For more than 4 centuries residents of
Mostar have gathered to jump from the bridge in a tradition that has
grown to become a symbol of civic pride. The people of Mostar have not
missed a single year since the tradition started, not even in the
darkest times of war.
But the city became much more than just a bridge. Ottoman carsijas, or
marketplaces, stretched out to meet mosques, churches, and residential
districts in all the various architectural styles the city's population
brought with them.
With time, Mostar became the most powerful, influential city in
southern Bosnia and Herzegovina. With time, all Bosnia's various ethnic
and religious groups began to blur. All Muslims came to be considered
Bosniaks, all Roman Catholics came to be considered Croats, and all
Orthodox Christians came to be considered Serbs - not that it mattered
much anyways.
Mostar had more mixed marriages than any other city in the Empire and
everyone had a brother or sister who had fallen in love with someone
who went to a different religious building on the weekends. When Mostar
became a part of Yugoslavia, the city had a higher percentage of people
declaring themselves ethnically 'Yugoslav' on the periodic census than
any other city in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
How quickly things can change.
Between 1992 and 1993, the town was subject to a nine month siege.
Serbian forces first attacked the city on April 3rd, 1992, and over the
following
week gradually established control over a large part of the town.
On
April 8th, Bosnian Croats founded the Croatian Defense Council (Hrvatsko Vijeće Obrane,
HVO) as their military formation, which engaged the Serbian forces in
combat. Serbian shelling damaged or destroyed a number of civilian
objects - among them were a Franciscan monastery, their Cathedral and
Bishop's Palace, with a library of 50,000 books, as well as the
Karadoz-bey mosque, Roznamed-ij-Ibrahim-efendija mosque and twelve
other mosques.
On June 12th, the HVO military force amassed enough weaponry and
manpower (including Bosniaks and Bosnian Serbs) to force the Serbian
troops out of Mostar. The 4th Corps of the Army of Bosnia and
Herzegovina, the primary
military formation of the Bosniaks, was founded the same year in
Mostar. A siege ensued and the city was bombarded by Serbian forces
from the mountains to the east.
In 1993, the Bosnian Croats and Bosniaks began a long struggle for control of Mostar. The Bosnian Croats
launched an offensive on May 9th where they relentlessly bombarded the
Bosniak quarter of the city, reducing much of it to ruin, including
numerous other mosques and homes from the Ottoman era, including the
Kujundiluk.
During this conflict reprisals against Bosnian Serb residents of the
city were common among both Bosnian Croats and Bosniaks, in part to
force Bosnian Serbs from the city and remove any justification for
Serbian forces to continue the siege. The city's Orthodox Church, the
largest in Bosnia and Herzegovina, was destroyed. Rubble from the
church was used to pelt Bosnian Serb civilians as they fled into the
mountains on foot to Serbian-held territory. One 15-year-old girl was
killed. It is assumed her parents never survived the war and she is
still burried in an unmarked grave in Mostar.
On November 19, 1993, something happened that sent shockwaves across
Bosnia and Herzegovina, even as war-ravaged as it was. Croatian forces
pounded the Old Bridge for more than three hours until it collapsed
into the Neretva River.
The destruction of the Old Bridge terrified Bosniak residents of the
city. A common sentiment was "if they'll destroy that bridge, all bets
are off. They'll kill us all". The bridge had survived numerous
conflicts, including the Great War and the Holocaust, but never before
had the city become the victim of such intense hatred.
"The day they destroyed the bridge
was the worst day of my life. That bridge was as much a part of my body
as any limb, any organ. I lost everything. It may sound silly to
foreigners but I had no reason anymore for living. So I gave up, I
left. I can't even look at pictures, I can't even... sometimes I still
wish they had killed me. I would give anything to have died before that
bridge came down, to not have to know it."
Svetlana Konstantinovic, refugee (Trebinje, Bosnia and Herzegovina)
A ceasefire was declared in February of 1994 but the damage had
already been done. The city's population had polarzied, with most
Bosnian Croats living on the West Bank of the Neretva River, and most
Bosniaks living on the East Bank. The city's small Jewish community had
also polarized to join the Bosniaks as Croatian nationalism in the city
had taken on strong Nazi undertones.
When all was said and done, roughly 1,200 Bosniaks, 450 Croats, 300
Serbs, and several dozen others had been killed. More than 25,000
people, among them 18,000 Serbs, had been forced from the city.
Soon enough the rebuilding process began.
Mostar remains, according to the United Nations, the most divided
city on earth. However, there are signs of hope. Movement between the
two halves of the city has been restored and both sides now share a
single municipal government. Attacks against civilians who dare venture
to the other side have slowed and a family returning to their pre-war
home on the "other side" has not been murdered for several years.
Still there is more to be done. The city remains intensely divided between Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats:
The Bosniak side of the city, which includes virtually all of the
old town and the Old Bridge itself, has once again become a tourist
Mecca. It is the only district in Bosnia and Herzegovina currently
funding its own reconstruction using its own industries. The money has
been used to rebuild the district's Synagogue, but no plans to rebuild
the Orthodox Church have been fruitful.
Less than 3,000 Bosnian Serbs have returned to the city and most of
these returnees are either half-Bosniak or half-Croat, married to a
Bosniak or Croat, or pretending to be a Bosniak or Croat.
Grafitti in and around the city, though, is showing young people are
anxious to move beyond the hatred and establish a viable future. No
longer is the side of every building plastered with:
SIEG HEIL!
YOUR GOD IS DEAD!
WE F--KED YOUR MOTHER IN *Insert concentration camp name*!
Now they say things like "I love my city".
Bosnia and Herzegovina: I LOVE YOU!
Anti-War.
While it may not seem like much - an
advertising campaign featuring Miss Bosnia and Herzegovina 2004,
Njegica Balorda (an ethnic Serb) - has been installed in the city
without incident. This would never have happened as recently as three
years ago.
Little Bosniak, Bosnian Croat, and Bosnian
Serb children play together once again in the backstreets of Mostar. It
is the single most important expression of hope and the best possible
way to end this thread.