The March is an experience that I would not have missed for anything on earth. I do not know the exact number of participants: some say that there are almost 5000 people. In any case, the crowd in Nezuk, the hamlet from where the march begins, is impressive. Straight from the start, one can feel that it is an event which is difficult to organise, not only because of the sheer number of participants – the army of Bosnia and Herzegovina is very competent in logistic matters – but more because of the situation in that region of Eastern Bosnia. The organisers are afraid that the behaviour of some participants could offend the Serbian orthodox population, thereby putting Muslims who live in the region, which is in Republika Srpska (Serbian Republic – one of the two entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina), in danger.
Today is July, 8th 2010. The crowd gathered on a meadow listens to the organisers’ speeches. Most people had little sleep, but no one can wait to start walking. It is the fifteenth anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide. The organisers call each group from the platform. SARAJEVO – clamour, Bosnian flags fly (two flags can be seen: the official flag, chosen after the war by the high representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as the one decorated with fleurs de lys, which has been the flag of Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1992 to 1998), the group from Sarajevo sets off. KAKANj – MOSTAR – TUZLA – ZVORNIK – JANjA – FRANCE – SWITZERLAND – TURKEY – SAUDI ARABIA – ŽENE U CRNOM (Women in Black), BELGRADE, etc. Just like at the beginning of some sport event. As if the participants were carrying the baton of the famous youth relays of the socialist period – but today, it is not a youth relay race. Today people are carrying the baton of memory of the Srebrenica genocide. Belgrade’s Women in Black share the general motto of the March: “Da se ne zaboravi genocid u Srebrenici” (Lest we forget the genocide in Srebrenica genocide).
The column of walkers moves very slowly, like a long snake along the paths of the peace march, which is called “trasom smrti do slobode” (To freedom via the route of death). At one point, a slightly stupid idea crosses my mind: we are walking from the first village of the free territory to Potočari, i.e. we retrace the very steps that Muslim men took in 1995 to flee from the UN “safe area” of Srebrenica (although in contrast to us, they walked more through forests and mine fields rather than well-traced paths). It is symbolically like a breath of life, a return of survivors...and only symbolically unfortunately. Except during the week before July 11th, when all the journalists come to film and take photos of the pain, the town of Srebrenica is rather dead.
From the very beginning of the march, Women in Black received an extremely warm welcome: they had been expected to come for some years – probably since the march began in 2005. Every time people hear our accent they ask us where we are from. When they hear that we are from Belgrade, they exclaim “svaka vam čast” (Bravo, congratulations), offer us even more coffee and cigarettes, ask for news from Belgrade, how life in Belgrade is nowadays…Many of them have lived – be it for studies or work – in the capital of Yugoslavia. Just two short anecdotes to give you food for thought. The second evening, we are resting in our van when suddenly we catch sight of a man holding a crate full of watermelon slices. My friend asks if we can get some. The man, a Bosniak who now lives in Switzerland, laughs and says that the watermelon is not for everyone but that, depending on where we come from, he might give us some. When he discovers we are from Belgrade, he not only offers us as many watermelon slices as we want but also comes back ten minutes later to offer us the last slice. Half an hour later, soldiers of the army of Bosnia and Herzegovina, seeing the license plate of our van, ask us permission to take a photo of it. And I could go on and on with such anecdotes…
But the major problem is that there are only a few of us who came from Belgrade, and what is more, almost all are active in one way or the other in Women in Black. No young person came on her/his own from Serbia. Education concerning the acceptance and the memory of the genocide in Srebrenica is still to be done.
What impresses us the most, it is the behaviour of Bosniaks. They literally thank us for having come from Belgrade, they do not hate anyone – as one of the Women in Black observed. It seems that this famous quote by Meša Selimović truly depicts reality: “Možda bi trebalo da ih mrzim, ali ne mogu, ja nemam dva srca, jedno za mržnju, drugo za ljubav” (Perhaps I should hate them, but I cannot, I do not have two hearts – one for hatred, the other for love). They are warm-hearted towards absolutely everyone. Women in villages make coffee and tea for 5000 people, offer plums and apples to walkers – whereas stories that can be heard during the march are frightening. With the passing of the days, people begin to tell their personal stories. Some are survivors from this march. One of them, Zulfo, tells how he spent one month in the forests between Potočari and Nezuk, surviving by eating tree leaves and snails, while Serbian paramilitaries were throwing hallucinatory gases – this is how he managed to escape from the UN “safe area.” Another participant bravely walks with his stick, his black beret and his suit – he is between seventy and eighty years old…
Three days, some hundred kilometres… It is pretty exhausting. But the atmosphere is so incredible that you do not really think about tiredness. Everyone speaks with everyone, fellow walkers socialize, people stop anywhere on the sides of the path, whenever they feel like it, and offer what they have – coffee, Drina cigarettes, fry fruits, cakes, sardines, etc. People exchange their impressions, explain where they come from, why they came to the march, how many times they have participated in this march. There are many groups of young Bosniaks who are still in high school or have just finished it. Each group wears T-shirts. “ 7. Muslimanska”(7th Muslim Brigade), “Radnici fabrike ...” (workers from this or that factory), “Prijatelji iz Janje”(Friends from Janja), “Turski Bosanski Šehidi” (Turkish and Bosnian martyrs – each T-shirt shows a photo of one of those martyrs on his deathbed, as well as the date of his death)…There are many flags. Only one of those groups is extremist, the one from Saudi Arabia: their aim in this march is the jihad. They came with many Saudi Arabian flags that they kindly offer to Bosniak high school students, shout every hour or so “Allah Akbar” – many Bosniaks have a good laugh and answer “Take beer” instead of “Takbir” – and although it is theoretically forbidden to sing during the march, they burst into religious songs from which we grasp only a few words – Allah, jihad, shahid…When the column of walkers passes by an orthodox church, they slow down the pace and shout with even more fervour “Allah akbar.” With two friends, we decide to answer, reductio ad absurdum, by singing one of the most idiotic songs in the history of Yugoslav popular music: “ti si moja čokolada” (you’re my chocolate, I’m your chocolate, and if you weren’t that young, I’d kiss you…).
But also come to our minds songs from the communist period: “Uz Maršala Tita” (With with Marshal Tito), “Budi se istok i zapad” (East and West are waking up) and other songs. This is another interesting aspect of the march: one can see different layers of history piling up.
The joyful, communal and solidaire atmosphere which appears day after day, combined with physical effort, reminds of the work actions (“radne akcije”) of Tito’s Yugoslavia. In the evenings, it is the Bosnian army that welcome us and organise the mess. People sleep in UNHCR (Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) tents. The long column of walkers reminds of columns of refugees. Not to speak of the meaning of the final destination of the march – the memorial for the victims of the Srebrenica genocide in the village of Potočari.
The most difficult thing to withstand, it is the repetition of horror. Primary and secondary mass graves every ten kilometres or so; sometimes some ten corpses, sometimes of few hundreds. Each day, we see signs indicating mine fields. Every day, we see façades riddled with bullet impacts, half-destroyed houses – one cannot see old houses, just one, actually, on the third day of the march, in a completely inaccessible place – or half-finished houses. Sometimes, sheep settled in those houses.
On the last day, the eve of the commemoration, we see 775 coffins passing, one by one, carried by hundreds of arms all the way from the factory to the memorial.
Belgrade, July, 18th 2010.
