*****

Tuesday, August 31st
The last day

This morning I repeated my walk along the Wilson Promenade; perhaps I went even further than I had on Sunday morning.  It was, after all, my last day in Sarajevo.  I returned, packed, showered and dressed.  I had an hour or so before I needed to leave for the airport.  So I walked down the street toward the Ashkenazi synagogue, hoping to see Klara or NataÅ¡a one last time before I left.

Instead of her usual warm smile, NataÅ¡a confronted me with an icy glare.  She told me in no uncertain terms that I had made terrible mistakes in my book, mistakes so big as to make it a not serious text.  I stood frozen to the spot.  I could feel the blood drain from my face, and my heart drop into my bowels.  I took a breath and in a small voice asked NataÅ¡a to tell me what mistakes I had made.  She did: Her mother, Klara, holds a university degree in psychology and pedagogy, but not a Master’s.  Her father, an architect, never worked as a manual laborer in Israel but continued in his profession.  That was the wonder of her family’s sojourn, that unlike so many others, they both found work in their fields. And as for herself, NataÅ¡a had earned a master’s degree in Rome, not in Genoa; then she worked in Genoa before returning to Sarajevo.  My errors, she told me, were hurtful and insulting.  But as we parted NataÅ¡a said, “Let’s stay in touch.”

I exited the synagogue lobby and slowly walked back to Pansion ÄŒobanija.  My hostesses expressed concern about how pale and crestfallen I looked.  I told them that I made some mistakes in my book.  They tried to convince me that even had I made some errors, it’s not so terrible.  “After all,” the young receptionist- university student said, “you cared enough about us to come from far away and write this book.”  How kind and reassuring.  Nevertheless, I gathered my bags, entered the taxi and left the city with a heavy heart.

As soon as I got home I checked my fieldnotes.  I now understand the source of my mistakes and how they happened.  But that is not the point.  The point is to set the record straight.  So please turn to page 122 of Sarajevo: A Bosnian Kaleidoscope and note that

• In the fourth full sentence the word “university” should replace “master’s”.
• In the next sentence the words “in his profession” should replace “manual labor”.

As I sat in the Vienna airport waiting for my flight I penned the following lines under the title, Mea Culpa:

How can I tell you how sorry I am?
How can I explain?
I cannot.
No excuses.
MEA CULPA.
 
How did I do it?
Why was I so sure?
Too hasty.
No excuses.
MEA CULPA
 
I hoped for the joy of getting things right.
But I got things wrong, very wrong.
And instead of celebrating two women whom I respect, admire and love,
I caused you pain.
MEA CULPA.

I sent those verses to NataÅ¡a via email the next morning.  Minutes later I received a note from her and Klara accepting my apology. NataÅ¡a added, “Please do not feel that bad. It happens, but I had to let you know that it hurt us, because, of course, it is our lives we are talking about.”  They then wished me Shana Tova, the Jewish New Year’s greeting, and signed off with love.  Tears streamed from my eyes as I read their words.

Such are the risks and rewards of 21st century anthropology where it has become commonplace, indeed mandatory, that “They Read What We Write.”  Are there any alternatives to this in our highly literate, fast-paced world?  Beyond opting for what Sherry Ortner calls “ethnographic refusal,” or relying on the rather glib-sounding characterization of ethnography as partial truth/partial fiction (pace James Clifford), I take comfort in how the two Rs of reflexivity and responsibility are re-shaping the discipline for the better.  Mistakes have occurred and will continue to happen in twenty-first century anthropology.   Admission of these mistakes, apologizing for them, and taking pains to make amends will have to become part of every ethnographer’s repertoire.  Should all our hosts be as generous as Klara and NataÅ¡a in their willingness to forgive, then there will be good cause to refuse ethnographic refusal, and to continue down the path of humanistic anthropology.

Farewell for now, Sarajevo!  Please accept my book for the stories it tells and the hope it might offer.  May the Bosnian kaleidoscope continue to delight in its multi-colored, multi-ethnic, multi-multi turns!

****

Monday, August 30th
My Last Full Day

And it was certainly full!  I went back to see Amila in her History Department office.  She and her husband arrived later than we had arranged because they had taken their time with the pre-fast morning meal. This time we talked about family; unfortunately Amila’s mother, who had more than once triumphed over cancer, was not in good health.  Her dad continues to enjoy mountain hikes and is often accompanied by his grandson as he gathers herbs and mushrooms.  Amila has dreams of a flower-covered cottage in the Sarajevo hills, but for right now, she, her husband and their daughter share an apartment of their own in her mother-in-law’s house.  Her immediate goals are to learn to drive a car, and to take yearly vacations to the capitals of Europe.  And, of course, to work on her PhD, and live her life.

