Daily Inspiration Quote by Jasmila Žbanić

Grief, in Žbanić's hands, isn’t a private wound; it’s a public argument. The line pivots on a blunt moral inversion: you’d expect the people marked most violently by history to be granted the right to bitterness, even revenge. Instead, she points to the scandal of their generosity. “Even after such a tragedy” functions like a weight on the sentence, insisting the reader feel the full drag of what has happened before allowing the second clause to land. Then the emphasis shifts to “they”: not institutions, not politicians, not the self-appointed guardians of memory, but the survivors themselves.

The intent is both tribute and indictment. Praise, because she’s elevating a form of courage that isn’t cinematic or triumphant; it’s the daily discipline of refusing to let trauma set the terms of one’s humanity. Indictment, because the people least responsible for repairing a broken society are too often the only ones doing it. Subtext: reconciliation is frequently demanded from below, while power brokers posture, delay, or weaponize the past.

Žbanić, a Bosnian director whose work circles the aftershocks of the Balkan wars and the Srebrenica genocide, understands that “living together” isn’t a slogan; it’s contested terrain. The phrase “promoting the idea” subtly acknowledges the exhausting performative labor survivors are forced into: becoming ambassadors of peace just to be seen as credible victims. “Loving each other” is almost suspiciously simple, which is precisely why it cuts. It refuses the ornate language of diplomacy and replaces it with an ethical baseline that, in post-conflict societies, can feel radical.