I truly live in sinister times, Brecht says; he that still laughs has not realized this terrible news. Nineteen passengers disappeared from the Belgrade-Bar train in the whereabouts of Strpci, February 27, 1993, and since then all traces have been lost. Slavko Curuvija, an independent journalist, was shot dead on the street in broad daylight. In March of 1999 Kelmendi and his two sons were taken from their house and later killed. Bitiqi (one of Flora Brovina's defenders) and his wife were beaten, and nearly killed, in their home. They sentenced the journalist Fistic to a year of jail only for having attached a leaflet to a window (Free Press Serbia, April 1999); they sentenced the painter Bogoljub Arsenijevic Maki to three years of jail . . . It is only by pure coincidence that they did not do the same to me (Brecht again), each one of us could say.
She has been in prison almost a year, although sick, although without any guilt, the doctor, poetess, humanitarian activist Flora Brovina. They condemned her to twelve years of prison without any proof. Except if the incriminating material were the bandages and wool for knitting, which were treated before the court as if they were bombs, rifles, and explosives.
Something like this occurs only in literature, right? The work is entitled: Literary resources in judicial practice. In said work the doctor and poetess is converted into a terrorist. In this way, the prisoner is made more well known in the world. Was this the objective? Many governments and many non-governmental organizations in the world are interested in the destiny of Flora Brovina. Emissaries from the UN visit her in prison. Her poetry is translated into many languages, they give her literary prizes . . . Nevertheless, she continues to be imprisoned. Perhaps precisely for those things!
The prisoner that carries the name Flora Brovina, Albanian born, continues to be incarcerated in the city of Pozarevac, without the right to speak her mother tongue with her husband, who visits her every fifteen days, each visit lasting thirty minutes. The prisoner that carries the name Flora Brovina, by vocation and by work a poetess, continues to be incarcerated in Pozarevac, without the right to have a pencil, in other words, without the right to write. In a poem Flora Brovina writes: If you have heard my poetry you know how I sing/If you know how I sing do not interrupt me. For the poets/poetesses, writing means surviving, and disabling them from the possibility of writing means disabling them from the latter. Will this be the objective?
They have treated political prisoners in other times and regimes differently—some were even crueler. Ivo Andric wrote "Ex Ponto" in a prison in the time of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The communists translated Marx and Engels in the prison of Sremska Mitrovica, in the epoch of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Milovan Djilas, political prisoner Number One since then, translated Milton in the communist prison, which seems to me the same as where Flora Brovina is presently incarcerated. The poet Gojko Djogo (beginning of the 80s) wrote his famous Defense of poetry in prison. The "defamed" court of The Hague recently allowed Dusan Tadic to paint in jail—these paintings were sold in an auction. Included is the hero of our times, painter Bogoljub Arsenijevic Maki, whose bones were broken by the police and who thought that he would die, who succeeded in making drawings in jail. We could see these drawings in the past in the Center for Cultural Decontamination in Belgrade. Only to the poetess Flora Brovina they have not left a pencil. From the mercy of whom, on the whim of whom does this depend? Or, perhaps, is it about the fear that she could write of?
They say that Flora Brovina is not in jail for her poems, but who knows why she is in jail. For having had in her possession bandages and wool for knitting sweaters?! What difference is there between the bandages, wool for knitting, and poems? Perhaps for being Albanian? Two million other Albanians remain, for certain some of them are also in jail. Many more eminent Albanians remain. Because she has organized demonstrations? They organize demonstrations here also. Because she was the President of the League of Albanian Women? They have a similar organization here also. By the will of whom or on the whim of whom have they chosen Flora Brovina? By the will of whom or on the whim of whom have they not permitted her to now write in jail?
Nikolay Buharin, in a letter to Stalin speaking of the case of the poet Mandelstam, wrote: "The poets always have reason. History is always on the side of the poets." Are there ministers in the government of Serbia who dare to write something like that to their boss about Flora Brovina? Mr. Jankovic (Minister of Justice of Serbia) or Mr. Simic (Minister of Culture of Serbia). Because: What sinister hour reins around heads of gray, says the poetess. For a start, give a pencil to the poetess Flora Brovina!