Just as I was about to take my leave, I remembered that Asja M had completed her doctorate and was also working at the university.  A few years back she became an asistent, and then, with the help of a Fulbright scholarship, went to the US for doctoral research.  After she completed the PhD Asja was appointed a docent.

Asja’s office is just a few doors down from Amila’s, and I was lucky to find her there.  In twenty minutes she and her assistant were scheduled to proctor an exam.  We ran across the street to the Holiday Inn for coffee and a fast and furious chat.  Asja married some years ago–her husband is a prof of comparative literature—and they have a little daughter.  She laughed recounting how she wrote her dissertation on a laptop computer when confined to bed rest during the pregnancy.  Things are fine, even good; with their two salaries.  But they are in no rush to have another child; that would be hard.  We talked about mutual acquaintances, and Asja said that of everyone we know, Amila has changed the most of all.  Was this because there are traditionally religious people in her family?  No, I told her, quite the opposite.  Amila’s parents are secular socialists and fervently miss the bratstvo i jedinstvo of Yugoslavia (p. 185).  Asja ran back across the street while I lingered over my coffee, thinking about Amila and the mixed-ethnic boyfriend she had had in 2004.  I hope that she is happy with her husband and the life-style decisions she has made.

I slowly walked back to the city center where I decided to have another look at the Museum of the City of Sarajevo that used to be the Museum of the Assassination, which I visited last in 2008 (p. 44-45).  On the way I passed by a huge construction site, which when complete will be a luxury shopping mall and the Sarajevo Grand Hotel, all funded by the Al Shiddi Group.

A little after three p.m. Melisa and I met up on the Latin Bridge, also known as the Princip Bridge, where a monument once stood commemorating the 1914 assassination of Austrian Prince Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Princess Sophia.  Now the stone near the bridge is unrecognizable as a monument and the assassination is portrayed as a terrorist act, not the brave deed of freedom fighters.  Melisa and I embraced and began talking at once.  We walked along the river eastward to the Inat Kuća, a privately owned “national restaurant” that serves regional dishes in a traditionally decorated Bosnian house with its own unique story (pp. 107-8, 157-8).

What Melisa then had to say to me was, I must admit, the high point of my entire visit.  She told me that she had read just about all of Sarajevo: A Bosnian Kaleidoscope and loved it!  Answering Greta’s critique that the book is too optimistic, Melisa said that that is one of the reasons why she loves it.  Unlike most commentaries on Bosnia, the book is not overly pessimistic; it is balanced.  She also commented favorably on how different people tell their stories and that, instead of disappearing from the text, I integrate myself into it.  She especially liked the second chapter about the Å¡etanje and Sarajevans’ stories of place.  I could feel tears of appreciation and relief well up in my eyes.  But we were enjoying our food and each other’s company, and there was no cause to weep.  So, I said, enough about me, let’s talk about you!

And we did.  Melisa is a brilliant and passionate historian with creative ideas that she puts into practice at her job at the Academy of Arts and Sciences, in her MA thesis, in her planned doctoral dissertation, and in the extraordinary history textbook that she wrote for sixth graders.  It hasn’t been easy to cope with some of the inequities in the academic system, but Melisa is an optimist and uses every tiny opportunity to advantage.  She has been a key player in organizing a BiH-wide association of history teachers that has revitalized the way the subject is presented to elementary and high school pupils.  And she co-edited a textbook for seventh graders that introduces them to the beliefs, everyday practices, lifecycle rituals and yearly holidays of Bosnia’s four Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Catholic Christianity, Serbian Orthodox Christianity, and Islam.

After a long and leisurely meal I asked Melisa to come with me into the BaÅ¡Ä?arÅ¡ija because I had decided to buy silver filigree butterfly pins for some close friends.  We entered her favorite shop, looked around at all the beautiful objects, had a pleasant conversation with the owner, and closed the deal.

My next and final stop of the evening was to meet with Renata and her baby at a famous pastry shop in Grbavica called Palma.  Melisa was to connect with her soon-to-be-married friends.  Last week she accompanied the bride to shop for a dress; now they were going together to a wedding cake specialist.   We talked about our families and our travels as we waited for the couple to come by in their car.  We piled in, they dropped me off, and, with difficulty, I said good-be to Melisa.

