the mass
suffering of women. There are scores of testimonies (the books of Solzhenitzyn,
Shalamov, J.S. Ginsburg, etc.) on the suffering of women who were humiliated
and tortured more than men. The suffering of women in the Stalinist camps is the
greatest and the most massively organized tragedy of women in human history.
3412. Soviet historian Yuri Borishov, a specialist of the period of Stalin's cult of
personality, quotes the letter, dated 1937, in which the then Minister of the
Interior, Yezhov, requested Stalin's approval for the liquidation of a large group of
people. Stalin and Molotov signed the letter, with a "yes" added to the signatures.
The letter was published in the magazine Komsomolskaya Pravda on April 2,
1988, and reads:
Comrade Stalin, I am addressing you with the request to approve the four
lists of people who are the subjects of the Military Staff Tribunal's ruling:
1. List No. 1 (general)
2. List No. 2 (former army personnel)
3. List No. 3 (former NKVD personnel)
4. List No. 4 (wives of peoples' enemies)

Please, give your approval to have them all sentenced based on the first
category.
Signed: Yezhov
The first category, explains Borishov, meant execution. Stalin, according to

Borishov, considered all the lists, and each was marked with a "yes," together
with the signatures of Stalin and Molotov (Oslobodjenje, April 3, 1988, p. 5).
3429. Upon his return from exile in Gorky in 1987 (or 1986), Andrei Sakharov
sent a letter to Gorbachev containing, among other things, the following lines: "I
am appealing upon you to help the release of all the prisoners of conscience, who
are either detained or exiled, upon being sentenced on the basis of Articles
109/1, 70 and 142 of the Criminal Code of the USSR and respective articles of the
codes of other republics, as well as the prisoners of conscience held, on
ideological and political grounds, in the special psychiatric clinics" (NJN, April 10,
1988, p. 35).
3433. The book The Anatomy of the Ethics of a Stalinist, by Jevrem Brkovic-the
war biography of Milovan Dilas ("the ocean of tragic, mad acts and murders which
Milovan Dilas committed whenever there was nobody to prevent him"-Joza
Vlahovic). -
3438. In the USSR, the printing and import of the Bible were banned until as late
as 1988. That year, for the first time, on the occasion of 1000 years of
Christianity in Russia, the import of 150,000 copies of the Bible donated by
Scandinavian Biblical societies was permitted. Until then, the Bible was treated as
a banned commodity, its printing was punished just like any other smuggling, by
the seizure of goods and a fine, even a prison sentence (Politika, April 13, 1988,
article from the Viennese magazine Die Presse).
3445. Alexander Solzhenitsyn lost his Soviet citizenship primarily because of the
book entitled The Gulag Archipelago, after it had been published in Paris, in 1974.
A tragic event preceded the publication of the book: A former camp inmate and
the writer's friend received a copy of the manuscript of Gulag from the author and
failed to give it back to him, considering it her duty to keep it in case the author's
original somehow disappeared. But it was her copy that was seized, and she
hanged herself after being interrogated by the police. It was only upon this
tragedy that Solzhenitsyn, who was otherwise reluctant, decided to publish the
book.
3489. Terror in the USSR did not commence with Stalin but with Lenin.
Solzhenitsyn considers the latter the author of the Gulags. He claims that the
pretext for the creation of those camps was the failed assassination of Lenin,
upon which the Bolshevik leader personally signed decrees on ruthless and mass
terror. Lenin explained the establishment of the camps by the "need to cleanse
the Russian soil of all detrimental insects." The terms "cleansing" and "purges"
thus entered into use, and the culprits were not human beings but insects. The
statistics testify that as early as the end of 1920, in the Russian republic alone,
there were 84 camps with over 50,000 detainees. Since then, both the number of
camps as well as that of detainees was in a constant increase. According to
Solzhenitsyn' s testimony, over 55 million people disappeared during the rule of
the Bolsheviks. Other sources speculate with considerably lower numbers, but
none goes below 15 million.
3492. From Alexander Solzhenitsyn' s book The Gulag Archipelago: "There must
have been a special, clandestine reason behind the arrests of ordinary party
activists, the reason that has never been explicitly stated in the minutes on the
rulings: to arrest primarily those who had become party members before 1924."

This rule was particularly consistently applied jn Leningrad, where the opposition
"platform" was signed (i.e., Zinoviev and Kamenev, author's note). Solzhenitsyn
adds: "And this was the situation, this is an illustration of those years. The party
conference in one region of the Moscow district. Chaired by the new regional
committee secretary, whose predecessor wa~ already behind bars. At the end of
the conference, a message is read with an expression of loyalty to comrade
Stalin. Naturally, they all rise (just like they all rise whenever, during the whole
conference, his name is mentioned). Applause thunders in the small room rising
to ovations. Three minutes, four minutes, five minutes. However, palms start to
hurt. Hands get paralyzed. Middle aged men become exhausted, even those who
sincerely believe that Stalin is God Almighty start feeling that all this is
insufferably stupid. But-who dares to stop first? The secretary of the committee
could do it first, he who had read the message and is still standing on the
podium. No, he is a new one, he has replaced the one who is in jail, he is also
frightened. Because, in this small room there are NKVD agents applauding, and
they carefully watch for who would be the first to stop. A thundering applause for
their leader in this small, isolated room in this godforsaken town, roars for five
minutes, seven minutes, eight minutes! They are done! This is the end of them
all! Only a heart attack can save them now! In the farthest corner of the room
one can cheat a bit, one can take a slower rhythm, less energetically, less
frenzied. What could those on the podium do, those who can be seen by
everybody? The manager of the local paper factory, the man strong and
independent, standing on the podium and applauding, although he is more than
aware that the situation is as artificial as it is hopeless. He has been applauding
for nine minutes! The tenth minute: he looks desperately at the secretary but he
does not dare to stop. This is madness! This is collective madness! The regional
leaders start exchanging glances with poor hope, still with the expression of sheer
happiness on their faces, and continue applauding until they collapse, until they
get dragged away on stretchers. Those who remain will remain with their faces
frozen. . . .
The eleventh minute-and the manager of the paper factory again assumes a
serious look and sits down. And-the miracle! What happened with the
inexpressible and irresistible excitement? Suddenly they all stop applauding and
sit down. They are saved! Finally, salvation! But this is exactly the way to
discover those with independent minds. This is how they can be eradicated. The
manager of the factory was arrested that very night. No problem getting him ten
years in jail, for something else, something that has nothing to do with this"
(Danas, May 17, 1988).
3513. Joseph Brodsky, Russian poet, 1987 Nobel Prize winner, on the USSR:
"It is quite an awful country, but that horror is what makes it interesting, as
Russia is a vivid and simple example of what a man is capable of doing to another
man. In this century, she has shown a phenomenal degree of the negative
potentials in a human being.. . . Russia was a lecture on what man is capable of.
An enormous number of human beings have been destroyed there, millions were
exterminated-however, in order to exterminate millions one needs the millions
who would conduct the exterminations. According to the final calculation, the
closing balance sheet, Russia is, in a sense, comprised of executioners and
victims. That is, more or less, how roles are cast there" (Talking to Jerzy Ilga, for
the Polish review Puls, partly issued in the Belgrade literary magazine Knjizevne
novine, May 15th, 1998).
3551. "The abstract working class is actually a fantastic mask for totalitarian
dictatorship. It is actually on her behalf that the so-called 'workers' state' acts,
even though it is everything but 'workers'.' Bakunin anticipated this as early as
1879, when in a polemic with Marx, he claimed that it would not be the workers
ruling, but the former workers ruling over the real workers and that the rule

would be much more cruel than the capitalist one" (Prof. Drazen Kalodjera, Start
magazine, June 11, 1988).
3576. "While the French intellectual reacted to social phenomena led solely by his
or her own free choice, his or her own conscience as the only judge, the history of
the East-European intellectual is a long, painful history of bans, compromise,
censorship and self-censorship, slander, jail and post-mortem rehabilitation"
(from Danilo Kish' s foreword for the book In Praise of the intellectual by Bernard-
Henry Levy, Belgrade, 1988).
3580. The bureaucratic group is the most numerous and the most powerful status
of Soviet society, amounting to about eighteen million men and women.
3581. The Soviet painter Ilya Glazunov, in an interview, states how 80 percent of
Old Moscow was destroyed in order to construct the communist settlements, "the
machines for accommodation," as Le Corbusier called them (Danas, June 18,
1988).
3582. Pierre Beaudeux published a book in France, in 1988, about the wealthiest
men in the world. In this book, the result of 2.5 years of work involving thirty-
something experts, the Romanian boss Nicolae Ceaucescu was also mentioned.
The book claims that he possessed a personal wealth worth $33 billion and that
he ran his country as if he were the manager of an enterprise with twenty-two
employees, while he was showing all the external signs of his enormous wealth
(palaces, aircraft, yachts, etc.) (Danas, June 28, 1988).
3584. On September 12th, 1971, Nikita Khrushchev died. He was buried as

ordinary citizen at the Novodyevicthansko cemetery in Moscow. The media
reported that "Nikita Khrushchev died, as a retired citizen." In 1984 his wife Nina,
a party activist for years, died. On that occasion, in the daily Vecernja Moskva,
the obituary was published announcing Nina Petrovna-Kuhartchuk. The surname
Khrushchev was omitted. This detail itself is insignificant for the deceased woman
but is terrifying as a symptom. We had only 16 years of the twentieth century
left.
3632. (On various forms of utopia) There is literary utopia such as More's and
Campanela's and the real utopias of Stalin, Mao Tse-Tung and Pol Pot. There are
also the so-called positive and negative utopias, Huxley's and Orwell's. I feel that
I could write a book on the thesis that there is no substantial difference between
these phenomena called utopia, be they literary or real ones, positive or negative.
The negation of the individual (personality) in literary utopia turns into practical
destruction, eradication of man in Stalin's and Pol Pot's utopia-states. And the so-
called positive utopia is no less inhuman than the negative one. Neither
acknowledges either God or Man. Utopia is nothing but an attempt to create
"heaven on earth," without God and against Him. The result is known. Although
we knew it, we could not prove it by the mid twentieth century. Now, at the end
of our century, everything is very clear. What occurred is a historic experiment.
Unfortunately, the price of the experiment was over a hundred million human and
family tragedies.
Today is August 8, 1988. I am 63. I have been in jail for five and a half years.
Less than half remains-three and a half years. Out there, there is a storm raging
and I can only watch it. That is still more than nothing. The scene is extremely
exciting.
3640. Mohammed Assad, in the book, "Journey to Mecca", tells the story of his
first and lasting impression of the USSR. It happened at the Mary railway station
in Turkmenistan in 1926. On a wall a giant, nicely designed poster depicting a

young worker in blue outfit pushing a ridiculous old man with a white beard from
the cloudy sky with his foot. Below, in Russian, the caption read: This is how the
workers of the Soviet Union threw God out from his sky! The USSR Association of
the Godless.
3673. Ivan Kriznar, president of the Commission for the History of the Sbvenian
Communist Party Central Committee, in an interview for the daily Borba about
the Dachau Processes, states that a group from the leadership of the Interior
Ministry of Slovenia, applying Stalinist methods, in 1942 executed the suspects
they found in the liberated territory of Dolenjska Valley. This group was trained at
the Dzerzhinski Police Academy in Moscow and made the core of the Slovenian
OZNA (political police). The group later took part in the staging of the Dachau
Processes (Danas, August 30, 1988).
3675. An interesting case sheds light on the logic and reasoning of communist
rule. In Poland, for example, during the latest wave of strikes in 1988, workers
were constantly criticized for posing not only economic but also political demands
(the authorities refer to the workers' demand to legalize Solidarity).
Look at this criticism. Why wouldn't the workers have the right to pose political
demands? When did they lose that right and who was the one who took it from
them? But, bureaucratic authorities shamelessly consider that workers and other
citizens have no such rights and even succeeded, repeating the point time and
again, in convincing most of them that this absurdity is logical. That is how it
happens that citizens, when seeking their rights to be observed or lodging
complaints, claim that their demands have nothing to do (God forbid!) with
politics. Political rights are forever the monopoly of communist bureaucracy.

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Polity Ezania - The Islamic micronation -



Thoughts on Islam: Historical and Other Observations
CHAPTER 6
40. So far we have been talking about damages and defeats inflicted on us by
others. The time has come to start talking about damages and defeats that we
inflict on ourselves. That will be the beginning of our maturity.
41. Fasting can be defined as the most apparent attempt of the spirit to master
the body and to keep and maintain that victory at least temporarily. There are
other meanings and uses that can be identified in fasting, but they are obviously
of minor relevance. The relationship between body and spirit, and the affirmation
of the latter, remain the first and most important meaning of fasting.
41a. Why are the peoples whose prayers are connected with cleaning and
constant following of time not examples of cleanliness and punctuality? Why have
the peoples who deprive themselves of food and drink thirty days a year not
become an example of discipline? How come that, after fourteen centuries of this
sometimes cruel and strict practice, cleanliness, punctuality and discipline have
not become second nature or even an obsession to them? The individual who
could offer a satisfactory answer to these two questions would deserve the Nobel
Prize.
77. Herodotus stated that the Kolhids (an ancient people that inhabited modern
Syria), ancient Egyptians and Ethiopians had practiced circumcision.
81. Hegel believes that the fantasy and magic that characterize tales from A
Thousand and One Nights are alien to the Arab spirit and seeks their origin in
Egypt. As we know, Hammer shares a similar view.
83. The Qur'an and Islam is the environment in which the world lives like fish in
water.
84. While nationality is based on a natural relation link, Islam is a relation based
on spirit, law and morality.
111. In the history of Islamic peoples we should distinguish between those whose
education began with Islam and those who had been at certain level of education
before Islam. We encounter both cases in Islamic history.
117. "Enthusiasm as such has never achieved great accomplishments"- wrote

Hegel about the expansion of early Islam (Hegel, Philosophy of History, p. 330).
165. According to Fazlur-Rahman (The Spirit of Islam, Chicago, 1979;

hereinafter: F.R.), such philosophy on peace with the cosmos "brought comfort at
a time when the external situation was far from being favorable" and "in the
society that became increasingly prone to internal decline and disintegration." The
question remains whether such philosophy was the cause or the consequence of
that situation.
185. In the beginning, the interpretation of the Qur'an was free, but the process
of creative interpretation (ra 'y) was gradually restricted by sunna, kiyas and
i~jma, and so on until it was completely rigidified by the theory on the "closing of
ijtihad" (in the third century). All innovations were completely prevented.
Ijma in islam means "communis opinio," community consensus.

187. There was a situation that in history was called "classic opposition" to the
Hadith. The opponents were not opposed to the Hadith itself, yet they stated that
the practice established by agreement (al-amal) was more reliable for the
purpose of interpretation of the Qur'an and its meaning, than the Hadith, the
reliability of which could be questionable.
192. The Qur'an criticizes the Prophet: 9/44 and 80/1.
195. The members of the early schools of law recognized the principle of ijma
(consensus) as the definite and decisive argument in everything, yet the
emphasis was not on the absolute truth of its contents but on its practical value.
196. In the late third and early fourth centuries after Hijra (ninth and early tenth
centuries), the dogma and the law acquired their final form and "the doors of if
tihad were closed." Since then until now, very few changes have been made to
Islamic law and dogma.
197. Mawardi (died 1088) quotes a Hadith that says that even a bad sovereign
should be obeyed, provided that he does not issue the wrong orders (F.R., ibid.,
p. 118).
198. The fact is that advisors to the Umayyad dynasty did not interpret the
Qur'an and Hadith on the basis of the principle of purposefulness and
opportunism, which brought about major distortions. During the rule of the
Abbasid dynasty, the Shariah was supplemented with a small code passed by
secular authorities, while the Turkish sultans, besides the shariah, enacted a
compendium of laws known as Kanun (canon). "Canonic legislation was a product
of the sultanate, not the caliphate," concludes F.R. (ibid., p. 122). As judges were
appointed by the state authorities, their independence was rather questionable.
Therefore, the literature refers to many cases during the rule of the Umayyad
dynasty, where the ulema, lawyers and Sufis accused the judges of being
servants to the sovereign, instead of the sharia and justice.
202. Is man's freedom in obeying (submission to) God-as it was taught by some
orthodox theologians who refuted teaching of mu 'tazila (islamic rationalists)?
They spoke about "the aggressive pressure of proud and superficial rationalism,
striving to make the reason equal to the revelation, or even superior to it." Ebu-l-
Hasan Ashari (died in 1268) stated that God's justice could not be defined by
human standards.
207. "Ilm" and "fikh"-learning and understanding-two opposed yet

complementary concepts, both recognized from the very beginning as ways of
knowing Islam. One sort of knowledge is given and complete, the other is
creative and open. The former is the objective, the latter the subjective principle
of cognition.
209. In the opinion of F.R., the Qur'an contains very little theological doctrine,
just "the minimum without which there is no religion" (F.R., ibid., p. 153).
212. Around the tenth and eleventh centuries A.D.~ Islamic theology split to
assume two different aspects: (1) as the dogmatic and formally rational theology
of kalam and (2) as a speculative theology of sufism. Later on, theology will
monopolize the entire area of metaphysics and even of cosmogony, denying the
right to free research of the cosmos and nature. This way of thinking condemned
Islam to scientific and political stagnation.
213. It is interesting that four essentially different streams found their place in
Islam: rationalism, sufism, theology and law.

217. When superstitions take the place of clear theological principles, then moral
negligence becomes a substitute for moral principles. Superstition goes hand in
hand with relinquishing moral strictness. For superstition is not just stupidity, its
mockery of the reason quickiy turns into the mockery of morality. Sufi mass
religion ("religion of the masses") did not recognize either strict theological or
moral norms. The spreading of moral looseness can be fairly blamed on the Sufi
doctrine that asserted "the one who is the witness of God's will is no longer bound
by God's command."
218. Acceptance of the principle of "closing the door of ijtihad" led to rigidity and
the unchangeable character of adopted legal norms. This situation was the main
reason for the secular authorities to pass a secular code-a canon that, according
to F.R., "at first supplemented and then replaced shariah law" (p. 167).
219. Islam (and its ethics, sermons, faith, etc.) in its beginnings created and
maintained a sharpened sense of justice and injustice, and that was the sense
that would always lead to a right law and, furthermore, to its right
implementation and practice. Without that sense, every law is powerless,
ineffective. The topic that prevails in the Islamic legal books and debates is the
issue of "intention," that is, a purely inherent, ethical issue. "What Islam inspired
its early followers most often with, yet to a different degree, was a serious feeling
of responsibility before God's justice." (F.R., p. 186).
220. It is characteristic that Islamic philosophers readily took over the idea of
radical dualism between body and soul, that is, between matter and spirit, from
Greek philosophical and metaphysical theories. In that idea they discovered the
point of coincidence between the Qur'an and Greek philosophy.
222. As far as the credibility of the Hadith is concerned, it is not the seneds (the
chain of those who passed it, traced back to the source) that count; what counts
is their essential conformity with the spirit of the Qur'an. So for example, the
Hadith preaching withdrawal from the world-and it seems that there are many of
the sort-are not credible, regardless of the collection they make part of. In such a
case, the Hadith is not to be rejected as a source, but considered exclusively in
the function of a better understanding of the Qur' an, which is the only and
highest authority.
223. "Particularly unacceptable for Islam was the negative attitude of sufis
towards this world that, as it seemed, spread among them at amazing rate" (see
F.R., ibid., p. 192). In the opinion of F.R., had it not been for the resistance to
this approach, the Sufi movement would have ended up establishing "real
monastic orders, which would certainly have destroyed the entire structure of
Islam" (F.R., ibid.).
224. The Sufi Du-l-Nun from Egypt (died 659) classified levels of spiritual
development, very similar to the manner of the Hindus, and was accused of
heresy.
225. Some Sufi lines established the institution of saints, as discussed in detail in
a book by the Sufi Hakim Tirmizi (ninth century). In further development this led
to a teaching on the hierarchy of saints who "maintain the world." F.R. says that
this teaching became a component part of the Sufi doctrine as early as in the
fourth/ninth century. These saints were gifted with the ability of performing
miracles and with other talents and privileges (keramat). Eventually, Hallaj
identified himself with God, saying: "I am the truth" ("ene-l-hak"). Islam was
gradually reduced to Christ's din (faith).

