Shalom

It seems to me this night that I could be mistaken. It could be only my impression. When I came to Bosnia people spoke of a language called Serbo-Croatian.

In 1995, Serbians spoke Serbian; Croatians spoke Croatian. Perhaps this is only a semantic argument in English. Most people there called it our language. It was only the strangers that needed clarification. My friends heard where their friends were from and if they needed more clarification they had the license plate.

You can’t tell where people’s cars are from in Bosnia anymore. That was a reform that seemed a no brainer. In retrospect all their reforms were. Language and music have been reformed by the west to their separate corners. Not a sinister plan just a typical master plan of the un-checked market. In the mountains of Bosnia music and language where something closer; nuance carries its own information and the exchange always efficient.

In 1996, Civil Service International conference pages looked at people’s badges before asking if they wanted a copy in Serbian or Croatian. When they got to the Bosnians they didn’t ask, but understood. Everybody who needed the our language copy got one.

No idealization is involved on my part. On that point there is no mistake. There are many types of Bosnians, Americans, Liberians and Iraqis. When a country has nothing to hide strangers can see how it is possible that people lived that way. Especially the living stand testament. The secret that is difficult to share is that place I love is that I love it is that it is loved. I was never alone in Bosnia, but there are always shady characters around. If you were driving a car in 1995, not an unproforac, not in the army, I am sorry to say my friend you are not the Bosnian I write about. And you’re shady by the way. And in my own defense I never sold anything for a profit in Bosnia.

Idealization is involved on my part. Sometimes you come to key moments in your life. Those special times when you notice that not every one lives like you do. No one really talks about it, but it is the easiest of thing to occur. The process of living your life involves a specific context a certain perspective. If you have no sense of what I mean then I must confess a greater ignorance of life. In any case it would only be a slight shift in this my universe. Relative. One example of a word that shows this language has soul.


In 1997, I left Bosnia. Many humanitarian organizations began selling anything for a profit. IMG started working there a company from Cleveland came to rebuild water systems. Much of the US funds for social service programs for youth came from the Bosnian market, with middle men in Iowa. Monetization sounds so positive. Here is how it worked: the US bought commodities on the market at home. They inflated the price to farmers, their voters. Those goods were sold at a loss on the Market in Bosnia. They figured it wasn’t too much and not too little, but just right; in any case they monetized the excess commodities into money. Americans always know how much money they need. We were doing them a favor. It was for their good and our good. The difference for me was that I had come to Bosnia from Euclid, Ohio. There are many areas of my city that didn’t have as nice a youth center as I worked. How could Americans solve anybodies problem. Now we were stealing money because we thought we knew better.

In 1997, I watched well educated Bosnian Refugees and Serbian activist spend fifteen minutes on the construction of one sentence. It wasn’t debate as much as a craftsmanship. I was pretty sure that was why they called it our language: meaning was nuanced and direct. In Serbia there were no normal Americans. No one told them how to behave. The organization I joined was about a time and place. Tobacco may have when to the front from Nis, but what returned was the entire former Yugoslavia

When I found my Bosnian friends after the war spoke Bosnian I certainly wasn’t surprised. There was a guitar player I knew in Zenica. He sang mostly Macedonian songs. After work wasting time or staying late to perform the music spoke to me. In not understanding words I placed importance of every one. My process of living my life grab the music and gave grave importance just in the way things were.

That guitar player also told me a story about the tunnel to Sarajevo. I have seen one side. He told me his. He had been drafted recently from his job as an UMCOR music teacher. Our local male staff’s adieu was, “see you on the front lines.”

That guitar player was in supply. He carried Drina cigarettes through the tunnel to Sarajevo. He spoke of the water and all the details so many other people have written betterer. He spoke of what he observed. His friends never had a thought of religion before the war. As he traveled with some through the tunnel he saw what it was that picked them up. It was their faith and religion was irrelevant to what he was telling me.

