Europe in Sepia

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I visited New York in October 2011, and a couple of days after arriving, I set off for Wall Street, not having checked the exact location of Zuccotti Park. Coming out of the subway, I fortunately spotted an information kiosk.

“Excuse me, where’s the, ah. . revolution?” I asked goofily.

“Just go straight on, it’s a few blocks away,” replied a young guy, his face spreading into a smile. Buoyed by the smile, I got going. As the rhythm of my pulse quickened, I wondered whether a long dormant rebel virus was stirring in me. Rebel?! Well, yeah, when you line up a few historical and personal details, it’s fair to say that rebellion and I are well acquainted.

My parents conceived me around the time when Tito said his famous NO to Stalin. I came into the world in 1949, when the Soviet Union and its fraternity of member states had recently accused Yugoslavia of “deviating from the path of Marxism and Leninism.” The same year Tito was declared a traitor and Yugoslavia condemned to isolation. I was born on March 27. On the same date, albeit eight years previously, the slogan Better the grave than a slave, better war than the pact1 was born. It was one I adopted at a tender age, and in time I developed a form of behavior, which psychologists — so adept at creating new terms — would today classify as LAT (Low Authoritarianism Tolerance) syndrome. It’s entirely possible that Tito’s famous NO to Stalin set me on my way as a budding naysayer. The opening line of The Internationale, “Arise, damned of the Earth,” makes my skin tingle; Bandiera Rossa makes me cry.

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