EASTERN AND WESTERN MOSTAR

THE RIGHT TO PAIN OF ONE AND THE OBLIGATION TO SILENCE OF THE OTHER RIVER BANK

AIM, MOSTAR, November 10, 1994

In fact, it is not quite accurate to claim that one acquires a feeling of being an inferior citizen primarily if, being a Muslim, a Serb or a Croat, one lives on the territory with majority population belonging to another nation. Or, as one would put it in a modern "national" slang - a sinful man in a wrong place in the darkest of times. Namely, all you need is just a little luck and some inventiveness to make you a member of an international delegation which has arrived to tour the Bosnian helland enable you, as a UNPROFOR's protected child, to watch safely and unhindered, the horror sights out of a white vehicle, the Eastern and the Western side of Mostar

• despite the Bosnia-Herzegovina passport in your pocket. Noone will even ask if you have a passport in such an arrangement, so that the border crossing between the so-called Herzeg-Bosnia and Croatia, better known as an insurmountable barrier for the Bosnians, becomes just a dull place where your bus slowly passes by a kilometre-long line of trucks and other cars. In this way you also, naturally, avoid meeting all sorts of armed "heroes" who collect a foreign currency poll-tax for passage over "their" territories in crowded buses. They have recently started to appear even on the bordering territory of the Republic of Croatia, because there are so many of them in the phantom state of Herzeg-Bosnia that the income extorted from the scared-to-death passengers significantly decreased.

But, as the adopted child of the UNPROFOR, you do not have to worry about looters on the road to Mostar and you safely ride watching the gradual change of the view - from fertile land to villages burnt to the ground and ruins bearing unambiguous political slogans. Then, you also have the privilege to be welcomed in the Mostar hotel "Lero" (on the Western bank, of course, since it still exists) by Mr. Hans Koshnik with his team, who will take his time to explain to you what the mandate of European protectors of Mostar is all about, what they are planning to revitalize first, how many of them there are in the city, but also that the Neretva river is "a beautiful green river they are truly impressed by". In an almost idyllic atmosphere of the sunny and quiet Mostar, among the people of good will, who friendly and confidently exchange views such as - "would it be good to reconstruct the destroyed old bridge now or at the end of the mandate as a symbolic completion of the job" - it is not difficult to identify with the role of someone who is not involved, who is devoting a part of one's time and engagement to help "this poor and unjustly suffering Bosnia". But, as soon as you step out of the UNPROFOR vehicle and pass by the citizens of Mostar who have stepped back, looking with aversion at just another group of "war tourists", you quickly get back to reality. With no doubt about the good intentions of the people whose company has risen you too to a level high above the ordinary mortals in Bosnia&Herzegovina, you start to feel uneasy; the documents which rub sore in your pocket warning you that you should be on the other side which the foreigners are observing with curiosity; coarse remarks which you cannot translate without unpleasantly dumbfounding an amiable Irishwoman, for instance, who has left her three small children to be looked after by people she does not even know, in order to organize and bring hunmanitarian aid for the citizens of Mostar... The scene reaches its climax on the Eastern side of the city, when tens of cameras hanging around the necks of Englishmen, Germans, Swedes, Swiss, Italians or Polish start to click frantically in front of the torn down buildings, contours of the old-town tower, improvised hanging bridge on the site of the destroyed symbol of Mostar and a pack of shouting children who readily stand in a combative pose with speed of a well-trained team and with their hands raised and fingers held in the victorious "V" sign for a handful of biscuits, a chocolate bar or a chewing-gum. seek the best possible angle for taking pictures of the rare samples of a surviving species in its apocalyptic surroundings is interrupted by casual passers-by who, irritated this time more by the behavior of their youngest fellow-citizens than by another group of curious Europeans who cannot understand much anyway, start to chase the kids away in shrill voices:

• Get lost, you should be ashamed of yourselves!

• You'd better go help your mothers than play the fools in front of them!

• Break up quickly! There are those who are starving, but would not run after each and every new-comer for charity.

Children withdraw, but just for a short while, so that just around the corner, or, to be more precise, after a pile of stone which reminds that a corner used to be there, the same scenario follows, reminding of pre-war wedding-feasts and suites of children who expected the best man to throw coins to them. But the newly-arrived European best men carry mostly papers in their bags, plans and projects about the topic: "how to make the parties in conflict agree to a reasonable solution". And, as a rule, the inevitable question comes to your mind - what are the chances for their plans to succeed and can such a highly responsible job be carried out without the knowledge and understanding why this war had started in the firsat place, what were its objectives and who are those who conceived it? Doped with an abundance of information and, as they claim, verified figures of who shot at whom, where and when, how many members of each party in conflict were killed, have fled or remained in Mostar, the well-meaning European peace-makers, humanitarians and public workers, in fact, just prove that the way they understand the war in Bosnia&Herzegovina is just as simplified as the photograph of the ruined city of Mostar which they will take with them to some happier parts of the world. Namely, the regular demands to be shown the "Croatian, the Muslim" or the part of the city "where the Serbs lived before the war", reveals the filthiest part of the job of national oligarchies in Bosnia&Herzegovina - after I have lived in B&H for several decades, an absent-minded man from Paris, assosted by an adolescent citizen of Mostar decorated with all kinds of insignia of "Herzeg-Bosnia", will start explaining to me that there are only three nations living in B&H, that there are three exclusive national parties of theirs, their inviolable three leaders, and that they have always lived separated in certain "Serbian, Croatian or Muslim" parts of B&H, that they have never understood or liked each other, and that they have finally grown tired of it all and wish to separate?!

