COMMENTARY: Walking on Eggshells in the Balkans

c. 2000 Religion News Service (Dale Hanson Bourke is publisher of RNS.) DUBROVNIK, Croatia _ This holy season finds the Balkans in a fragile state of peace. Bosnians are rebuilding, Kosovars are returning, Serbs are licking their wounds, Montenegrans are talking about independence and Croatians are beginning to prosper. Each group is uneasy but no […]

c. 2000 Religion News Service

(Dale Hanson Bourke is publisher of RNS.)

DUBROVNIK, Croatia _ This holy season finds the Balkans in a fragile state of peace.


Bosnians are rebuilding, Kosovars are returning, Serbs are licking their wounds, Montenegrans are talking about independence and Croatians are beginning to prosper. Each group is uneasy but no one is officially at war. In this part of the world, that is cause for celebration.

Catholic pilgrims pour into Croatia en route to the Bosnian city of Medjugorje. The unofficial holy site where the Virgin Mary reportedly appeared to children on the hillside is one of the greatest tourist attractions in the Balkans. Catholic dollars, marks and francs help rebuild the Muslim country.

The Croatians, nominal Catholics before and after communism, are beginning to reclaim their religious heritage. In a cathedral in Dubrovnik, children have drawn Easter pictures during Sunday school class.

Most show secular images of chicks, eggs and baskets. Some include a decorative cross. One picture has the cross upside down. Another looks more like an X. A guide tries to explain the pictures to me and finally shrugs her shoulders.

“They are learning. We are all learning. We haven’t been Catholics for a long time.”

A visitor from Montenegro pointedly says, “Our Easter is later,” emphasizing the Orthodox dates and the ever-present religious differences.

Later, I sit in a pub with a group of Bosnians who are talking excitedly about the progress in their country. They tell me Sarajevo is beautiful again, nearly rebuilt.

“It’s not like it was before the war, but it is so much better than it was,” says Lehla, a university student.


With her stylish clothes, punk hair and deep purple nails she could be from New York. I notice she is drinking tea while her friends down beers.

“Are you Muslim?” I ask, knowing the importance of tiptoeing into these waters.

“Yes,” she says. “And so are my friends,” she adds, defending them. “They are Muslims who drink beer. I am learning to be a Muslim who drinks tea.”

I listen to her story of the war and how it changed her life. Then she tells me that she always called herself a Muslim but now she thinks it is important to find out what that really means.

“I am trying to pray five times a day and I am reading the Koran,” she says. “But I am not an extremist,” she emphasizes. “I don’t believe in women being so covered that they can’t see where they are going. It’s not safe,” she says.

Safe. The word startles me because it has come back into common usage. Just a few years ago no one used the word. Everyone had stories of bullets piercing living room walls and shells exploding in the marketplace. No one was safe.

Now I hear about neighbors of different ethnic groups coming back together to reclaim lost friendships. I learn about homes being rebuilt and villages resettled by Orthodox Serbs and Muslim Bosnians.


“What would happen if the troops left?” I ask casually, thinking that all this progress means American soldiers may not be needed anymore.

“War would start the next day,” Misha says matter-of-factly.

“In Mostar it would start in less than an hour,” jokes Jasmina, in what I have come to recognize as Bosnian black humor.

“Mostar? Ten minutes, tops,” bids Slavko, referring to the Bosnian city still stubbornly divided.

They all laugh, except Lehla, who is sipping her tea and looking thoughtful. “It’s better, but it’s not good,” she says of her country. Her eyes are sad. “We are all trying to forget, but it’s not easy.”

“Does religion help or hurt?” I ask Lehla, who has told me she is studying history. “It can be a weapon,” she says with certainty. “But I think if we can all understand what our religions really say, it can be our hope.”

A few minutes later it is time to say goodbye. “Happy Easter,” Jasmina says, and we all laugh, knowing that only in this part of the world does it seem like a perfectly reasonable thing for a Muslim to say.

DEA END BOURKE

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