{"id":212549,"date":"2020-08-25T07:46:30","date_gmt":"2020-08-25T07:46:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=212549"},"modified":"2020-08-29T07:29:27","modified_gmt":"2020-08-29T07:29:27","slug":"heritage-is-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=212549","title":{"rendered":"Heritage is Home"},"content":{"rendered":"

Linh Dinh \u2013 The Unz Review Aug 25, 2020<\/strong><\/h1>\n
\"\"<\/a>

Belgrade-2020<\/p><\/div>\n

Our end drifts nearer,<\/em>
\nthe moon lifts,<\/em>
\nradiant with terror.<\/em>
\nThe state<\/em>
\nis a diver under a glass bell.<\/em><\/h5>\n
\u2013Robert Lowell, \u201cFall 1961\u201d<\/em><\/h5>\n
Even in strange places, you establish routines, so I\u2019ve been going to Dzidzi Midzi to write. Its balcony overlooking the street is calming, and even more importantly, it\u2019s quiet.<\/h5>\n
It has four bartenders. One is hook nosed, chubby, stubby, glum, swarthy, honest and speaks English quite comfortably. Frowning, he said to me, \u201cThis is too much,\u201d when I accidentally gave him a ten-dollar tip, thinking it was just a buck.<\/h5>\n
I\u2019ve done stupid shit all over, and it\u2019s a miracle I\u2019m still in one piece. Falling asleep on a Polish train, I had to get off at some empty, rural station. Following the snow dusted tracks, I trekked back to my intended destination in the cold. Passing each rare house with its yellow lit windows, I felt like an idiot alright.<\/h5>\n
\"\"<\/a>Sweating up and down a winding dirt road in the mountainous<\/a> mist<\/span>, I finally reached a scraggly, unmapped village<\/a><\/span> of ten dwellings, but before I could step into China<\/span><\/a>, which was right there, right in front of me, a Vietnamese soldier suddenly appeared, \u201cWhat are you doing, uncle?!\u201d Like everybody else in Candelaria, Texas, I crossed a supposedly illegal footbridge into San Antonio del Bravo, Mexico. I got slapped by a thug in Istanbul, but in the same city, a restaurant owner refused to charge me, so delighted was he to have such an exotic client.<\/h5>\n
I fell off a motorbike in Luang Prabang<\/span><\/a>, but at least it wasn\u2019t moving. In Munich, I gushed to a new acquaintance, \u201cI\u2019m very happy to be in Berlin!\u201d<\/h5>\n
Walking around this morning, I heard church bells, because it\u2019s Sunday, but this also means the Dzidi Midzi is closed. Woe is me, but at least I\u2019m not in a locked down city or country, where life itself has been put on hold, indefinitely. How is that possible? It\u2019s just the new normal, suckers, so just suck it up. Sinisterly derailed, entire societies must lie in the ditch, with casualties piling up, from suicides, fights, misdirected anger and anger.<\/h5>\n
\"\"<\/a>I\u2019m in Hunters<\/span><\/a>. This was actually my first Belgrade bar, where I landed straight from the airport, still with my luggage. Cheap and true, it\u2019s a perfect pub, except for its noise pollution, though sometimes a curious song does come on, such as, just now, Manu Chao\u2019s \u201cMe Gustas Tu\u201d, \u201cQu\u00e9 voy a hacer \/ Je ne sais pas \/ Qu\u00e9 voy a hacer \/ Je ne sais plus \/ Qu\u00e9 voy a hacer \/ Je suis perdu \/ Qu\u00e9 hora son, mi coraz\u00f3n.\u201d Oh, shut up already! Music should always be occasioned, with actual lungs and fingers. Silence is best.<\/h5>\n
The Hunters\u2019 walls are lined with horned<\/span><\/a> skulls, and there\u2019s a six-stanza poem praising \u201cJohn the Hunter\u201d [\u201c\u040f\u041e\u041d\u0418\u0408\u0423 X\u0410\u041d\u0422\u0415\u0420Y\u201d]. In the men\u2019s room, there\u2019s this large message in English on the wall<\/a><\/span>, \u201cHow can a MAN who can hit a DEER at 250 yards keep missing the TOILET?\u201d Just a mile from here in 2003, Serbia\u2019s prime minister was fatally shot by a sniper, so I\u2019m guessing folks here have pretty steady nerves and aim.<\/h5>\n
Their sense of humor is also unflinching. In a satirical article about Serbia\u2019s dreadful international image, Momo Kapor suggested that even its reputation for mass rape could be turned into an attraction, \u201cMaybe that could be used in a positive way, for certain Western women who might want to get to know Serbian macho guys, and in light of the growing gay movement, they might see Serbia as an exceptional oasis of masculinity in an effeminate world. They might come in hordes to be raped in an exotic location.\u201d<\/h5>\n