The Eastern and the Western bank in Mostar, on photographs and in fact, tell the already well-known story of suffering of the Muslim population and the violent Croatian para-state policy. But, generalizations of entire nations has brought about the unusual division which probably seems quite natural to the creators of "pure nations", but is hardly noticeable to the foreigners. Namely, the pain, suffering, and even memories of a happier past are separated between the parts of the city which correspond to daily political orientation of the heads of national oligarchies. In Mostar, this means that only one bank of the Neretva river has the right to pain, and the other to the obligation to silence! On the Western (the "Croatian") side of the Mostar, the process of relativization of what has been done, that is, of justification of the death of the ancient bridge and the Golgotha of the Eastern side, has reached such proportions that the traces of war are covered up at a pace of lightning and an illusion of normal life is created. You can thus get a delicious sandwich of smoked ham and chees in this part of Mostar!

On the other hand, the Eastern ("Muslim") part of the city, is firmly linking the possibility of renovation solely with the tragedy it has experienced. In the vicinity of the destroyed old bridge - unusual traders. On improvised tables made of doors, smooth, rounded stones from the river, the size of a fist, and coarse ones of various sizes. Pre-war books about the sunny Mistar exhibited alongside, carefully arranged coins of former Yugoslavia in plastic bags, and finally, somewhat shabby highway-maps titled "A Guide through Yugoslavia". Each piece of the exhibited goods has a price a story it could tell. Pebbles from the Neretva river are intended for those who love the river. They cost 10 German marks each, and on their backs are the photographs of the old bridge, about which the famous Ottoman travel writer, Evlija Celebija, wrote: "I have passed 16 empires, but I have never seen such a magnificent bridge". The coarse stones are, of course, part of the bridge which tumbled down into the river. Their price is higher - 15 marks. Whether the exhibited stones are really parts of the old bridge built by Mimar Hajrudin in 1556 is not really so important as the bizzare fact that even the German from the group did not wish to buy it. Another stone of a building that has fallen down on the very same date as the old bridge, (November 9), I am sure, this German would love to have in his home - a stone off the Berlin wall. They claim that its parts are still sold at a price much higher than 15 German marks.

The coins and the map of Former Yugoslavia do not symbolize only the time of peace and prosperity, but politically unsoiled Eastern Mostar as well. It is permissible to love the past here without any doubts about the future. In other words, here the nostalgy in relation to the former state does not automatically mean a lack of love or belief in the sovereignty of Bosnia&Herzegovina. The political message would read that the Muslims were forced to secede from former Yugoslavia, and were pushed into the bloody war, contrary to their Western neighbours. That is the reason why a similar business with the remnants of the bridge or ex-Yugoslav coins would be blasphemeous on the other, the Western bank: destruction of the old bridge by the Croatian Defence Councih (HVO) deprived the citizens of Mostar from the Western side of the possibility to mourn it, despite their love for the city symbol similar to that of the seller of stones on the Eastern side; the policy of homogenization of the nation founded on hatred of former Yugoslavia and everything but the genuine "Croatdom" deprived them even of the pleasant memories of the past. National policies thus divided the right to memories and the right to pain. After all, if you wished to buy a stone out of the old bridge, would you buy it from a Mostar Croat?

Mr. Hans Koshnik is a very amiable, communicative person. His associates resemble as team of over-zealous fans of the Esperanto who are convinced that this language will soon become the tongue of all the communities in the world. The energy and the efforts they are ready to invest guarantee that schools will really soon be opened on both sides of Mostar, that community services will become operational on both sides, too, that unhindered passage from one side to the other will become part of everyday life in Mostar, and that even the bridge will be renovated, which was described by a French travel writer, A. Poulet, in 1658 as "more daring and more impressive that the Rialto in Venice". But, after they renovate "both one and the other side of the city", will Mr. Koshnik and his team succeed to renovate Mostar? For something like that, unfortunately, the European protectors do not have the mandate. At least not until those who are responsible for the tragedy of Mostar, preside in their nationalistic feuds, awaiting to be awarded for their misdeeds by an additional portion of the land they have won over.

Only by punishing them will the Western side help the Eastern side, by sharing in its pain and awaiting for their common tomorrow in Mostar.

DRAZENA PERANIC