kamikazis78

[kamikazis78]

I was born in Yugoslavia

       I was born in Yugoslavia. It is being remembered by older generations as a great country, the best country, country of happy people, country where education was free, health care was free, everybody had a secure well-paid job, country with no crime, where no one ever locked their door. It was a country that had many nationalities living as one nation. One country under one idea “Brotherhood and Unity” (“Bratstvo i Jedinstvo”).

          That great country does not exist any more. Why? Not because people were hungry, unhappy, scared, … After Tito, who led the country for 35 years, died on May 4, 1980 the whole country cried. He had a plan for us, but …

        With him no longer around to guide and lead with a “hand of steel”, it didn’t take long for the people who he was sending to jails for their political views (and other things that that entails) to start getting in power by calling for democracy. They were counting on nationalism which was suppressed by “Brotherhood and Unity” ideology. It was a battle for power initiated and fueled from the outside.

In my research, I came across timeline of breakup of Yugoslavia on Wikipedia. I just want to point out two events that I think are interesting:

1. May 4, 1980

Death of Yugoslav President Josip Broz Tito. A Presidency of 9 members assumes  power, containing one member from each constituent republic and province,  with the ninth place taken by president of the Presidium of the League of  Communists of Yugoslavia.

The doors were open.

2. March 14, 1984

US policy toward Yugoslavia is changed with National Security Decision Directive  133,[3] but aim of  policy is shown in 1982 NSDD 54 which is calling for "silent"  revolutions in communist countries.

A trace from were the initiation and fuel came from.

If you would like to find out more, fallow the link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_breakup_of_Yugoslavia#1992

        I remember seeing Stjepan Mesic, President of Yugoslavia, on TV, holding a speech soon after being elected and saying: “I will be the last President of Yugoslavia”! It was 1991. I didn’t understand then and I don’t understand now why he or anyone else would want to be the last president of something good.

      Soon after, the war started. I have heard it, I have seen it, I felt it. I can push it away and almost close the door all the way. But I can’t forget it.

       I had many History classes through out my elementary and high school education, during and after the war. Almost everything I learned made me proud of the history of my people and my people. My people are Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, …, Yugoslavian. They were heroes, fighting against Ottoman Empire, Hitler’s Germany, they fought together to get their freedom from Austro-Hungarian Empire. They were scientists Nikola Tesla (Serbian born in Croatia), humanitarian Mother Teresa (born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, Albanian born in Macedonia), world leaders Josip Broz Tito (one of three founders of Non-Aligned Movement, Croatian born in Croatia), sports legends (Vlade Divac, Novak Djokovic, Drazen Petrovic, Monika Seles, Nemanja Vidic, Sinisa Mihajlovic, …).

       People of my broken-up country have a lot to be proud of. But, politicians who destroyed our country and the ones leading them now in their 7 small different countries, are not reminding them of the great history and the true heroes. They are not trying to bring them back together and make their lives better. They are keeping them in fear, they are feeding their anger and hate. My people are hungry, scared, poor and angry.

My people are not the same any more and they don’t want to be the same people any more. They want to be Serbs, Croats, Bosniaks, … . My people are not my people any more. I don’t know will they ever be my people again.

         But, I know that now, I‘m just Serbian from Bosnia.

[kamikazis78]

Yugoslavia Before and After Wars

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War and Love

          Here is an essay “Can War Be Abolished?“ I wrote on my English Class when I was 14 years old. It was 1993 and my country was at war with itself within itself. 

         “What is war?  That’s the first important question in this discussion. If we can answer that, we can answer how we can abolish a war, maybe. The definition of war can be: “A war is correlative conflict between two nations or two countries or two social classes.” But is a war only that, a conflict between two large groups of people? If you ask me, I will say: “No.”

           A war can be lead between two men. One man can lead a war; in his soul, heart or mind. I think that that is a war, too. Why that couldn’t be a war? That war has his leader, his army, his military strategy, his victims and everything else that a real war has. You might say: “Well, you are wrong. That’s not a war! There is no real leader, no real army, no strategy and no real victims. Who is one man’s enemy anyway?” Man is his own worst enemy, we have all heard that. It’s true, we have seen it many times. Every man makes his decisions for himself, that makes him a leader. He is the one who fights with himself when he is insecure. At the end, he will be the one who will be hurt.

           Now you might say: “But that’s nothing in comparison with a true war. There are thousands of soldiers, thousands of victims!” Yes, that’s true. But, soldier is a man, victim is a man and one man is a man, soldier and victim at the same time.

           Why people start a war? That’s the second important question. People start a war for many reasons. Sometimes, reason doesn’t even exist, but the war does. Why? It’s in human nature to fight, fight for everything, even for something that doesn’t exist. That tell us that the reason isn’t important.