227. The occurrence of the Sufi theosophy altered the character of Islam and
marked almost an entire millenium, from the eleventh to the nineteenth century.
At the same time, it paralyzed energy, or turned the spiritual energy of the best
minds inward, putting a veil on the Qur' anic order to "observe."This was a step
away from real life, from history; the eyes were moved away from nature,
contrary to what the Qur'an requires. The Qur'anic order to "observe," no matter
what different meanings it may have, certainly is not "haqiqa"-the inner cognition
of the Sufis. Observation is a typical "external cognition." We should know that
even great minds like El-Farabi and Ibn-Sinna took part in the creation of large
systems of philosophical mysticism. Ibn el Arabi's theosophy is totally monistic
and pantheistic, "absolutely contrary to the teachings of Islam"-concluded F.R. (p.
205). According to him, this Sufi monistic doctrine, known as a doctrine on
"oneness of being," "threatened to shake the very concept of islam and the
Shariah."
228. Well known are the Sufi practice of worshipping graves and the cult of saints
(for example, masses bow before the grave of the famoud Sufi Ali el Hujriri from
the eleventh century). Orthodox Islam, though it did not capitulate, withdrew
before Sufism. On the other hand, it is the fact that Sufism functioned as a
protest against political tyranny, and in Africa Sufi orders offered armed
resistance to the advancement of the European colonial armies. However, it was
passive, rather than active resistance.
230. The erosion of theological clarity and determination, through the Sufi so-
called inner way to knowledge, intuition, illumination, ecstasy, led in some cases
to spiritual juggling, exhibitionism or even charlatanry. Parasite beggars and
dervish exploiters occurred. "Islam was left to the mercy of spiritual delinquents,"
concluded F.R. (ibid., p. 216). Widespread belief in bereket or feyd brought about
the worshipping and cult of graves, saints and other alleged relics (F.R., 217).
Even the mediator showed up-a priest in the position of the absolute authority of
a Sufi leader-sheik (pir or murshid in Persia and India, muqadam in Black Africa).
232. Theology-full of order, law, reason, measure, but deprived of imagination,

cold as logic. Sufism is all that is contrary to it: full of enthusiasm, but of
arbitrariness too, that enabled it to reach unparalleled heights of truth and virtue,
as well as to fall to depths of illusion and vice! Theology (as its name says) is a
science, Sufism is poetry. In connection to this there are two other phenomena:
theological Islam was the religion of the urban, better-educated classes, often
shallow and formal. Sufism, on the contrary, became popular, a folk religion.
Made up of pure piousness, it allowed for amazing deviations in rituals. In some
places, like India and Indonesia, the rituals have many elements of Buddhist-
Hindu origin, and beneath the Islamic surface, we can discover untouched pagan
customs and cults. Strictness in interpretation of religion was matched by moral
strictness. Law, order and measure in theology were matched by law, order and
measure in ethics. Consequently, the occurrence of Sufi superstitions was
followed by a similar "liberty" in the domain of morality.
On the other hand, theologians always advocated a political status quo. There is
the famous conformity of the ulema, "obedience to tyrants, too," etc. Their slogan
was that even a bad government is better than anarchy and that one should obey
the ruler even if he was wrong and unfair. Sufism, on the contrary, was a
potential bearer of revolution, resistance and so on. In some cases, this
opposition (theology-sufism) was very effective, like in the case of the spreading
of Islam in Africa. In the beginning it was usually just a bare conversion of
masses through a compromise with the existing cult and customs. Afterwards the
orthodoxy purified and consolidated Islam with the new converts, who had been
originally converted by Sufis.

The oldest sufi brotherhood-Kadiri (after imam Abd-el Kadir Gilani) dates back to
the eleventh and twelfth centuries, which is relatively late. The African variant of
this brotherhood is the line of Ahmadu Bauba (Senegal) who gave up on prayer
and fasting. The Bedevi order (founder Ahmad Bedevi, thirteenth century) abstain
from talking (like the Christian Trappist order); the Bektashi order, widespread in
Turkey, are the most distant from the original Islam. In this fact we can detect
one of the reasons for the success of the Kemalist movement. That kind of Islam
turned to be frail to Western challenges. The Harijji order: absolute equality,
responsibility before God, "order the good and forbid the evil," any Muslim, not
only members of Muhammed' s tribe, can be a caliph, radical idealism. Two
movements from more recent times found inspiration in their teaching: the
Muslim Brothers and Jamat-i-Islami (Pakistan).
236. Goldziher: Sunni Islam is the religion of if ma (consensus), while Shiite

Islam is the religion of authority (imam). For Sunnis there is if ma, but there is
not ijtihad (free, creative interpretation). For Shiites, it is the other way around.
"Shiite masses, on the whole, are more superstitious than the Sunni" (F.R., ibid.,
p. 244).
237. In the early stages of Islam, teachers in primary schools (kutab) were often
non-Muslims, mainly Christians and Jews (F.R., ibid., p. 253).
241. A characteristic symptom of the stagnation of Islamic thought was the habit
of writing "comments on comments," while the original works that were subject to
the comments had sunk almost completely into oblivion. Medressas were reduced
to four theological subjects: hadith, fikh, kalam (theology) and tefsir. The
Qur'anic advice to "observe the sky" was completely forgotten, as noticed by the
Turkish writer Katib Kelebi (seventeenth century), in his book The Equilibrium of
the Truth. Even the comments were often reduced to superficial word games,
verbal debates and grammatical pedantry. Some books on Arabic syntax, known
as Kafiya, were given mystical interpretations by some authors (?!). Mysticism
infiltrated everything. Another phenomenon: learning by heart and endless
memorizing, repetition instead of the search for knowledge. All these were the
symptoms or causes of overall stagnation.
245. Shayh Veli-Allah, an Indian thinker from Delhi (1702-1762), was the first to
try to formulate the so-called "integral Islam." The movement of Hajji Shariat-
Allah (born in 1764), also in India, had a program that included the following
points: (1) fight against British rule in India, (2) social and economic reform
against the rich landlords, for the benefit of the peasants and (3) elimination of
Hindu ideas and Sufi extremes. However, the presence of Sufi elements together
with the orthodox Islamic idea was characteristic for these movements, as well as
for the Wahabi and Sanusi orders. As a matter of fact, this was the phenomenon
of the "new Sufism," that is, the reformed Sufism on orthodox foundations
interpreted in an activist sense.
249. Some authors believe that Western civilization is a continuation of Islam

because it had its starting point in the Islamic civilization at its climax. One of
them is Muhammad Iqbal (in his book The Renewal of the Religious Thought in
Islam), who states that the modern thought of the West is a direct continuation of
the Islamic culture that spread through Spain and Sicily to the West.
252. The Kemalist idea in Turkey manifested total spiritual sterility. In sixty years
of this movement, not a single significant theorist emerged among Turkish
intellectuals who would further elaborate and promote the doctrine of radical
secularity in Turkey. This unique case of the full success of a secular approach in
the Islamic world was a reaction to another extreme: the full predominance

of the Sufi Bektashi brotherhood during several centuries. It was not Islam that
could not resist the laical challenge, but its Bektashi variant that had prevailed in
Turkey and that was equally non-Islamic as its laical antipode, just with a
different sign.
253. Modernists should be constantly reminded of the importance of religion.

Conservatives, the importance of science. Mutual contradiction is illusory.
255. Even the theorist of Turkish nationalism, Zia Gekalp (died 1924), who was
considered by Kemal an ideologist, was not advocating a radical laical approach.
He was opposed to theocracy and clericalism, not to Islam.
259. While Shiite Muslims refer to the legitimate principle of the institution of the
imam, Sunni Muslims refer to the democratic principle of if ma.
262. The dogma on absolute obedience to the ruler led gradually, through a
specific cause-consequence sequence, to the decline of the very civilization of
Islam.
263. We need an objective and critical assessment of our history.
264. "The Sufi spiritual ideals offered to the people an escape from the sad
realities of life and economic difficulties, social divisions and political uncertainty"
(F.R., p. 335). Instead of finding a way out, Sufism taught people certain
techniques of self-suggestion and hypnosis-that is, of oblivion. But the secular
societies, organizations or movements could not be a substitute for Sufi tarikas.
They did not have any of the spiritual depth of the old Sufi brotherhoods.
310. The Qur'an and Islam are too important to be left only to khojas.
444. The absence of any racist feelings in the Muslim world was wittily described
by Malcolm X as "color blindness." They do not see the color, they see man. Color
does not matter and does not say anything about the man.
490. The final development stage of religious thought, as seen by Hegel, should
lead to liberation from the cult phase, that is, the phase of respect for the
sensual, and turning toward the interior and the abstraction. This phase of the so-
called cult religion was very much linked to images and sculptures. In his
Aesthetics, Hegel wrote: "We do not bend our knees before statues anymore." We
do not know how correct this is, but considering his other perfectly correct
observations, we have to ask ourselves, why did Hegel remain rather indifferent
to Islam? Was it due to insufficient knowledge of Islam or to Hegel's
Eurocentrism? In Islam Hegel could have recognized this-according to him-
highest stage of the development of religious thought, when it gets rid of any
pictorial likeness and purifies itself to become a total abstraction in the Hegelian
sense of the word. Islam is a crystal-clear example of that development.
670. What could be compared to the rationality of Muslim ritual ablutions? There
is nothing neither missing nor excessive in them.
712. Start thinking of yourself as a Muslim, in order to rescue yourself from the
narrow confines of the tribe or nation. Become protagonists of the Islamic
renewal and Islamic culture.
750. What could one say about this total chaos in the Near and Middle East- the
war of all against all, hijacking of planes, suicidal actions, the so-called senseless
wars, coups and the like? That part of the world is a sort of pressure-cooker.
Judging from the high temperatures involved, many things will burn and

disappear, leaving behind the ideas and people capable of living and surviving.
After a total mess, when all storms and wandering calm down, Muslims and Jews
of a new age will remain on the scene.
756. Considering the relationships between the Arab-Muslim and Spanish-Catholic

communities in the medieval Spain, Ortega Y Gasset said: "It is a real shame that
the relationships that existed between these two communities have not yet come
to light. We must admit that our Arabists (scientists who study the Arab world),
led by Ribero, have made some important steps in the attempt to get a clearer
picture of the way the Moors and the Spanish lived together. However, unless this
issue is approached from deeper layers, it will not be possible to reach much
further." Gasset believes that lack of knowledge or poor knowledge also
characterized the relationship between Europe and Islam in general-"ignorance of
the fact is one of the big realities of the history of the West" (Gasset in his
preface to Ibn Hazm's Dove's Necklace).
757. The Arabs learned about Hellenic culture through the Eastern Roman
Empire, the Europeans through the Western.
759. Attention should be paid to the fact that the fruits of a civilization are
different in its beginning and at its end. All intellectual performance of the
classical culture, at its sunset in the fifth century, was reduced to anthologies,
encyclopedias, dictionaries. There were no more great works. The situation was
similar in the Islamic culture of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. There were
no more great interpreters of the Qur' an, yet there were scores of hafis. Instead
of creative comments-endless learning by heart, instead of analysis and
synthesis-endless repetition.
763. H.R.P. Dickson published in 1949 a comprehensive volume about the life of
the tribes that inhabit the coasts of the Persian Gulf. He stated that in Arabia
infidelity on any side (male or female) was not known as such then. But at the
same time he mentioned that marriages were easily and often divorced. It seems
that we have to put up with one of the two inconveniences.
764. Arab origin of the so-called chivalrous love. A knight's love was Platonist, it
meant distance, lovers were hopelessly separated; it was not a pleasure, but
rather a sweet pain, a welcome wound. "Baghdad love" was famous in Arabian
poetry. Gasset believes that it was a result of the introduction of the Platonist
feeling into the spiritual life of that time. One of the legends speaks about the
Udriya tribe, where men died of love because they deliberately gave up on their
beloved. This was a total asceticism in the erotic sphere.
768. With the exception of the Mayan culture, ended by forceful death, all other
known cultures in history died gradually as a consequence of aging, the slowing
down of life rhythm, some kind of sclerosis, that is, of internal changes. This
process can be followed most clearly in Roman civilization, where the invasion of
barbarians was just a coup de grace for an organism that had been in the state of
agony for two centuries. The Arab civilization was not an exception to this rule. It
is up to historians to establish what this culture suffered from, to examine the
causes of its decline, in which colonial subjugation was not the reason of its fall
but rather a consequence of its internal descent. Anyway, does the Qur' an not
say: "Verily never will God change the condition of a people until they change it
themselves (with their own souls)" (Qur'an, 13/11). It could be said that this rule
has the power of natural law in the life of peoples and their movement through
history.

882. During French rule, all education in Algeria was in French. In general, the
situation in Algeria, of all colonized countries, was the most difficult. It was
somewhat more tolerable in Tunisia and Morocco.
885. We should be cautious about our history being written by others. Algerian
writer Abdelkader Mahdad wrote: "When a people does not write their own
history, others will do it for them, in their own way."
968. What is forgotten-such was a case of national forgetfulness without

precedent-does not exist. Removal of the Arabic alphabet was a radical negation
of Turkish history. If Turkey was really supposed to forget its past, to change its
being, to cease being what it was-and it was an eminently Islamic nation in its
essence-then change of the alphabet was the most efficient way to achieve that.
No other measure imposed by a decree could have served that purpose better
and more expeditiously.
1050. It has been noticed that two different spiritual activities, like medicine and
philosophy, have never been so close as they were in the Arab west in the twelfth
century. The most famous doctors of those times were at the same time the most
significant philosophers: Ibn Baaga, Ibn Tufayl, Ibn Rushd, Moses Maimonides,
Ibn Sinna, and the rest. It was a kind of a "personal union" of medicine, theology
and philosophy-a typical Islamic pattern.
1069. Ibn Tufayl (Hayy ibn Yagdan) noticed that the stars Beta and Gamma (two
Ferkads) in the constellation of Ursa Minor make the smallest circles in their
movement. This is, of course, just illusionary (as perceived by viewers from the
earth), as well as the "inertness" of the North Star.
1124. Islam suits the white and the black race-therefore it suits all races or, more
precisely, it suits a colorful human race.
1148. Most people experience and remember Hajj as a fairy tale, what it actually
is. Hajj is a dream of equality. It is so for a majority of people, primarily because
of the spirit of community arising from total diversity. It should be compared with
H. Hesse's Pilgrimage-here as well we see "the diversity of worlds where the
opposites are so unified to create harmony" (in the words of a critic).
1288. In order for a society to be able to function democratically, there has to be

the so-called social consensus, the core of gathering, the basic agreement on at
least one main goal, basic principle or fundamental interest. In Islamic countries
it is obvious that only Islam can play that role. There are not more than a few
societies that could be proud of such a strong consensus about a principle as is
the case with Islam in Muslim countries.
1473. Regarding the Islamic world of today, the main impression one gets is a
huge cultural and technological gap between it and the developed West. The
technological gap could be overcome relatively soon, on the condition that proper
care is taken of cultural development, primarily by means of a reasonable
educational system and encouragement of all forms of folk culture. A society that
organizes itself and sets a clear goal can achieve technological progress in a
relatively short period of time that would otherwise take decades or even
centuries.
1541. The principle of monarchy is founded on the illusion that the ideal man can
exist. Such an assumption is alien to Islam.
1548. When I talk about Islamic devotion, a contrasting example crosses my

mind: Byron's Manfred. He is a man who cannot find his peace. He possesses a

deep knowledge, his mind reaches what other people's minds cannot, he has
power and he destroys his enemies, he invokes spirits and they submit to him.
They can fulfill all his commandments and wishes but one: They cannot give him
peace. The only thing the proud Manfred desires is something he cannot have,
peace of mind.
1592. Saint-Simon advocated a certain linkage between science and religion, but
not the way it is understood in Islam. The linkage he spoke about was artificial
and external. His ideal was a natural scientist-philosopher in the Pope's throne
(he wrote, among others, a book with a characteristic title: New Christianity).
1625. "Observe and contemplate" from the Qur' an-two essentially different ways
and goals. The difference between them is the difference between physics and
metaphysics. "Observe" is the beginning of any science. That is the positivism of
the Qur'an. On the contrary, the objective of metaphysics has always been to
discover some absolute principle that could explain all the diversity in the world.
For it, it was sufficient to establish the relationships among things (phenomena)
without pretension to reach the very essence of those things and phenomena.
That was the task of metaphysics that, naturally, it would not be able to
accomplish.
1627. What is fasting about?-It is a directly experienced combat between the

body and soul. While fasting, the body suffers, requests and does not get served,
while the soul is in control of that suffering. It is the victory of the spirit over the
body, a painful, directly experienced victory. If one can experience fasting in such
a way, it will give him pleasure, not just suffering.
1701. Christianity started from the originally religious premise that the more life
is losing of its appearances, the more it is gaining in its spiritual value.
Accordingly, the external and internal values of life are opposed to each other, in
a sort of negative correlation. Is there a need to emphasize that Islam does not
share this view and that that is what differs it essentially from the Christian
teaching?
1718. All modernist poetry is, as a matter of fact, a rebellion against provincial
mentality. It is a destructive poetry that ends up in the apotheosis of death, as
the only way out for a free personality. The individual who has the courage to die
in a conflict with the society that does not tolerate individual freedom is free. To
be free represents a crime in such society.
What is the provincial mentality? It is triviality in both virtue and vice: formal
morality, hypocrisy, suppressing of individualism and originality, power of money,
marriage of convenience and so on. A provincial character condemns killing, but
approves war and capital punishment. He condemns debauchery, but tolerates
prostitution and marriage of convenience. He is against theft, but he tolerates
fraud in the form of dishonest trade, usury, commercial and banking speculations
and financial operations. A provincial character is formally for freedom, yet he
tolerates the terror of husband against wife, of parents against children, of
managers against the staff, of bosses against employees and servants. It is
important that everything is in accordance with the law; he never asks himself if
the law is good or not, for the law is the law, it is sacred, and so on. However,
modernist art does not protest against these very vices, but against covert forms
of such vices. Moreover, that poetry celebrated and described openly the vices
and crimes of fearless personalities, if they committed them publicly and if they
were ready to pay the price of their audacity. "It is not important who you are or
what you do, just stay what you are till the end." How could we explain this open
praising of insolent and cynical individuals in the European literature of the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, except by the fact that hypocrisy and

