Hell is others: Sarajevo and the tragedy of intimacy – The Mail & Guardian

Hell is others: Sarajevo and the tragedy of intimacy – The Mail & Guardian

“Only the dead have seen the end of war.” Plato’s observation is blisteringly true. War is humankind’s perpetual default mode, the most intimate sign of its intrinsic cruelty.  “History hurts,” writes American philosopher Fredric Jameson.  As for our subjection to violence or our imagined immunity — the presumption that war occurs elsewhere? The truth is, war is everywhere. Immunity is delusion. Suffering is the defining condition. Joy, or redem…