But then there was Renata and her tiny baby, Vedran.  She reminded me that the last time we saw each other in 2008 had been just a couple of days before her wedding.  Now I was meeting her 2-month old son. As Renata talked about the miracle of his birth she looked radiant.  We sat for hours in the deliciously smelling shop as sheets of rain fell outside.  Finally Renata’s husband arrived to pick us up.  We made a dash for the car; they brought me back to my pansion, and after unwinding, I fell asleep in the satisfaction of a long day with wonderful people.  My farewell-to-Sarajevo visit was coming to an end.

****

Lovely Lunches and Painful Partings
Greta Redux

Sunday, August 29th
 
It had rained the night before, and suddenly Sarajevo was cool and fresh.  I headed out for a long morning walk along the Wilson Promenade along the southern bank of the Miljacka River.  I walked and walked taking in the air, the sights, the people-with-dogs and those with umbrellas; the sounds of church bells, muezzin calls and tinny music blaring from outdoor cafes.  After a few hours, I finally felt refreshed from yesterday’s long, hot and arduous bus trip.

As agreed, at 2 p.m. I met Greta at a lovely Italian restaurant in the center of town.  Usually she has Sunday lunch with Dragica, who retired some years ago from the position of secretary general of the Jewish Community.  This week Dragica was hosting family members who live in Italy.  Greta commented that for the past few weeks the restaurant was nearly empty.  This week, although it is Ramadan, business was brisk. 

We switched our conversation to my impressions of Banja Luka.  I exulted in its greenery and then said that, in comparison to Sarajevo, I felt that Banja Luka was more secular and that its population was more homogeneous.  Greta told me that she had designed a factory there, and after the earthquakes in the 1970s she was part of an all-Yugoslavia commission that evaluated the damage and apportioned a budget for repairs.  But ever since 1992 when the war broke out, Greta has not been anywhere in the Republika Srpska, not has she had any dealings with people there, or in Serbia, including her hometown of Novi Sad.

The afternoon turned to evening, and I just knew I had to ask for a photo.  I might not ever see Greta again, and she was very dear to me.  Greta said that she does not like having her picture taken because once she was a very beautiful woman, and now, well, she is old and not so beautiful anymore.  To me, she is strikingly beautiful, elegant, highly charming and intelligent.  The waiter took our picture, and I love it!

*****

Thursday the 26th through Saturday the 28th

If Sarajevo is a Bosnian kaleidoscope, then Banja Luka, the capital of the Srpska Republika is green and Euro-Christian secular.

The taxi driver who brought me from the bus station to my hotel in the center of the city answered my question, “How are things going here in Banja Luka?” with one word, slabo—weak.  There’s not much work, not much excitement, not much to look forward to.  I took in those words while thinking about the lush Bosnian countryside I have just traveled, dotted with stone churches, mosques and minarets, Hershey’s kisses shaped haystacks and rushing river waters.

Banja Luka, which in the 1970s and ’80s was hit by earthquakes, boasts a few 19th century Austrian-style buildings, but most structures are mid-20th century low-rise socialist modern.  What Banja Luka does have is sprawling public parks, huge swaths of green grass.  There are two impressive Orthodox cathedrals and the most modern Catholic Church I have ever seen.  There are no mosques in town; no women wearing headscarves; no muezzin calls.  Church bells ring on the quarter hour, but their sound is muted; it seems to blend into the urban noise. The Ferhadija mosque, which was erected in Banja Luka in the mid-16th century, was blown up in the recent war.  Its site was a crater during the second half of the 1990s; now it is slowly being rebuilt.  Unlike the Christian houses of worship, it is not marked as a tourist site; but the kind young man on duty at the tourism information center circled it for me on my map.  Banja Luka’s greatest (potential) tourist attraction, the Kastel, an Ottoman fortress overlooking the beautifully clear Vrbas River, is in ruins, and inaccessible.  The young man at tourism information told me that renovation plans are scheduled to go into effect during spring, 2011, but, who knows. 

As in Sarajevo, people stroll the pedestrian walkways of Banja Luka, peer into shop windows, sit down for a coffee or an ice cream, and continue on again.  Somehow, though, Banja Luka’s Å¡etanje seemed slower, more mechanistic, and lacking in glee.  Before leaving Sarajevo, several acquaintances told me that Banja Luka is known for its good food and beautiful women.  I had a nice fish dinner in the beautifully appointed Allas restaurant, and enjoyed lovely river scenes from cafes on its banks, but somehow, I did not notice that the city’s women were unusually beautiful.