false morality had prevailed in that society to the verge of disgust? Moral sermon
proves to be helpless against hypocrisy, because it (hypocrisy) keeps telling the
same story. The words are the same, the sermon is the same. That is why the
European literature of this sort will not juxtapose an honest woman to a former
prostitute who became a "high society lady," but a prostitute and coquette who
openly takes part in debauchery and justifies it with impudence. According to the
opinion of the modernism adherents, that was the only way to shake the rotten
foundations of the so-called citizen (false) virtue.
Why was it so? According the law of opposites, the unattainable Christian moral
ideal had to have its counterpart-the cult of vice and crime. The invitation to self-
sacrifice for others (the sacrifice of Jesus) was responded to by the invitation to
unlimited selfishness, to the cult of sacrifice-by the cult of vice. Such clear-cut
phenomena are characteristic only for Western civilization and, as far as I know,
nothing similar can be seen in any other culture. It seems that the ideals must
not be unattainable. The inability to attain them brings about disappointment and
hypocrisy. Cynical mockery of the ideal follows as a reaction to the hypocrisy. In
both cases, what is missing is human measure, moral requirement to man's
measure. The ideal is to find a balance: to live at the same time for yourself and
for others-like a cell in a healthy body.
1723. European literature sings the praises of "beauty of vice." The Qur'an also
speaks about the seducing beauty of vice, which is the act of Satan (Qur'an,
8/48).
1724. In almost all the novels written by Octave Mirbeau, known as the poet of
vice, we find one and the same pattern of the development of the human soul. A
child comes into the world with love and the presentiment of a light and joyful
life, yet it becomes confronted with the madness of life and the criminal and
vicious humankind. Looking at that pattern, we cannot avoid asking ourselves on
whose side this "illuminator" on evil and vice is: on the side of the purity of the
child's world or on the side of the vicious humankind?
Naturalism is false (or half-true), as well as idealism. In Mirbeau' s novels, every

priest is a hypocrite, every scientist is a government servant, every clerk or
policeman is either corrupt or incompetent, every shopkeeper or banker is a thief,
every man in power is a tyrant and every family is a hotbed of lies and
debauchery. If this were a true interpretation of the world, the entire
development of life and society, and in particular some decisive events of the
twentieth century that took place after Mirbeau would be inexplicable. The history
before and after Mirbeau, or even his own life, could not be explained by his
philosophy. Man is neither an angel nor a criminal. The greatest secret about man
is that he is not either of them, but-man. He is the most complex and the most
difficult enigma to understand and explain in the entire universe. Those who
idealize man or who see a beast in him are just simplifying the problem. If man
were a beast, all the poetry and literature would be irrelevant and unnecessary.
What would the point be for an author who is an animal to prove to his reader
that he is also an animal, that all men who surround them are animals? Especially
if they are so, if they are supposed to be so and if they cannot avoid being so.
Yet, it seems that in the literature of that kind there is a hidden unspoken thought
(or unconscious assumption) that man is supposed to be man, that unfortunately
he is not able to be so and that this impossibility makes all our life, all history and
even the entire universe meaningless. For those works are brimming over with
protest, despair, condemnation. Against what? Only against man who is not man,
but should be. Mirbeau's novels are even the best example of that. Regardless of
the writer's conscious choice and intention, they discover the duality of the
human position.

We would expect the naturalists to take an objective and indifferent scientific

position, like a geographer or geologist. The latter describe without sentiment
deserted landscapes and volcanoes that erupt without warning and unexpectedly,
devastating their surroundings. We would expect Zola, Baizac, Mirbeau to
describe with equal indifference the desert of the human soul and the volcanoes
that erupt from it. But this is not the case. They get angry, they accuse their
characters and transmit their furious feelings of desperation and hopelessness to
us. Why? Obviously, because it does not have to be the way it is, not necessarily.
"How many children could have become great men, had they not been crippled by
the ignorance and lack of understanding of their parents and teachers," yells the
author of Golgotha (Mirbeau, Le Calvaire) through the mouth of his character
Jean Mentier. Protest and rage against something that is necessary and inevitable
would make no sense.
1745. Islam is remarkably superior in one important point: its teaching on God.
That teaching is like the sky: simple, but at the same time magnificent and
inexhaustible. In all other great religions there has been some confusion about
this capital topic. The pure and very deep teaching on God and the Qur'an
represents a large comparative advantage of Islam in an area of human thought
and spiritual interest of greatest importance. This is an area in which, I believe,
Islamic thought will develop without boundaries.
1871. Islamic tradition carries the message that a new sapling must replace every
cut tree.
2013. The perfect man is not our aim, the perfect society even less. All we want
are normal people and normal society. God, save us from any "perfection!"
2014. For, if we deleted members of the equation, one by one on the two sides,
what would remain at the end, as a difference that cannot be offset between the
West and the Muslim East, is a different man-woman relationship. Islam can
adopt many things from the West (or vice versa), but if it accepted its family
relationships it would not be the Muslim world anymore. For the West will proceed
in the direction of sexual liberty. There is no barrier in sight that could hold it
back. Islam will provide education and political rights for women, but it will keep
its moral strictness.
2048. Islam is the most typical example of continuity in history and culture. It
confirmed, without any exclusions, all prophets and messengers who came before
it (that echelon includes all known and many unknown prophets). Considering the
exaltation of their ethical teachings, we have reason to believe that among the
prophets were also Socrates, Buddha, Confucius, Lao Tse, as well as founders of
some Indian religions. Explanation?
2067. Hajj (pilgrimage), due to extraordinary historical situations that date back
to pre-history, is experienced as a journey through time and space. And the sight
of hundreds of thousands of people in white ihram leads our thought to the very
verge of utopia.
2114. The present Congregation for Religious Doctrine-the highest body of the
Catholic Church-is the former Sacred Inquisition.
2156. When I think about the situation of Muslims throughout the world, my first
question always reads: Do we have the destiny that we deserve, and are others
always to blame for our situation and defeats? And if we are to blame- and I
believe so-what did we miss doing, but should have done, or, what did we do, yet
should not have? For me, these are two unavoidable questions regarding our
unenviable situation.

2184. Five Scandinavian countries-Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and

Iceland-are gradually integrating and becoming one single country. So, for
instance, a Finnish citizen can work in Sweden, get medical care in Norway and
receive his pension in Denmark. A series of common institutions: Nordic
Investment Bank, Nordic Telecommunications System, Nordic Technological
Development Fund, Nordic Council of Ministers, as well as sixty other common
bodies included, get along easily when common interests are in question. The
borders are almost erased. The integration is progressing with the slogan
"Scandinavia-one country." Nordic legislators who initiated the process of
integration met for the first time a hundred years ago. When I speak about the
integration of the Islamic world, I imagine it similar to this one. It will take some
time, but it is not impossible. It took some time for Scandinavian integration.
2221. They were not Arabs, but they wrote in the Arabic language: Abu Nives,
one of the greatest poets of Arab poetry, was Persian. Ibn el Mustafa, also a
Persian, was the author of the most beautiful Arab prose (second century after
Hijra). Sibenshi, the famous systemizer of Arab grammar, Ibn Sinna and the
great scientist El-Birouni were also Persians. Ibn Rumi was of Greek origin, as
well as the geographer Jakub, while Ibn-Kufi (Spanish chronicler), Ibn Hazm
(theologian and writer) and Ibn Kuzman (great poet) were of Visigoth origin
(Francesco Gabrielli, The History of Arab Literature, p. 11).
In the first centuries of Islam, the predominance of Arabic language was absolute.
The only exception to it was the Persian national reaffirmation movement in the
tenth and eleventh centuries, first in poetry and then in prose. The complete
separation of Persian literature from Arab happened only recently. The
predominance of the Arabic language was everywhere due to the predominance
of the Qur'an in spiritual life.
2224. Umayyad period: seventh and eighth centuries. Abbasid period: eighth-
thirteenth centuries. These two periods of about six hundred years make the so-
called classical period of Islamic culture. Following that, the Mongolian invasion of
the East (thirteenth century), the Reconquista in Spain (thirteenth-fifteenth
centuries) and, as a consequence, a deep decadence during next five or six
centuries that lasted until the beginning of the twentieth century. The only great
name that surfaced during the decadence was Ibn Haldun-an oasis in the vast
desert.
2225. Four great names of Persian (and world) poetry: Firdusi, Nizami, Sadi and
Hafiz.
2226. We should not forget: Muhammad the Prophet fought against pagans, but
he also negotiated with them.
2235. By Kemal' s reforms the necessary permanent dialogue or flux among the
past, present and future was interrupted, and without it there cannot be an
established system of values nora true feeling of dignity in a nation.
2290. There is no good optimistic literature. Somebody said, "literature lives on

the evil that exists in the world."
2293. The balance of power that is founded on the division of the world into two
blocks is a favorable climate for the creation and development of a third group of
forces in the world. In a bipolar world, either of the two superpowers is practically
a factor of balance. Without the USSR, the world would be exposed to a political
and spiritual Americanization. It is even more obvious that without the United
States, we would have a rude sovietization on the scene. A natural and successful
building of a united Europe (on the existing foundations of the EEC) is possible
only under current conditions. Interference of superpowers is present even now,

but to a very limited degree. In the shadow of this giant confrontation, a new
superpower could be born and developed from the ideas and expanses of the
Islamic world. The EEC has demonstrated how to do it gradually and it is the
model to follow.
2312. The alternate perceptions of life as either prose or poetry that characterizes
Islam are literally reflected in the Qur'an, which, regarding its literary form,
represents a blend of prose and poetry.
2313. The objective was to create a society, of moral strictness and political
freedom. This is a difficult, yet possible task. I believe that it is originally an
Islamic concept.
3214. The first of the three great poets from the Umayyad period-JerirTerezuk-El
Ahtal, was a Christian from Mesopotamia. Chroniclers describe him as strolling
through the palace of Damascus with a golden cross pendant on his necklace and
refusing to convert to Islam (Gabrielli, ibid., p. 95).
2329. The disunity that prevailed in the Arab world during its classical period
(first five centuries) was fatal in the political domain, but not in the cultural.
Gabrielli wrote: "However, this political division [east-west, my comment] did not
lead to the breaking of cultural links, and that was characteristic for the entire
islamic Middle Ages. Islamic culture was unified in its essence, with some regional
variations and features, so we can say that no political boundaries existed for
spiritual values."
2332. Spanish Arabs introduced the new strophic poetry, its discovery attributed
to the blind poet Mukkadam el-Kadri. The poems of that kind usually consisted of
five or seven stanzas with different combinations of rhyme. Ribera and Menendes
Pidal made a thorough comparative analysis of this Arabian (Andalusian), and
later on of Provansalian, poetry and established numerous analogies, particularly
in the metrics of the verse. Similarities with chivalrous (gallant) poetry are deeper
and concern the contents, especially the perception of love as service. The origin
of this idea in the poetry of the Arabian Maghreb is corroborated by thorough
research results and well documented. There is no doubt either that the origin of
the rhymed Roman verses is in the poetry of the Arabian Maghreb.
2335. "Who leafs through the Kitab el-Fihrist Ibn-en-Nedim, a systematic

catalogue of works and authors in the Arabic language from the second half of the
tenth century, will see the significant literary and scientific education the Arab-
islamic culture could be proud of, and will realize what a small portion of that
knowledge has been studied so far, compared to what remains to be analyzed
and to what has been lost for good" (F. Gabrielli). Consequently, a relatively small
portion of Arab-Islamic culture is known to modern generations. There will be no
renaissance for the Arabs and Muslims until the veil is removed from this buried
culture that was created under the close and immediate influence of Islamic
sources-the Qur' an, Hadith and the first followers. There cannot be a new start
without the study and knowledge of the sources and origins, as this has been
proved by the Western culture.
2336. When I consider some aspects of Islam, I must admit that there is
something primitive in it, but in a positive meaning of the word. What I mean is
its natural approach, closeness to the elements of life and to reality; at the same
time, it is reluctant to sophistication, artificiality, pretentious education and
styling. Islam is close to some truths of life that are not very pleasant to ailing
poets or romantics, but that win the hearts and souls of those who are "traveling
through the land, seeking God's bounty" (Qur'an, 73/20).

2358. The history of Islam is yet to be written. What exists now under that title is
everything but true history, which is not surprising. It was not written by an
objective mind and with expertise, but either from passionate hatred or
passionate love! Hatred and love write poetry, not history. In more than a
thousand years, there were so many of those who reached for pen in order to
slander, devaluate or at least cover up. A lot of black paint was used to picture
some events, or even entire ages, much darker than they had been. Later on,
some more objective minds occurred, but how could they get a real picture of a
time that they were not able to know by themselves (directly) and if all
information that was available to them was full of bitter hate? Could they make
objective and realistic judgments, even if they wanted to? On the other hand,
devout and enthusiastic believers exaggerated in their way-glorifying successes of
all kinds. But the real truth was most likely somewhere in between, because life,
as it is the case, had its ups and downs, its moments of light and shade.
However, negative exaggeration was much more frequent and significant, so that
it had a decisive influence upon the picture that was created on the developments
that had taken place in the territories of the modern Islamic world.
2359. Aristotle's Rhetoric was translated into Arabic as early as in the first half of
the ninth century. The translator was most probably Hunein Ibn Ishak (Gabrielli,
ibid., p. 187).
2361. The extinction of critical thought in the islamic culture in the thirteenth
century coincided with the beginnings of decadency and the fast decline in all
domains. Endless repetitions and scholastic compilations took over, opening a
period of historical hibernation that lasted until the end of the nineteenth and the
beginning of the twentieth century.
2363. One detail from Tabari' s vast collection of historical material, The Book of
News on Prophets and Kings, gives some indications about the position (and role)
of the woman in the early period of Islam. A detailed description of the battle of
Kadesi that was to decide the destiny of the Persian Empire includes the following
lines: "The sun rose on the third morning, all troops were in their positions, both
Arabs and Persians. The muslims had already lost two thousand soldiers, severely
wounded or killed, while the pagans had lost ten thousand of theirs. Saad said:
You can bathe the killed, or bury them with their blood on. Gatherers carried
bodies to the graves, while the wounded were committed to the women's care.
Majid ebu Zeid supervised the work. Women and children were digging graves
during the two days of Agwat and Armat, on both coasts of Mushariq; two and a
half thousand soldiers who were killed on Kadesi were buried there" (Gabrielli,
ibid., pp. 198-199).
2365. Seljuk Turks became a decisive factor in the Middle East as early as in the
middle of the eleventh century.
2369. If somebody said that the Islamic view of the world is theocentric, I believe
that we would agree with him. God is the beginning, the center and the end of
reality, as perceived by Islam.
2373. In the twelfth century, Palermo was still a half-Muslim city. The Muslim
Spanish writer Ibn Jubeir, who wrote about travels, visited Palermo in 1184 on his
way to Mecca. Writing about his trip, Ibn Jubeir described the episode of passing
through Palermo, where he saw many mosques and noticed that Christian women
were dressed the same way as Muslim women. Gabrielli quotes a part of this
description, ibid., pp. 220-222.
2379. Some data from the history of Islam: The thirteenth century was the
beginning of a great crisis. Mongolian hordes penetrated from Asia, defeating

Persia. in the first onslaught, the Baghdad Caliphate in the second. The threat of
the Franks -hung over Syria, Palestine and Egypt. In Spain, the Reconquista
defeats Almoravides and Muslim rule is confined to Granada and its surroundings.
Arabs leave the scene for the next six centuries, while the Turks take over. Egypt
partly recovers under the Mamelukes in the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries, after the Mongols had been driven out from Syria and the Crusaders
from Palestine. In the domain of culture, there are less and less original works
and true literature and poetry; what prevail are encyclopedias, collections,
compilations-only repetitions, typical signs of decline.
2382. Gabrielli states that the collection One Thousand and One Nights is more
popular in the West than in the East. It marked the end of the age of classical
Arab literature.
2384. It would be useful to investigate and analyze to what extent the invasion of
Islamic territories by European forces in the twentieth century influenced the
awakening of the conquered nations. As a matter of fact, this encounter with the
foreign Euro-Christian culture might have had a sobering effect. In addition to
that, for many Arab countries, from Iraq to Algeria, the arrival of Europeans
meant a change of occupying power. Instead of Turkey, which was tired and had
nothing more to offer, new, fresh nations came bringing their prosperous culture
with them. This is a fact we have to admit. Of course, it remains to establish
respective shares of responsibility for the overall stagnation borne by Turkish
domination on the one hand and the fatigue and weariness of the Arab nation on
the other, which would maybe, even without Turkish domination, have remained
on the margins of history. Anyway, the "holidays" of Arab people lasted too long.
2386. I do not know what was the attitude of Jamaluddin Afghani toward Turkey,
but there are some indications that Egypt, in the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries, though under English occupation, offered more freedom to
Arab-Islamic - proponents than countries that were under Turkish rule. Obviously,
Turkey enforced a purely national policy that led to its total defeat in World War I
and to the collapse of the empire.
2387. This is how the Arab poet Michail Nuayma (born 1899) sees the situation in
his country after World War I (in his poem Brother):
Brother, if after the war some man from the West would praise his
accomplishments, if he would build monuments to those who fell and pay
tribute to their sacrifice, don't you celebrate the winners, don't you scorn
those who were defeated, but come together with me and bow your head
in silence, cry with your bleeding heart humbly over the destiny of our
dead. . . . Brother, that could not have happened without our will.
Don't moan, a stranger's ear does not listen to our grieving. Come with
me, and take a shovel to dig a pit and hide our dead in it. Brother, who are
we? We have no family, no homeland, no neighbors. Asleep or awake, we
are covered with shame and disgrace. The world stinks of us and of our
dead. Take the shovel and follow me, to dig another pit to hide ourselves
alive in it.
This is Michail' s poetic description. Only a poet could know the depth of the fall
and misfortune; only he could find the right words to describe it.
2394. Since a sculpture was undesirable (or even forbidden), we can suppose
that in the Islamic cultural circle, the energy of plastic art was oriented towards
architecture. After all, is a building not a sculpture?

