The beginning of the world

“Here they are,” says Melika and pulls up the blinder in the dinning hall of the House of Trust, a peace building NGO in Srebrenica. Six police cars drives up in front of the municipality with the blue lights on. They are followed by big black cars with tint windows. All with black number plates with yellow letters  – cars with diplomat status.

The cars come from the embassies of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Libya, and Palestinian territories. They are coming to Srebrenica to discuss how Srebrenica can get a special political status in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In July 1995, about 8000 Muslims or Bosniacs were killed during a few days by Bosnian Serb forces in Srebrenica. The massacre has become a symbol for the violence during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 1990s. Later in 1995, the Dayton Peace Agreement was signed of the warring parties and the country was split into two entities. The federation has Bosniac/Craotian majority and the Republic of Srpska has Serbian majority. Today, Srebrenica belongs to the Republic of Srpska. After that the sentence of the International Court of Justice in Haague that made Bosnian Serb forces guilty for the genocide in 1995, a group of Muslims in the town has demanded that Srebrenica no longer should belong to the Republic of Srpska, but get a special independent status.

“This is politics in Srebrenica,” says Melika. “A lot of people are coming for a day and discusses our future without asking us about it, and then they leave.”

Melika points at a man with a camera on the opposite side of the street. He is a foreign journalist. We observe him discovering a group of women with patterned scarves covering their hair. Several journalists have already gathered by the women. He joins the other journalistst and starts taking photos.

“He takes picture of what he expects to see here,” Melika says and pulls down the blinder again.

The door to the dinning hall opens and Amir enters. He makes a comment about the police cars while Melika brings him coffee. Amir moved to Srebrenica from Tuzla four years ago to work for Musicians Without Borders. He is running a drum orchestra with children from the town. The orchestra has become very good. They often go to other towns for performances.

Once a British journalist wanted to watch when Amir was practicing with the orchestra. She recorded the practice and afterwards she wanted to ask questions. The first thing she asked was how many Serbs and how many Muslims there were in the group.

“She could have asked anything, how many of the children have electricity at home or how they have learned how to play so well, “ says Amir.

 Some days ago, Melika arranged a lunch for women who lost their families during the war. Around 60 women came and they stayed long, they were eating and dancing together without caring about who was Muslim and who was Serb. Melika had called journalists because she wanted them to see the women as something else than victims. No one came.

“No one seems to care about that this is how peace is built, not trough high political decisions,” she says.

Amir and Melika sight. Politics and media focus on ethnicity while the people in Srebrenica tries to focus to move on. Srebrenica is being used to achieve political goals, but no one really knows how life is in the town. Everyone that comes leaves quickly again.

In the youth centre, Ljubiša is checking news on the internet. He is quickly reading trough the articles he finds about Srebrenica and continues to the next homepage. Some years ago, Ljubiša and his friends built up the centre by themselves. They were tired not to have anything to do, so they took spades and picks and started to build up the old theatre in Srebrenica that was left in ruins. Today, they have a fully equipped centre with internetcafé and a big stage where local bands often practice. Moreover, Ljubiša and his friends can get some paid for the work they do.

“We are just trying to build some sort of normal life, but then someone who does not live in Srebrenica come and decides something about politics,” says Ljubiša and stops reading the news. He turns on music and logs into the centre’s forum instead. Outside the window the police cars drives by with their blue lights turned on. The streets in Srebrenica turn empty again.

Mikica, who also works in the centre, enters. She teases Ljubiša and then starts  puttin up a big white flip chart on the wall. Today they are going to have a meeting about the festival Silvertown Shine that takes place once a year. Bands from whole ex-Yugoslavia come to perform in Srebrenica.

Mikica is tired of the focus on the history of Srebrenica. She wants to look forward. Mikica often goes to seminars all over Bosnia and Herzegovina to make new contacts and talk about the work in Srebrenica. She wants to change the reputation of the town from being seen as the end of the world to something new, a town where people actually lives.

Mikica asks me to hold the tape for her. Then she takes the lid of a pen and starts writing the results from a survey that has been sent out to youth organisations in the whole country about the festival. Many have heard about the festival, many have visited it, and many plan to come this year. Mikica puts on the lid of the pen again and turns towards me.

“You see, she says, this is not the end of the world. It is the beginning.“

 

Srebrenica. March 12, 2007