My main reason for visiting Banja Luka was to follow-up on the description that Asja D. had given me in 2002 of the portraits hanging in its City Hall (page 70), and to compare the historical narrative presented in the Museum of the Serbian Republic to that of the National Museum of Bosnia-Herzegovina (pp. 18, 57, 63, 167).  Here’s my report:

In August 2010 no portraits of war criminals hang in the City Hall.  In fact, there are no portraits of anyone, and no icons.  The only pictures decorating the entrance foyer of Banja Luka’s City Hall are abstract paintings. 

A sparklingly new glass and steel building houses the Republika Srpska parliament.  It looks strikingly similar to the BiH Assembly building in Sarajevo.

Despite what some in Sarajevo have described to me as an attitude of Serbian nationalism and separatism in the RS, a monument to Tito’s Partisans occupies a square next to the upscale Hotel Bosnia off the major avenue named for the Serbian king Petar Djordjović I.  Among the 21 honored Partisans are Muslims as well as Serbs, Croats, Slovenians, and Macedonians.

On Friday, August 27th I spent all morning in the Museum of the Serbian Republic.  Like Sarajevo’s Zemaljski Muzej, the museum originally established in Banja Luka had, and continues to have, a regional focus on the area’s flora, fauna, archeology and ethnology.  In the museum of today, much space is dedicated to prehistoric artifacts, and there are small displays of folk costumes, farming implements and local wildlife.  Exhibits then trace the history of the region from the high middle ages until the Cvetković-MaÄ?ek agreement of 1939, described as the “beginning of the disintegration of Yugoslavia on [a] national basis.”  The historical segment culminates in city scenes from 1930 that highlighted the life of an attorney/university rector.  The last display is an exhibit entitled Jasenovac, the notorious concentration camp established by the fascist Croatian state in August, 1941.  The texts that accompany each display are twice-printed, in Serbian in the Cyrillic alphabet, and in English.

The Jasenovac exhibit underscored the fact that three populations were persecuted in the NDH (Independent Croatian State): Serbs, Jews and Romanies.  Photos show the crucifix, dagger, hand grenade and pistol that were held by the men who swore the UstaÅ¡e (the Croatian fascist state’s military) oath.  More photos provided proof that in BiH and Croatia, Catholic clergy gathered around the fascist leader Ante Pavelić, and that (some) Bosnian Muslims eagerly joined the SS Handzar brigade formed by Himmler, and condoned by the Reis-ul-ulema (Bosnia’s highest Muslim cleric), and the Mufti of Jerusalem.  Immediately following those photos were five portraits of Serbian Orthodox clergy who were imprisoned in Dachau or killed in cold blood in1941 by the UstaÅ¡e.

There are no exhibits or texts on display about 1945-92 Yugoslavia, the 1992-95 wars, or the contemporary Republika Srpska. I was the only visitor in the museum.  I left with a slight feeling of nausea.  The texts were subtle; the exhibits objectivistically documented the past.  Anyone going through the museum would take away the distinct message that the Serbs of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and particularly those of the Banja Luka region, suffered for centuries at the hands of Muslim overlords and, more recently, at the hands of their Catholic-Croat and Muslim neighbors.

I spent the rest of the day going in and out of empty shops and strolling along the river, stopping every now and again for a frothy cappuccino and a cool glass of water.

On Saturday morning the kind people at the Palas Hotel packed me a brunch of a couple of sandwiches and an apple, which fortified me during the break in my bus journey across the Bosnian countryside.  It was bumpy and hot in an old, creaky bus with no air-conditioning.  Thank goodness there weren’t many passengers, and I had a double seat to myself.  The scenery was as verdant as it had been two days earlier, but the journey was awful!  When we finally reached the Sarajevo Central Bus Terminal—after a detour due to construction–I sighed with relief as I disembarked.  My spirits lifted when I entered an air-conditioned taxi.  The taxi driver, one of NebojÅ¡a’s ironic subjects, told me “Taking a bus trip in Bosnia-Herzegovina is always an adventure!” 

That night I went to see Inception at Cinema City.  More irony.