2396. (Forgotten Bidpai). The famous French writer Jean de La Fontaine

(1621-1695) did not hide that he owed enormous gratefulness for his fables to
the Arab writer Bidpai, called by him Pidpai. Bidpai' s fables were published
around 770 under the title Khalila and Dimna; their source was the Indian book of
fables Panchatantra, translated first into Persian and then from Persian into
Arabic. Bidpai' s fables were translated in the coming centuries into Greek (in
1080), then into Hebrew (in 1250), Spanish (1251), German (1552), French
(1570) and so on. Bidpai's name was forgotten in time, so that now large
encyclopedias mention only Oesopus, La Fontaine, Krilov and some later fable
authors. Panchatantra, the direct source of Bidpai' s fables, had a similar destiny.
This "Freudian forgetfulness" can be seen in other domains as well.
2397. By the end of the ninth century, a special school for translation was
established in Baghdad with the main task to provide translation of Greek and
Roman works into Arabic. It has been reliably ascertained that all the important
medical books of ancient authors, in particular of Hypocrites and Galen, were
translated into Arabic before 900.
2398. Modern Egyptian writer Kamil Husein (born 1901) wrote Naughty Town
(published in 1955). The novel offers a fantastic reconstruction and interpretation
of Christ's sufferings, "written with exceptional balance and pure moral sympathy
by a modern, average muslim, who is at the same time a narrator, moralist and
scientist" (Gabrielli, ibid., p. 286). The book is a mixture of narrative prose and
essay, interwoven with historical, philosophical and religious observations.
2399. Teufik el-Hakim, the most famous Egyptian dramatist (born 1903), wrote a
drama entitled Ehil el-Kelif (Those from the Cave), inspired by a story from the
Qur'an about seven men sleeping in a cave. They wake up after several centuries
of sleep and try to connect the broken flow of events from their previous lives.
They fail to win this "fight with the time."
2403. Considering such enthusiastic translating of Greek works into Arabic in the
eighth and ninth centuries, we may draw the conclusion on certain
correspondence between the Islamic and Hellenic spirit, or at least on the
absence of any reluctance or prejudice. If in the thinking of great Hellenic
thinkers there had been anything alien to Islam, this familiarizing with (or
adoption of) Greek culture would have been much slower; but, as we know, that
was an unimpeded process, similar to the "discovering of lost treasure"
(Muhammad a.s.). This phenomenon, as far as I know, has never been explored
from this angle. Naturally, the Western way of thinking will always find a wide
contradiction between Islamic theocentrism and Hellenic anthropocentrism. But
that contrast is not such as it is seen by positivist minds in Europe. Neither does
Islamic theocentrism deny man, nor the Hellenic anthropocentrism reject God.
The conflict between humanism and religion will always remain an artificial
construction. For, if there is no man without God, there is no humanism without
religion either. After all, the humiliation of the human being we witnessed in our
century confirmed this close connection between the denial of God and this tragic
phenomenon.
2416. Super-nationality of Islam means rejecting the national narrowmindedness

and exclusion. It makes it possible for Islam to be open to the real values of all
peoples. The boundaries of that openness encompass humankind. This fact
explains the absence of prejudice and the openness with which the Arab world
approached and accepted all achievements of the Hellenic and Persian cultures in
the early centuries of Islam.
2419. There is a widespread thesis on suspicious religious devotion of the rulers

from the Umayyad dynasty. Modern historical science considers that this thesis

has no standing and that its origin should be sought in Abbasid propaganda,
calculated to discredit the overthrown dynasty and to strengthen the legitimacy of
Abbasid rule.
2420. Historians consider the period of Abbasid rule as the cosmopolitan "golden
age" of Islamic civilization. It was a civilization of the Arabic language, but
created by men of different nationalities, "unified by their awareness of belonging
to the same civilization macro-sphere" (Darko Tanaskovic). The majority of
individuals who contributed to this civilization were not Arabs. This fact gives this
civilization a dual character. It is both-Islamic and cosmopolitan.
F. Gabrielli writes: "Discussions on ethnic background of this or that writer, fueled
by intolerant sharpness of modern nationalism, made no sense in those times,
when everybody considered themselves citizens of the medieval islamic polis, and
spoke the Arabic language which seemed to be the most convenient means of
expressing their thoughts" (F. Gabrielli, History of Arab Literature).
2421. All cultures known by history are the cultures of specific nations, that is,
national cultures: Chinese, Greek, Roman, Indian, Incas and so on. There are two
exceptions: Islamic and Western cultures, based on two great religions:
Islam and Christianity.
2422. There is an interesting definition of Arabism, offered by Gibb (H.A.R. Gibb,

English Islamologist, 1895-1971). According to him, Arabs are "all those for
whom Mohammed's mission and the mention of the Arab Empire represent the
central historical event, and who consider the Arabic language and its written
legacy as their common property."
2424. Political disunity of Islamic Spain in the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth
centuries brought about Arab defeat and the withdrawal of Islam before the
Reconquista. This is one of the rare examples in history where the stronger
culture was defeated, not only militarily, but definitely. For in Spain, unlike in
other similar cases, the victorious side that was spiritually weaker did not accept
the culture of the defeated, but imposed its religion and culture. As a matter of
fact, the best allies to the Catholic Reconquista were the very Muslim rulers,
disunited and hostile to each other. This overturn, impossible and retrograde from
the point of view of civilization, that took place in pre-Columbus Spain, would not
have been possible without their support.
3093. Our boasting about the large number of Muslims, which keeps growing
more than fast, reminds me of a man who shows his obesity off, pleased with the
new kilos he gains. When shall we begin putting emphasis on our soul, our mind,
our achievements? Even in a small fragile person, a great spirit and great
contributor to humanity can abide. Where is our force, our science, our literature?
Where are our discoveries, our contributions to the universal good?
3295. I've been thinking of the ihrams that people wear during hajj: two plain
pieces of white cloth. The most extreme simplicity and equality one could
imagine. An unreal image, as of another world. Nothing has ever separated and
differentiated people among them like clothes. They mirror most evidently all our
differences in wealth, class, profession or nationality.
3323. The latest teaching on the universe is actually a teaching on the reflective
nature of the basic particles of matter, with each of them having its counterpart-
anti-particle. It is believed that in the depths of the universe there are counter-
worlds, counter-stars and counter-galaxies, built of such a kind of matter that
represents a mirrored image of the properties of our matter. Paul Dirac, who
theoretically established in 1930 that anti-particles exist as absolutely equipotent
counterparts to the particles that we know, discovered the theory on anti-matter

in physics. Dirac, the author of the notions of negative energy and negative mass,
discovered this by purely mathematical method, as his formulae led him to such
conclusion. The first anti-particle-a positive one (anti-electron)-was discovered in
1932, and the first anti-proton was produced in an accelerator in 1955 (compare:
"Who created in pairs all things that the earth produces, and things of which they
have no knowledge"-Qur'an 36/36).
3379. With Judaism, religion came to a standstill, enslaved in rituals and forms,
and became incapable of spreading, having reached its limits. Its inner driving
force gradually slowed down until it stopped. Jesus had to appear in order to
break that shell. That is why his words thundered against form and appearance.
They may sometimes sound strange, like those against learning or cleanliness
("Blessed are those poor in spirit," "Where are you scholars," "You wash your
hands and vessels, and your souls are dirty"). These extreme requests did not
literally mean what they seemed to. They were rather the noble rage of a soul
that was faced with the absence of anything that could be a real faith. With Jesus,
the pendulum swung in full force to the opposite side. Striving to save itself, its
souls, religion rejected for the moment all that was external, all forms and rituals.
God then sent a Messenger who would find the right balance between soul and
body, essence and form, spirit and law, Moses and Jesus. That was Muhammed.
3508. In the February 16, 1988, edition of Literaturna Gazeta, the Soviet writer
Alexandar Perhorov expressed his view that the Soviet military intervention in
Afghanistan had been a tragic mistake. He mentioned the words of a reputable
Kabul university professor who said, as early as in December of 1979:
"There will be no socialism in Afghanistan, because the muslim energy of the
people will turn into ashes everything that is strange to the spirit of islamic
tradition" (Oslobodjenje, May 29, 1988).
3511. Islam has been criticized for not having abolished slavery in the seventh
century. But, was it possible then? Let us remember that still in the nineteenth
century, or twelve centuries later, the people in the United States were killing
each other because a large part of the South was against the abolition of slavery.
The founders of America, Washington and Jefferson, were slaveholders, and the
famous Fugitive Slave Law was passed as late as in 1850. According to that law,
every U.S. citizen, under threat of prison, was obliged to help in the seizure and
return of fugitive slaves from the South. Only in 1964, by President Johnson, was
the law on civil rights signed.
3546. This is what colonialism, combined with local weakness, can bring about in
a country: a number of important writers from the Arab Maghreb do not write in
Arabic but in French. For example, the novel by the Moroccan writer Tahar Ben
Jelloune, Sacred Night, the winner of the Goncourt Prize that sold 340,000 copies,
was written in French. The same goes with the Algerian writer Katel Yacinom
(winner of the National Prize for literature). Muhammad Dil, Abdelhebran
Khothabi, Abdelvehab Meddeb and others write also in French. First they became
known abroad, and subsequently in their own countries. There is no similar
example in all of history; it is even more tragic given the fact that Arabic is one of
the world languages in which libraries full of books used to be written.
3555. Some accuse Christianity of being "too white," an impossible accusation in

the case of Islam. Its Prophet belonged to the people that are the blackest among
the white and the whitest among the black. Black people slightly shrink from "the
paleface and blue-eyed Jesus."
3639. Islam, in its entirety, sometimes seems to me to be a request upon man to

stick to his nature, without trying to be an angel because he cannot be one, nor
to lower himself to the animal, because he must not be one.


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Appendix: From My Children's Letters
APPENDIX
From My Children's Letters
I mentioned in the Preface that, at the end of this book, I would publish some
characteristic segments from the letters that, in the period of over five years, I
had been receiving from my three children. These accounts illustrate the
circumstances and the feelings in the family of a political prisoner in those days
and shed some light on their authors. Here are the segments.
Sabina, July 9, 1983

Dearest Dad,
It has been four days since Braco became a soldier. Bakir, Seka and I drove him,
accompanying him all the way to the gate of the barracks. The next morning, he
called me. His barracks are nice, full of greenery and very neat and clean. I'll take
a bus tomorrow to visit him and take him some cigarettes and fruit.
I do not feel the loneliness so much because there is always some work to do.
Actually, there is always someone visiting me, or else I go somewhere. So, the
time passes by and that is good.
Grandpa is as usual, at times a bit better, at times worse. Mom is still with Lejla,
but plans to move over to Bakir's before Seka gives birth to their baby to help
them out. Seka feels great; they have already started buying diapers and all the
baby's stuff. All the rest is as ever and all is good. You take care of yourself and
do not worry about us.
Much love from your Sabina.
Lejia, August 9, 1983

A couple of nights ago I dreamt a short dream: you were leaning against a desk,
standing in the dark. I realized that you had returned. Still, you did not answer
my questions because you could not confirm that you were back. I had taken
your face with both my hands and kissed your cheeks. I do not know whether I
have ever in my life, even when I was a child, felt such a deep and strong love for
you.
My life goes on, as if pushed by some force beyond us. We are cooking our meals,
eating, working and going for picnics. That is how it should be, at least when
there are small children around. One has to invent stories, laugh and use one's
imagination and, besides all that, answer to the countless questions of theirs.
Sabina, August 8, 1983

My Dear Dad,
You were blessed with yet another granddaughter today and now you are a true,
threefold grandfather while I am a threefold auntie. The baby was born about 12
o'clock, and I learned about it at 3:00 once I left the courtroom. I wandered
through the corridors to find someone who could pass the happy news on to you,
but they had all gone away.
They say that the baby is pretty little girl. Seka feels fine and Bakir-in his new
role- as a father, I have not seen yet. He was so very full of pride when he came
to the courtroom in the morning, around 7 or 8 o'clock, to tell me that he had
taken Seka to the hospital.
Bakir, August 23, 1983

Our little baby, Jasmina, is, just like all your granddaughters, a gorgeous child.
She has brown hair and a light complexion and somehow she is all pink. Her
features are unusually clear and distinguished-big eyes, big and well-shaped lips,
a lot of hair and small, thin eyebrows. By day she is quiet and mainly sleeps, but
at night! Around midnight she starts to stretch, yawn and move-getting ready for

another crazy and "unforgettable" night, while Seka and myself-well, our hair
bristles. Then, Seka spends the night breastfeeding her, changing her diapers,
the baby screams for no apparent reason or else simply lies there silent but with
her eyes wide open so that Seka and I cannot fall asleep expecting her to start
screaming again. Around five in the morning she calms down and falls asleep as
the most innocent of all while Seka and I look at each other disheveled, pale with
double circles under our eyes. (I have been joking a bit but there is truth in all
this-your little granddaughter is not exactly what one would call an angel.)
With love from your Bakir.
Sabina, September 19, 1983

Today is the third day of Bayram and with it I wish you less sorrow and more
hope. You certainly know how these Bayrams feel for all of us without you
around. But still, there are Mom's delicious sweets, although nothing is as it used
to be. We are trying hard to follow your advice and live our lives as usual, but it is
hard because even the streets and the houses do not look the way they once did.
I can feel that these days you are sad. I never stop thinking of you and dream
about you every night. I wish you knew how much I am longing for you. Please,
take good care of yourself. Do not smoke too much and walk as much as
possible.
Lejia, December 14, 1983

I have never written you about how much I wanted to see you and have a chat
with you a day or two before you left. I had this feeling that I had so much to
share with you, to console you so that you could forget the problems that had
tortured you then. That desire is still there. I dream about you so very often, as if
you come to us but, still, you had to return there. You refuse to look at me, being
in haste. If only you would look at me once, that would suffice to make up for the
conversation I am so longing for.
Bakir, December 30, 1983

So, 1983 is almost behind us. It was not great at all but I am willing to forgive it.
At least it brought us little baby Jasmina Izetbegovic. Dear dad, I wish you a
much easier and happier new year. I wish peace in your heart and soul. I would
be the happiest if the circumstances in which you are now living could change,
but since for now it is impossible, I wish you to find relief in yourself.
Just think how one day we shall live together again, drink our morning coffee
together and travel and buy clothes for our little girls-one smaller and tinier than
the others. Try to catch the rhythm, without worrying and doubting too much,
spare yourself so that these days won't have any impact on you.
In a fortnight we shall come to visit you. Sabina thought of bringing you Orwell's
1984. Please write if you want us to bring it or some other book. Are you reading
Signs by the Road sometimes? It is not bad to read a page or two from time to
time.
Lejla, January 23, 1984

It has been ten months today since all these misfortunes have begun. I want to
bring you a piece of good news. Your book has been published! Both in London
and in Kuwait! We are all sharing in your joy. I hope it will bring you good fortune
and, above all, that those who would read it would realize that its author wished
only for the best to human kind. -
Always thinking of you,
Lejla.
Sabina, February 6, 1984

I can't wait to see the Olympics end so that we can come and visit you. It is a
strange feeling because we always expect so much from those visits, as if a
miracle would happen and you would sit with us in the car and come home. And

then, it is so difficult when we sit in the car alone leaving you behind those huge
gates. I cannot get used to it, I shall never accept it and I shall never understand
it. It is not only and solely the matter of the heart because it is also my mind that
rejects it. Everything in me rebels and whenever I wake up and realize it again I
cannot believe it is happening and if I were strong enough I would have undone
this world of ours, or else return to my dreams in order to forget reality. But I can
do neither of the two, I have to get up and work and eat and live with the world.
All the strength I have I am investing into it but still sometimes I feel that the
strength I have is not enough. But there are people and events that sometime fill
me with hope and so I pass from one day to the next. What makes me happiest is
when someone asks me "Any relation to Alija Izetbegovié?" and I say "My father."
This makes my day.
Lejia, February 14, 1984

Our beloved grandpa (the old grandpa) died on February 12, 1984. You have
probably heard about it already. I know that you regret not being with us now. He
was buried yesterday at the New Cemetery, a couple of meters away from
grandmother.
The last ten or so days grandpa did not even leave his bed, he neither ate nor
smoked. His looks changed. Mom and auntie Vahida spent everyday there while
Bakir and I decided to sleep there in shifts. Bakir slept there on Friday and I did
on Saturday night. I almost decided not to go that evening because Sabina called
and told me that he was sleeping peacefully and that there was no need to come
so late. But something drove me there. When I went to his room around 11 P.M.
he was breathing heavily but asleep.
I do not know why I did not sleep at all that night, I kept listening to the sounds
from his room but I did not hear him, not even once. About 8 P.M. Sabina
checked and thought that something was wrong. Something made me first wash
my face and comb my hair before I entered his room. His blanket did not move,
his chest, quiet, eyes and mouth closed, and both his hands, one over the other,
lying on his chest. His forehead was ice cold. I went to tell Sabina but decided to
return and check once again because it takes a lot of courage to claim that a man
is dead. I laid my hand on his chest. There was no life. His chest was firm and
cold like rock. I was looking at a dead man for the first time in my life, without
fear and uneasiness, but with a lot of deep sorrow for he passed away. He was a
man full of joy. He liked to raise his hands and dance. He was strong and
versatile. He was over sixty when I was born but I still remember him as young
and smiling because whenever I caught his eyes he smiled at me. I know that he
loved me very much and I loved him. I can't believe that he died the first night I
stayed with him. I had this feeling that it would happen that way.
Bakir, February 14, 1984

Dear Dad,
Ten minutes ago we returned from Lejla' s. While there, we lined up our three
little girls-Esma is a head taller than Jasmina, Selma is a head taller than Esma.
Esma was break-dancing (you know, the dancing that black people perform while
moving their bodies in an incredible way). Although Jasmina can hardly walk, she
nevertheless tried to imitate her. There was the yellow parrot to make the whole
picture complete. Lejla let the parrot flutter freely around the apartment and
Jasmina was so excited. Jasmina enjoys being at Lejla's. The apartment is
spacious so she can run as much as she wants, there are a lot of toys and there
are-which counts the most-other children. Selma loves her a lot, the age
difference between the two is quite great, and Esma is quite okay given that
Jasmina' s presence threatens her-she replaced her as the youngest child. Lejla
keeps giving her Esma's clothes and other stuff, etc. A month ago Esma forced
her foot into shoes that have gotten far too small for her and then, with a "they-
are-too-tight-but-I-am-not-going-to-show-it" expression on her face, claimed that

the shoes were okay. But, all in all, Esma is generous and never stays cross for
long.
Lejla, March 19, 1984

You probably did not know that every day, when you were leaving court, I saw
you. One day I even called your name. You did not turn around, perhaps you did
not hear me. There was always some new excitement. I wanted to see you, to
get as close to you as possible, because my sight was blurred anyway and I could
not see you clearly, while the police were pushing us away rudely as if they
wanted to say: "he is ours now!"
And then an old man, whom they were also pushing aside, started suddenly to
curse and swear at them. He asked those enforcers of the law and order whether
they had their own children. It seemed to me that everything around us was
shaken when the old man uttered his curse.
Lejla, December 19, 1984

My Dear Dad,
As for my stomach, I haven't had any pains for almost a year now and have
gained 4 kilos. With my headaches it is a different story, they are persistent and I
have learned to live with them. Only if I could force myself not to mention it to
anyone, it would be even better. I have visited a doctor and he offered me a
consolation: "60 percent of women suffer from severe headaches after childbirth
but it stops after 50." Therefore, I have to accept it and adjust. Fortunately, the
children are not as small anymore so I do not have to get up during the night. In
the afternoon they can play when I have to rest. That is how things are, my dear
dad, do not worry about me, I sometimes have this feeling that I am walking on
all fours. The older I get, the easier it is for me to accept life as it is.
I had a dream last night that stayed with me all day today. A huge field and a
house. I am a guest there. Someone gives me some seeds wrapped in paper to
plant. I do it right away. As soon as I woke up the next morning, I could see the
sun rising behind a hill and long green sprouts that grew overnight. "They will
soon start to blossom," I told the man, and he answered: "It will blossom tonight
if there is no snow, these are sword lilies."
Bakir, January 8, 1985

My Dear Dad,
I have just entered my office from the freezing cold, it is - 13°C.
My awful handwriting will be even worse, I guess.
The winter is real. It reminds me of my childhood as it has not been this snowy or
cold for fifteen years. An avalanche of snow and ice blocked Sarajevo for two
days over the weekend. A crust made of trodden snow has covered the streets.
Sabina has entered the "last 100 meters of her race." She looks rather big
although she has not gained much weight, she moves very clumsily and can
hardly find a comfortable position when sitting. She never stops sighing and
changing her posture.
As for Jasmina. I must complain again. She has covered her white felt teddy
bear's head with soup-to be fair, she did this with the best intentions, she wanted
to feed him. She pretended that she was herself surprised once we found her in
flagrante with the spoon in her hand. Then she opted for defending herself in
silence. Besides this sin, there are a zillion other minor tricks-hiding my shoes,
spilling milk on the carpet and giving it a thorough rubbing in, calling our decent
neighbor "idiots," etc., etc.
Sabina, January 19, 1985

Each day I write you numberless letters in my thoughts and have very long
conversations with you. And then, when I really start writing I am not sure what I
have already written to you or what I have only thought about. I want to write
you about everything because that would give me the feeling that you are here

with me. I am so glad when you write me that I should move the stove to the
room and that the children should not go outside to the courtyard when the snow
falls from the roofs. As for the latter, we have taken your advice and so far the
snow has not fallen on anyone's head, but as for the stove it is still in the kitchen.
Here, there is your letter dated January 24th and the previous one as well. It
seems that with this weather even the mail travels slower so that letters cross.
Esma, or rather Esme, does not belong to any gender yet, we call her "Bocko" so
that she is a boy. She protests and usually gets very tough and claims that she is
Esma, pronouncing her own name in a wonderfully clear, ringing way. There is
the song, "For Esma," from the latest "Bijelo dugme" record, which she listens to
astonished and then concludes that the phrase "Esma and me" means herself and
her mom. Otherwise she does not accept any explanation of the dad-mommy-
children-grandma, etc. relationships and offers her own, very simple
interpretation that mom has given birth to all. I sometimes enjoy irritating her by
explaining family relations to her, but her usual conclusion is final and it is "I do
not want it that way." I could write you pages and pages about Esma but here is
just one more of her "pearls": when she was asked whether her auntie would give
birth to a braco (a boy) or a seka (girl), she said that I had already given birth to
one "Braco" (that is my husband whose nickname is Braco) and that now it is
time to have a "Seka" for a change.

