(Kingston, Ontario, Canada)
Looking back on my trip to the Balkans, it turns out that Bosnia & Herzegovina (“BiH”) has left the greatest impression on me. Croatia and Montenegro are stunningly beautiful countries, but I mostly felt like I was on vacation while there. For those countries, that is definitely a good thing. By contrast, BiH was a real intellectual challenge…something that isn’t often associated with a vacation.
The war in BiH officially ended in 1995 with the Dayton Accord. I say “officially” because it is extremely difficult to suddenly end such a devastating war and then carry on with normal living as if nothing had happened. Even now, 19 years later, the war is still in the face of almost everybody in BiH. There are “war tourists” who want to know what happened. The political boundaries are based on the front lines as they stood in 1995. There are paralyzing disputes about which sites (if any) from the war should be developed for tourism. There are still bombed-out carcasses of buildings throughout the country. And, as I was to find out during my “Siege of Sarajevo” tour, people are still dying from landmines.
I didn’t mention the landmines in my blog at the time. Among other reasons, I didn’t want to overdramatize what had happened, given that it was only my first full day in BiH. I wanted to believe that BiH had moved on from the war. But after spending a week there, I realized that mentioning the fatality wasn’t overdramatizing . It is simply the reality of today’s BiH.
As you will recall, I visited the crumbling bobsled run from the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo. High up in the mountains, about a one minute drive away from where we parked to walk down the bobsled run, our tour leader pulled over on the side of the road. There was a driveway and what appeared to be an abandoned (but still standing) house. Cars occasionally passed us – this wasn’t downtown, but neither was it far from the hillside suburbs of Sarajevo. Our guide explained that, less than 3 weeks ago, a man was killed near the edge of the driveway by a previously-undetected landmine. It happened about 12 metres from where we were parked. It was an extremely sobering way to spend the first full day of my trip.
In another town, I was given an apparently comprehensive sightseeing map. Upon closer inspection, I noticed that the largest (religious) building in town wasn’t on it. The building had been there for many years – clearly, it was omitted because it belonged to a different religious group. With such persistent reminders, in addition to ongoing landmine fatalities, the war is indeed still being fought.
Next month, BiH will participate in soccer’s World Cup. This is an incredible accomplishment and marks the first appearance of BiH at this prestigious competition. I’d like to believe that this presents an opportunity for BiH to focus on what binds them, rather than on what divides them. I recently watched the movie “Invictus”, which showed the unifying power of sport in the South African context. Nelson Mandela saw South Africa’s rugby team as an opportunity for South Africa to move on from the miserable past of apartheid.
I’ll certainly be watching BiH closely in the World Cup. I don’t know for certain whether the team roster includes players from each of the groups that make up BiH, but it would be wonderful for each of those groups to be cheering for the same team, just like South Africans eventually did in “Invictus”.
