Yukoslavia Dissolved

      In this blogpost, it is my intention to look at the Balkan Wars and the dissipation of Yukoslavia from the point of view of a Bosniak. First, though, here's an overview concerning what happened then between the Serbs and Bosnia. Bosnia is a country in Europe, along with Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia, and Macedonia. These countries' geographies are not often recognized; people assume they are from the Middle East due to their names and cliches, but also primarily because of the Balkan Wars. In the 1990's, Bosniaks were Bosnians who were Muslim. Before the wars, Bosnia didn't have a clear majority people group. The two main peoples were Bosniaks and Serbs. This lack of majority became a strong cause for the conflicts that broke out in 1992 leading to the Balkan Wars. At that time, the Serbs were becoming increasingly powerful and proud under the rule of Milosevic. When Bosnia declared a partition of itself from Yukoslavia, the country both it and the Serbs took part in (as well as some others [Croatia]), the Serbs were worried that in the independent Bosnia, their majority would be ignored. For this reason, they attacked the Bosniaks in Bosnia, meaning to exterminate them from the country though something called "ethnic cleansing". In reality, the massacre caused by this was far from cleansing.

 Yukoslavia Before and After

     Here's an idea of what it might have been like to be a Bosniak at that time (and also just a story):
   

     Hello. My name is Ajla. I live in Bosnia, a country that used to be part of Yukoslavia. I am a Muslim and I am lucky to be alive. During the Balkan Wars that seperated Yukoslavia, some others I knew were not so fortunate. Me and my family lived in Srebrenica. On July of 1995, I lost my Uncle Abdulan, my brother, Ibro, and my father, Amel, to the Srebrinca massacre. Me and my mother, the only surviving members of our family, fled with some other women and men to Potocari, a nearby muslim city. There, we lived in an unjust combination of fear, grief, and instinct. I never recovered from the deaths of my family, but somehow I pushed those thoughts out of the front of my mind so that I could help my mother and I stay sane. In Potocari we were kept at a Dutch base. Not long into our living there, a suspicious number of Muslims vanished from the grounds. After asking around, we learned that 5,000 muslims had been exported from the base in exchange for 14 of the Dutch peacekeepers beings held captive by the Serbs. My mother and I were horrified. We decided to escape from the Dutch, afraid we would be amongst the next export. With us were four other Muslim women: Hana, Lamija, Enisa, and Esma.

 Ajla and Mother after Srebrenica Massacre

 

       After escaping the Dutch grounds, we were left homeless and without food or water. Lamija had decided to stay with the Dutch the day before we left, so now we were five. We decided to flee to Kladanj. On our way there Esma and Enisa, sisters, dropped from the group in Bratunac, on of the towns we stopped in. Hana, however continued with us faithfully. Sometimes we traveled with other Bosniak groups and other times we were seperated from them, but during the whole journey Hana, my mother and I stayed together. When we finally reached Kladanj, we were feverish and weak. We had eaten little the whole duration of our trek, so our skin sagged slightly in places where we had lost weight. Some of the people in Kladanj had not yet heard of the massacre in Srebrinca, but once we told them, they were very curious. Hana, my mother and I were not eager to impart much detail, having already removed ourselves from the genocide as much as we could. Still, we told them what we could.

     
      Until the wars ended and Bosnia was once more at peace, Hana, my mother and I worked as a unit to support ourselves. We had lost everything because of the Srebrenica Massacre and it wasn't easy getting back on our feet. A kindly woman named Basma took us in for the first few days we came to Kladanj, but it was painful living with her, kind as she was. She was too curious about Srebrenica. Besides, she could not feed the three of us for long. After leaving her abode, a woman named Dana hired us to work in her shoe-making factory when she met us by chance, having accidently spilled her tea on Hana while walking past us in the street. We worked there contently and rented living spaces from a man named Paul Hardt. He was from America and we thought him rather strange, but he was kind. His wive's name was Catherine Hardt and she was very kind as well. She spoke our language hesitantly, but she treated us as family, often reminding us to call her Kate. Both of them were very fond of talking about their God and a man named Jesus. Mother always pretended not to hear. I followed in example. Hana was the only one who showed any interest. When the war finally ended, we three did not celebrate with the crowds of Muslims parading about. No; we produced a dinner of our favorite dishes and had the Hardts over to thank them. I'm afraid the end of the war was more of a relief to us than a joy. Too many sorrows had passed our threshold for joy to come in easy.

       After the war, we supported the arrest of war criminals through our speech, but there was little else we could do. We were not living in either Croatia or Serbia, where the peoples resisted a hunt for the war criminals. Paul and Kate lowered our rent, the economy having loosened it's reigns. They didn't cease to visit us and give us favors, small and large, here and there. Hana and Kate had become close friends and Kate spoke our language fluently now. One day, Hana came back from the Hardts house, barely bigger than the one we rented, with something different about her. She could barely contain herself as she shared with my mother and I what had happened. She had converted to the religion the Hardt's believed in, Christianity. I was confused. My mother was angry. She did not show it bluntly, but she never treated Hana the same. She removed her in the same polite way as she did the Hardts. I could tell Hana was hurt, but she treated my mother the same. She was consistent despite my mother's inconsistency.

      It was the winter of 1997, and my mother did not come back from a trip to the post office. She had taken the city bus, as usual. We all investigated anxiously: Hana, the Hardts and I. It was not until a week later that the police notified us of my mother's death. She had died of a heart attack, as it was reported. No one knew exactly why. After that, I broke. I had prided myself in my ability to press on despite our losses, working harder every day, but now I could see that that was only a facade - a weak shield. Hana tried to console me and the Hardts spoke of God increasingly. Slowly their words gained interest to me. December 6th of 1997, however, I finally heard them for the first time. The God they spoke of was a better God than Allah. I wanted to know such a God and to love him. That day Kate prayed with me and I accepted the gift of salvation. I believe that was the day I was born. I also believe God used the separation of a country to save me, because that is who he is; he brings life out of death.