My Dear Dad, Why not type one letter so that you do not have to struggle with
my handwriting?
I have not received any letters from you since our last visit. Hadn't you written to
Lejia and Sabina I would have started to worry. Most probably your letter to me
got lost somehow.
Last night I had an awful dream and could not get rid of the feeling all day today.
I did not dream that you were ill, but sad and hopeless. I do not know whether I
have ever told you one of my dreams that turned into reality (I do hope that this
would not be the case with the one from last night). Last year, before the
Supreme Court ruling, I dreamed that one day the beautiful linden trees in front
of our house were felled and immediately, still in my dream, I took it as the bad
omen for the outcome of your trial. The next time I went to Hasana Kikica Street
I found the linden trees down. I was flabbergasted. The trees were still young and
healthy and there was no reason to chop them down. Just before that event your
sentence was ruled, the same felling and uprooting of something so healthy and
normal.

It is Lejla's birthday today, doesn't matter which, particularly because our Lejia
will always remain, to me, our Lolikec, childish and much younger than her real
age. I am going now to buy her a gift and in the afternoon we are going to eat
cakes. I can already visualize Lejla dressed up and forgetting that she is tired as
soon as we get together and "something is happening."
My dear dad, February is approaching its end and I hope that March will be nice
and will go fast and then there is April. With God's help, we will organize a visit so
that we all can come, together with the baby. Whenever I think of it, it occurs to
me that things might as well take a different course so that there is no more Foca
nor the visits to the prison but to have you with us instead. Who knows?

My Dear Dad,
I know that these days, whenever you open a letter, you expect to find news
about Sabina. Still no news. It seems that the stork will not arrive before March.
I do not know why I find childbirth so exciting, the very thought of it makes me
cry. Actually, it shocks me. When I had Esma I was aware that I received another
painful wound that life would shoot its poisonous arrows into, and there is neither

remedy nor safeguard in this world against such wounds. They grow along with
love.
On Monday, Sabina and Bakir came to my place and we watched Dynasty
together.
Naturally, Braco and Bakir ridiculed all the characters, spoiling our "womanly"
atmosphere. We teased Braco, telling him that he resembles Jeff Colby. He didn't
seem to mindbecause Colby is quite a handsome man.
We have heard that the Federal Court has started operating. I do not know
whether I have written about it in my postcard, but the results will be known
about March 20th. We will pray to God to grant them the sense of justice.
Do not give up, my dear dad, we all love and kiss you.
Your Lejla.

My Dear Dad,
All these last months I have been dreaming of this moment, when I would take a
pencil and write you about one of these two pieces of good news. But I never
thought that the two joys would occur at the same time. You have a fourth
granddaughter! I wish happiness to you and all of us. This little girl with long hair
has made us all very happy.
After waiting for so long, your book has finally been published in America. It
arrived like some being from another world, as salvation and hope. I was so
proud! I do not know how to describe how I felt yesterday when I opened the
parcel and realized that the book now exists and that I was holding it in my own
hands. One dream has come true. It happened on February 25, 1985, in the
afternoon and only 24 hours later, today around 5 P.M., Sabina became a mother.
You must admit that these two pieces of news are competing with each other.

My Dearest Dad,
Another short letter to you-I have given birth to one more granddaughter of
yours and I wish her to bring you happiness. I am feeling fine, actually superb,
and I will be ready to go home the day after tomorrow. I hope the news of your
book brings you happiness, it is very nice, designed with a lot of taste, I will write
about it in more detail later. Naturally, I will write more about your little
granddaughter. The only thing I'll tell you now is that she is healthy, chubby,
pinkish with disheveled hair-enough for the start of life. I have to finish now
because this is not my desk so I cannot afford to write at length.
These two pieces of news have touched me to the ends of my soul, I am waiting
eagerly for one more and I love you.
Your Sabina.
Lejia, March 12, 1985

My Dear Dad,
I am at work. Sitting and waiting for the computer to be fixed so that I can start.
This old machine of mine stops working more and more often. One cannot rely
upon it and take over a task guaranteeing that it will be completed. These days I
have marked the tenth anniversary since I started working. I received a symbolic
gift (1,000 dinars). The manager has promised to purchase a good, big computer
but it all takes so long as time passes.
Sabina needs to recover and the baby needs to get strong enough for the two of
them to come to Foca. She is now so small and soft as if made of cotton. Sabina
is more than delighted. Whenever she looks at the baby, her eyes fill with tears. I
remember that this time last year she said: "I have come to terms with the fact
that I will never have a child. It is better to accept it immediately than to spend
one's life expecting it."
I knew that this was only on the surface and soothing and told her that it was
good for her to think about things that way, but I was sure that very soon she

would become a mother because that is her nature, she has always liked children
and sees something beautiful and sweet in every child.
I am watching her now carrying her "little pillow" around the house and how she
talks to her with so much joy and tenderness. I am grateful to God for blessing
her with that gift.
Sabina, March 26, 1985

Please forgive me for my awful handwriting. It is because of my posture and the
fact that I am in such haste. I am expecting the baby to wake up any minute and
then-who knows when I will be able to finish this letter. I have received your
letter from March 18th and, between the lines, I could read that you are full of
different feelings, ranging from happiness to sadness and melancholy. I know (at
least partly) how it is after a visit, because we feel the same way. But we have to
return to this life, our work, problems, among these people, while you have to
stay there. That is what I take the worst, the fact that you must remain there. It
would be easier for me if I could stay there, of that I am absolutely sure.
Sabina, April 2, 1985

This last month has passed so very quickly, as if it were a dream, and now I feel I
am slowly recovering. It was so strange that I have lost all interests except for
the baby, I could not read newspapers and watch TV whereas I even ate and
slept only once I found time to do so. I have completely neglected my work, but
now I want to return to my old customs and duties. Of course, that is only if this
four kilo chicken would let me.
Mom told me that you had written her how depressed you get towards the
evening. I do not know whether you felt that before, but in my case that feeling
was always there when the evening approached. I have to be very busy to
suppress it a bit. Sometimes it is sorrow combined with a certain fear and
physical weakness. I know that I have always found it difficult to get dressed in
order to go out in the evening. And, as soon as I would go out and night fell, it
would all be gone. It seems that this feeling is an accumulation of all my fears,
uncertainties, and sorrows. I used to think that it was in this state when people
decide to use alcohol or drugs in order to get out of it. I am telling you all this
because I want you to know that I somehow know the feeling and that I can
imagine how you feel. Prison certainly makes it more difficult, just like, for me,
the feeling of freedom in this house helps me get through that part of the day.
Perhaps the best would be for you to try and entertain yourself with something
once it catches you, read something easy, if you can, or do the crosswords or
watch TV. What I know for sure is that in those moments, towards the evening, it
is not good to indulge in one's thoughts and emotions. It only makes it worse.
You see, I am pretending to be wise again, but I only want to make it easier for
you. Actually, what I would wish most is that in those moments you could come
to my place and share a cup of coffee with me. But at least you should know that
I always think of you, particularly towards the evenings.
Sabina, May 15, 1985

Yesterday we had lunch at mom's place, and Cober arrived with his first real
salary. Lejla came with her children and in the evening we returned home with
that little bed "from Ogad" (Belgrade) and two sacks full of clothes, inherited from
an older cousin.
I would like so much to see you and I am counting down the days until our next
visit even though I know that it will be so short and that we will, once we leave
the prison, feel as if we have been robbed. I hope that this time we will have two
hours again so that at least I can watch you because I already know that I'll
forget all the things I want to tell you. I can hear the rain and little Nadja is
breathing deeply while sleeping in my lap. Some people say that she resembles
you, especially her eyes and forehead. I love you both so much.
Your Sabina.

Sabina, June 30, 1985

You know that I never stop thinking about you and, as time passes, it is more
difficult for me to accept your absence. It is not true that time heals all wounds.
Each day only adds to this anger and pain I feel, and the trial, the more distant it
is, the more it is in my thoughts and I have the feeling that today I would not be
able to survive it. When I write to you about ordinary, mundane events it is above
all because I cannot write to you about my everyday, usual thoughts and
emotions connected with all that we have gone through, all we are still going
through and because I cannot accept that it is still happening. I put all my trust
into the fact that you are aware of all this. But still I have to write to you that
never ever, not for one single moment, had I thought or believed that there is a
bit of human justice in all this. I hope there will be justice in the decision of the
Federal Court.
Bakir, July 7, 1985

During the Holy Month of Ramadan I had read the Qur'an a lot. Seka found it a
bit odd (I used to read 5-6 hours a day, non-stop) and she finds my ever-growing
interest in Islam strange. She asked me to tell her honestly were it not a bit
forced, out of spite because of all that had happened to us. I told her the truth-it
is certainly not out of spite. Since I have clarified some things inside and from my
heart, I feel as if I have washed myself and been cleansed.
Sabina, July 21, 1985

Jasmina and Esma are gorgeous, grown up a lot, especially the younger one. She
was terribly funny when she appeared in my courtyard: pushing her enormous
cart with the doll, a plastic bag with all her "stuff' hanging on one arm and a
cloth-apparently the cover for her doll. Full of jewelry: necklace around her neck,
a belt, dozens of hairpins.
Just like myself when I take a walk in town with Nadja. They played a lot and
then Esma discovered bananas in the kitchen and ate them all.
Esma has a funny hairstyle, it is called "the hedgehog" and she is definitely the
funniest in the whole family although Nadja does jeopardize her standing and
status. You can see it from the photos we are sending to you. She is good. She is
now asleep not even dreaming that she will have to get vaccinated next week. I
took her on Friday for x-rays of her hips and as soon as she smelled the odor of
the clinic she started crying. She hardly ever cries. As soon as we got out, back
into the fresh air, she was ok.
You have probably heard that the lawyers have not received any information from
the Federal Court so it is felt that until September nothing major will happen.
Perhaps even later than that. One should be patient and spare one's nerves and,
of course, one's health. Do not give up, we are thinking about you and love you.
Yours,
Sabina.

Today is Bayram. The first cloudy days since we have been here. We are
preparing to go to nearby Supetar for cakes or ice cream this evening. Today,
Nadja is six months old. She is a big girl and has her first two teeth. That is why I
hardly slept last night. Besides her teeth, there are mosquitoes, the wind and an
awful rooster who starts crowing in the middle of the night. If one morning he
happens to be by the tree nearby the house it will be because I have tied him
there. I dream about it every night about 2 A.M., when he starts to compete
loudly with some rooster we can hear somewhere in the distance. There are about
twenty hens with him, naturally, and they are as loud in announcing every single
egg they bear. But, they do not irritate me so much.
If only you could see how surprised I was this morning when the postman came
to bring your letter. We were drinking coffee when we heard the doorbell ringing.
That never happens here, because most of the time we are out, and the door is

always open. I though it was one of the guests staying on the upper floor and
Cober went to see who it was. I was listening and from the corridor I heard him
saying: Sabina, it is dad. For a moment, I believed that you were at the door and
got paralyzed and then he appeared with your letter in his hand. I do not know
how it could have occurred to me, but at that moment it did look real.

I went to the Ministry of the Interior this morning to request return of my
passport. Actually, I have been there for the same reason so many times now,
but before going to the sea, I had filled in some form they had given me and this
time I had some more expectations. But again I wasted my time; they have just
told me that the response to my request had been denied and that soon I would
be informed in writing-an explanation without an explanation on the reasons for
taking my passport away in the first place. Why I am the only one who can not
get a passport, I do not know, and I would very much like to learn about the
reasons and what the one who personally made the decision had on his mind. I
would accept being denied my passport again for the same period of time only to
learn the reasons. But it seems that I will be deprived both of my passport and
those "reasons."
Lejia, September 6-10, 1985

You might have noticed that I remain most frequently in the present time
because the past incites some sickening nostalgia in me whereas the future, the
"unlived" time, brings about apprehension as if I am entering some forbidden
territory.
There is something quite interesting here. Man is much stronger in the present
than in some moments in the past or future. It is as if one is not aware of how
much one can endure and cope with. That is why I think that nobody would want
to go back to one's childhood and to live one's life over. We are all afraid of life
and in the inner-most hidden corners of our soul we can't wait to see it through,
to see the end of it as if over there a beloved true homeland is waiting for us.

My Dear Dad,
I received your letter, the one with the poem. The poem is wonderful but for me
it was such an "overdose" that I cried. Imagine, when I saw all the verses, I
thought at first that you had become a poet. You must admit that it would be a
wonder. So, I was rather shaken and now I would not have courage enough to
read the poem again.
As for Mak Dizdar, I know that he was our neighbor and I know his Azure River
very well. I know his son from the times when the poet was still alive because in
those days he was friends with Lejla.

From tomorrow onwards I am an employee here, the assignment is for a
determined period, two months for the time being until the formalities relating to
the job announcement are sorted out. Until then, I will have all the benefits and
obligations of a full-time employee, meaning full salary, and compensation for
breakfast and tram tickets. It is not to be neglected because once you add to it
the insurance there is a big difference from the payment through the students'
service, as I have done so far, and this, the normal way of payment, which goes
right into my bank account.
That is pretty much it as far as everyday events are concerned. A part of these
everyday events and thoughts has become the expectation of the Federal Court
decision. For days now we have been jumping at each and every phone call with
some fear and apprehension. But there hasn't been any news yet. Orhan, the
lawyer from Belgrade, told us that the ruling has not yet been made. How long
will it all last? I do have the feeling that things have started moving and soon we

will hear something. One thing I do not like at all is that my optimism has
disappeared and I fear rather than hope. But hope is still the only possible way
for us to live and we cannot afford to abandon it.
Sabina, October 16, 1985

I keep thinking about you: I guess you received my letter with the information on
the Federal Court decision. If only we could be with you for five minutes. No
matter how you kept saying that you are indifferent and that you are prepared for
anything, I know that it will not be easy for you. This is a concrete final decision
and there is no more room for guessing. I do not know how much it will
disappoint you. For us, it was a terrible disappointment.
Sabina, December 8, 1985

My dear dad, I miss you so much. Did you receive Letters from Prison? I came
across the book by accident and read the letter about being in prison for more
than three years. By then, they say, three years is the threshold of endurance
and one falls into some sort of stupor and changes radically. I do not believe that
you are close to such state. At least I am convinced you will never get to that
point.

I love this house of mine even more now than when I wrote you about it ten days
ago. That is how it is when true love is the case. I missed it a lot recently when I
was on a business trip and freezing in the wind and heavy snow. I missed the
plane, the trains were all delayed, but I was lucky enough to get a ticket for a
sleeping car "under the counter." It was quite hectic when I showed up at the
office around noon. When I finally arrived home in the afternoon, I could not have
been happier to find where I had left it and inside Cober and Nadja, and your
letter waiting for me. To me, this kind of family, and this kind of house is terribly
necessary in order to be able to live. The only thing that is missing is to have you
with us and when that happens I shall have no more wishes.

Dear Dad,
I think you have received Sabina's letter in which she had told you that your
sentence was reduced to nine years. Worse than we had hoped for but it is as it
is. Do not worry.
We were deeply disappointed. God knows how you will feel the moment you learn
about it (perhaps this very moment). I was trying to find the words to reassure
you and while doing so I somehow calmed myself down. Both you and me believe
in destiny, the day you will be released from prison is written somewhere.
Numbers such as 14, 12 and 9 are but numbers and one should not worry about
them too much. You were so right when, in the end of your book, you wrote that
man is great, as great as his "soul that is measured with time" and in that sense
you might still get the chance to live a true life. To be in the right place while all
of us, all the others, are actually living at the periphery of life or else, at best, we
are only the observers. Do not let your nerves weaken and do not have doubts
about this.
According to the ruling of the Federal Court, you have been pronounced guilty
based upon Article 133 (I hope that it is not yet another piece of misinformation
because the ruling is already here in Sarajevo). What remains is the hope that
this article will eventually be revised, with amnesty, or else the decision to make
the prison sentences of political prisoners less strict in terms of living conditions
(now, we need to put pressure on them about this, when I say we, I mean we the
family).