That was the end of the story essentially. That was all he really told me. I thought I ran into him in Serbia one time. I felt myself splash down in cold water. It was the premerie of White cat black cat in Nis. A few seconds I thought he stood up with the director. In the Balkans I know that would be possible. He survived the end I did see him once in Sarajevo. Only time I saw him with a few generations of his family in the center. The first time I ever saw him without a care in the world. That guy was going places. Religion didn’t come up in the discussion we had. But we spoke to each other of a simple faith: videmo se.

My concert promoter friend in Gronji Vakuf used to tell me the thing about music is the lyrics. For him it was all music. We had hundreds of concerts on the former front line of G.V. Together in that project a band of teens came together form both sides. When I first came to G.V. they used different kinds of money depending on which door you took out the office.

Every city had its own war. Mostar and Vukovar speak to me of cause. G.V. was per capita the place not to be in Bosnia. A friend told me that he had a bike and rode 18 km to bugojno all the time. When I translated the story for a stranger they didn’t understand the joy. He had a bike. A difficult thought to express on English: he had his choice of girlfriend. Very few had bike. He was the man.
There are so many stories of that city. Why did they fight over the name? The name Vakuf is what the Bosnian culture developed in those mountains. There was only one way out of town and one way in all over Bosnia. Geography is never factored into any analysis of anything. It is the route catalyst of kaos and joy.

A Vakuf was a humanitarian organization. They called the man in charge I have, so I was told. That was where people went when they needed help from their society. Nothing was really ever muslim, catholic or orthodox in those mountains. That guitar player didn’t need to explain that to me.

The year I left people started to return to a joint market place on one side of the line. No one had an explanation for why they had been apart for so long. No one seemed to ask for one. Many people see a bleak future for the Balkans. In all the process of Bosnia in those dark years. There remains for no reason a Gornji and Dornji Vakuf. Not that Bosnia wouldn’t have survived, but that is how it survived.

Bugojno was supposed to be the capital of HerceBosna. Instead it became a front line for so many years. The artillery had to cool off. People went about their business by the new schedule. The Army Tito created was about defense. There are probably a few Islands in the world with submarines under them forgotten in the death of Yugoslavia. He was about nothing if he wasn’t about staying in power. Say whatever you like about him. I just know many still idealize him.

In Olovo the tanks were on the cliffs outside town. Nothing about that war made sense if you forget to factor the influence of the past. Not the unknowable past but the simple past written and recorded for all.

There is story that I saw today that helps explain this American semantic argument. Looks like after 9/11 the CIA was actually very good at torture. They asked the guys who ran the military survival school how to do it. The school gave them techniques based on methods believed to be employed by the KGB. First of all the CIA doesn’t know how to torture. What did they do to JFK in the bay of pigs. It was a slam dunk.

Is there nuance there? Everyone now generally agrees it was a bad idea. Now everyone is talking about a very effective WWII system that was in place. Anybody got a line on info about that? Anybody got a library card? Just there on the shelves. Sometimes books are blown up.

All we have are other libraries which remain. What do you say to someone who witnessed death all around. Things are sometimes lost and something more difficult to preserve.

Every religion has such interesting stories. So much hatred of Jewish culture in my culture. If enough libraries are blown up Henry Ford seems like a blessing. Anybody read about the brave new world. Wouldn’t certain information be lost in that case. We leave history alone on the shelf waiting to be blown up. Western Europe wouldn’t let people of Jewish faith own land so their community remained liquid and prepared to dash. You never knew which town would start killing them today. It was good to have family in other places.

In Sarajevo that was different. There is no agreed upon impact of the Ottoman Empire, but I think most would agree the Jewish faith was better respected. Sarajevo. The deepest routes of families I came across in Sarajevo, more than one person I find impossible to describe nor believe were from that faith.

You remember no one else has the reasons you do. Even when I can’t define them this fact doesn’t change. I traveled to other places and listened. The bartender in Split in response to a story of Bosnia, “Everyone has there own,” she said as we all started looking to the floor. But for half a second in that coffee bar everyone understood that life did not make sense from this particular perspective. And I turned and walked out into the old city. Shalom in the air. I will never forget what I heard and that sun over the Adriatic upon those mountains to Bosnia which I would soon drive. Vozdra