           Can War Be Abolished? No, I don’t think so. If we can’t abolish war within ourselves, how can we abolish war with others?”

 In June of 1997, a year after the war ended, I graduated from High School. For final exam in Serbian Literacy, we were writing about love. Here are a few final sentences from my essay. 

           “Love is the meaning of life. If you didn’t love, you didn’t live. Only love can raise a wave of peace, so lets all love each other.”            

[kamikazis78]

Interview with Bahrudin Kaletović (Tuzla, 1971 - Tuzla, 1998), corporal (recruit) Yugoslavian National Army (JNA) in Slovenia’s city Krakovski Gozd in 1991 at the beginning of the war.

He was serving mandatory military service when the war started.  The journalist asked him what does he think is happening. He replies: ”I see it like they want to like separate (independence) and we are like not letting them.”  He is talking about how scared he is, how many of his friends from the unit have been killed that day. He wants his mother to know that he is alive and well and that he will come back home with God’s help. At one point he said: ”This can’t be happening!”  He said that the enemy (referring to it in general, nobody specific) is saying that they (the JNA military) doesn’t want to retreat, but he said that that is the only thing they (JNA soldiers) want, to go back to military base and go home.

At the end, he is begging the journalist to appeal to politicians on all media outlets to stop that madness. 

[kamikazis78]

Not so Simple

          Before the war started, I didn’t know I was Serbian. I never thought of myself as Serbian, neither did my parents, my neighbours or anyone that I knew. No one ever talked about any other nationality but Yugoslavian. I thought we are all Yugoslavians living in one country that was fought for during WWI and WWII by many different smaller nations (Serbs, Croats, Macedonians, Slovenians, …) who were of the same descent, South Slavs. When the war started, I, somehow, figured out on my own that my family is Serbian. Maybe because of our religion or traditions. I “defined” all the members of my huge extended family.  My mother had 9 siblings. I realized that one of my aunts is married to Croatian in Zagreb, my other aunt to Bosniak in Sarajevo, my uncle to Hungarian in Croatia. I have many cousins from that side of the family. I “defined” them all. That didn’t change how I felt about them, nothing will.

       While researching for this blog, I came across many articles that are hard for me to read. Not because they are new for me or because the truth hurts or because lies hurt or because I am ashamed of my origins. It is frustrating to read and it’s making me angry and sad at the same time. Every article is blaming Bosnian Serbs and Serbia for war. I was old enough then and I am too old now not to see and not to understand for myself that Bosnian war and every other war in the world since WWII is just a stage were big and powerful are producing and directing. They start with a few scenarios and manipulate the bloody play until they accomplish what they set out to do.

           During Bosnian War; Serbians, Bosniaks, Croatians and every other minority was being robbed, forced out of their homes, tortured, killed. They were doing it to each other. There is not one victimized side, there is not one aggressor. There are just victims of civil war that could have been prevented but our national leaders were self-centred dolls played with by the evil’s hands.  

           On March 1, 1992, the first bullet was fired in Bosnia. It was fired in Sarajevo (Bosniak’s capital city that is being one of the examples of Serbian aggression). Bosniaks killed people in Serbian wedding party because they were caring Serbian flag. Tensions were high already and that was the beginning of the end. After that, it was just getting worse for everybody.

       Friend of mine, that I met during my university studies, was Serbian born in Sarajevo. One night in April of 1992, their Bosniak neighbour told them to take as much of their belongings as they can and to run towards the woods surrounding the city to save themselves. She dressed up warm and put her old running shoes on because she didn’t want to ruin her new ones and she would be back home soon anyway. Right? Little did she know that she will never come back. In the morning, she watched her house from the hill. It was in flames; all the memories were gone. She never went back, not even 25 years later. She cries every time she hears an old song about Sarajevo. Its author is Croatian born in Sarajevo. The song is called “Sarajevo, my love”. Her story is unfortunately one of many.

      My aunt that was married to Bosniak in Sarajevo, died just before the war. My mother and all of her sisters and brothers were at her funeral, they were lucky to get out with one of the last buses leaving the city. My uncle in Sarajevo stayed in touch with mom’s family during the entire war, and they have seen each other few times since the war ended. His daughter, my cousin, moved to New York and lives there for around 20 years now. I opened her wound when I shared a story on social media of 22 young soldiers (18 to 19 years old, I don’t know their nationality) killed in Sarajevo while they were being escorted out of the military base where they were serving their mandatory military service for Yugoslavia. We exchanged many long messages, but we couldn’t convince each other of anything. Our conversation ended with her saying that she loves me and that I am her sister, but that she hates Serbian people and always will. Her mothers side of family is Serbian, she is half Serbian. How can she hate her family, how can she hate herself?

I understand that it’s not simple.

        There is no way back, and I am afraid there is no way forward with how the national leaders are governing (read manipulating) their small countries and their citizens. I am just hoping that people (Serbs, Bosniaks and Croats) will not let their leaders push them against each other ever again.