Kapor\u2019s love letters to Belgrade and Serbia are translated into English and published as A Guide to the Serbian Mentality. This witty and informative book was given to me by a lovely lady, Jelena, who also paid for my dinner and beer. Now that\u2019s hospitality! A wonderful couple spared hours from their busy schedules to show me Novi Sad<\/span><\/a>. Together, we admired statues<\/a><\/span> of five literary<\/span><\/a> men<\/a><\/span>, all within easy walking distance. \u201cI\u2019ve never seen anything like this<\/a><\/span>,\u201d I told them. \u201cThere is certainly nothing like this in Vietnam.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\"\"<\/a>On the way to The Hunters, I passed a wise yet obvious T-shirt, \u201cMY HERITAGE IS MY FUTURE,\u201d and you can see it here<\/span><\/a>, as evidence I didn\u2019t make it up. I\u2019m too literal and timid to make anything up. To have a future is to possess a home, or vice versa, and heritage as home is also the central message of Kapor\u2019s book<\/h5>\n
Like any mature love, it\u2019s complicated by disappointment and even distaste, if not hatred. Kapor, \u201cWherever I go in Belgrade, I see gray people. Gray is our favourite color.\u201d Much less picturesque than Paris, London, Rome, Vienna, Moscow, Berlin, Budapest, Istanbul or Athens, etc., his city is blighted by \u201ca ubiquitous grayness,\u201d with \u201cconcrete ramparts of the new architecture, uniform Corbusieresque dwellings deprived of any beauty and any desire to build a house as a work of art.\u201d Repeatedly leveled by foreigners, Belgrade has also been \u201cdemolished by pretentious architects eager to wipe out all traces of antiquity.\u201d<\/h5>\n
So what is there to love, exactly? Your people, of course, and not just because your women are exceptionally beautiful and graceful, \u201cWatching these women on the city streets is like seeing a fantastic modern ballet with no other sound than striking heels! Pale city girls who grow up suddenly, accustomed to city life and the yearning looks of passersby; independent, cynical, audacious and polite at the same time, with the innate elegance of millionaires behind cunningly concealed poverty\u2014it is upon them that newcomers feast their eyes until they disappear from sight, as if upon some secret signal, leaving the streets inconsolably barren and bare.\u201d<\/h5>\n
Like flowers, these women explode with beauty come spring, so that \u201cbringing your wife to Belgrade in May is like taking rice to China\u2014and sleeping with her is pure incest!\u201d Not too PC, is it? In America, Kapor would be lynched on the nearest college campus.<\/h5>\n
Even if your homegirls are chimp ugly, you must love them, because they\u2019re your mothers, sisters, girlfriends and wives. You\u2019re an ape, too. They\u2019re your heritage, flesh, language and meaning, what you tumbled out of.<\/h5>\n
Having endured a million calamities together, each nation has evolved a million customs to assert its distinctiveness, so Kapor rapturously celebrates the Serbian plum brandy, grog-like tea, love of beans, three greeting kisses and \u0161ajka\u010da cap, the last of which I\u2019ve seen no evidence of during my one month here. The greeting kisses are in abeyance because of the coronavirus, I\u2019m assuming.<\/h5>\n
In Busan, I was immersed in an intact society, despite the coronavirus, and here in Belgrade, I\u2019m again among people who proudly, defiantly yet calmly know themselves, and what they must protect. Reading Kapor, I\u2019m reminded of certain Vietnamese writers who infuse readers with just as deep a love for their society. America doesn\u2019t have that.<\/h5>\n
As the country is torn apart, Stacy Schiff in the New York Times, dismisses the statue toppling, media-triggered racial rioting and Main Street looting as no different from, and just as necessary, as what occurred during the Boston Tea Party, \u201cNo one was hurt. No gun was fired. No property other than the tea was damaged. The perpetrators cleaned up after themselves. In the aftermath, the surgical strike was referred to plainly as \u2018the destruction of the tea.\u2019 To the indignant Massachusetts governor, it constituted nothing less than a \u2018high handed riot.\u2019\u201d Only hysterics and reactionaries can mischaracterize such righteous and surgical protests as riots, in short.<\/h5>\n