I have read the ruling. It is true that your sentence has been reduced to nine
years but I am convinced that two things made you feel relieved-Article 136 is no
more and your Islam Between East and West is no longer a banned book. For the
latter, I would be willing to give one year of my life.
I went to see Edhem. He did not know me, it was the first time we were
introduced. You see, according the original ruling, he was supposed to get
released in 1990 but he got out in 1985. I do not consider your nine years as
something final. It will be, with God's will, much less, and people will come to see
us just like they now come to see Bicakcic (the atmosphere at his place is now
celebratory and solemn, the head of the house is back). Naturally, I asked about
you and how you were coping with things there, checking your prison account-to
what extent you are making things out to be better than they really are. Edo says
that it is not unbearable (the two of you have not agreed as to which story to sell
us, have you?).
Little Jasmina is approaching, I pray God to rescue me!

I received your letter on Saturday, the first after our visit. I can see that you
have studied the ruling thoroughly, just like me. The item relating to the book is
one bright point in the ruling. I assume that now we can go to the Ministry of the
Interior to request the seized copies.
I am sorry that you lost Edhem's company (this is quite selfish, isn't it?) but I am
glad that he has returned home. We went to visit him, together with little Nadja. I
always knew that he would be the first to get out (what wisdom) and for the past
three years I have been imagining the day when we would be able to visit him.
Actually, we did not know him before, at least not officially, because I had never
seen him before the trial. We had a long talk, like good old pals. I was most
interested to hear about the conditions there, what you are doing, but I am sure
that we would need days and days to hear everything. They have been receiving
guests. He says that they are coming to see him as if they were a newlywed
couple. They are planning to flee to the coast for a while to get away from the
commotion.
You know, sometimes, prior to your trial, I dreamed a dream that Edhem was
sitting in the first row of the courtroom. I could not see the others behind him but
I do know that was when it occurred to me that he would be the first to be
released. That this dream of mine has come true is something of a miracle. I
dreamed that he was somewhere in my neighborhood, at the entrance to the
park, where I used to frequently dream about you.

I returned from Mom's a while ago. I went to give her the results of some of the
medical check-ups she had made and medicine. She is still exhausted but I left
her making a pie. I left little Nadja with her auntie this morning. Even at 8 o'clock
in the morning she was full of energy and ready to play, she even succeeded in
messing my hairstyle and tried to pull off my earrings. Then she showered me
completely with water from her cup when I tried to give her her medicine. I had
to imitate a cat and then a mouse and every other animal in order to trick her
and get her to swallow a couple of drops of the syrup. Once, towards the end, I
started making sounds as if I were a bear, she was so surprised that she took
some of the syrup. We are waging war with her when it comes to food. She is
probably losing a bit of her appetite, but the main trick is to grab the spoon in
order to use it herself. So, if I want her to eat a whole meal, I have to put
everything in front of her and feed her with her own little hand. If I want her to
be quiet for at least a minute, I give her a pot with her spoon and she sits there
pretending to be eating from an empty pot and nodding seriously. This little girl
of mine is as sweet as honey.

Bakir, March 1, 1986

I use to bring to Jasmina those small hotel soaps whenever I returned from
business trips. I once made a joke and told her that I had stolen it only to make
my little, sweet, clever girl (she listened to the compliments with eyes half shut)
happy. Yesterday I heard her bragging to Rada, Bisera's neighbor, that I have
been stealing so many things for my sweet, little daughter.

My Dear Dad,
I received your letter yesterday. You ask me how I felt on my birthday. Well, dad,
I am not a child any more! This time I have definitely accepted that fact. I hope
in the next decade I will understand that I am no longer in the prime of my
youth. I remember you telling me once that when you wake up in the morning
you first try to convince yourself that you have three grown children and that you
are no longer the same man you were twenty five years ago. It is difficult for us
all to accept the passage of time, changing inevitably to the worse, less mobile,
more boring, but nobody would want to return to their youth. That is for sure. It
is strange, as if we are all still hoping for something better against the odds.
Lejla.
Bakir, March, 10, 1986

I was thinking about your sentence today. With God's help, it will be shorter.
However, if it still remains as it is, God forbid, I know that you shall endure it and
leave that place they way you want to be. Athletes succeed in keeping their
bodies young and healthy longer than we, ordinary people, who are not using
them properly. A person who uses and exercises his brain succeeds in
maintaining his mind longer than those who use their head only to carry their
hats. Since you are physically fit and your brain cells are always busy and under
"pressure," I have no fears that you will ever become a senile old man like those I
feel compassion for. With God's help, I plan to live long with you in this world and
have long, long talks together.
Bakir, May 31, 1986

I have nothing special to tell you. I am going to Neum regularly, fasting, my job
is pretty dynamic, which makes me a bit nervous. I sometimes take Seka with me
and I am planning to take Jasmina as well, after Bayram ( I should have been in
Neum full-time since May, but as they keep postponing it, I have already starting
planning the summer in the same pace of my weekly trips). I spend three days in
Neum and then I start longing for Sarajevo, the big city, my family, domestic
food. Then I spend three days in Sarajevo and I start longing for the swimming in
Neum, my solitude and freedom.
We have cut Jasmina's hair short. We had to trick her-I persuaded her,
whispering to her ear so that Seka did not hear me, that we would go to a
hairdresser specializing in making little girls look like grown-up women. We
shared conspiring looks, got dressed, and left the apartment. She endured the
scissors stoically, you know how children hate them, and returned home with her
hair cut short and a mischievous look on her face.
From My Children's Letters 225
Bakir, September 13, 1986

They didn't have Kant's Practical Mind again in the fifteen or so bookshops I went
to in Sarajevo and Zagreb. They say, "we get it, but it sells out, we'll get it
again." I'll see if E~ref has it so, God willing, I'll be able to bring it to you on my
next visit.
The September issue of (the magazine) Al'Arabija has devoted its regular column
"Profile" to you. The column takes up a whole page, and in the last two issues
Roger Garodi and the Sudan marathon runner that won the "Live-aid" race (for

Ethiopia) were presented. If I get my hands on a copy, I'll send you a translation
of the text.
A birthday card for you came from England. It is three pages long and some 300
people have signed it. They asked me to try and get it to you. Since you can only
receive our mail, I'll tell you this much about that card: it's very beautiful, with
life-size flowers-the format is bigger than this sheet of paper that I'm writing on.
Bakir, September 22, 1986

Late summer is burning out in Neum (in Foèa it is early autumn). Apart from a
little landward breeze in the afternoon, everything is quiet and calm, bathing in
the mild golden sunlight. It is not crowded. The crowds have gone away and left
the barren beaches, empty cafés, free benches and the most beautiful season to
me, Seka and Jasmina to enjoy them as we please. We have a large room with a
terrace and a view reaching as far as Italy. The beach is some twenty meters
away from the house. We walk down the beach to the market, so in the dusk you
can see a familiar little girl in a sailor dress with her parents carrying grapes and
a watermelon and going home.
An article came out in the magazine "Knjiz~evna rijec~" (The Literary Word)
about verbal offenses and it says that in the SFRY (Social Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia) these offenses are treated differently in different republics. In
Slovenia, they do nothing, but in Bosnia it says "inquisition trials, maltreatment of
the arrested, Draconian sentences-and the archetype is the trial of Muslim
intellectuals in Sarajevo in 1983."
Love, Bakir.

My Dear Dad,
I'm "as good as new" again. Nadjica and I are better and yesterday we started
"working" again. I got your letter today, so I'm writing back. Mom came over
straight from Fo~a on Saturday, so I got fresh news about you and the visit. Of
course, I also got a kiss.
As far as Nadjica is concerned, she has a new strategy: one night she lets me
sleep until 5 or 6 A.M. and the next night she stages protests. Each day she gets
to be naughtier and a bigger chatterbox. I spoiled her these last few days while I
was at home and when Biba (the baby-sitter) came on Monday, she sat in my lap,
tilted her head, smiled and said, and "Biba go to work." So, Biba should go to
work and mommy should stay with her. What am I going to do with her?
I don't know whether you included our letters in the number of pages you read or
if they are extras. Still, I don't think you'll "go crazy" from reading if I don't go
crazy from not reading. These days, I have started reading The Fear of Flying, a
vulgar feminist book in which I only liked these lines: "Actually, sometimes I do
wish I had a child. A very intelligent and witty little girl that would grow up to be
the kind of woman I could never be. A very independent little girl with no scars
on her mind and soul. A little girl who would not know of submissive senility or
polite coquetry. A little girl who would always say what she means and mean
what she says. A little girl who would not be mean or cunningly untruthful,
because she would be a little girl who hates neither her mother nor herself." Well,
I have a little girl. I just hope she turns out like that.
Lejla, September 27, 1986

My Dear Dad,
If they asked me why of all the seasons I love autumn the best I would say:
because it makes me young again, a part of my soul feels 20 years old again. I
feel that it will always be like that even if I live to be very old. I don't know
whether other people see it the same way. I search for it in their faces. I never
find anything even similar. Or perhaps they hide it even from themselves. It's
easier that way! To live only for the present moment, the past and the future are
something foreign, who knows if we ever were or if we ever will be.

Most of all I would like to be able to have a good talk with you. It would make me
feel better.
I start my third course of English on Monday. It won't be as difficult as the last,
because it will have a slower tempo and it will be held at the firm during working
hours. It starts at 7:15 A.M. every morning and ends at 8 A.M. So, from now on I
will be starting my day with "good morning." -

My Dear Dad,
Ever since Monday, I've wanted to reply to your letter, the one you wrote after
our visit. If I told you that I returned home after dark yesterday and that the day
before I was cooking lunch in the wee hours of night, you'll understand that I'm
terribly busy again. We have conferences with foreigners at work all the time, I've
all but lost my voice, but I am content with myself most of all. In this kind of
direct interpreting you feel a lot more important and, if you are good at it, also a
good deal stronger. It's especially difficult when you are interpreting for a few
directors who can speak English. In this case it is also difficult because there is a
lot of specialized computer vocabulary. And I'm only there so that things go
smoothly and so that they can concentrate on more important things than
interpreting. So they listen to you and control you a bit and it would be enough to
make you lose your head if you didn't at the start, in your mind, of course, send
them all to hell and just concentrate on your job. Anyway I am getting better at
this job and I think I could be good at simultaneous interpretation. The only
problem now is that I am not sure if that is what I want to do anymore. I've
found that that sort of skill would be a result of managing a certain mechanism
and having some experience and I am starting to feel repelled by that
"mechanical" part of the job. Probably because it has started managing me. I
haven't been able to turn it off when I'm not working. It keeps functioning beyond
my control: everything I hear, say, think, I translate into English in my head and
sometimes I even try to translate it into French at the same time. Like this letter
for example, my translating mechanism keeps translating it into English and I
have to make an effort to ignore it.
This fact may help me resolve the wild dilemma about my work. Namely, it seems
that these directors have suddenly decided that they want to keep me here and
now they are asking me whether I would like to take the job. It was easier
before: I could happily make plans to pack up and move to the firm next door.
Everyone here knows how strong it is. If they start being serious about
convincing me to stay, they'll only ruin my satisfaction of leaving. And I'll have to
consider whether I should leave at all.
Anyway, just so you don't think that I am so preoccupied with my work that I
have forgotten little Nadjica, I'll tell you that she is home with "Gagica," who is
visiting us for 2 or 3 days. She loves to look at photo albums and she keeps
asking, "Who that?" When she saw my photo with the Japanese people from the
Olympics, I had to tell her that the man next to me was Japanese. She liked that
"Panese" a lot and at the supermarket she immediately identified a Gypsy and
started shouting, "Mr. Panese!"
My dear dad, I'll write you again soon.
Love, Your Sabina.
Bakir, October 28, 1986

My Dear Dad,
The weather is better in Neum again. We did have sothe terrible rains and chills. I
brought a sweater from Sarajevo and woolen socks and a duvet, etc., just in
case.
While I am writing this to you, the sunlight is coming into my room from the west
(actually the southwest, because that's where the sun sets now). All I can see is
the sea, the sun and a part of an evergreen forest. And I think how wonderful it
would be if you could, now and then, be here with me. I would be making coffee

and you could be sitting on the terrace eating these reddish-yellow autumn
grapes.
I don't know if I wrote you that Andrié has all of a sudden "darkened" for me. I
used to read him with pleasure. And then I read his short story "Mustafa
Mad~ar." I read that short story when I was little and I've somehow been
avoiding reading it again. I guess I had a premonition that it would spoil all the
others for me. Andrié writes about this Mustafa in an ugly and probably
completely untruthful way with all kinds of atrocities that could not be proven. He
describes all of it in his perfect, convincing style. Mustafa is not there to defend
himself. Ivo seemed to me then to resemble a well armed, exceptionally skillful
man gutting an innocent man (among other things, on one and the same page he
writes how at dawn Mathar, with a small group of people, advanced on the
Austrian army from the rear and ran among them like a lion starting a battle
where the weaker Bosnians defeated the Austrians-these are historical facts, and
then he goes on to invent how this hero was a pervert and a lunatic).
That is why I brought other books with me that do not confuse me and that do
not dwell on ugly things (does it seem to you that one way of working against evil
and ugliness is mentioning them and talking about them as little as possible?).
It's dusk. Tomorrow will be a sunny day; it's red in the west. The soccer game,
Yugoslavia-Turkey, is starting in about half an hour. The guys from S/20 have
already taken their seats around the TV and the workers from the construction
site are in the TV hall in the Hotel Neum. So, we're going to cheer.
Lejla, October 29, 1986

Here I am, having coffee only with you, because Selma is in school, Jasmin at his
English course and mom is working around her house. Esma is thawing at the
table opposite me. You won't understand me when I tell you that I was glad to
spend the afternoon on my own. I like to do that the most when I am tired.
When I came into the house, I saw your letter and that's enough joy for today.
Maybe all this sounds a bit domineering, but that's how it is. Nobody could ever
replace the talks I had with my dad. That place in my life and within me will stay
empty until you return. And when God returns you to us one day, our happiness
will be so great that it will seem unreal.

My Dear Dad,
I have to brag to you, because the workers' assembly has given me an excellent
grade for my work and I also got a five percent raise. What is awaiting me ahead
is probably a transfer into the next category, because I was appointed the main
supervisor at this construction site. I'll let them think of promoting me
themselves.
I have gotten used to Neum and my solitary life here. I've just made some coffee.
It would be so great if we could share it. I have some chocolate, too. In any case,
a few days here with me would be good for you.
I don't know if I told you that Seka got an 8 on her pharmacology exam the other
day. That's the second exam in the fourth year. She has four left to go. Medical
studies are five years long. The end is not that far ahead anymore. I'd like her to
finish it soon. I am also hoping that in the meantime (through some miracle) I
would be able to sort something out so that I start earning enough to be able to
support a family of some four or five members.
Sabina, November 14, 1986

Dear Dad,
It's past 10 A.M. and the fog has lifted a bit to let the sun shine through. I
haven't had any work since this morning, so I'm walking around the office and
thinking. The colleague that I was substituting for has returned from her sick
leave so now even if there is a lot of work, we split it and it gets done a lot faster.
I think that this tempo of working will be good and a lot more bearable. Now I

can even do something in French and more and more often in Italian. The best
day is when, for example, I do a phone conversation in French, translate a letter
in Italian and a few pages of prospects in English.
Yesterday I went to the SUP (the Secretariat for Internal Affairs) to ask about the
passport. Nothing is happening with that, I'm not a good girl. All in all, it's clear
to me that I will not be getting my passport, but I still do not understand why. I
still can't foresee the consequences this will have on my job. Still, what hurts me
the most is the fact that one person can do such a thing to another person. The
fact that I don't have a passport, that I might not have a job, is in the
background. What worries and hurts me is this other aspect. But, please, don't let
any of this worry you. I have a very nice life even without my passport and I
would be far happier if they would give you back to me.
Love, Your Sabina.
Bakir, November 13, 1986

Dear Dad,
The good weather is back. It is just like spring in Neum. (I'm like an Englishman,
always going on about the weather.) Wild strawberries are in season-they look
like strawberries, but they don't taste as good and they grow on the rocky
terrain. You and mom used to pick them for Esma around Dubrovnik. Wild
strawberries and mandarins, a calm sea, the wasteland underneath the mild
sunlight. I was in Hutovo, yesterday. Can you imagine Hutovo in November?
Hutovo has a post office, the former railway station (remember the train line
Capljina-Dubrovnik?), a restaurant, a grocery store, an elementary school, five or
six lazy bums sunbathing beneath this weak sun and dying of boredom, then
small gardens with red earth full of stones and cabbage. The geographers have
said goodbye and left on the last train to Dubrovnik. Hens and goats walk through
the main street.
Lejia, November 19, 1986

I suppose you have missed my letters. There are days when it is impossible for
me to sit down and concentrate, especially if I want to write something cheerful
and nice. I can't say that I am in a bad mood; it's only that I take life too
seriously so the subjects that I would like to discuss aren't meant for paper. So
today, I will tell you straight away how much I miss you and how happy I am that
I can write your name down along with a few nice words knowing that, God
willing, you will receive them, because you exist among us.
I am reading Znakovi pored puta (Signs by the Road) by that genius Ivo Andrió. I
don't know whether you've noticed how much he complained about life. It seems
to me that he said it in the most sincere and simple way, without beating around
the bush.
These days I am finishing up a program that another programmer started before
me. He left without finishing the job. So I had to save the day. Sometimes it was
easy, but sometimes it brought me to tears. However, I am content now that
everything is working just fine. I have English lessons every day. It's not a very
intensive course, but it means a lot to me that it is constant and that there is a
lot of revision. My vocabulary is still pretty weak, because I am too lazy to learn
things by heart. It can't teach itself!

I talked to Lejla and Bakir this morning. We are making plans with the Akiamijas
to go out on Friday night. We're going to have Nadja sleep over at Mom's and
we'll come for coffee on Saturday morning and to pick her up. I'm counting the
autumn days without snow, again, and thinking of New Year's, when the winter is
over for us. We have to admit that this boundary has shifted somewhat towards
the spring, because lately the real snow has been falling after New Year's. Still, I
think it is nice to deceive oneself a bit like with all other things in life.

As you can see, I have more time to write you, again. If we are smart, I think it
will be good for both my colleague and me this way. Now we have breakfast and
coffee in peace and sometimes we can even go for a walk. Nadjica has been
sleeping better so I am getting back to my old self again. This period that I have
gone through reminds me of those stunts when they shove a man in a barrel
down Niagara Falls. Maybe I'm exaggerating a bit, but I still often get dizzy from
the tumbling.

You say you don't want to write about yourself. And that is exactly what I look for
in each of your letters. So, please, write more about yourself That's what I do:
even when I write about Nadja, Mom, Braco or work and the house, I am actually
writing about myself And I hope you don't find that boring.
What else do all those people who write do? It seems to me that they are all
writing about themselves, that they are expressing themselves in some way. I
was especially sure of this sometimes at the end of my studies when I had to
consume a large amount of books, so I started to feel repelled by all those writers
who kept wanting to tell us something. And then in school they make us read all
that. Now that I've calmed down a bit, I'd like to read something, but Nadja won't
let me. I would also like to travel, but I can't do that either.
Speaking of Nadja, it's only fair to write something about her. First of all, she is
so cute that it can't be put into words. She talks a lot and she can be quite a
naughty little liar. When she wants to get a pencil at any price she says,
"Mommy, give me pencil. Nadja write letter to grandpa Ajila," and when she gets
the pencil, then, of course, she goes on to draw a "little cat" on my expensive
magazines and on the walls.