[kamikazis78]

Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Latinska ćuprija or Principov Most Latin Bridge (or Princip Bridge in Yugoslavian era) is an Ottoman bridge over the river Miljacka in Sarajevo. The northern end of the bridge was the site of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria by Gavrilo Princip in 1914, which became casus belli of World War I.

[kamikazis78]

Loss

           I have a brother, but only in my heart and my thoughts. I should say older cousin, but he was my big brother. He was 25 years old when he was killed on August 24, 1992. That changed my world.

           Until then, war was not real for me. My town was attacked three times, I have heard thousands of fired shots, I have heard that people were being hurt, killed. It wasn’t real, we were invisible, we were safe. But not any more.

           I was broken, I was afraid. His death was my punishment. Punishment for something bad I did, I just didn’t know what. Maybe because I was ignorant to what was happening around me and I was still happy. Weeks later, I went with my family to his house, to express our condolences to his parents and sister. I was feeling guilty and whenever someone would open the door, I would see him walking in. We walked trough woods to their village cemetery and his grave. For me, he wasn’t there.

           I didn’t go to my aunt’s house for years after that. I was thinking about him every day for many years. For me, he was a live. I was reliving great memories of him that I had. I spent three whole Summer Breaks on their farm when I was in Elementary School. I was 7 years old when my grandfather got sick. My parents sent me away so I didn’t have to see how my grandfather was getting sicker every day. That was my first Summer Break ever and they sent me away. That Summer and next two, I spent on their farm. I enjoyed every minute. Memories of him from that Summer are the first memories of him I have. He shared his room with me, he was teaching me how to play a guitar, he gave me small metal bars so we can lift weights together, what ever he was doing and where ever he was going, he was taking me along. I was his happy little shadow.

           My clearest memory of him is when me and my mom met him by the park. I recognized him from far away, way before my mom did. When we got close, my mom told him: “Siniša, son, zip up your jacket! You will get cold.” With a big smile on his face, he replied: “No, aunty, I am not cold.”

           All this years later, I don’t miss him any less. I miss him even more. He would be uncle to my kids, and I would be aunt to his. I would be their best aunt, I would spoil them, the same way he spoiled me.

[kamikazis78]

Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Most Patre or Gradski Most        - Patre Bridge or City Bridge  

Kastel Tvrdjava         - Kastel Fortress is located in Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina. The fortress is medieval but is situated on the site of previous fortifications going all the way back to Roman and even pre-Roman times.

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Define Yourself

       Can a country and place we are born in define us? I am not referring to culture, language, values, beliefs. I am talking about how other people can see us and what first impressions they might get just by finding out where we were born. I am talking about generalization and prejudice. Like in my case, one might come to the point where you expect it. It happened countless times that when someone would ask me what my background is, I would say Serbian, then they would say: “So, you were born in Serbia?” To my replay: “No, I am Serbian from Bosnia” they would just say: “Oh.” Most of the time, that would be the end of that conversation, but in some cases, people would go on to elaborate on the war by telling me what they “know” or ask innocent but hurtful questions. I finally found a way to deal with it. I would say: “I am Serbian from Bosnia; the worst kind of Serbian.” I would say it with a smile, and for whatever reason, that would be the end of that. It made me look and feel bad, but at least I wouldn’t have to listen or discuss it further with strangers.

        Many years later, some other bad people are taking over the news and leading roles of bad guys in movies and criminal shows. It doesn’t make me feel any better that some other nation and religion is carrying the burden. It just strengthens me in my belief that we are all being played by media that is being used as a tool for anything and everything. For every individual, it would be a constant daily effort to see through that curtain of deception. People are way to busy with their own life to be able to give time and effort needed to understand something that is happening half a way across the world. Even I, generalized and judged, must fight all the time with the first notion that comes to my mind when presented with some news.

       I was fortunate to move to Canada and to have the opportunity to live a better life. The rest of my family is in Bosnia. They are struggling for things that people and even my own children, who were lucky to be born in peaceful and rich countries, are taking for granted. If only we all could have the same opportunities and choices for better lives?! It breaks my heart to see people who have every chance in life to be happy and make others happy and proud, but they choose to hate, humiliate, hurt and kill.

         I know that we are all different. Like I said, we can’t choose where are we Born, but even if we could, our experiences change us. War, Love and Loss can change us for better or for worse. Every little word, hug, tear, pain, smile, makes us who we are. And that’s where I think we all have the chance to be the best we can be. Take any experience you had; you choose how and what you take from it. Through your choices, You Define Yourself.

[kamikazis78]

Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Stari Most is a 16th-century Ottoman bridge in the city of Mostar in Bosnia and Herzegovina that crosses the river Neretva and connects the two parts of the city.