Sarajevo - Ten Years After The Bosnian War

On November 21, 1995, in Dayton, Ohio, presidents of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Alija Izetbegović), Croatia (Franjo Tuđman), and Serbia (Slobodan Milošević) signed a peace agreement that brought a halt to the three years of war in the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (the final agreement was signed in Paris on 14 December 1995). The Dayton Agreement succeeded in ending the bloodshed in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and it institutionalized the division between the Bosnian-Herzegovinian Muslim and Croat entity - Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (51% of the territory), and the Bosnian-Herzegovinian Serb entity - Republika Srpska (49%).

Ten years on Bosnia retains its distinct identity in being one of the few European societies where the Muslim population is indegenous as opposed to being immigrants.

The following extract written by Imran Garda, a freelance journalist from South Africa, gives us a snapshot of Muslim life in Sarajevo.

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."

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."

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."

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"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.

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.