As soon as the 1st of January arrives, the mornings get brighter somehow. It's
real January weather outside-light gray and white with a few rare snowflakes of
dry snow. Even though the days are still short and the worst of the winter is still
to come, we know that we have descended to the bottom and it's uphill from
here-February and March will pass and then comes the better half of the year.
You are probably fighting your own battle with this weather and the cold. I guess
it's pretty tough for you now.
I have been thinking about you these days. You have kept your dignity and
behaved like a man, as you should. These may sound like silly phrases, but I
think we ought to tell you that we are proud of you and that you couldn't have
done anything better for us. I hope that saying is true that "the apple doesn't fall
far from the tree." Don't worry about the way nationalism and other untruths are
attached to you-the truth about you is even more apparent against such a dark
background.
Love from your Bakir.

My Dear Dad,
It was pouring outside until a moment ago. It showered the lonely concrete pillar
with the neon light. I was putting some stale bread into the oven and heating
some milk when it occurred to me that I have changed-some five or six years ago
I would have thought of this as of punishment, being in some tiny room in a
lonely house in deserted and rainy Neum. And today it doesn't make me feel bad
at all. Now I'll go on reading Nerkez Smajlagié, I have some raisins and coffee
and the heater is warming my back.
It has been almost a year now since I started coming to Neum. I have gotten
used to this boring place. Neum was built and populated in an unorganized
manner and by force. There is no Dalmatian architecture or speech. The houses
have no identity; they are just like all the other houses appearing in all the other

suburbs or, as you would call them, "newly-built." The speech-Bosnian-

Herzegovinian-it' s strange to hear it by the sea. Neum is in a bay. There is no
open sea with waves that would create natural gravel beaches. The hotels make
artificial beaches from gray river gravel or from road gravel.
Still there are a few things in Neum that persuaded the "little family" to come
here next week-there's the sun, the fresh air, the long walking path by the sea,
the children's playground with slides and swings, etc.
I think I'll be able to send you Critique of Pure Mind soon. The man that promised
to lend it to me doesn't have it with him at the moment because he lent it to
someone else.
How is your bronchitis in this cold? If only I could give you my heater and the
woolen socks I bought at the market in Mostar the other day, it would be better.

My Dear Dad,
It has been a long time since you and I had a good talk. These years have taken
that away from us. It seems to me sometimes that only my father could truly
listen to me and understand my small and, at first glance, unimportant worries
and feelings. I usually console myself with the fact that my father is still alive and
in good health, that I still have a father.
Sometimes I long for company, for people who talk and laugh. And sometimes it
all seems like idleness to me and I get irritated by everything that resembles a
waste of time. What gets to me is my fickle temperament and sometimes it
worries me. Am I, in fact, a great worker or a great idler?
When life passes, I'm afraid I'll only be sorry that I ever became serious.
Lejia, April 7, 1987

My Dear Dad,
You seemed cheerful during our visit. I don't know, however, what state your soul
was in, it was probably not so cheerful. It didn't take us long to get home, only an
hour and a half. After Fo~a I sometimes feel ill. This time I beat that feeling by
working around the house. You know my style of work: throw away as many old
and useless things as possible. That calmed me down and pushed back some of
my discomforting thoughts.
When it was time for bed, I felt like going on working or doing some gymnastics.
Sometimes it seems to me that this new job is good for me as opposed to the old
one. Something new is always going on: we are buying computers, taking
courses. We work a lot, but the people have a good sense of humor and we
always have a good laugh while we drink our coffee. They are mainly my age or
younger.
Some good advice is to take life with as much joy as possible regardless of its
problems. That's the only way. It's better to be a bit loony all the time than to go
crazy once and for all.
Bakir, May 12, 1987

Dear Dad,
The summer just won't start in Neum. People still walk around in sweaters and
jackets and the occasional sunny day seems to have wandered here by accident-
no worries, the next morning is bound to be cloudy. My plans of bringing Jasmina
here for some sunbathing have been spoiled and that puts me in a bad mood. But
this sort of weather is best for fasting. I have gotten so used to it that it doesn't
even seem like I'm fasting anymore. Days go by and take the kilos away (maybe
not kilos, but I have lost all that I "gained" during the winter, my pants are
loose). My daily schedule is just the way I like it. In the morning I take a walk by
the sea to the hotel (it's no longer a construction site). My work is not stressful;
there is no rush, because everything has practically been finished. Around 4 P.M.
I walk back to my room. There I leaf through Nerkez's book or an English book
until about 6 P.M. Then I go to buy the papers and to the supermarket, I read

again until 7:30 P.M. and then walk to iftar. After iftar I return to my room (my
colleague, Milan, wonders about what I do in my room all day), I have coffee, I
eat some raisins and read a bit more.
Your day and the food you eat must be a lot worse, but, God willing, there will be
far better days (it may be in poor taste to predict such things, but I keep having
this feeling that you will live in abundance of everything in the years to come).
Bakir, June 16, 1987

I was at an interesting concert recently. The band that played was "Zabranjeno
pufenje" ("No Smoking") with Emir Kusturica. They belong to "New Primitives,"
the artists' movement that has sprung up in Sarajevo. In a crude way they talk
about gentle and touching things, like, for example, about a man who is sinking
into a world of alcohol and gambling and trying to get his wife, Fikreta, to leave
him so that at least she could have a better life (when the singer starts off with,
"Fikreta, between me and the bottom...," people laugh, but later they become
serious).
It has gotten dark. I am going out for a walk.

My Dear Dad,
The whole of spring and summer have passed and this day that seemed so
incredibly far away at that time has arrived. And all those months have not
helped me prepare for what is in store-a new child that isn't Nadjica, a fourth
member of the family that will soon, God willing, be crying amid these walls and
wanting its own way. When I remember waiting for Nadjica, I remember that it
was completely different. It was something absolutely real, something that I had
been preparing for all my life, something that I was ready for. Now I feel
surprised, as if I'm meant to wake up any minute. And it will probably be a
turbulent and loud waking into a new dream with a beautiful, healthy baby, I
hope.
I am having my coffee at home; Nadja has gone to the park with Biba. It's a
beautiful September day outside and my thoughts are all wrapped around the
coming year and all that I expect it will bring. One of my great expectations is
you and in my thoughts I keep going to the 1st of September next year,
dreaming about how we'll all be together then.
Lejla, September 3, 1987

My Dear Dad,
My little girl has started school. Overnight, she has acquired her working status,
because all the rest of us already had one. I think she is extremely happy about
this. She has been able to reach Selma at least in one way. She has brought a
wonderful atmosphere into the house. And it is here that I can sense a difference
between the two sisters.
On Monday both Jasmin and I took Esma to school. She was all aflutter with
excitement. I watched her while the teacher was talking. She was watching the
teacher without blinking her large eyes and her mouth was slightly open, like a
little bird. When we got back home, I notiàed that she had remembered almost
everything that was said.
Yesterday she got an "A" in math. Math is now being taught in a nice new way.
The focus is on logic, on thinking through sets and relations. Children are good at
this.
After all, that's the way we think!

I talk to Sabina every day. You know that she is on sick leave. But the woman
working for her has quit, so she won't be coming anymore after this weekend.
Sabina is sad about this, but I think we can find someone else for that kind of
money. We'll do our best.

These days I've been working on some nice and not too difficult jobs. I'm almost
finished and I am quite content. As for the money, it's been pretty good this
month. Jasminko's salary has been significantly higher. With his work it depends
directly on the results. My firm is still stable and I hope that it will remain that
way in the future.
Lejia, September 25, 1987

My Dear Dad,
As you know all that has been worrying us has come to a happy end, thank God.
A sweet little girl has arrived with black hair and almond shaped eyes. She has
brought more love into this world.
Braco sent you a telegram on Monday, early in the morning and we were all
counting on that. I have sent you a postcard, but now I want to congratulate you
on your fifth granddaughter. May she love you and spend many beautiful and
joyful days with you.
We went to get Sabina from the hospital on Tuesday. Everything was festive as it
always is when a new child is brought into the house. It was an unusually warm
day, the 22nd of September.
Now I can honestly tell you that I was very worried about her going into labor.
However, Sabina is stronger than I thought.
You probably know that we haven't got a clue as to what name to give the child,
so if you have any suggestions, hurry up and let us know. I suggested Amra, but
it will be confusing, because Sabina's best friend is called Amra. That day, I had a
premonition and I thought about Sabina all the way back to Sarajevo. And really,
when I called her she wailed that she had been waiting for me for hours. She
went to the hospital around 9 P.M. and by 1 A.M. Braco called me to say that it
was a girl and that everything was all right. Of course, Selma was the one to give
the good news to Mom in the morning.

My Dear Dad,
It has been three days since I started writing this. In the meantime it was a bit
"hectic." The baby wouldn't sleep and neither would Nadjica and I was grasping
for rare moments of rest. I kept looking at this letter that I had begun, hoping I
would finish it "in a second," but something kept coming up. It seems the baby
has cramps, so sometimes she cries for hours and Cober and I rock her in our
arms in shifts. Little Nadjica has a hard time with all this, she gets stressed and
starts being a pest. Wonderful and difficult moments come one after another and
I keep hoping that this situation will sort itself out in a month or so and that we
will all get used to one another and that I will be able to establish some order.
Otherwise, this whole experience of having two children is quite surprising for me,
it is completely different from anything I could have imagined. Life as a whole has
taken on a different aspect. Nadjica is different, too, and not to mention myself.
Two children isn't two times one child, I don't know how or why, but the two of
them are like one, and the four of us are like one and four at the same time. All
of that is in a mess in my head. I am expecting to make some sense of it in this
coming year.
Finally, a letter from you October 4, 1987, has arrived dated. Cober found it at
the gate this morning when he was leaving for work. It seems the postman has
been working the night shift. You write that you are tired. So am I in a similar
way from the same things. Every day I ask myself how you manage it. Has it
really been four and a half years? If we only had all the children born in these
families in the past four and a half years.. . and what about all the other events,
things and people that life has brought and taken away in this period of time.
When we are together again, I don't want us to be a lot different from the way we
were four and a half years ago. I don't know why, but I wouldn't like to admit
that all of this has changed us, maybe only improved us. Take care.
Always loving you, Your Sabina.

Lejia, October 27, 1987

I received your letter from a few days ago. I can see that you are full of worries,
especially for Sabina. I, too, am praying to God that she comes out of this with
her health intact. It isn't anything serious. It's just a chronic state of not getting
enough sleep, because when one of the girls falls asleep, the other wakes up,
every hour throughout the night: the age difference between the girls is very
small, and Nadja is either very sensitive or very stubborn (sometimes she makes
me really angry) so either she can't or she won't go to sleep.
Last night we went to a concert at the Music School. Selma is supposed to
perform next time, so we took her to see what it's like. Esma went along, too. I
believe Bakir told you about how Esma went to visit them one night. There the
two of them, Jasmina and Esma, played around to their heart's content and ate
pancakes.
Last night Bakir and Seka came over at 9 P.M. for a late visit. These visits are my
favorite because the children are in bed and I make dinner. Seka interviewed us.
It was some survey about the medical services, but there are some questions of a
private nature, so there was some laughter since Jasminko and I answered
separately.
There are times when I look at the solution of our misfortune with optimism.
For the first time in my life I can see whole chains of events like those in the
cheapest crime novel. If someone were writing this novel, they would think the
plot was too bizarre.

There has been no letters from you for five or six days now. In your last letter
you said that you weren't in much of a good mood, but I hope it was just a
passing phase and that this sunny weather has made you more cheerful. Last
week I was very depressed, even before Nadja got sick, and I didn't know how to
pull myself out of it. Then one morning I simply woke up feeling a lot better. As if
there was something "in the air." I tried to clear my head by taking a walk
through town, from shop to shop, but Tito's Street seemed really ugly to me, the
shops were strangely dark, the clothes were uninteresting, the people were dull
and gloomy. I went over to Lejla's, but when I got there I wondered why I should
be there, so I couldn't even have any coffee or lemonade ("Lejia's vitamins"),
because it all made me sick. All of this for no reason. Then all of a sudden this
terrible feeling disappeared. And now I am hoping that your bad mood was also
temporary, even though I know that it is much harder to avoid such moods where
you are.

Our Dear Dad,
We received your letter and card yesterday. The violets are beautiful and they
remind me of the violets from my childhood that I sent you (with mom's help) in
a letter on my seventh birthday. You were far away then, too.
Cober and I have been married for six years now and we have just entered our
seventh year which, they say, is critical. We probably won't even notice the
"marriage crisis" because of the children. We almost forgot about our anniversary
until the last moment. I had already picked out a present and prepared a festive
lunch.
Last night we were all at the Aklamijas celebrating Esma's birthday. It was a real
hullabaloo: eleven adults, nine children and a baby-Emma. Esmica got all dressed
up and blushed from excitement. Nadjica had a great time, too, even though she
could not come to terms with the fact that it wasn't her birthday. I say to her,
"We're going to buy Esma a present," and she adds right away, "And me, too." At
the end she finally connected and gave Esma the present murmuring, "Happy
Birthday." Otherwise, she is in the phase of endless questions now. Sometimes I
get tired of answering her and sometimes I-don't know what to say. By that time
I was already getting a headache, but luckily I remembered some chocolates so I

changed the subject. She has started asking questions about death already. She
saw on TV how some hunters killed some wild boars and came running to me into
the kitchen screaming, "Mommy, how did they die, tell me! How did those
animals die?" Even though she is exhausting, I love her more and more and I
can't wait for Cober to bring her back home from Lejia's where she spent the
night.

Dear Dad,
Belgrade always reminds me of our trip some twenty-five years ago-we went to
the Surèin Airport, the Zoo, we watched that western movie The Burning Star and
I ate so much ice cream that it made me sick.
The weather in Belgrade is great. Spring will be coming before it is expected.

How are you? Can you smell February in Foëa? If only this were your last
February there! Here winter is struggling, it snows and rains at the same time
and the air smells of spring one moment and of winter the next. I have a terrible
need for this spring. I don't know exactly what I expect of it, now I can only
discern it as a light after a long period of darkness. And perhaps it is just a strong
longing for light that has turned into an expectation.
Mom and Selma returned from the seaside on Saturday night. Nadjica, the
Akiamijas and me met them at the station. When she saw all the other people,
Nadja forgot about me and buried her little nose into Esma' s coat and stuck to
her. She reminded me of a little street puppy that starts following you home from
some corner expecting to be fed. That's how my little Nadja got into the car with
them and Lejla let her spend the night at their place. I felt suddenly free as I got
onto the tram and I enjoyed the ride to the Car~ija as if I was on a tourist bus in
the middle of Paris.
Emma is beautiful. When I look at her I don't know what to say. Cober just got
her Out of her crib and he keeps kissing her. She is smiling and looking at me
with her large dark eyes. Her hair is just like mine when I was a baby, but her
face is somewhat narrower and her eyes are slanted and dark. She likes company
a lot and can forget about hunger and sleep when she is surrounded by people.
She still can't sleep well at night. Her tummy is causing her troubles and I don't
know how to help her.
There is no special news. We often have guests and they always ask about you. I
have a lot of greetings I am meant to pass along to you from our friends and
relatives, the people that shared the same fate with you in the past years.
Bakir, February 8, 1988

The day before yesterday I went to see Lejla and last night I was at Sabina's.
Everyone is well and in good health, thank God. At Lejia's I commented on your
letter, that is, the bit about "all the celebrations you have planned for this year"
and that incited us (Jasmin and me) to pick up the guitar and violin and play
some music. That was the first time in our lives that we played together and to
our two wives.

I have entered into the second half of my maternity leave, hopefully the better
and easier half as well. I use all my energy for household chores where cooking
takes up way too much of my time and I can't come to terms with that. I have a
feeling that half my life is spent on worrying about food. I keep bringing huge
amounts of food into the house and taking out huge amounts of garbage.
I don't know if you heard that D~ula gave birth to a baby girl on February 27,
1988. She is supposed to come out of the hospital today and I can't wait to see
her and the baby. All of Emma's things will be passed on to her baby and

everything is already prepared. She will hold these things for another baby that is
on the way Dakzemal's wife is expecting her second child in August. Since
D~ula's younger sister got married recently, she will probably "get in line" as
well. I have a lot of fun with these things and I am awfully glad to hear that a
new baby has been born. It's strange that this joy and pain that is common to us
all does not make us women closer and more united. Despite everything, we
quarrel more often than we show affection; we hurt each other instead of helping
each other. It doesn't make any sense. Just like many other things in this world.
Always loving you,
Your Sabina.

