The people of the Balkans are like a dysfunctional family. We may

Host: The night hung heavy over Belgrade, thick with mist and the distant echo of church bells. The city lights flickered through the fog like the faint pulse of a restless heart. In an old café by the Danube, Jack sat near the window, his fingers tracing the rim of a half-empty glass, his eyes reflecting the river’s silver melancholy. Across from him, Jeeny watched the smoke curl from a candle flame, her face calm but her gaze alive with memory.

Host: Outside, a dog barked, a tram rattled past, and the murmur of a foreign song drifted through the door — something sad, something old, something from a place that still remembered its wounds.

Jeeny: “You know what Vlade Divac once said?” she began softly, her voice like a prayer breaking through the noise. “The people of the Balkans are like a dysfunctional family. We may fight and argue, but in the end, we are family.”

Jack: (leans back, eyes narrowing) “A poetic way to describe centuries of bloodshed, Jeeny. Families don’t burn each other’s homes or leave graves scattered across fields. That’s not a family, that’s history pretending to be sentimental.”

Host: A faint gust swept through the open door, stirring the candle flame. Shadows danced on the walls, like the ghosts of men who had once fought for the same flag, and then against it.

Jeeny: “But isn’t that exactly what makes it a family, Jack? The pain, the anger, the unspoken love that hides beneath all the wars? Even in the worst moments, there’s always the memory of connection — of being part of something shared.”

Jack: “Shared?” (he lets out a sharp laugh) “You call Sarajevo, Kosovo, Vukovar, shared? Every time one of those names is spoken, someone’s brother dies again in their mind. If that’s a family, it’s one that never learned to stop hurting itself.”

Host: The rain began to fall — slow, deliberate drops that hit the windowpane like tears measured by time. The light inside turned warmer, as if the café itself wanted to protect them from the cold of what they were saying.

Jeeny: “Maybe you’re right. But even the most broken families find a way to sit together again, don’t they? Look at what happened after World War II — so much death, so much hate, and yet… Europe rebuilt. Germany and France became allies. Isn’t that proof that even the deepest scars can heal?”

Jack: “Europe rebuilt because it had to, not because it forgave. There’s a difference between necessity and reconciliation. The Balkans never learned that difference. Every new generation inherits the resentments of the last. The past is the only thing people here don’t let die.”

Host: Jack’s eyes hardened like steel, but beneath the surface, there was weariness — the kind that only comes from watching hope fail too many times. Jeeny leaned forward, her hands trembling slightly, her voice soft but defiant.

Jeeny: “You sound like someone who’s already given up, Jack. Maybe that’s the real tragedy — not the wars, but the loss of belief that people can change. You think we’re cursed by bloodlines, but I think we’re saved by memories — even the painful ones.”

Jack: “Memories? Those are exactly what keep people chained to the past. Every funeral, every story, every flag waved in anger — it’s all memory turned into a weapon.”

Host: The rain grew heavier, drumming on the roof, drowning out the music. The café owner turned up the radio, and an old Yugoslav ballad floated through the air — a song about youth, dreams, and loss.

Jeeny: “Listen to that,” she said, pointing toward the radio. “That song was written before the wars tore everything apart. When people still believed in brotherhood and unity. Isn’t it tragic, but also beautiful, that we can still feel something when we hear it?”

Jack: “It’s nostalgia, Jeeny. Dangerous nostalgia. That’s what dictators sell — the dream of a time that never really existed.”

Jeeny: “But isn’t it also what keeps us human? The ability to still feel, to still hope that maybe — just maybe — the next generation won’t make the same mistakes?”

Host: For a moment, the room fell into silence. The rain, the song, the faint hum of the city outside — all became part of a single, quiet breath that hung between them.

Jack: (after a pause) “You know, when Divac said that, he was talking about his own pain, wasn’t he? Him and Dražen Petrović — brothers on the court, enemies in the war. When Petrović died, Divac said he never got to say sorry. Maybe that’s what the Balkans really are — an endless list of apologies never spoken.”

Jeeny: “Exactly,” she whispered. “That’s why his words matter. Because they come from regret, not from romanticism. He knew what it meant to love someone you’re told to hate. That’s the family he was talking about — not one without pain, but one that keeps trying despite it.”

Host: The flame flickered again, reflecting in Jeeny’s eyes like the glow of an ancient truth struggling to survive in a world of cynicism.

Jack: “But how many times can a family forgive before it breaks completely? At what point does forgiveness just become another illusion we tell ourselves so we don’t drown in guilt?”

Jeeny: “Forgiveness isn’t an illusion. It’s a rebellion. Every time someone forgives, they break the cycle. That’s what makes it powerful. You think logic can heal nations, Jack? Logic built the borders. Only love crosses them.”

Host: Her words hung in the air, heavy as smoke, light as hope. Jack turned toward the window, watching the rain wash over the streets like cleansing tears.

Jack: (quietly) “You talk about love as if it’s enough. But love didn’t stop the siege of Sarajevo, or the mass graves in Srebrenica.”

Jeeny: “No, it didn’t. But neither did hate, Jack. Hate only built those graves deeper. Maybe love doesn’t stop the rain, but it keeps you from drowning in it.”

Host: The café seemed to breathe with them now, every shadow a witness to their words. The storm outside softened, and the moonlight began to break through, faint and trembling.

Jack: “So what are we then, Jeeny? Just a family too proud to admit we still care?”

Jeeny: “Yes,” she said simply. “A dysfunctional family, just like Divac said. But maybe that’s our strength. We fight, we fall apart, but we never stop coming back to the same table.”

Host: A long pause followed. Jack reached for his glass, stared at it, then set it down without drinking. His eyes, once cold, softened — the kind of softness that comes from remembering something lost but not forgotten.

Jack: “Maybe… maybe you’re right. Maybe it’s not about ending the fights, but learning to come back afterward.”

Jeeny: (smiling faintly) “Exactly. Because that’s what family is — not the absence of conflict, but the presence of return.”

Host: The rain stopped. The streetlights outside shimmered in puddles like tiny mirrors, reflecting the past and the present in one trembling image. The radio played the final notes of the song — a soft, fading melody of what once was, and what still could be.

Host: As they sat there — two souls, divided yet bound by the same memory of humanity — the camera of the night slowly pulled away, leaving behind the warm glow of the café in the cold Belgrade mist.

Host: And somewhere in the distance, the Danube kept flowing — silent, patient, eternal — carrying both pain and forgiveness in its endless tide.