I am currently in the process of re-vamping this blog. But it is important to note that Operation Complete Honors Thesis has been successful. A 100+ page document, now in the works of being transformed into a publishable article, any willing readers are more than welcome to browse through the pages of my research.
Now on to thesis #2. I am currently in Istanbul, Turkey researching the decision-making processes of wind energy projects in Turkey for my Master’s thesis. Lots to come.
A day in Srebrenica will hit you hard.
I made an unforgettable friend here in BiH. We first met in Croatia during our language program, and realized we both shared a common interest: Bosnia-Herzegovina. More experienced and more versed on this region, I have learned a lot from her. Coincidentally, we both were going to be in BiH doing research for the same amount of time.
A somewhat spontaneous trip, we decided to go Srebrenica during one of our day’s off. There’s really no rational explanation as to why we decided to go. Srebrenica is not somewhere you go for leisure purposes. The city where 8,000 Bosniak men and boys were murdered, where all the women and children fled to a neighboring city, going to Srebrenica is similar to visiting Auschwitz. Going to genocide memorials is more of an act of honoring those who have died, and giving an unwavering oath of never forgetting what you saw and experienced, with the hopeful realization that we as humans, as people, must work towards helping others understand how destructive and ruthless humans can be to one another. We must not allow these horrific events to be repeated. War can bring about a distortion of human compassion and capacity…but if we take the time to understand and humanize those involved in these heart-wrenchingly atrocious events in history, then such violent acts should not ever need to happen.
I do want to make the point clear, when it comes to the Bosnian War, all sides suffered. And there is no one victim, nor one perpetrator — all sides took a role in the war. Thus, I remain neutral in my sympathy, for I sympathize with everyone, because suffering is not something that is quantifiable. Greater numbers of deaths does not equate to greater suffering. But Srebrenica should not go unnoticed; the site of the largest genocide after WWII, there is something to be said about the ruthlessness that occurred there.
Rather than focusing on my own personal experience there, I’ll leave you with some facts of this city’s traumatic past. And with the hope that we can collectively stand up to collectively prevent any such atrocities from happening again.
This is a timeline of the siege of Srebrenica, published by BBC. For a more visual representation of what happened in Srebrenica, here is a documentary made by PBS – Srebrenica: A Cry from the Grave.
Marble memorial in Srebrenica, with a prayer inscription written in BHS, Arabic, and English (shown above).
The primary purpose of my visit was to gather subjective views of the effect of BiH’s consociationial government. As can be seen in the following list of interviewees, I aimed to meet and discuss with a variety from different actors – ranging from locally-run NGOs to political parties to international institutions – in order to see the varying perceptions regarding BiH’s governmental structure. Due to ethical standards, I cannot relay my findings from each interview in a public domain. Nonetheless, I can provide a copy of findings section, by request, that summarizes the overall perceptions gathered from each group of interviewees.
Organizations and Individuals Interviewed, 2009
Bosnia-Herzegovina
Austria
If you were unable to attend my honors colloquium, I have uploaded my PPT under my honors thesis tab, link number 4. This presentation should be useful in providing some background about my thesis, in addition to explaining my methodology.
Some say life in BiH is slow — where a lagging economy and unemployment have only exasperated the socioeconomic structure of society there. Though the latter is very true, life for me in BiH was anything but slow. I don’t think I have ever accomplished as much as I did during my short, but fastpaced, stay.
Sarajevo is an overall dynamic place to be. I would argue it is more a “city that never sleeps” than NYC. Despite the horrific past this city has endured, there is still a sense of resilience between its walls. The Sarajevo roses, mortar holes painted red to represent those who were killed by its shells, serve to remind the residents of Sarajevo, and those who visit, of the city’s traumatic history. Nonetheless, such reminders have not disrupted people’s drive to enjoy their lives and time, despite their enough-to-get-by incomes. Families, children, friends, and lovers all walk through the streets, at every hour of the day, drinking coffee, eating ice cream, window shopping, and going from place to place, making the most of what they have.
The large expat community in Sarajevo is also very visible. Unlike Zagreb, you can probably hear more English and other languages taking a stroll through Sarajevo than you would in Croatia’s capital. The international presence unfortunately though also drives up the “shown” standard of living, making the meager salaries of Sarajevo’s original inhabitants feel like they are not the norm. The BBI center, now a known meeting place for many people, is an absurd place to go shop. Even as an American, I could not fathom buying any non-food item there — overpriced stores, where most of the items for sale were sold in euros, I didn’t understand how such a place was not out of business. Nonetheless, not all of BBI was a grim reminder of capitalist enterprise. The food courts were moderately priced and the cafes were definitely comparable to those outside of this shopping center megalith. It was interesting though to see the presence of a Konzum there (an equivalent of the American supermarket, more specifically Wal-Mart) a cheaper place to do one’s shopping. I could only wonder how that has affected the business of the surrounding locally-owned shopping markets… During my time there, a ceiling panel from the glass structure that is BBI, fell onto an unknowing customer, injuring him. The event made the front news, and it was interesting to see how many responded to such an event with a shake of the head and a little smirk on their face (not of course at the injured man, but at the flimsy architecture).
Picture of the BBI Center.
I can say with much confidence that I have met some of the most admirable, dedicated, and driven people I know while I was in BiH. Despite the inefficient governmental system, perpetuation of ethnic identity, and slow-paced economic development, not all have lost hope in re-creating their country and working to heal the injustices of the past. My interviews have been informative and helpful but most of all, they have opened my eyes to seeing firsthand the local perspective regarding BiH’s governmental system.