Today is a beautiful spring day and I can't believe it. I wanted to walk to my firm
with Emma, to get some air, but she spoiled my plans: it's half past one already
and she is still asleep.
Nadja has really come to love her and she is extremely gentle with her just as
long as we are not too gentle. Her alarm goes off when she sees one of us fussing
over Emma and then she gets into a bad mood and starts being irritating and
aggressive. Otherwise, she is really protective of her little sister. If you had only
seen her when we turned Emma upside down (it was a way to cure bronchitis).
She started hitting us both, screaming in a panic, "Leave her alone!" Apart from
that, Nadja is really interesting at this age. The other day she asked me to
explain to her what "absolute" meant. I told her, "You are absolutely sweet. That
man on the TV is absolutely boring. You are absolutely mine." And she replied,
"No, I'm not. I'm Gaga's and daddy's and yours." As you can see, she's starting
to understand some things.
Bakir, April 7, 1988

Yesterday we had a little celebration for Seka's 28th birthday (they say that the
longest ten years of a woman's life are between the age of 28 and 30). Jasmina,
Selma (the older one), Bakir, Lejla and Sabina with her kids came and we had a
great time and a lot of laughs. I comforted Seka that she has 12 years before her
fifth decade.
Sabina, April 13, 1988

There's not much happening here, except for a few new things: spring has arrived
in our garden and yard, my passport "returned home" two days ago, Cober
moved Mom's things to Sarajevo and Semsa and Fata will be arriving soon, if only
you would be arriving, too. . . . You ask me if I wait for your letters. Well, this is
how it was this morning, for example. Nadjica had gone to the park, Eme was
asleep and my ear was listening for sounds in the yard. I hear the yard gate, I
turn down the radio and wait for the steps to draw closer. "Postman!" he shouts
as if he knew I was waiting for your letter: That's how it is almost every day. I
have gotten so used to your letters that I have a feeling that I will miss them
when you come back. You'll have to send us at least an occasional postcard then.
Last night Cober and I went to the movies with Bakir and Seka. It was the third
time we went out since Emma was born, so I am not used to it yet. When we
meet so freely in Tito Street an anxiety comes over me and I just want to go back
home. Later I relax a bit, but by that time we already have to be hurrying back.
Last night Nadja noticed me getting ready and started asking about where we
were going. Since I have stopped lying, I told her that Cober and I were going to
the movies. She wasn't very happy about this. She went out into the yard alone,
sat on the swing and started feeling sorry for herself, "Oh, oh, I can't stay alone
with the baby, oh, I wait and wait and dark comes and there's nobody there,
oooh She went on and on babbling through her crocodile tears while I was
laughing and trying to get ready.
Anyway, she gets to feeling so sorry for herself that when I explained to her that
Biba was coming over to baby-sit, she said to me through her tears, "No, I want

to be all alone and to cry and cry and it's getting dark." Of course, as soon as
Biba arrived she forgot about everything and didn't even notice me leaving.
Lejla, April 13, 1988

My Dear Dad,
There's not much happening in the way of nice events. The only thing is that
some pigeons have hatched outside our window. Selma is going all soft. I'm sorry
that you can't be here to hear her describe this event and the way she notices all
the mother pigeon's efforts to make her young comfortable and to protect them.
Lejia, April 24, 1988

Dear Dad,
This visit went by so quickly that it seems to me we hardly had a chance to talk.
They are long, these years that have been "eaten by grasshoppers," as Pekié
says. Even so, I persistently cherish the memory of our last conversations and
our meeting in front of the mini-market, if you remember, just before you went
away. I'll try to connect that moment with the long-awaited one to come. But I
know that we will always divide life into the life before and the life after. As far as
this present time is concerned, I think that we will be "accidentally avoiding" it.
Bakir, April 23, 1988

You probably read in Oslobodjenje a few days ago that a revision of the Criminal
Law is underway and that a committee has been formed in the SFRY Parliament
that will be investigating all cases of political crimes, especially verbal offenses
and that will suggest that all those who were convicted but haven't engaged in
further activities against the State should be pardoned. So, I guess there will be
something for you, too, either a pardon or the amendment to the law.
I didn't know that the cakes from Ba~ar~ija that I put in biscuit boxes didn't
make it past the censors. I was already imagining you trying to choose a cake
after iftar-a figaro, a walnut bar or a dry apple cake. I am not bright enough to
understand the difference between smoked beef that you can bring in and
barbecued meat that you can't, especially because the various diseases,
trichinosis and the like usually result from smoked meat. Or I don't understand
why you can bring in biscuits that are 24 months old, but not cakes bought at
Ba~ar~ija, etc.
Lejla, April 28, 1988

I am still not sure if you were joking in your last letter because I know myself
that I rarely ask you about your health and the way you're feeling. Part of it is my
subconscious attempt to avoid provoking a dishonest answer. Maybe I actually
know how you are feeling at any moment. Your letters are the most certain
measure for us as to how you are feeling. Lately, it seems to me, a certain
anxiety is coming out of them.
Can that be a consequence of all these stories about pardons, amendments to
Article 133 or the consequence of these five long years? While we're on that
subject, I want to tell you how much I admire you. Without a single complaint
you have borne your fate.
I don't know whether I would be able to do the same.
I saw Jasminko off to the airport yesterday. He practically took all his clothes,
except the really warm ones. For me that was a sign that he was going away for a
longer time and I must admit it made me sad. Everyone has to work abroad
sometime and Libya is no longer a place you visit for enjoyment.
Two of Jasminko's colleagues went with him and they will spend the first three
months together in a bungalow. They'll probably be cooking together. He will be
working as the head engineer for lighting in a good firm. He has already begun
working today and I expect to hear his first impressions soon.

Sabina, May 11, 1988

Our Dear Dad,
Your letter has arrived. I see that you are bragging about your good health and I
hope that you are being honest. We are all fine, except for Emma, who has
streptococcus in her throat so we have to get some penicillin.
When we got the test results I came home and said to Emma, "Where's my little
streptococcus?" and Nadja replied through her nose, "It's in the little house in the
garden." She always hears and comments on everything, so there are a lot of
situations like this one.
These days I have been painting Cober with Emma next to your mattress and I
hope that you will see this painting soon. Otherwise, the garden and the yard are
really beautiful. That apple tree in the yard had blossomed so much and spread
its scent all over the place, but now the blossoms are falling off and they're all
over the yard. There's a little quince tree in the garden and it is also blossoming.
I didn't know quince trees had such beautiful blossoms. We're already eating the
lettuce, onions and nettles from the garden and the hens give us four eggs every
day. What can I tell you, a real "ranch" as Bakir would say.
Lejla, May 17, 1988

My Dear Dad, You know the song: "Bayrams are no more
I woke up alone this morning. Jasminko is far away, the children are at Mom's,
you are on a "business trip." I can't even smell the spice cakes. I get ready in a
hurry so as to avoid certain thoughts. I come into the office and the people are
gathered around coffee. They expected me to bring baklava.
Aco asks about the cakes and I tell him that he'll really get some when they
finally amend Article 133. He probably understood me. The others couldn't
understand what cakes have to do with criminal law. They could see I was joking,
but it sounded strange.
I called auntie Samka to wish her a happy Bayram and the poor woman was
crying. What can I tell her to comfort her? What? When I see that illness and the
years have a hold on her and she never knew how to struggle in life. I keep trying
to convince her to move to another flat so that she would be able to go for a walk
every day. However, I'm sure she knows it won't do her any good.
I ought to call auntie Vahida. I'll do that a bit later. I've decided to visit all those
people in these few days. All of them brought me joy when I was a child. Their
coming to our house was a holiday, because I felt that they truly loved me.
Bakir, May 28, 1988

I read the Qur'an again during Ramadan. This time I especially liked the verses
that, so to say, teach a man how to behave-it says, for example, that you
shouldn't gossip about other people, that you shouldn't talk idly, that you should
respect other people's privacy, that you shouldn't dwell on other people's faults,
that you shouldn't expose another's shame, that you should not show your elderly
parents that they are a burden, etc. Every time I read the Qur'an it seems
different, but it is actually me that has changed, the Qur'an stays the same.
We went to Sabina's for dinner the other night. We were sitting in the yard and
we started the barbecue when it got dark. Lejla brought my guitar (it's at her
place now because of Selma), so we sang a bit. There were seven adults and six
children. What the children "love best" is racing around the barbecue and hiding
underneath the table with the coffee, especially if it slopes and only needs a slight
push to fall over. They also love to swing on that swing hanging from the apple
tree in the yard. The way they like to do this is so that the one who is swinging
slaps the one who is not swinging and then they both fall over and cry about it. At
some point we chased them into the house and would not let them out-every few
minutes one of them would peer out asking for something, complaining about the
other children, but we wouldn't get soft. We would only go in to check on them
when none of them would appear for about ten minutes and when the screaming

and the noise about the house would stop, because "that's when they're the most
dangerous."
Sabina, June 24, 1988

Whenever I go away somewhere, I worry most about Bakir. I miss Lejla, I think
about Mom a lot, but I worry about Bakir. I don't know why, but I'll try calling
him today, just to see if everything is all right.
I love you a lot and I'm thinking about you.
Yours, Sabina.
Bakir, July 31, 1988

Dear Father,
July has now passed. Two more months until we get back to winter. Time does
fly, at least for me (it's probably different for you). Middle age -is pretty boring-
every year is the same. When I was a young man every year of my life was
marked by something:
I went to high school, to the faculty, I kept changing and something great was
always being expected. I never cared much for middle age. Youth is beautiful, old
age is probably wise, but middle age is full of obligations and it is pretty boring.
I looked for the book by Asad that you suggested I read, but it was sold out. Still,
D~emal has it so he will lend it to me. I haven't sent you a book for a long time.
Write to me about which one you want and I'll find it for you. If your locker is too
crowded, throw away our letters. It really is high time you did this-you can be
sure that you won't be reading them ever again (since you don't read them in this
situation), and there is no need for anyone else to be reading them, so

I keep forgetting to tell you about this one incident. One of my friends was
abroad and he met a professor there (I don't remember where from), who was
asking about the author of the book Islam Between East and West. He said he
liked the book very much and that he would like to visit its author, who is in
prison. My friend tried to explain to him that this was impossible, but he keeps
saying how he must do this, because he feels an obligation to the author of the
book. Anyway, whether he set off for Foèa or not, we don't know, but we do know
that it's a small world apparently, and a beautiful one.

Bakir brought that request for a lessening of your sentence from a Muslim. It
seems good, at some places excellent, and at the end quite "poetically" written.
That Nikola is not bad at all. Ohe thing is for sure: he brought both his mind and
his heart into your case.
As far as I can see, our parliament has not considered Article 133. I guess they
have more important things to deal with at the moment. What is happening in the
country is horrifying and I can imagine how it seems to you over there. All the
more reason for me to be wanting you back home soon.

Dear Dad,
The dog, Luri, is always looking for someone to play with. He lies on the floor
waiting for someone to look at him so that he can jump up and come over. He
usually brings me one of Jasmina's torn-up slippers and then we wrestle for it,
each one twisting and pulling it to his own side; he gets most satisfaction when I
start shouting, "Let go of that slipper, it's not yours, it's Jasmina's," then he
growls. Yesterday, he found a huge spider on the balcony and started playing
around with it. The poor spider tried to get out of the game where he gets hit on
the head every time he moves, but unfortunately he was killed. Luri was so

surprised to see that the spider no longer moved, he tossed it over with his paw
and started whining for us to come and help out.
I hope that you are all right and that you have enough strength (which I'm sure
you do). You know that the sun comes out after the rain, that spring comes after
the autumn and winter, etc. God willing, there will come a day when all the past
worries will make our happiness seem even more beautiful. Without any
exaggeration I can tell you that I would have been lucky in life if I had only met
you: the fact that God gave me you as a father is a true honor.
Jasmina is going to gymnastics classes at FIS. That place looks the same as when
I went there for gymnastics classes 25 years ago. She will be home in about half
an hour full of impressions and I will have to watch all the cartwheels, splits, etc.

Dear Dad,
I am in a good mood today. I have such a sense of optimism and a will to live
that I wish I could transfer onto you. I don't know what I should say, what I
should write about in order to achieve that. I simply feel that everything will be
all right and that things will get better soon.
Today I went window-shopping and I looked at clothes for you. You will allow the
architect (advice and all free of charge) to pick out and buy you a pair of shoes
and a sweater. Since the last time you went shopping for clothes the selection of
clothes has greatly improved despite the crisis. Now one can dress as well as one
in Italy and on top of that, it is cheaper and even the quality is better. You can
find the best kind of jeans trousers and jackets, great shoes, suits, sweaters,
cotton shirts, etc.
When, God willing, you get out, the sight of Sarajevo will also be a pleasant
surprise for you. We do owe the world 210 million dollars (1,000 per working
Sarajevan) for the buildings and infrastructure, but it is worth it. The city is clean,
there are many new buildings and the old facades have been renovated. Every
day I take a walk down to the ëar~ija (market place) and I do not consider
myself to have lived unless I do that. Beg's Mosque is also being renovated (they
say that on each stone of the munara (tower), where the plaster had come off, a
letter from the Qur'an was found) as well as the Medresa (Islamic high school).
The ~ar~ija has been laid with rustic stones and in the part where there was a
fire a few years back (towards the Town Hall), a set of shops is being built. Many
new pastry shops and cafés have opened and the competition has made the
coffee and cakes a lot better (cramped, stuffy cafés are no longer in fashion). The
èevabdñnicas keep to their standard level. Seka and I always have devapi at
"Zeljo." That's where the devapi have the smell that I remember from my
childhood. We get them to go and then eat them on the way so the devapi and
the bun and the onion get all mixed up and that's the best.
See you soon, God willing. Love from your Bakir.

My Dear Dad,
Our special visit went down the drain. Kasumagid probably gave you the
message, that is, told you that I was in front of the prison on Saturday, but that
the superintendent would not let me see you. If I had been there when he came
by (they told me to wait in the canteen until they telephone me after they've
checked about the visit-a message wasn't left for them that the educator allowed
the visit) maybe I would have been able to convince him to let me in at least for
15 minutes. Sometimes people forget and are not aware of certain things. The
superintendent, for example, is not aware of the fact that I came from Neum to
see you, that I had received permission from comrade Tijanid and he forgets that
you are in prison because of something you said and wrote while others who had
robbed and murdered get free visits, get to go home from time to time, get to
walk around Foéa, etc. But, what's done is done. I hope that you did not get

frustrated because of all this. Especially over the fact that I made the trip in vain-
I would make this trip for you every day, twice.
I am sending you this photo of Jasmina that I had brought with me to give to you
today. She looks older than she really is, five or six.
On Friday I had a full and unusual day at the seaside-first there was the south
wind with flying clouds and great big waves. I went to Peljeiac to pick some dog-
rose berries for Jasmina. I found one red one as big as a baby's head. It looked
like it was made of plastic and it shone like it was covered with oil. Then, all of a
sudden the northeastern wind started blowing, the change occurred in a matter of
minutes. The wind shifted, became cold, the waves disappeared and the sea
started getting "goose bumps" from the wind that came hitting down on mt from
the hills. Then it started to rain, an unusual rain that came down in shifts as if
someone kept emptying buckets of water. The rain stopped and it got very cold.
And then it got sunny! Everything was still soaking wet, but the sun was shining
brighter than I've ever seen it in my life. The air was extraordinarily clear-later
that afternoon on my way to Sarajevo, from the hill in front of Opuzen I could see
Ploée, which had never been the case before. And not only could I see the harbor,
I could see the shine of the metal on the ships. I could see the furthest islands as
well as the mountains in the depths of Herzegovina. While I was on Peljeiac, in a
bay near a place called Broce, at a distance of some ten meters from the shore I
saw that characteristic fin cutting the sea as it circled. Still, it wasn't a shark but a
dolphin. He was circling in front of me for at least ten minutes. He was jumping
up and fooling around and Jasmina wasn't there to see it.
My dear father, November's coming in five days, so, God willing, we'll see each
other soon. Love from your Bakir.

My Dear Dad,
Whenever I write you a letter I wonder which ordinal number it carries. I mean
counting from the last. How many more will there be? Few or many? I vote for
few: however, yesterday I bought ten envelopes for myself and ten 20-dinar
stamps for you. I hope we'll have some left over.
But as for Emma, forget about the chocolates, give some coffee and cigarettes!
She is a sweet comfort. She still can't walk on her own, but she goes all over the
house by way of her silly spiraling on her head. She follows me everywhere and
keeps calling me and blabbering on about something. She understands everything
except the TV news. I take her into my arms only when I have to: to change her,
to feed her and wash her. And it is bliss! Right away she presses her tiny hands
onto my face and smiles at me with her asymmetrically grown teeth, then she
puts her little nose to my cheeks and blows at me and keeps repeating: Mommy,
Mommy, until she suddenly remembers, "Eye!"-and then a finger goes in the eye.
Sometimes she just suddenly squeaks with joy and hits me with her head, then
she cries. Basically, the petting doesn't last long, either I have work or she does.
She simply wants to walk and she gets all fidgety and looks for my fingers to hold
on to. It is practically impossible to eat something in front of her, she
immediately starts shouting, "Me want!" she keeps wanting to eat something.
Last night we baked potatoes in the oven and laid out the small table in front of
the TV and sat down, the three of us on stools and Emma-on her potty. It's the
only way to keep her still for a while so she doesn't knock everything off the
table. There, my dear father, that's the atmosphere at our house.
Bakir, November 19, 1988

Do you know of anyone who could lend me the Tevrat (Torah)? I am "suspicious"
of the Old Testament, rather I am suspicious of its origin. I am afraid that people
have altered it immensely to adapt it to their own needs-if it weren't for the Ten
Commandments you could say it was a book about a deity not God. The chosen
people are lifted above all others for all time, there is no mention of the other
world, virtue in the sense of forgiveness doesn't exist (nobody is forgiven for

anything, it's terrifying how heads, arms, legs just fly off). Luxury and splendor of
the temples and clergy is insisted upon and the highest ideal is wealth and power.
When I read that Moses allegedly ordered that apart from the captured idol-
worshipping men, all male children and married women should also be executed,
I got a headache and I was stressed the whole day.

Early this morning I had a wonderful dream: A kind female voice tells me on the
phone that we should come pick you up "tomorrow, because today is Sunday."
And so we start getting ready to go.
Take care of yourself. Always loving you, your Sabina.
November 25, 1988

It was the 25th of November, somewhere between 3 P.M. and 4 P.M. They called
me to the administration office, where the commander of the guard, Malko
Koroman, in his ceremonial suit and in a solemn voice, read the decision of the
Presidency of Yugoslavia that I was being released from further serving my
sentence. It was the 2,075th day of my imprisonment.

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Notes From Prison, 1983 -1988

Allah promised victory to the ummah of the prophet (saws);

Courtesy: Bakir Izetbegović

Edited OCR-version: Taskforce Ezania

Distribution on: http://www.muslimtorrents.net/

When I lose the reasons to live, I shall die.

To despise death, often excessively praised, can be a consequence of the lack of

Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 1 of 27

There are signs of upheaval everywhere. It is a turmoil that reaches to the

Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 2 of 27

377. Kundera' s Theresa (Unbearable Lightness of Being) felt nakedness as a

423. If I cannot speak freely with a friend-and I obviously cannot, read my

428. Look at a daring building: true, it is held together by adhesives or by steel

Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 3 of 27

521. Imitation is the most obvious form of acceptance.

563. All Heidegger's efforts, supported by incredible perseverance, knowledge

585. In moments of real tragedy, there is no place for acting or complacent

588. History sometimes makes fun of us and of our best intentions.

Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 4 of 27

695. Between sorrow and indifference, I will choose sorrow.

696. Falsity is the only thing uglier than an ugly truth.

782. If I do not kill time, time will kill me.

824. If there is anything that has charisma, it is suffering ("charisma of

873. It is said that mathematics is a synthesis of rationality.

898. Prison allows for realizations that can be said to be "painfully

Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 5 of 27

Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 6 of 27

1193. In prison, man has a shortage of space and an excess of time.

1275. Suffering cannot be avoided, but it may be complemented by ideas.

Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 7 of 27

Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 8 of 27

Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 9 of 27

1555. A starry sky is equally interesting to a scientist, a mystic, an ethics scholar

Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 10 of 27

Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 11 of 27

sometimes feel respect and be interested in the destiny of a negative hero-if he is

1729. A metropolis has a strange influence on men. A man poisoned by a

1735. American writers-contrary to European writers-do not strive to improve the

1746. To seek trouble-this is not courage, this is madness. Courage is the

1748. Accustomed to darkness, moles cannot tolerate light. To them, darkness is

1762. We seek freedom, but are we worthy of it?

Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 12 of 27

1766. I took revenge on hardship from my earlier life by forgetting it.

1795. Injustice can be remedied by justice, by punishment. Same for same.

1799. It is impossible to go forward, and backward there is nothing to go back to.

Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 13 of 27

1804. Philosophy came to be and continues to exist out of man's natural

1826. All my reasons remained helpless, as if before a wall or a kind of madness.

Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 14 of 27

Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 15 of 27

1951. There is no wisdom without experience, one's own, of course. However, if it

2019. Can something be said of "nothing"?

Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 16 of 27

2079. If it is sincere, remorse is a moral category of the ultimate kind. In my

2153. It is interesting that some people constantly request the right to an

Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 17 of 27

2200. One man's death is as valuable as his life has been.

2204. "In Memoriam-Borivoj Niksic

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Alija Izetbegović - Notes From Prison, 1983-1988 Page 19 of 27

2405. Do not kill a mosquito, dry the swamp.

2429. Only freedom cannot be worn out by frequent use.

2529. Fasting in prison-for me, that was a confirmation of my human dignity on