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Bosnia: A Decade On From War
(Part Three)
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By Imran Garda**
Freelance Journalist – South Africa
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Oct
05, 2005
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Imran Garda 's
sojourn in Bosnia-Herzegovina continues with visits to Sarajevo and
Tuzla, where he reflects on the causes of the war and what it means
to be a European Muslim, and visits some of the widows of
Srebrenica.
The bulk of our stay was in Sarajevo. The
city is a sumptuous visual treat. When I first set my eyes on the
it, I remember thinking, "No wonder the Serbs wanted this place
so badly."
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Sarajevo
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During the day, the city echoes with an
industrious buzz, Sarajevans hard at work earning their daily bread.
It was in the evenings that I usually got to walk the streets and
catch a fascinating glimpse of a people for whom eclecticism formed
the core of their identity.
The Sarajevans I encountered were friendly,
hospitable, and always willing to talk about their experiences of
the war. At least 70% of the city's population is Muslim, and many
found it bizarre that I was a Muslim, like them, and that I hail
from South Africa and yet am not black. Perhaps many were far more
removed from the "global village" than I had presumed, but
then again, I don't know how clued in I would be if I was besieged
for four years, severely lacking water and electricity for two of
those years.
I was in love with the "old city,"
that part of Sarajevo that still boasted stone roads, classical
Ottoman mosques, gothic Eastern European churches, and side streets
littered with tiny antique shops and small cafés.
We ate "burek" almost everyday,
the spiral Bosnian pastry filled with meat, cheese, or spinach. One
couldn't find much fish or chicken in Sarajevo, and when I asked a
waiter if the restaurant served chicken, he replied candidly,
"We don't have chicken here, we only have cow."
One of our waiters, Hairuddin, massively
built and in his late twenties, ecstatically showed us his living
remnant of the war, a 5-inch scar across his right calf. The scar
was so distinct it seemed like he had a zipper built into his calf.
"Chetnicks!" he said. "I was
shot by a Chetnik sniper."
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Hairuddin displays an old wound, inflicted by a Chetnik sniper
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Those who suffered through the war loathed
the Serb army, particularly the snipers, who hovered on the hills
and preyed on the civilian population. Anne Marie Du Preez Bezdrob,
a UNPROFOR worker during the war, describes them in her memoirs of
Bosnia:
"I detested the satanic sniping
bastards: cowards, who hid behind high walls and murdered
children and women in cold blood."
* * *
"If the situation was reversed in
Bosnia, and a fanatical Muslim regime in Belgrade was
slaughtering thousands of innocent Christians in Sarajevo, then
America would have reacted by now. We would not watch Christians
get killed by Muslims in Europe. Period. But we can watch
Muslims get killed by Christians. The problem for Bosnia was
larger than the fact that George Bush was getting clobbered by
Bill Clinton in the polls. Bosnia was Islam."
- George Kenney, former US Press
Officer for Bosnia
It was the summer holidays for schools and
universities, so from Thursday evening until Sunday, the city burst
into life. Young boys and girls streamed through the streets of
Sarajevo hand in hand. Teenage girls strutted in micro-mini skirts,
leg-choking jeans and low-cut blouses. Make no mistake; these were
young Europeans, and passing a busy street that housed a popular
nightclub, you'd think that Sarajevo is as Muslim as Los Angeles is
Christian. I found things were similar in Tuzla, the other city I
spent time in.
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The border between Bosnia and the Republika Srpska in Zvornik |
The many mosques we visited provided a stark
contrast, with the devout both young and old, male and female.
There, women were clad in colorful hijab, and children
pitter-pattered around the Ottoman courtyard. Bosnia is one of the
few European societies where the Muslim population is indigenous, at
least for over 500 years. The non-immigrant, modern Eastern European
Muslim identity is a distinct one, but one that needs time and
intellectual effort to uncover.
Over half a century of communist rule
certainly didn't help the cause of any of the region's religions,
particularly Islam. Then came independence in 1992, and the promise
of a Bosnia more aligned with Islamic principles, according to
then-President Alija Izetbegovic, who died recently. And then came
the war.
Some Bosnians believed that the possibility
of a modern democratic Muslim "heartland" in the middle of
Europe (coupled with the Serbs' alliance with the likes of Russia,
which made powerful nations fear intervention) was the deciding
factor in the powerhouses' reluctance to help. Hence, a disarmed
nation was left to face a powerful Serb army, aided by the Croats
for a time as well.
