Sarajevo - Heartbreaking Forgiveness
Nov. 4, 2005
Here is a simple story about the war told to me during Bajram, over coffee and baklava.
1992, Sarajevo. Indira, her husband and brother in law sit at the dining room table in their little duplex. A shell lands on the roof of the house right outside the window that they are facing. Shrapnel hits Indira and her brother-in-law, Samir. They survive. But a piece of shrapnel hits Indira's husband in the head. He is killed. It's an ironic death because he is one of the top three neuro-surgeons in the former Yugoslavia. A young man, he leaves behind Indira, 34, and two children: Adi, 5, and Aida, 7. The family thinks the attack was meant to kill the young surgeon so that he could no longer keep people alive. Indira gets nasty calls after his death, which was celebrated among the Bosnian Serb forces, as seen on TV.
The three retreat to the basement level of the house, where Samir and Saida live. Adi begs to ascend the few steps to his home, but it's too dangerous. Shells and bombs pound Sarajevo. Finally he is allowed to go upstairs. He tells his mother: "Father's smell is everywhere."
Shivers shoot up my spine when the family tells me the story. Can you imagine how they felt? Saida said it broke their hearts.
About a year later, Aida is coming up those same stairs when shrapnel hits her in the arm. She would have lost the use of her arm entirely if a surgeon had not recognized the symptoms that remained after the first operation to remove the deadly metal. The nerves in three of her fingers are still damaged, leaving her with little feeling in them, and the arm is slightly shorter than the other. Both children have pursued medicine as adults. Adi wants to become a surgeon. Aida, whether she ever wanted to or not, can't.
Aida is 21 now. She said she doesn't like talking about the war that, in her words, "stole her childhood." But she wants others to know the truth about what happened to Bosnia. That it was not a war. It was an aggression against the non Bosnian Serbs that killed between 100,000-200,000, on all sides. The hardest thing for her to understand, she said, is that the B. Serbs won't admit what happened. They deny the massacres or claim that they were protecting themselves.
Bosnia is so bruised. It seems so unfair that its people continue to suffer. High unemployment, corruption, bad leadership, bias, and simple neglect. Bosnians are restricted from traveling to most countries in the world without a visa - a stamp that is seriously difficult to come by for them. Saida's brother only sees his two children and wife every few months, when the children have holidays. They are living in Vienna (his wife's parents live there so her visa was approved easily), but the Austrians continue to refuse his visa request, even for a short visit. It's a huge issue for the Bosnians, who feel isolated by the international community, like they're the neighborhood pariahas. You'd think they could get a break after everything that happened. The B. Serbs and B. Croats have citizenship in Serbia and Croatia, respectively. The Bosniaks? Bosnia is their mother country and, many say, it feels like they're being shut up in it.
But instead of hating the city where her father was killed and can feel like it is dissolving, Aida said she wants Bosnia to be peaceful, united as it was before the madness: a Sarajevo where everyone is welcome and respected. "I was born here, grew up here," she said. "I want to work in Sarajevo, raise a family in Sarajevo." Meanwhile, the three-headed hydra that comprises the presidency can't come to the smallest understanding. Each of the three presidents, a Bosnian Muslim, a Bosnian Croat (they head the federated territory) and a Bosnian Serb (head of the B. Serb province, Republika Srpska), are to blame. But all agree that the RS side is standing in the way of progress and wants really to be part of Serbia, or at least separate from Bosnia. It makes no sense. For one, it is an artificial boundary created by the Dayton Acccord. And, two, the RS territory is not contiguous. The intransigence is keeping the country from moving forward, direction EU membership. I have talked to dozens of people, many former soldiers during the war, and they all same the same thing: we want peace and respect, not war. One former soldier told me that he has two sons, thus two good reasons for never wanting war again.
I don't they will never understand why Bosnian Muslims were massacred, raped, tortured, and so reviled by the B. Serbs that attacked them. But I can tell that it hurts them, burdens their hearts. Who woulnd't feel hurt with so much hate directed at you and so much resistance to living side-by-side.
Today, the legacy of the war festers like a bloody wound covered by a giant Band-Aid. Maybe if someone could answer Saida's simple question (one that is spraypainted in big letters on a building downtown) people could begin to heal. Saida's question: WHY?
Here is a simple story about the war told to me during Bajram, over coffee and baklava.