*****

Wednesday, August 25th

On Monday and Tuesday I spent most of my time in the Austro-Hungarian part of Sarajevo, in Marjindvor and in the city center.  I devoted today to the Turkish parts.

I wandered around the Old City where the Vijećnica sits under complete scaffolding.  Now instead of commercial advertisements, a huge banner states that the European Union, the Kingdom of Spain and a long list of countries and municipalities are financing the building’s renovation.  In the BaÅ¡Ä?arÅ¡ija, a wide variety of coffee sets and trays are on display; so too are long, colorful scarves of cotton and polyester, others are labelled as Pashmina.  Scattered among these souvenir stalls are carpet vendors, gold and silver jewelry shops, artists’ galleries, and, of course, various cafes and eateries.

Wondering if I’ll have enough money at the end of my visit to make a serious purchase, I enter the Ketar carpet shop.  Its owner explains the cost of various pieces, depending on their size and quality.  He tells me that his prices are 2/3-1/2 of what I would pay in Istanbul for similar products.  He shows me the difference between antique carpets, 20th century pre-1992 Bosnian carpets, and those produced today.  Many antique carpets were destroyed in the war, and immediately after, the best surviving pieces were bought up by the internationals.  Today’s carpets are good, very good, but their quality is not as high as in socialist Yugoslavia, when cooperatives bought the best wool and the best dyes in bulk.  Women worked together weaving in large halls. Today these combines do not exist: there is not enough capital to purchase the finest materials; the women weavers work out of their homes and are paid by the piece.  

Next, I walked into a picture gallery where I hoped to find a naïve painting.  There are dozens of pictures of Bosnia’s bridges and rather Orientalist renderings of donkeys, door, minarets and pomegranates.  I strike up a halting conversation with the gallery’s owner.  He brings me a naïve painting that is dark and foreboding.  No thanks.  I ask about business.

We don’t have the same kind of tourists as we had in Yugoslavia.  That was a time when tourists came, stayed in hotels, dressed with care, ate in restaurants, shopped for the finest things.  Now many of our tourists wear t-shirts, carry all their possessions in a rucksack, buy a tin of paÅ¡tet (pâté), and sleep in the park.  And instead of buying authentic, authored work—our paintings, carpets, copper work and filigran—they buy the cheapest trinkets as souvenirs.

I ask about an impressionistic watercolor scene of Sarajevo under a sunny sky.  I said I liked it because I couldn’t tell if it portrays early spring or late fall.  He told me that it is a winter scene he painted from his memory or a day when he was a soldier stationed on the hills.  I asked how much he wanted for the painting.  He named a price, and then immediately reduced it “because of your love for Sarajevo”.  We closed the deal with glasses of juniper berry juice, a regional specialty.

At noon I met with Greta who turned 86 in June, and is as beautiful and elegant as ever, at the Jewish Community.  After a cursory round of greetings we left to go for coffee.  Greta complained that there are so few places in Sarajevo that are cool and quiet, but she knew the perfect spot, the lobby of a refurbished, air-conditioned hotel.  And off we went.

I must admit that I was a bit apprehensive.  I had sent a copy of Sarajevo: A Bosnian Kaleidoscope to Greta a month or two earlier.  As soon as I phoned her she told me that she had read the entire book and was ready to present me with her critique.  When we were seated she said:

I read the first seven chapters, that is, before I got to the Conclusion, and throughout my reading I thought: This book is too optimistic.  You can’t really know how hard it is for ordinary people to live here.  Pensions are at 1/3 of what they should be, people like me who worked their entire lives and contributed everything they were required to their pensions are only getting a fraction of what they are due.  Prices are high; pensions are low, and so are salaries.  This is the case for regular working people, that is, for everyone, except for politicians and those people who just came to Sarajevo and are building villas in the hills.

With an ironic smile and a bit of a laugh Greta summarized her view of Bosnia-Herzegovina:

It is not one state.  It does not even approach being a state.  I say that BiH is a black hole in the middle of southern Europe.

She continued her critique of Bosnia by focusing on the unhealthy influence of Wahabiism, a new-for-Bosnia form of fundamentalist Islam that is coming from Saudi Arabia.  Its influence increases, she says, with every year. 

And now when something, for example, happens in Gaza you’ll see these anti-Jewish writings. 

I ask if they are anti-Israeli or anti-Jewish.  Greta retorts:

People are too ignorant to know the difference.