Can we find a definitive answer to the
causes of the war? I'm not sure we can. Perhaps it was a combination
of elements, cooked together at just the right time to combust into
an awful tragedy. Some Bosnians believe they were attacked solely
because of Serb imperialism. Some were vehement that they were
attacked, then sacrificed by the world, only because they were
Muslim.
But what kind of Islam do you find in
Bosnia? I'm not sure. A medley of things, perhaps, from a people
who've been through a lot. The pious are pious in Bosnia. Some
observe the requirements of the religion, some don't. Some have
Muslim names, some don't. Some are completely secular and agnostic,
many aren't. Observing Bosnia is a unique religious experience,
where you can see the fingerprints of Turkey, the faded remnants of
Arabia, but in a paradigm that is, ultimately, entirely European.
* * *
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Islamic Relief's Larbie collecting payments in Tuzla
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Larbie was Islamic Relief's regional head in
Tuzla, about a two-and-a-half hour drive north of Sarajevo. He had
arrived in Bosnia as the War was winding down. He made the country
his home, found a Bosnian wife, and fathered four gorgeous children.
Traveling with Larbie was like accompanying the town sheriff in a
Hollywood western. Although he spoke Algerian-accented Bosnian, had
a caramel complexion, and cropped curly black hair, all of which
made him stand out in a crowd, he was deeply respected by the people
of the city.
Wherever he drove men, women and children
flung their hands into the air or nodded their heads in a merry
greeting. Larbie was going to collect repayments on this particular
day, and I was interested to see how timely the payments would be,
and what the atmosphere would be like.
Along the way, Larbie informed us that his
car's license plate was stolen the day before. "We were taking
other guests around the country to visit beneficiaries, and when we
were inside a Muslim house in Republika Srpska, I think some of the
Serb neighbors were upset with us being there, so they stole my
license plate!"
Today being the due date for payments,
Larbie was obviously expected by all the beneficiaries in the area.
He worked smoothly, like a loan shark without the shark part, if
that's possible.
One of the many beneficiaries we visited was
Mirsada. The area around her garden was green, muddy, and messy.
Apparent were the remnants of maize crops that were destroyed in the
preceding 48 hours by flash floods that caused havoc in all the
Balkans. Mirsada wasn't upset that the floods would set her back a
few months; like many people we encountered in Bosnia, she took
everything on her chin and moved on.
At least a dozen people arrived outside
Mirsada's house, mostly housing-loan beneficiaries, and the odd
business-loan client. Once these loans had been promptly paid,
Larbie was invited into Mirsada's house, and all the widows of the
area arrived.
Larbie dictated the flow of our
conversation, translating and coordinating. While sipping what was
probably our sixth cup of strong, muddy coffee for the day, having
been offered one at every home we visited, Larbie collected
Mirsada's monthly payment. And then another, and another. All the
women's payments were made; not one was missed.
The
widows huddled together in a communal sisterhood that made it clear
that they sought refuge in each other. This could easily have been a
knitting club, or a cooking club. Except this club wasn't formed on
the basis of a common social interest. This sisterhood came from a
condition thrust upon them, a thread of similarity instantly brought
about through murder and genocide. Each one of these widows had lost
their husbands in Srebrenica. After the war, they sought refuge
here, in Tuzla.
Larbie
speckled his words with encouragement and some lightheartedness that
made the "sisters" laugh, but ten years on from
Srebrenica, no matter how hard they tried to be optimistic, the pain
in the eyes of those women we met in Mirsada's home looked ten
minutes old. Once again we heard their stories, we ate their snacks,
we moved on. I feared we were becoming immunized to the situation
with every new story we heard. Desperation was becoming normal.
Larbie
said goodbye and thanked them for their timely payment. We thanked
the widows for their conversation. My colleague turned to me and
said, "These are what you can truly call 'Desperate
Housewives.' This is not TV."
It
was time to say goodbye to Larbie. Now was the time to embark on the
final leg of my adventure. The majority of Islamic Relief's guests
had already jetted out of the country by now, so it was just down to
a couple of us, on our way to Srebrenica.
Move
to Part Four
**
Imran Garda is a freelance journalist based in South Africa.
Muhammad Saley contributed additional research to this
article.
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