I decided not to write about evil anymore. Especially when I finish the book about the crime in Šahovići in 1924. There are more reasons for such a thing. I have to take care of my mental hygiene by not allowing myself to become an expert on human pathology and thus become disillusioned with man as a social being.
The first thing that really talks about evil in an insufficiently clear exposition can be the propaganda of evil even against the wishes of the author. And propagating evil in a society that has not yet distinguished what crime is, that cannot yet distinguish that there is no "my" or "your" crime, nor mine or your criminal, is equal to crime. Since I consider such a thing to be the bottom of human pathology, I will try to look for "good" in every "evil", even though I know that by doing so I risk being left without a "topic", and even a job, given that history deals with the pathological side of human nature (politics , conflict, wars, clashes, hatred, evil), that is, the much less beautiful side of human nature (love, charity, sacrifice, selflessness, philanthropy, humanity).
I also noticed a new form of intellectual masturbation in which people have the need to identify themselves with crime and the criminal, and hence the need to publicly fence off anyone who, at any time, for any reason, has caused harm to any person, and especially killed an unarmed and powerless person, so that such we nor can it be a relative, nor a compatriot.
This is because I noticed that the "special forces" react to each of my stories about crime, with a remark - and what is written about "that and not about this", and what is written only about those where "his" victims are, what is not written about "to our victims". In addition, a distant relative of mine, thanks to whom we in Gornji Bihor overtook and did not pass like those in Lower Bihor, is becoming a bigger and bigger "criminal", even where he could not be, nor has he ever been, all because of the pathological need to justified the crime with the extremely down-to-earth and primitive "what did they do to us?".
If this were the measure, then this society will never get out of the era of cannibalism, barbarism and primitivism. Every killing of a weak, unarmed person is a crime and there is no doubt about it. The attitude towards crime is extremely subjective, but it must rest on a previous premise. Writing about crimes that have not been written about is not simply accumulating "evil" but an attempt to rationalize and objectify human pathology.
The fact that there is so much evil in such a small space is enough of a signal for anyone who wants progress to make an effort to archive the evil. And this is possible only through collective condemnation and acceptance of a new value system devoid of the primitive deposits of "our glorious" and often "criminal" past. Searching for "good" people in the last war, Svetlana Broz wrote a wonderful book "Good people in the time of evil" which is a kind of testimony to the fact that people, regardless of their national, religious and ideological affiliation, are just as ready for "good" as they are for " evil". So, no one is predestined for one or the other, but remembering one or the other allows us to choose our "heroes of history".
Recently, searching for my "heroes" and "immersing myself" in history, I started from the church in Polje in Mojkovac, from the grave of Boško Bošković, which, to my surprise, is just a plaque without any tombstone, then via Cer to Obod where Boško was killed (thrown an area overgrown with forest where the only signs of civilization are passers-by, gravestones to those killed in various confrontations). My ultimate goal is the search for the grave of Novak and Vlad Ašanin and the need to pay homage to them, because they saved 1924-year-old Mustafa Muslić (died in Sarajevo in 12) at the time of the massacre in Šahovići in 1993, risking their lives in front of a crowd of angry "avengers". who had the task of killing all "Turks".
Vlad's son Miajlo, a good-natured and educated gentleman, told me in detail the most important facts of this extraordinary event, while Mustafa's son Ibro, who spends his summers only in Montenegro, through the fog confirmed this story that "grandmother" told him so many times. So Mihajlo and Ibro remained the only witnesses of human "good" in the time of "evil". For 30 years, Ibro's close relative, Šefko, as a driver on the Pljevlja-Bijelo Polje route, passed by the property from which his relatives were evicted, but even today, even though he is 81 years old, he talks with so much love about the people from the Vraneška valley and the events related to these areas.
And while I completed my mission in Pavina Polje (bowing to the shadows of Ašanin), I visited the grave of the last Muslim there (Ram Hasanbegović-Sejdović) whom the Orthodox buried in their cemetery according to his wishes, I visited the place in Hasanbegović Mahal where there was a mosque, one discovered "new world" where I met good, kind and hospitable people, I was not so lucky in Bijelo Polje. There I looked for the grave of Huzeir-age Dervović and the grave of the Yugoslav army captain Apostolović, who are the most responsible for the fact that the Muslims of Bijelo Polje did not suffer the fate of those from Šahović.
Namely, there was a plan for their liquidation according to a similar scenario applied in the Vraneška Valley. First, 67 of the most prominent Muslims of Bjelopolje were imprisoned, including Huzeir-aga Dervović (1870-1929). According to the established plan, all those arrested were to be liquidated, and then the orgy on the innocent Muslim population was to continue. Due to the presence of mufti Mustafa Salihbegović and Huzeir-age Dervović, who went to Belgrade and intervened with the president of the then government, Pašić, that did not happen.
Pašić now, unlike Šahović, when he tacitly approved the crime, announced that all the prisoners should be released, thus avoiding the massacre in Bijelo Polje.
Huzeir-aga Dervović promised Pašić that all Bosniaks from Bijeli Polje would vote for his Radical Party, and it was so. In the elections that were held less than two years after the previous one (1925), the "will" of the voters suddenly changed. While judging by the results of the parliamentary elections in 1923, this area was "banned for democrats", already in 1925, in the elections, it was changed to "banned for radicals".
If the dilemma is voice or life, of course there is no choice. The role of the captain of the Serbian (Yugoslav) army Apostolović, who helped Huzeir-aga Dervović to escape from captivity, go to Belgrade and thus save the Muslims of Bjelopolje from the massacre that was prepared for them, was especially important in saving the Muslims of Bjelopolje.
Neither Huzeir-aga nor Captain Apostolović Bjepolojci know anything more than the fact that it seems to have been so. I did not find a grave for Huzeir-agi Dervović. About Captain Apostolović - no trace.
If people do not get used to remembering "good", it is certain that evil will be repeated, and it will turn out to be the main feature of their lives. Why then life?
Bonus video:
