After the conference we had the chance to visit Mostar and Ljubuski in the South of BiH. Our close friend Marija is from Ljubuski - it's a town of about 10,000... meeting her family was just WOW. Like I said before, the absolute highlight of the trip. I tried my best to communicate with her mom and Grandma in Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian but of course I have my limitations. I was able to greet them formally and tell them the weather is beautiful. I love language... my goodness. I am entranced by this place! I want to learn the language, settle into the flow of it.
"Old Town" of Mostar - an area that has been repaired since the war.
Mostar is quite a vortex. For five hundred years Moslem Bosnians and Catholic Croat Bosnians lived side by side in the city - about an even balance of the two groups all the while. During the war the two groups initially banded together to protect the city from Serb Bosnian invasion. Sadly after they were successful they two groups began to war with each other. From the Croat perspective both groups turned on each other, from many other perspectives the Croats turned on the Bosniaks. Then, of course, Croat, Bosniak, and Serb children have completely different curricula in school. Including language (though it is more the 95 percent the same language), geography, history, culture, religion, literature.... One giant hurdle to reconciliation between groups in the country.
But back to Mostar. The gorgeous, infamous Stari Most - the famous bridge of Mostar, was destroyed in the war but has been symbolically repaired. The city is insanely beautiful.... turquoise clear river running through, cobbled winding streets all about, hilly little neighborhoods, mosques and mosques and cathedrals and cathedrals. Europe's tallest cathedral tower is in Mostar. It looks quite like a minaret. Many believe (and with reason) that it was built to counter the cityscape that includes so many minarets.... quite provocative.
There is a long, long tradition of young people jumping off the bridge. For the decade after the war when the bridge was blown out people apparently carried on with the jumping from the makeshift scaffolding bridge that stood in before funds were gathered.
Usman, myself, Aisha, and Sofia - taken from Stari Most.
Still today there is a de facto division of ethnic groups in Mostar - the dividing line, a boulevard that runs parallel to the river, is still a dead zone. No one wants to build there because neither community wants to invest in the area. So all along the road you see empty shells of buildings, bullet holes all over walls.... Mostar was the most destroyed city in the war.
Marija was a great sport touring us around in circles to look at old pretty things.... this was the first old beautiful bridge we came to (not Stari Most) and we photographed the shit out of it.
Ljubuski, where Marija is from, is almost all Croat Catholic.... Although there hasn't been a census in Bosnia since the war for political reasons it is estimated that Ljubuski is about 90 - 95 percent Croat. For the first time this year BiH is planning to hold a census of the country. The reason it is so contentious is that after - and during - the war people fled/migrated/moved to parts of the country where "their" ethnicity - or at least the ethnic group they are identified with - predominates. The country is, for the reason, much less mixed than it used to be in many places. But no one knows the extent of it and therefore no one can use that information politically. For school funding, to draw election districts... it could open a WHOLE can of worms. It's unclear to me who will benefit and who will lose out in different contexts but I'm sure someone more well versed than me could break it down.
For example, Srebrenica, site of the deadliest massacre of the war, is no longer home to nearly as many Bosniak people as it used to be. The Republika Srbska does NOT recognize that the massacre took place and, given that Srebrenica is right in the middle of the Serb dominated district... in school Bosniak children in that area learn that Srebrenica was "liberated" in 1995. In years since the '95 tragedy, members of the Serb community in Srebrenica have held concerts in honor of Mladic, convicted Serb war criminal who ordered the killings in Srebrenica, on the anniversary of the event. There have been moves to allow people who are from Srebrenica but fled in the wake of the massacre/genocide (that term is political) to vote in the Srebrenica local elections. Normally you can only vote where you reside. This would inflate the "Bosniak vote". It seems to me that the census could help minority groups in Bosnia (meaning, groups that occupy the minority in their community) with representation... I have no idea how it'll pan out. But it does seem that this information could be extremely powerful.
"Old Town" of Mostar - an area that has been repaired since the war.
Mostar is quite a vortex. For five hundred years Moslem Bosnians and Catholic Croat Bosnians lived side by side in the city - about an even balance of the two groups all the while. During the war the two groups initially banded together to protect the city from Serb Bosnian invasion. Sadly after they were successful they two groups began to war with each other. From the Croat perspective both groups turned on each other, from many other perspectives the Croats turned on the Bosniaks. Then, of course, Croat, Bosniak, and Serb children have completely different curricula in school. Including language (though it is more the 95 percent the same language), geography, history, culture, religion, literature.... One giant hurdle to reconciliation between groups in the country.
But back to Mostar. The gorgeous, infamous Stari Most - the famous bridge of Mostar, was destroyed in the war but has been symbolically repaired. The city is insanely beautiful.... turquoise clear river running through, cobbled winding streets all about, hilly little neighborhoods, mosques and mosques and cathedrals and cathedrals. Europe's tallest cathedral tower is in Mostar. It looks quite like a minaret. Many believe (and with reason) that it was built to counter the cityscape that includes so many minarets.... quite provocative.
There is a long, long tradition of young people jumping off the bridge. For the decade after the war when the bridge was blown out people apparently carried on with the jumping from the makeshift scaffolding bridge that stood in before funds were gathered.
Usman, myself, Aisha, and Sofia - taken from Stari Most.
Still today there is a de facto division of ethnic groups in Mostar - the dividing line, a boulevard that runs parallel to the river, is still a dead zone. No one wants to build there because neither community wants to invest in the area. So all along the road you see empty shells of buildings, bullet holes all over walls.... Mostar was the most destroyed city in the war.
Marija was a great sport touring us around in circles to look at old pretty things.... this was the first old beautiful bridge we came to (not Stari Most) and we photographed the shit out of it.
Ljubuski, where Marija is from, is almost all Croat Catholic.... Although there hasn't been a census in Bosnia since the war for political reasons it is estimated that Ljubuski is about 90 - 95 percent Croat. For the first time this year BiH is planning to hold a census of the country. The reason it is so contentious is that after - and during - the war people fled/migrated/moved to parts of the country where "their" ethnicity - or at least the ethnic group they are identified with - predominates. The country is, for the reason, much less mixed than it used to be in many places. But no one knows the extent of it and therefore no one can use that information politically. For school funding, to draw election districts... it could open a WHOLE can of worms. It's unclear to me who will benefit and who will lose out in different contexts but I'm sure someone more well versed than me could break it down.
For example, Srebrenica, site of the deadliest massacre of the war, is no longer home to nearly as many Bosniak people as it used to be. The Republika Srbska does NOT recognize that the massacre took place and, given that Srebrenica is right in the middle of the Serb dominated district... in school Bosniak children in that area learn that Srebrenica was "liberated" in 1995. In years since the '95 tragedy, members of the Serb community in Srebrenica have held concerts in honor of Mladic, convicted Serb war criminal who ordered the killings in Srebrenica, on the anniversary of the event. There have been moves to allow people who are from Srebrenica but fled in the wake of the massacre/genocide (that term is political) to vote in the Srebrenica local elections. Normally you can only vote where you reside. This would inflate the "Bosniak vote". It seems to me that the census could help minority groups in Bosnia (meaning, groups that occupy the minority in their community) with representation... I have no idea how it'll pan out. But it does seem that this information could be extremely powerful.
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