Greta updates me on the non-results of a lawsuit that Jakob Finci, president of the Jewish Community of BiH and a lawyer in his own right, initiated in the European Court of Human Rights a few years back.  He argued that the constitutional stipulation that only Bosniacs, Croats and Serbs can serve in the state presidency and in the upper house of the BiH Assembly is discriminatory.  Dervo Sejdić, a Rom, joined the case, and in December 2009 they received a favorable verdict.  But, Greta added, “They got nothing from it except proving that there is unequal citizenship in Bosnia.”  She highly doubts that the verdict will be implemented in the upcoming October elections because although Finci was to have been awarded some 40,000 (KM or euros?), he hasn’t received even a penny.  But Greta will go to vote in October; there is no question, “We must vote!” Before parting we made a Sunday lunch date.

“Phew!” I thought to myself after we said our good-byes, “Greta’s critique wasn’t at all harsh.”  Mak and Klara had already pointed out a few mistakes that I had made in the Bosnian language.  And at the very end of my stay, I would be taken to task for printing some incorrect biographical information.  But for now, I was off the hook.

That evening I joined NataÅ¡a at the Jewish Community, where she was coordinating a work-study visit by 40 Israeli students participating in a “Journey into Jewish Heritage”.  After dinner Klara showed her film, “Sarajevo Mi Sevdad De Oro,” about the Jewish Community’s efforts during the 1992-95 siege.  I left about 30 minutes into the film to meet with Mak. What a surprise to see him!  Mak lives in the Netherlands and was only scheduled to be in Sarajevo during the last weeks of July.  But he caught a vicious virus and ended up staying much longer than anticipated in his parents’ home.  Tonight, his penultimate evening in Sarajevo, he had his father’s car, and we went up, up, up the mountains to a café with a fabulous panoramic view of the city lights.  After we were seated, we scrunched up our eyes, trying to imagine how things looked in the wartime darkness of 1993, 94 and 95. 
 
Mak was 12 years old when he fled Sarajevo with his mother on one of the convoys.  His father joined them in Holland a few years later.  After the war, his parents returned to Bosnia, but Mak stayed to complete high school.  He then rejoined his parents and enrolled in Sarajevo University.  But after a few years, Mak re-returned to Holland in order to achieve his academic and career goals.  We talked about Bosnia’s current corruption scandals and about some strange happenings at the BiH embassy in the Netherlands.  And about my book, his film and other things.  It grew late and chilly up there on the mountain, so we headed back down to the city.

After we parted, I packed a bag for my early morning bus trip to Banja Luka and went to sleep.

*****

August 24th
More reunions

I started this day with a stroll over to what had been known for more than 120 years as the Zemaljski Muzej, or the Landsmuseum, erected in 1888 by the Austrians to (help) establish a regional identity and loyalty for the multi-faith population of Bosnia-Herzegovina.  Nowadays the structure, which was heavily damaged during the 1992-95 war is known as the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina.  It was here that I began my first visit to post-war Sarajevo in August 1997 and where I met Lebiba.  Today I was on my way to see her again.

I walked past the newly rebuilt BiH Assembly building and marveled as I looked across the street to the always shockingly bright daffodil-colored Holiday Inn.  Behind it is the Avaz tower that began to take shape in 2006 and opened for business three years later.  One person described it to me as a “great chimney,  a furnace, something menacing and out of place.”  Later in the week, my friend Greta, who is a retired professor of architecture, told me that she calls the Avaz tower, the Crna Udovica, or Black Widow, for it looks scary, frightening and even devouring.

Lebiba and I, however, do not discuss Sarajevo’s architecture.  The closest we come to that subject is her response to my query about the Old City house she and her husband had purchased a few years earlier.  When I last saw her in April 2008, she told me that renovation was under way, that I would be visiting her there during my next trip to Sarajevo.  Now she smiled as she said, “Opet, drugi put!” [Once again, next time].  She explained that they had to take down and replace the entire roof.  And that the electrical and heating systems were old and dangerous and had to be replaced as well.  And the contractors, and the workers!  It always cost more money and took more time than estimated.  So, you get some money here, another bit of money there; it runs out, and you start all over again.

Comparing her family’s financial position to young people who are starting out in life, Lebiba wondered how in the world they can afford to buy an apartment, to get started in life.  Like many other Sarajevans, she is disturbed that so many urban apartments have been taken over by villagers, “who maybe sell a piece of land, and then their (extended) families help out.”  But instead of the newcomers changing from peasants into cosmopolites, it seems that the rubes are turning the city into a place that better suits their boorish tastes.

