Wow.
Just when I thought I was getting a decent grip on the situation in
Bosnia and Herzegovina I was thrown a massive curve ball! Today, we meet with the Dean and Faculty
members from the East Sarajevo University (ESU) in Pail. Pail is about 35 minutes from Sarajevo
but it is in the Republic of Srpska (Sarajevo is in the Federation of Bosnia
and Herzegovina). The two autonomous
entities were formed as a result of the 92-95 war in Bosnia. The entities virtually divide Serbians
from the Bosniaks and Croats and other ethnicities. This statement is very general but there is a majority of
Serbians in the Republic or Srpska and a majority of Croats and Bosniaks in the
Federation of BiH. Therefore,
because the University was in the Republic of Srpska the university was mostly
Serbs, both faculty and students.
After meeting with many tolerant religious and political leaders I was
expecting the same opinion from the Serbs at the University just 30 minutes
from Sarajevo… the furthest thing from the truth!
Wireless. or in BiH "Wirelles... we thought it was funny.
Perspective. First off I want to try to explain a huge factor in
understanding the history and current standing of BiH. When we listen to people tell stories
about the war and the current situation and ethnic tensions that still exist it
is nearly impossible for us to understand. We come from a country where, for the most part, we all get
a long and there is little ethnic tension. We are a country of immigrants from all different ethnicities. Therefore, we cannot understand the
division between ethnicities and understand how they truly fair, which makes it
extremely difficult to understand the entire history and current situation in
BiH.
The meeting with faculty and university
students was planned last minute so things were a little un-organized but everyone
was making the best of it. The Dean
and a few of the professors told us about the university. It was formed in 1992 from the
University of Sarajevo, there are 17 academic departments, etc. Then the floor was opened for questions
for either Northeastern students or student or faculty at ESU. The questions started out tame and then
things got a LOT more intense! A
NEU student asked why East Sarajevo University was separated from Sarajevo
University (SU) and a faculty member answered a little uncomfortably that the Politicians
decided to create a new university and the Serbs wanted to “turn over a new
leaf.” A student then asked if
there was any cooperation or interconnectedness between ESU and SU and the
faculty member answered hesitantly, no. Then she followed up this disappointing statement
with, “Us Serbs feel as though we have been blackened from the media.” After a little more dialogue and a few
more questions our TA asked an apparently extremely controversial hypothetical
question, “If it was the difference between joining the EU and not joining the
EU would you be willing to eliminate the division of the Republic of Srpska and
become a united Bosnia and Herzegovina?” Holy H-E-double hockey sticks! The
responses and our questions to the responses created an extremely intense and
uncomfortable but intensely interesting conversation! My hands were literally shaking and my heart was pounding so
hard because it was so intense!
Things were getting extremely interesting and voices were beginning to
raise when the Dean suggested that we take a coffee break haha Many of us were
disappointed… no one was violent, yet…. It was just getting good! I am going to try my best to explain
why this Q&A session was so controversial.
… The past week and a half, prior to today,
we have heard extremely tolerant religious leaders and optimistic politicians
who disagreed with the constitution and in part the government. A cross the board everyone that we had
talked to prior to today completely agreed that BiH accession to the European
Union would be the best thing for BiH.
The standards that must be met to join the EU would force BiH to
eliminate laws that violate human rights (ethnically divided political parties)
and help to improve economic standards (Greece and Spain are not helping me on
that statement). They all noted on
the need for integration between ethnic groups and were aware of the current
ethnic problems. Anyhow, in short
we have heard positive things about joining the EU and the need to improve
ethnic division. But at ESU that
was not the case! Students were
completely insulted that they would ever consider giving up their republic to
become part of the EU. Some of the
responses were, “Why would we want to join the EU? To become like Greece or Spain? I don’t think so!”
“Just a few years ago we fought for this Republic why would we give up
on that now?” I know this is
probably hard for you to understand but basically after hearing we were just
thrown a HUGE curve ball that went against everything that we had learned the
entire week before. We were
hearing harsh ethnically divided opinions. They saw nothing wrong with the divided country and nothing
wrong with how BiH is divided into two different ethnic groups. I now have to completely change my
perspective and try to take into consideration of different views, whether it
is right or wrong. I am now
looking forward to moving on to Serbia to hear the Serb opinion on the war in
BiH and their stance on the Republic of Srpska.
After our interesting discussion at ESU we
shifted gears and went to the Tunnel Museum. The Tunnel Museum is a renovated part of the 800 meter (.5
mile) tunnel that was built to cross the Serb territory.
The part were there is only a narrow strip of blue between the Serbian Forces (orange) is there the tunnel was built.
In the tunnel!
The confusion continues… (My friend Allie and I)