1992, Sarajevo. Indira, her husband and brother in law sit at the dining room table in their little duplex. A shell lands on the roof of the house right outside the window that they are facing. Shrapnel hits Indira and her brother-in-law, Samir. They survive. But a piece of shrapnel hits Indira's husband in the head. He is killed. It's an ironic death because he is one of the top three neuro-surgeons in the former Yugoslavia. A young man, he leaves behind Indira, 34, and two children: Adi, 5, and Aida, 7. The family thinks the attack was meant to kill the young surgeon so that he could no longer keep people alive. Indira gets nasty calls after his death, which was celebrated among the Bosnian Serb forces, as seen on TV.
The three retreat to the basement level of the house, where Samir and Saida live. Adi begs to ascend the few steps to his home, but it's too dangerous. Shells and bombs pound Sarajevo. Finally he is allowed to go upstairs. He tells his mother: "Father's smell is everywhere."
Shivers shoot up my spine when the family tells me the story. Can you imagine how they felt? Saida said it broke their hearts.
About a year later, Aida is coming up those same stairs when shrapnel hits her in the arm. She would have lost the use of her arm entirely if a surgeon had not recognized the symptoms that remained after the first operation to remove the deadly metal. The nerves in three of her fingers are still damaged, leaving her with little feeling in them, and the arm is slightly shorter than the other. Both children have pursued medicine as adults. Adi wants to become a surgeon. Aida, whether she ever wanted to or not, can't.
Aida is 21 now. She said she doesn't like talking about the war that, in her words, "stole her childhood." But she wants others to know the truth about what happened to Bosnia. That it was not a war. It was an aggression against the non Bosnian Serbs that killed between 100,000-200,000, on all sides. The hardest thing for her to understand, she said, is that the B. Serbs won't admit what happened. They deny the massacres or claim that they were protecting themselves.
Bosnia is so bruised. It seems so unfair that its people continue to suffer. High unemployment, corruption, bad leadership, bias, and simple neglect. Bosnians are restricted from traveling to most countries in the world without a visa - a stamp that is seriously difficult to come by for them. Saida's brother only sees his two children and wife every few months, when the children have holidays. They are living in Vienna (his wife's parents live there so her visa was approved easily), but the Austrians continue to refuse his visa request, even for a short visit. It's a huge issue for the Bosnians, who feel isolated by the international community, like they're the neighborhood pariahas. You'd think they could get a break after everything that happened. The B. Serbs and B. Croats have citizenship in Serbia and Croatia, respectively. The Bosniaks? Bosnia is their mother country and, many say, it feels like they're being shut up in it.
But instead of hating the city where her father was killed and can feel like it is dissolving, Aida said she wants Bosnia to be peaceful, united as it was before the madness: a Sarajevo where everyone is welcome and respected. "I was born here, grew up here," she said. "I want to work in Sarajevo, raise a family in Sarajevo." Meanwhile, the three-headed hydra that comprises the presidency can't come to the smallest understanding. Each of the three presidents, a Bosnian Muslim, a Bosnian Croat (they head the federated territory) and a Bosnian Serb (head of the B. Serb province, Republika Srpska), are to blame. But all agree that the RS side is standing in the way of progress and wants really to be part of Serbia, or at least separate from Bosnia. It makes no sense. For one, it is an artificial boundary created by the Dayton Acccord. And, two, the RS territory is not contiguous. The intransigence is keeping the country from moving forward, direction EU membership. I have talked to dozens of people, many former soldiers during the war, and they all same the same thing: we want peace and respect, not war. One former soldier told me that he has two sons, thus two good reasons for never wanting war again.
I don't they will never understand why Bosnian Muslims were massacred, raped, tortured, and so reviled by the B. Serbs that attacked them. But I can tell that it hurts them, burdens their hearts. Who woulnd't feel hurt with so much hate directed at you and so much resistance to living side-by-side.
Today, the legacy of the war festers like a bloody wound covered by a giant Band-Aid. Maybe if someone could answer Saida's simple question (one that is spraypainted in big letters on a building downtown) people could begin to heal. Saida's question: WHY?
posted by A.W. Woodall at 3:12 AM
1 Comments:
Thank you for posting this blog. I live right across from the building WHY? i written on... and i keep asking myself why...
During your stay here, you might have heard hundred of stories about the war and everyone has one, special in its own way.
Thank you for sharing this on with us.
May what was done never be repeated again.
Post a Comment
<< Home