We talk about the construction of shopping centers and the difficult economy.  And of the upcoming October elections.  SDP, Lebiba suggests, is the only alternative to the nationalists.  As for the economy, nothing seems to be moving, except for the 2 billion euros of remittances sent to BiH from family members abroad.  This is great economic support for individual families, but it doesn’t do much for rebuilding the country’s infrastructure.  Lebiba tells me that she is happy when people return from abroad because they come back with ideas and a mentality that they learned in Europe, in Canada, in the US and Australia, and can use it to push Bosnia forward.  Maybe…

That afternoon I meet up with Melisa, who was a “young researcher at the institut za istoriju and my first unofficial assistant during the first weeks of my fieldwork in 2004.  Over the years she has been conducting research on pre-Slavic Bosnia and is now in the final stages of completing her MA thesis. She also wrote a history textbook for grade 6 and co-edited a text for 7th graders, entitled, Kultura Religija. We met at our usual place, on the steps of the Catholic Cathedral.  Our meeting was short because Melisa had promised a friend that she would join her to shop for a wedding dress: “My generation is finally doing it—getting married!”  I gave Melisa a copy of Sarajevo: A Bosnian Kaleidoscope, and we made a date for the following Monday.

Then I met up with NebojÅ¡a, who continues to amaze me. NebojÅ¡a works for a Norwegian NGO, whose goal is to advance peace and reconciliation in Bosnia-Herzegovina.  With his cultural astuteness, NebojÅ¡a focuses the workshops and discussions he organizes not on “peace and reconciliation” but on how to live and work together, or “ethnic relations”.  His most successful projects involve the municipal workers and youth in the towns of Srebrenica and Bratunac, where there are high rates of “minority return migration”—which means, Bosniacs (Muslims) returning to their homes after acts of genocide in the Serbian Republic. 

As we talked about the remarkable grassroots social action that is resulting from his projects, NebojÅ¡a, who is completing his doctoral dissertation in the Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology at Ljubljana University in Slovenia, reminded me that his underlying philosophy of hedonism is a key to his success: “I want to do the things that I enjoy doing.  And to do that I need a society that will support those things.  When the kids say, ‘There’s nothing we can do,’ I tell them, ‘Think of what you enjoy and figure out a way to do it, like picking up the garbage to make the neighborhood look better.  Or an old clothes drive.  Or how my brother and I and one other guy organized the Sarajevo Jazz Festival’.”

But what about the stagnation into which BiH has fallen?  NebojÅ¡a doesn’t necessarily accept that metaphor.  Instead, he sees Bosnians as ironic subjects, and offered me an illustrative anecdote:

One guy, a Serb, listened to a presentation given by another guy who is a Bosniac (or the other way around) and is running for mayor.  At its end he told him, “I like everything you said.  I agree with everything you said.  I would even give you my vote.  But I won’t.”

“And why is that?” I asked. 

Right now the situation is terrible.  There is a bad economy, no work, no jobs.  With the current mayor I have no job.  But I don’t have to worry that I am the victim of discrimination.  If you (the candidate from a different ethnicity) were the mayor—and from everything that I heard, you would certainly do a better job than the present mayor—I would then start to think that I am out of work because of ethnic discrimination.  And that is one (more) thing that I do not want to deal with!

We continued to probe that ironic pose, which, NebojÅ¡a suggests, makes people in Bosnia come up with great jokes and produce spectacular human relationships.  But they come to no problem resolutions. I can’t wait to see NebojÅ¡a’s completed doctoral dissertation.  Needless to say, neither can he!

*****

Part I: Radiant Reunions

August 23rd
Reconnoitering Sarajevo:

Each time I return to Sarajevo, I find something new in the cityscape.  And this time is no exception.

The first thing I noticed is the memorial fountain that commemorates the children of Sarajevo who were wounded during the 1992-95 siege. The cool, green fountain sits on the gray, grenade-pocked sidewalk in front of a municipal park, where white obelisks dot the emerald grass.

The second thing that struck me was far more garish.  For over a decade, the cement foundations of what had been socialist Sarajevo’s Robna Kuća department store sat as a hulking skeleton in the city center.  In 2008 it had been an enclosed construction site. Two years later, it opened as the BBI Centar, a five story shopping mall financed by the Islamic Development Bank, Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank, and Dubai Islamic Bank te Bosna Bank International d.d. Sarajevo.  The Centar boasts high-end boutiques that offer clothing, shoes, handbags and luggage, perfume and bath soaps, and all kinds of accessories; there are also hair, skin and fitness salons, and cafes.  A big, bright, KONZUM (Croatia’s largest supermarket chain) is located on the ground floor. Signs advertising drastic reductions of 50-70% off regular prices were in nearly every shop window, but it looked to me that there were many more browsers than buyers.

