alanabit,
you mentioned Srebrenica. Funny that - this was not about Srebrenica itself, but about that whole period. The three incidents referred to are part of history now. It tackles the "revenge" explanation for continuing vendettas between clans, which is one of the causes at the back of the troubles that eventually ripped Yugoslavia apart.

Revenge ?
George Papavgeris, July 2001

What turns a man into a beast?
What makes an enemy from friend,
A butcher from a farmer?
What causes man to fire a gun,
To separate father from son,
The baby from the mother?

We learn to take, and not to give,
And to accuse, not to forgive.
We learn of rights, and not of dues.
For those who're weak we have no use.
From jackals we're no better.


Who thought to go and buy some food
And pay for it with their own blood?
That's not what they were hoping.
Who sent the rockets into town
In blood the marketplace to drown?
Whose hate was there no stopping?

Who knew their names and who were they
Who won't see another market day?
And who decided, you or I,
That eighty people had to die
The day that Death went shopping?


We were eighteen and so in love
But I had God and you Allah
The crime we had to pay for.
We used to meet among the dead
The cold stone pillow for your head
But you were always playful.

You thought to dance among the graves,
The bullet caught you unawares.
What blasphemy and what disgrace
The sniper's cross upon your face -
A mark of love so dreadful.


He used to play with the other boys,
Their wooden guns their favourite toys,
Their legs like sticks from hunger.
He'd learned to cross without a noise
To get the water from the hose,
But he'll go there no longer.

Who saw a child crossing the road,
The water cans his only load,
Who saw my son and saw a threat?
Who aimed and shot to cut him dead
And thought his manhood stronger?



What makes a mob of decent folk,
What makes you hate the other bloke
And think his life is cheaper?
Is it religion, is it creed,
Or politics all mixed with greed?
No - revenge goes much, much deeper!

So is it just my human fate
To spend my life in vengeful hate?
And am I blessed for being meek,
If love, and not revenge I seek -
Or fodder for the Reaper?