The 'Never Here' myth and other lessons from Sarajevo

Every human generation has its own illusions with regard to civilizations; some believe they are taking part in its upsurge, others that they are witnesses of its extinction. In fact, it always both flames and smolders and is extinguished, according to the place and angle of views.
— Ivo Andrić in The Bridge on the Drina

"Sarajevo" by Zvonimir Barišin, Adriatic Storm - https://www.deviantart.com/adriaticstorm/art/Sarajevo-Vjecnica-66353411

By Melissa Walsh

Burek and baklava. Giant juicy black grapes and luscious red tomatoes. Old men wearing the red fez selling Turkish coffee pots in the baščaršija, "marketplace." Olympic gold-winning champion basketball players at the cafe. Stars of Sarajevo’s popular rock band Bijelo Dugme at Obično Mijesto, or “Usual Place” — a bar in the baščaršija beloved by Sarajevo’s hipsters. And the cafe bar called Broj Jedan, or “Number One," set in a well-to-do neighborhood in the edge of the valley, where the politically well-connected lived.

These are among my countless memories of Sarajevo.

While I was a student at the University of Sarajevo in 1988, nearly each evening, for sure each weekend evening, I was among hundreds of young Sarajevans walking to the “meeting place” on Maršala Tita Ulica, "Marshal Tito's Street," where those in their late teens and 20-somethings greeted each other with Vozdra -- Sarajevan pig latin for “hi,” or Zdravo, “hello,” transposed.

Vozdra, gde si? they’d say.

Particular to Sarajevo was the pronunciation of Gde si?, or literally, “Where are you?” This was slang for "How are you doing?" Sarajevan youth did not pronounce gde with the prescribed hard g and hard d, but as a soft consonant blend. So to American ears, Gde si? sounded like the name "Jessie."

When I uttered the greeting in the way of a Sarajevan youth, my friends would laugh.

It was much like how I would react if a foreigner in my home town of Detroit greeted me with,” Yo, whadup doe?”

Walking to or from the meeting place, one would pass soldiers buying kolaći, “sweets” for gypsy kids begging in the streets. They might take Principov Most, “Princip’s bridge” to cross the Miljacka River, where the first shot of World War I was fired. They might walk past the famous Sarajevo library or travel by street car past the yellow Holiday Inn and other modern buildings with a similar hideous and boldly modern aesthetic.

I started from 127-A Lenjinova, an apartment building in the Grbavica section of Sarajevo, across the Miljacka from the University of Sarajevo’s Filosofki Falkutet, or School of Philosophy, where I was a student. I rented a room from a widow caring for her elderly mother and two grown sons who had finished university and were looking for work. My friends in the building included Nik, Milica, Bogdana, Nina, Igor, Goran, and Maja. They identified as Yugoslavs. Everyone I met in Sarajevo from 1987 to 1989 identified as a Yugoslav. I did not know that I was encountering a Sarajevan Yugoslav civilization in danger of extinction.

The Sarajevo unity I witnessed was not an experiment. It was not a powder keg of hate. I experienced first-hand Sarajevo’s celebration of East and West — European- and Asian-influenced literature, music, and food. I witnessed close relationships between Sarajevan and Sarajevan, not between Croat and Serb, or Serb and Muslim, or Muslim and Croat.

These relationships were caught in the anxiety of 40-percent unemployment among those under age 25, coupled with sky-rocketing inflation. The Sarajevo that I was first introduced to in 1987 and last visited in 1989 was a vibrant community of talented and well-educated individuals who identified as Yugoslavs. They were not hostile. They did not talk about their ethnic and religious family history unless I asked them about it.

My circle of friends celebrated both Catholic and Orthodox Christmas, which are two weeks apart, Islam’s Ramadan, and communism’s May Day. They displayed Tito’s image somewhere in their apartment. They toasted each other with živeli, “to life,” or literally “(we) lived.” They laughed and added the Partisan toast of their parents who survived World War II, Smrt fascismo, slobodo naradu, “Death to fascism, freedom to the people.”

I couldn’t foresee fascism about to attack this great valley of cultural diversity and national unity within two years. But I knew a man who saw through the illusion I believed in.