Millions of businesses being wrecked will only make for a better strolling and dining experience, claims the New York Post. You won\u2019t be crowded. Steve Cuozzo, \u201cPre-COVID, restaurant-going had become a chore to endure. Whether at 300-seat Cathedrale in the East Village or at 50-seat Ernesto\u2019s on the Lower East Side, bodies were scrunched together without mercy. And did I mention loud? But today\u2019s expanded al-fresco dining scene with safely-spaced tables is a joyful, high-summer antidote to the \u2018dead city\u2019 narrative. It\u2019s less pretentious and less rowdy than scene- and trend-driven indoor eating ever was.\u201d<\/h5>\n
In Chicago, the self-absorbed mayor sanctions protests everywhere but on her own block. Irony-free, the Honorable Lori Lightfoot explains, \u201cI have an obligation to keep my home, my wife, my 12-year-old, and my neighbors safe.\u201d When an alderman complains about the deadly chaos all over town, she shuts him up with, \u201cYou\u2019re full of shit.\u201d<\/h5>\n
Can\u2019t say I miss being in that madhouse. Another day, I\u2019m sitting outside a Pa\u0161ino Brdo cafe, just across the street from Obili\u0107 Stadium. It\u2019s named after a Serbian knight who\u2019s credited with killing the Turkish Murad I, during or just after the Battle of Kosovo in 1389.<\/h5>\n
Since Milo\u0161 Obili\u0107 was mentioned in no contemporary account, some doubt he even existed, but Murad I certainly had his neck and belly slashed from a Serbian sword that day. Obili\u0107 personifies that inspiring feat. Even during the Serbs\u2019darkest hour, they could vanquish a prized enemy, so they can certainly do it again, and again, whatever it takes.<\/h5>\n
\"\"<\/a>In 1998, FK Obili\u0107 miraculously won the national championship by besting much more storied squads, such as Red Star, Partizan and Vojvodina, etc. On the stadium\u2019s outside wall, a commemorative mural of this team is flanked by depictions of Milo\u0161 Obili\u0107 and the Church of Saint Sava, for in Serbia, sport, religion, history, myth and defense of home turf are all woven together. Outside Red Star\u2019s stadium, there\u2019s even a tank<\/a> <\/span>and a missile launcher<\/a><\/span>.<\/h5>\n
Though no fan of clear liquor, I order a glass of \u0161ljivovica, for when in Rome, you know\u2026 Pouring mine from a generic bottle, the white moustached owner<\/span><\/a> decides to join me, but with a glass of vodka. Kapor, \u201cApart from Russian vodka, \u0161ljivovica is the only drink that prompts Serb farmers to piously cross themselves before drinking.\u201d Sure enough, the old fellow crosses himself before pouring comforting heat down his gullet.<\/h5>\n
Kapor, \u201cWhen the Turks began to withdraw from these regions, rakija became the symbol of freedom and victory over Islam, which prohibited alcohol.\u201d<\/h5>\n
When you\u2019re steeped in your own heritage, just about every act has meaning, and for this reason alone, Serbs, Koreans and Vietnamese, etc., will outlast those whose most sacred heroes, symbols and customs have become meaningless, if not despised.<\/h5>\n
As the American state goes under inside a glass bell, its citizens must sink or swim on their own.<\/h5>\n
Linh Dinh\u2019s<\/em><\/strong> latest book is Postcards from the End of America<\/span><\/a>. He maintains a regularly updated photo blog<\/span><\/a>.<\/em><\/h5>\n

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While large parts of the world are in lockdown, Linh Dinh reflects as he wanders through the streets of Belgrade <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":146,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-212549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Commentary"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/146"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=212549"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212549\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":212559,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212549\/revisions\/212559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=212549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=212549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=212549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}