I have just finished reading the best book I have ever read describing the evils of war. It is the Russian journalist Anna Politkovskayaôs book about the second Chechen War: A small Corner Of Hell.
It has kept me awake quite a few nights, together with my profound worries for my friends in the ongoing and also very unfair war in Yemen. I have come across a few descriptions from my Yemeni friends almost as evil as the oneôs Anna Politkovskaya describes taking place in Chechnya, another country few people know about. Or care about. But her descriptions of evil are just endless and terrifying. Almost to the limit of what one can take. At times I had to put it down and do something totally different, just to get my mind of it. At the end of the book, I know I have grown as a human being and I have come across a person who truly is the real face of bravery, Anna Politkovskaya.
Anna was murdered 2006 in an elevator in Moscow due to the great job she did. Before getting murdered she went through mock executions in Chechnya, saw far too many dead and killed people, saw the great amount of injustice done to mainly innocent local people and always stayed on the side of the weak and poor. And she never ever puts herself on a pedestal as being better than anybody else. And suddenly she has become one of very few people I admire very, very much. I much prefer my girls have Anna Politkovskaya as their idol in the future than some big name within exploration and adventure.
The true face of bravery is people like Anna Politkovskaya. I donôt think thereôs anyone with exploration and adventure who is even close to her level as a human being. That is, to work selfishly for others, especially the poor and weak. I hope my girls will do a better job of life at this incredibly important aspect of life than I have done! I continue to be slightly unhappy with the choices of life I have taken and I am doing my best to find another way, being inspired by Anna Politkovskaya not Rolf Blomberg, my teen idol!
As the film genius Werner Herzog said, a good book changes your life far more than any film, documentary or newspaper can do. I agree and say, read more good books!