By 1991, opportunistic politicians spoke to the ethnic/religious identity of Yugoslav nationals in the language of fear and hate, awakening the dead to flaunt as spokespersons for the cause of disunity, while tapping opportunistic neighboring nations with capital for the cause of disintegration for financial gain. From history’s graveyards, these opportunities spawned gremlins and sent them to the high ground, from where they rained dread onto perhaps the most peaceful valley of the Balkans, known for higher education, champion athletes, and popular music and art.

Bijelo Dugme, a band from Sarajevo, was highly popular throughout Yugoslavia and well-known throughout Europe. I occasionally saw members of the band hanging out at Sarajevo cafes and clubs. In the 80s, Sarajevo was to the Balkans what Seattle was to America for rock music. Durdevdan je (below) was the lead track for the popular 1988 film Dom Za Vešanje (released in English as "Time of the Gypsies").

“There will be another religious civil war here,” said my history professor at the University of Sarajevo, Milorad Ekmečić.

“Here in Sarajevo?” I asked.

He nodded.

“But no one speaks of ethnicity here.” I said. “You don’t know who’s Serb, Croat, or a Bosnian Muslim. Anyway, isn’t everyone mixed?”

It seemed to me very much like my native Detroit Eastside, where you could get an idea of someone’s heritage from their Polish, or Irish, or Italian last name, but you assumed most were of mixed ethnicity. And no one cared.

“Yes, we have a melting pot in Sarajevo,” Ekmečić said. “But the fighting will happen outside Sarajevo, and it will spread everywhere like a cancer. And it will be a religious war.”

He was right. Ekmečić was a teen during World War II. He said that in Yugoslavia, resistance to Germany’s fascist occupation became a “religious civil war” internally.

By 1991, opportunistic politicians spoke to the ethnic/religious identity of Yugoslav nationals in the language of fear and hate, awakening the dead to flaunt as spokespersons for the cause of disunity, while tapping opportunistic neighboring nations with capital for the cause of disintegration for financial gain. From history’s graveyards, these opportunities spawned gremlins and sent them to the high ground, from where they rained dread onto perhaps the most peaceful valley of the Balkans, known for higher education, champion athletes, and popular music and art.

Imagine a secessionist movement based on ethno-religious identity in the United States. Let’s say white Christians in Texas decide that Texas will secede to become a new nation. Those living in Texas are told that they can no longer identify as American. Their national identity is now Texas Christian and the language they speak is no longer identified as American English. It is now officially known as Texan — not a dialect of American English, but a separate language.

Oh, and the secessionist movement in Texas was financed by a foreign power and its liberation army trained and fit-up with weapons by an ally to that foreign power. After a few weeks into the fight, the United Nations recognizes the sovereignty of Texas.

Imagine this scenario in the context of living in an economic depression that bred political radicalization. There are no center-right or center-left political leaders to represent moderate American interests any longer. How would opposing radicalized parties respond and operate?

It would soon become the mayhem of hatred in power — multi-sided hatred — with the innocent and the moderate and the peaceful caught in the crossfire as they just try to live their lives.

Emerging factions in Texas would become as deadly in the United States as Serb, Croat, Bosnian Muslim, and Albanian factions became in the former Yugoslavia. We are no different, which is why we must work toward political centrism and enlightenment (education, facts-verification) in the United States and ward against the destructive forces of populist, identity politics and encroachment of political influence from the outside, as happened with foreign meddling in our 2016 elections.

By 1992, Sarajevo was flaming and smoldering — a valley of death and destruction. By late 1995, when the Dayton Peace Accord was signed, the Bosnian Institute of Public Health had reported more than 10,000 deaths and 61,000 injuries in Sarajevo due to the siege — a city of 360,000.

“Your chances of death or serious injury were about one in five,” wrote journalist Barbara Demick in her memoir covering Sarajevo during the siege, Logavina Street: Life and Death in a Sarajevo Neighborhood.

I believe Yugoslavs will not become extinct as a people, as an identity, because Yugonostalgia lives on in the Balkan Spirit — a spirit of incomparable selfless hospitality, a shared history of resisting fascism and surviving communism, a deep reverence for literature and music, a breeding ground of remarkable visual art, a saga of stunning fortitude.

​© 2019 Melissa Walsh