The catholic Croats are proud of “their” Medjugorje, and they often go there. But as some humorists say: Now to something completely different.
To do it the other way around, going from Medjugorje to East Mostar (meaning east of the former front line, the Muslim part) is not all that easy. No consistent rumors about buses, I don’t want to hitchhike (like I did before) with all the baggage, so I splash out 30 DM for a taxi. “What is the name of the street again? But that is in East Mostar”, the Croat driver says. He absolutely refuses to cross what is commonly called "the invisible wall", the completely destroyed former frontline. 50 m from that frontline- street, he stops.
There I go, in the hot sun (40
degrees centigrade in the shadow),
walking over a former frontline, where hundreds of thousands of bullets have
hit every single building, going into Mostar's old city, trying to find the pension I have phoned. 2
liters of sweat later, the price of that pension has incredibly increased since
yesterday. No way. Good-bye.
An 82-year-old Muslim man stops me. "I have a 500-year old Turkish house. Do you want to see it?" Yes, but first a bed and a shower. No, he wants to show me his old Turkish house. One liter of sweat later, we arrive there. Somewhere in the middle, he stops: “My heart!” Then I have to make the tour of that - indeed - wonderful house. It belonged to a wealthy Osman family, has survived World War I and World War II, but not the 90's. I get to see the kitchen, the living room, and some books as old as 500 years. I recover somewhat over tea, where he tells me that he also has a house in Western Mostar, now occupied by the army of the Republic of "Herceg-Bosna", a republic that is theoretically dead and buried. But Dayton is one thing, the facts on the ground are quite another. As much as I feel sorrow for the victims of this war, I almost become one from dehydration: I reluctantly bring up the subject of getting a place to stay. Oh yes, he knows someone, “very close”. Almost on the other end of Eastern Mostar, two liters of sweat later, I get to know another proud descendent of the Osmans, around 60 years old, married "three or four times, I don't remember". The guy has a lot of humor and knows four languages. Finally, I have arrived, six hours after I’ve left Medjugorje, 30 km away.
After having slept under a Cross and after having had breakfast next to the picture of the Pope, I now wake up to the sound of Mosques. This is the multicultural Bosnia and Herzegovina – you can still see it, if you are a foreigner.
The very symbol of multiculturalism was the "old bridge" (Stari Most) – that the Croats destroyed in 1993. Now you can see how the Hungarians fish the pieces of one of Europe's most remarkable bridges out of the Neretva River. Whenever possible, they will use the same stones. The running joke is that Stari Most will be older than before with the Hungarians re-building it. Of course, SFOR takes care of security, and the new bridge will need 24 hours of surveillance, that’s for sure.
Every day, I
do what few locals do, at least three times: crossing the former front line,
that 1.5 km stretch of a street that makes Mostar continental Europe's city of
apartheid. On the Eastern side of that street – which a
sarcast named “Boulevard of European Union” – you are in Bosnia and
Herzegovina. On the Western side, everyone feels and behaves like in Croatia.
There is even a provocative sign: "Welcome to Croatia". In a
café in Western Mostar, the mood is easy until the waiter, who was an HVO
soldier during the war, wants to start talking about the war. “This is f******
occupation”, he says, adding that later he earned only 1'500 DM as an
interpreter and field officer for the ICRC (an incredible amount in Bosnia).
Thanks to the ICRC job, his knowledge about Switzerland is very deep and differentiated. We hand out syringes
and drugs for free to drug addicts
(half-true, to avoid HIV, crime and prostitution), while he would kill his son
if he was addicted. I also learn that the Swiss, living in a multicultural
state, are "foreigners in your own country". One day, the Croats will
kick the international community out of their country, just like in Somalia. And
as to the Muslims: “Can’t you choose your neighbors?”. No, we can’t.
I am aware that Western
Mostar is not Bosnia; it’s the worst of Bosnia. Only a few kilometers outside
Mostar, in the village of Rastani, the other Bosnia can be seen. Here, Serbs and
Muslims help each other re-build completely destroyed houses. The Serb
coordinator for the return of the Serb refugees is overly optimistic: “This
will be an eldorado”, while a pensioner, who has to live with less than 100 DM
a month, says they will continue to rely on international aid - even for food. Only the Croats
of Rastani try to do some last-minute obstruction to the return of the refugees, by cutting off the water to the Serb and Muslim part of
town, for example. One Muslim historian present complains: “We are a protectorate. Why doesn’t
Mr.
Petritsch turn on the water?”.
In East Mostar, also everyone
wants to tell war stories, emphasizing their roles as victims. “Once a grenade
just went 2 meters past me when I was running to get water in the Mosque”, a
woman tells me. Most Muslims seem to be quite secular: If you look at the
dresses of the young women, you are convinced that the Sharia is not
what they think about the whole day…
The most pervert thing
about Mostar are – again – the cemeteries. Like everywhere in the towns that
were in the war zones, almost all green
areas have been transformed into cemeteries. But in Western Mostar, you can
learn history from these cemeteries. In some of them, Catholic and Muslim
graves are next to each other – that was in the first phase of the war, when
Croats and Bosniaks fought alongside against the Serb attack. In others, it’s
Croat-only – ethnically divided, like everything in this country.
But things are moving towards the better, even in this horrible town. The youngsters sometimes go to the discos of the “other side”, fall in love with each other, but don’t say anything to their parents… The mafia cooperates. And at the front line, the first café is open again, and some renovation is being done.
250’000 deaths and 2 mio. refugees can’t be forgotten in a few years.
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