What I Learned When NATO Bombed Belgrade

Twenty years in peace are like 20 days of war. During the bombings of Serbia and Kosovo, I wrote from the point of view of any anonymous woman living her daily life in Belgrade, with children, friends… fishing for food, water, electricity, cigarettes… Necessity was the mother of invention, so I invented the first internet war diary, before bloggers or blogs existed. My war diary was spread through mailing lists virally, 20 years ago. 'The Diary of a Political Idiot' got me many friends and foes, and it changed my life.

The war diary began when the first planes flew over Belgrade, with these words:

"I hope we all survive this war, the bombs: the Serbs, the Albanians, the bad and the good guys, those who took up the arms, those who deserted, refugees going around the Kosovo woods and Belgrade's refugees going around the streets with their children in arms, looking for nonexisting shelters, when the alarm for bombing sets off."

Jasmina Tesanovic. Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Margery Epstein.

I remember life-changing moments in those days of war, when I learned about solidarity, human kindness, sharing, life and death. I remember a man on the bicycle who pedalled to my door from Novi Sad, 60 miles, in order to buy Hannah Arendt's book, 'The Origins of Totalitarianism'. My feminist publishing house had printed a mere 100 copies, because of shortages during the bombings.

I gave him the last remaining copy of the Arendt book for free, and then he asked me if he could take a shower since there was no running water in his town.

I remember my teenage daughter telling me rebelliously she that preferred to die with her best friend under a bridge, and not in a stuffy bomb shelter with her mom. I remember my women activists standing in Republic...