Sarajevo
Adolescent flames
This essay was written three years ago to be submitted as a writing sample for college admissions.
I refuse to believe that humanity cannot do better than this.
As I rode through the scarred city that is Sarajevo, I couldn't help but observe the remnants of the civil war that still haunt the landscape. Unstable buildings lurk in the background of even the primary boulevards. On them, bullet holes and vitriolic graffiti intact, unrelenting in their reminder of the bloody ethnic tensions that resulted in the Yugoslavian civil war. Walking the town center, I saw freshly built malls and new towers embellished with the insignias of the world's seemingly omnipresent corporations. In a country where most don't have adequate healthcare, and highways primarily consist of dangerous two-lane dirt paths, it's at least nice to see that the rich city folk will be able to indulge themselves in Western products and international corporations have a nice tax haven they can hide their secret treasure in.
Later, in the sea of gravel that makes up the outer echelons of the Italian Leaning Tower of Pisa tourist attraction, I was appalled by the dismal sight the area evinced. The ideal that internationally exuded from the iconic monument was that, in a way, it was a symbol of national pride, but this concept all but capitulated in mind once arriving there. Dozens of African and Middle Eastern immigrants filled the landscape, many of them carrying cheap sunglasses manufactured by the international Hegemone of sunglass production, Luxottica. Others carried with them hats and various assortments of useless trinkets. One by one, I observed the masses of these pitiful individuals scrounge for money from the tourists, who were visibly frustrated at having to deny them constantly. Is this what rich Europe had to offer to the people coming for a better life? Nothing but jobless beggary and an existence of constant belittlement, first by the tourists who they had to ceaselessly pester, and then by the local population who obnoxiously accused them of "mooching off the system."
At these experiences, and the various others I have had on my travels, my mind spun. In a world where much work needed to be done, to build, do research, care for the climate, etc.… and there were endless, in this case, immigrant, workers who needed fulfilling and well-compensated work to do, it appeared to my young mind that no one had put two and two together. I saw a world that diddle-daddled as innumerable Bosnians who share the disease I have (type one diabetes) died from lack of healthcare. Meanwhile, energy went towards constructing lavish malls for the city elite.
I saw a world that either didn't think or didn't feel or maybe didn't do either.
Yet at the time of writing this, I cannot say that I, in my seventeen years, have formulated some masterful theory in which to resolve all these contradictions and effectively abolish suffering. I am not so full of arrogance to think that I know all the solutions. For it is the fool who thinks they understand all and the wise one who knows the fullness of their own ignorance. But I can say that I have come to one central conclusion: that humanity, with all its imperfections and flaws, can and must do better. Figuring out exactly how I plan to make the mission of the rest of my life.