What a week! It has been just over a week since we arrived in Sarajevo
and it feels like we have been here forever. We have all become comfortable with navigating the city and
are keeping ourselves extremely busy between lectures, meetings and
experiencing Bosnia food! Last
week, a large group of us decided to get dinner at a typical Bosnian food
restaurant. After we sat down we
soon realized that the entire menu was in Bosnian and that our waiter knew just
about as much English as we know Bosnian, which is thank you, hello and goodbye. At this point we had only been here a
few days and did not recognize a single thing on the menu. After contemplating what to do for 30
minutes we then decided to be adventurous and just point to a name on the menu
and try it! This became difficult
when the waiter would blow by us as if we had already ordered… Well that is
because we did in fact order, without knowing. Earlier he had asked us a question and we just shook our
heads but did not really know what he was talking about, apparently that nod
was agreeing to order a variety of things on the menu to share. (It wasn’t until he set down the first
plate that we realized what was going on.) It was a funny experience and we joked about how it was like
Hogwarts and food just appears in front of us but we did still have to pay for
it.
This week in Sarajevo is the 18th Film Festival, which is one of the biggest doings over the course of the year in Sarajevo. Angelina Jolie even made an appearance on opening night! On Saturday night a group of us went to see “Children of Sarajevo,” a movie portraying the struggles of two Muslim orphans after the war. The movie was at an outdoor theater about 20 minutes outside of the city, which made for a unique atmosphere. There are films that will be playing sporadically over the course of the week mainly pertaining to Bosnia’s history and future so I am hoping to make it to one more movie before we leave Sarajevo on Friday.
The 'Red Carpet' for the Film Festival!
The outdoor theater for the showing of "Children of Sarajevo"
This past week we have met with an array of
political and governmental leaders.
I have been surprised with the amount of optimism that each of the
people we have met with have when they speak of the future for BiH. They also tend to be extremely grateful
that they were able to speak to a group of Americans as they accredit the
United States for ending the war in Bosnia in 1995.
On Thursday we spoke to Jakob Finci, a Jewish
community leader who formed the Inter-religious Council after the war in BiH. Finci is most famous for suing the
BiH’s government for not allowing “others” to run for presidency. I know that this sounds weird but I am
going to try and explain it as best as possible because it is a bit confusing.
As mentioned before BiH has 3 presidents, one from each major ethnic group,
Croat, Serbian and Bosniak. This
also means that if you are not Croat, Serbian or Bosniak, you cannot run for
president. Therefore, anyone who
is Jewish, Romanian or of a different ethnicity or of mix ethnicity cannot run
for president, which explains why Finci sued to become president. Finci did this more so to make a
statement rather his desire to become a president. Finci won the case and BiH is currently working to change
the constitution to allow others to be involved in the constitution, which is a
long process because it is still quite controversial. After talking with Finci I was really surprised by how
tolerant the religious leader was, especially after Bosnia just suffered an
ethnic war. However, I realized
that this was not exclusive to the Jewish community leader in Bosnia but many
other religious leaders in Sarajevo share the desires to work together to
create a more peaceful and stable Bosnia.
We also met with the Cardinal of the Catholic Church and the Mustafa
Ceric of the Islamic community in Sarajevo who spoke of the same desires of
integration of different ethnicities to create a more tolerant BiH.
Jakob Finci! (Thank you Professor Sullivan for the picture)
Religious leaders can be funny too. I have to share a few gems after boring you with the complex history of BiH.
Finci spoke of the tension prior to the start of the war in 1992 and said that the Jewish community began making arrangements to move abroad. He followed this up with, “When the Jews leave the city you know it is a bad time.”
We were getting together to take a picture with Finci and the cameraman said “say cheese” and Finci responds with, “Not everyone likes cheese but everyone likes money.” “MONEY!”
The Cardinal of the Catholic Church, Cardinal Puljic, spoke with a smile on his face when he said. “I stayed in Sarajevo during the war, my house was bombed. I had no roof so when it rained I got wet.” He giggled at this and having no roof did not seem to faze him one bit!
I am sorry if these are not as funny to you… I try!
Srebrenica. Srebrenica a small town about 3
hours outside of Sarajevo was the site of mass murder during the Bosnian war in
1995. During the war over 40,000 Muslims
fled Serbia to Srebrenica, the Republic of Srpska in Bosnia. In July 1995 the Serbian Army invaded
Srebrenica and killed over 8,000 unarmed Muslims. This is the elementary version of this incident as for it is
a very complex event and can be disputed by different ethnic groups… and I am
not going to delve into it. Regardless
of ones opinion about the events that occurred in July of 1995 it is still
incredibly heartbreaking to see a cemetery with thousands of head stones.
Srebrenica was first invaded by the Serbs on July 11th 1995, making this upcoming Wednesday the 17th anniversary. To recognized the 500 plus bodies that were recovered and identified this year by the ICMP (International Commission of Missing People) they held a procession today in downtown Sarajevo. The procession consisted of three tractor trailers containing the coffins of all 500+ bodies that parked in the middle of the street where people were allowed to put flowers on the trucks. The mood was intensely sad and I almost felt bad to have no idea what their loss must feel like.
They were digging new holes for the 500+ people that were identified this year. They will be buried on Wednesday.
Sarajevo/BiH is one of the most interesting
cities that I have been to in terms of its history and current situations. Sometimes the history and conflicting
beliefs between ethnic groups can get bit overwhelming but I am trying to be
optimistic like the Bosinans that we have spoken to and think of Sarajevo like
a city with a big personality that you can just never get bored with! Thanks for reading and look out for
another post at the end of the week!
For more information on the people that we
have met with you can view my professor’s blog that gives a better descriptions
of the background people we have talked to.
Blog link, http://egypt-dialogue.blogspot.com/