And with these past three posts about my own personal reflections, I hope that I too have been able to provide some personal insight to this primarily under-represented region. (The third one is on its way — I don’t have my pictures with me on this computer…and they are a crucial part of that post).
More on my research soon – regarding my interview process in BiH, comparing my interviews from the Balkans to those in Vienna, and finally the progress of my thesis thus far.
Before I begin describing my research in BiH, I want to start off by a couple of precursor blogs on my reflections and experiences in BiH. I have tried to steer away from providing too much personal reflection in my blogs, but I think it is important, for purposes of context, to provide a little bit of my own experiences before I begin talking about my research. Enjoy.
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The bus ride to Sarajevo was rough, both figuratively and literally. But it was time for me accomplish what I had spent the last 4 months preparing myself to do. Nonetheless, the 9 hour bus ride through hilly terrain and border checkpoints was only adding to the climatic anticipation I had building up inside of me.
For the fifth time in a month, I re-packed my belongings and left for the bus station in Zagreb, where only a day before I was in beautiful Pula, just miles away from the Italian border. Though initially feeling a tad out of place in Croatia, I had grown to love the country that I knew little about compared to Bosnia-Herzegovina. Mostly though, Zagreb felt now like a second home — after much traveling around Croatia, I always ended up back in Zagreb. After several trips it always felt nice to come back to a “constant,” somewhere you knew, and somewhere you felt comfortable and at rest.
Sljeme, the mountain and highest peak within Croatia’s capital, Zagreb.
I wasn’t anticipating that I would panic going to BiH. But I realized subconsciously I was more uncertain about my time there, compared to Croatia, where I had an institution and a group of people to associate with. I had coincidentally found out that a friend from W&M would be in BiH, and that I would be able to stay with her. But the uncertainty still was there.
At this point, my suitcase was the biggest burden I had, and to a certain extent, a reminder of the unnecessary things we carry in our life. I had learned to appreciate what I have and to make the most out of the littlest things while in the Balkans and I realized towards the end of my trip that most of what I had brought, I could have done without. Zagreb was not built, or re-built, to take into account handicap rails, elevators, or basically anything besides stairs in many of its transportation buildings. It was a bit ironic then that a war veteran, limping due to some injury to his leg, took my suitcase from me and carried it down the steep stairs to the bus portal.
I sat in the back of the bus and instead of working on reading the articles I had printed, watched the changes in the city and country-side out of the window. The Balkans is a breathtaking region: lush green, deep blue, majestic hills, there is no way you can ignore the captivity of the landscape. I didn’t feel bad taking three seats to myself because there were not a lot of people on the bus. A couple of older men were on the bus, visiting their homes in BiH, ones they left to seek employment in Croatia. There was a young German couple who were having a tough time understanding what was going on, both while getting on the bus and during the border checkpoint process. My minimal German did not come to my aid in communicating with them, but I helped them at least by translating (using hand gestures!) how much it cost to stow their luggage and to get off the bus and give their passport to the bus equivalent of a conductor.
The Croatian-BiH checkpoint was a little surreal. I was a bit confused, when I got firm no when I asked if there was a restroom on the bus (even though I could see a sign pointing to a door saying restroom, which happened to be the same room where boxes where taken out from, and handed to people waiting at some of the bus stops. Remains a mystery still as to what those boxes contained). The Germans were a little uneasy about giving up their passports, and I was a bit too. This is no reflection of what I think of BiH, but rather my indoctrination by the norm that your passport is your sole guarantee-er of safety – anything happens to it, you lose your ability to leave country (easily, at least). We had to wait outside the bus as police dogs sniffed underneath it. Additionally, each one of the 15 passengers had to wait until their passport was cleared. It took an unnecessary long time (40 minutes) for such a small amount of travelers…
The bus mostly cleared out in Herzegovina — and with every stop, mostly in the rural areas, there were less and less of us left on the bus. We stopped at a cafe and I realized that I didn’t have any KM (convertible marks, the currency in BiH). I was hoping we were still in Croatian-tied territory and asked if I could pay with kuna, which thankfully was fine. I got a strange glare from the bus driver and he asked me to come sit with him, the conductor and the ticket checker. I got grilled with questions, as to whether I was a Croatian, or a Bosnian Croatian that was visiting Croatia, or a Bosnian Croatian living in Croatia, you get the picture. Clearly none of those applied to me and my broken BCS (Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian) only added to his skepticism (not sure what aroused that). I just said that I was a student at the university over the summer and that I was on my way to visit Sarajevo.
As the bus cleared out, I became aware I was the only person on the bus going to Sarajevo. The last couple hours were spent in silence. Once we entered Sarajevo, I realized I had no idea which stop I was supposed to get off. I gave up trying to figure out, and decided to let things work out, hoping that the bus terminal would be the last stop. I dozed off. I had tried to sleep throughout the ride but every time I looked out from the window, my stomach lurched. The small, winding roads on the Bosnian hills served as two-way roads, which in reality meant a heart-wrenching experience when two cars met, one of them being a bus. It was no surprise then that this bus ride left me on an adrenaline rush the whole time.
I was awoken by the driver telling me he wasn’t going to drive me any further. And there I was, in Sarajevo’s bus station. Met by my friend, it felt slightly like a homecoming – the long bus ride, the cheery welcoming…it was a stark difference to my sense of being totally alone when I had arrived in Zagreb.
The best part of it all, I got to see the beauty that is Sarajevo at night. A hill and valley city, once nightfall arrives, the hills surrounding the city shimmer with all the lights from houses and buildings that reside in them. And being down in the center of the city, makes for an absolutely exhilarating view.
The anticipation was over, I was where I wanted to be.