Just across the plaza sits Cinema City, where its six theaters show current European and American hits.  I made a mental note to come back later in the week to see Inception, for the ticket price of 6 KM, or 3 Euros.

I began my visits.

My first stop was to Dr. Husnija Kamberović, director of the Institut za Istoriju, my official host institution in 2004.  I find Husnija in his office poring over pages of the newspaper, Oslobodjenje from 1973.  He greets me with a smile; I give him a copy of Sarajevo: A Bosnian Kaleidoscope.  We talk about having it reviewed in the institute’s journal, Prilozi, and then move on to discuss current happenings.  Many young people, Husnija informs me, are interested in contemporary history, and the Institut now has over a dozen of them on its staff of 28.  We exchange personal news and catch up on common acquaintances, especially Amila and Melisa.  Husnija offers his phone so that I can call Amila.  She greets me with a rapid-fire flow of Bosnian.  I laugh, ask her to slow down, and tell her that I’ll be with her in a matter of minutes.  I take my leave from Husnija, exit the institute and walk down the hill and westward to the Filozofski Fakultet of Sarajevo University.

It is an usually hot summer day, and there is no air-conditioning in the Filozofski Fakultet.  In the office that she shares with her husband in the History Department, Amila is wearing a long-sleeved tunic over slacks, and her long, shining dark hair flowing over her back.  This year Ramadan has fallen in August, and Amila and her husband are observing the fast.  Amila greets me with a cheery smile and gives me a glass of water.  We sit and talk about her daughter who is now 2-1/2 years old, her completed MA thesis, and her current doctoral project.  A friend enters the office with a bag full of beaded jewelry.  This friend had also studied history during the BA and currently teaches seventh grade.  She came to confer with Amila about selecting a textbook for her class.  Her jewelry business is both a hobby and a sorely needed source of income because her teaching job is only part-time.  Is it a budget matter? I ask.  No, she responds, it’s due to a lack of children.  I silently remind myself that the Bosnian wars ended only fourteen years ago; that the economy was devastated, and that young people are taking their time to get married and begin having families of their own.

Amila and her husband are part of that generation.  They married in 2007 and had their daughter a year later.  Since each is employed in the university as an asistent—assistant to the professor–they are doing all right.  Many assistants like Amila and her husband first earn the Master’s degree and then go on to complete the doctorate.  They are both planning careers as academic historians.

Later in the day I go to visit my friend Klara, who lives on the top floor of an apartment building that overlooks the BaÅ¡Ä?arÅ¡ija and the surrounding mountains.  We sat on the balcony, enjoying the fresh air as we talked.  Suddenly there is a BOOM and a starburst appears above the mountain.  I thought it was the beginning of a fireworks display, but Klara informed me that that’s it!  One boom and one starburst every evening during the current month of Ramadan at sundown lets everyone know that they may now begin the Iftar meal.

We talked about what seems to be a steadily increasing gap between rich and poor, and a greater Islamicization of the public sphere.  Klara contrasted this with what she fondly remembers as the inclusive, secular public sphere of socialist Yugoslavia.  I asked about the upcoming elections.  She and her husband agreed that the only alternative to the nationalists is SDP (the Socialist Democratic Party), but even that party is rife with dissent.  Stagnation and apathy are all around.  “But,” Klara reminded me, “What bothers me the most is people coming from the EU and America to teach us democracy.  Here in Bosnia, in Yugoslavia, we lived together as neighbors and friends in mutual respect.  We know how to behave with consideration and kindness.”

After a long but fulfilling day my impressions of Sarajevo are that people look more prosperous and vital than on my previous visits.  In the city center there are banks, banks, and more banks everywhere—most of them from foreign countries.  Cafes are blaring music, and some have TV screens showing sports events and music concerts.  New shopping centers are opening, but I wonder, Who can afford their luxurious offerings if 1000 KM (500 euros)/month is considered a good salary?

*****

Fran Markowitz is a professor of cultural anthropology at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel and the author of Sarajevo: A Bosnian Kaleidoscope.