A Canadian Journalist in Bosnia
As I was living just around the corner, I had quite a few opportunities to photograph the Gazi Husrev Beg Mosque in the Baščaršija. In my opinion, it’s one of the most beautiful pieces of architecture in Sarajevo.
It’s also very pleasant and peaceful place when there aren’t hoards of Italian tourists wandering through.
Click below for a day/night photo gallery of the mosque and its grounds.
Sorry for the radio silence! I’m no longer in Sarajevo but I still have a lot of unpublished material that I’m going to try and put up over the next couple of weeks. So please do check back from time to time! I promise I will have some interesting posts about issues other than the elections, as well as more video and photos from my time in Bosnia.
Posts Coming Up:
- The Bridge Divers of Mostar
- The Tunnel of Life – life in besieged city
- Who are the “Others” of Bosnia and Herzegovina?
- The 5 Biggest Problems Facing Bosnia and Herzegovina today
- New photo galleries
- and more!
Have some turkish-style tea (a local Sarajevo favourite) while you wait.
Adna Lojo, 21 years old, is an English and Literature student at the University of Sarajevo. During my time here in Sarajevo, she has worked with me as a translator (and been very helpful!) She was kind enough to sit down for an interview yesterday after we covered the polling station, to offer the perspective of a younger generation Sarajevan towards the elections and Bosnia’s present and future.
Could you say your name and occupation?
My name is Adna Lojo. I am a student of the English Language and Literature, fourth year student at the Faculty of Philosophy here in Sarajevo.
And have you been following these elections very closely?
Well, not really, honestly. You were so exposed to it that you couldn’t simply avoid it but I wasn’t too interested or too much into it.
Is that just general disinterest or kind of that – young people, we don’t pay attention to politics, do you think in general?
I mean – I cannot speak for all the young people but I don’t think that- from what I’ve heard from my own friends or colleagues at the faculty I don’t think that many of them are that interested. Maybe because of the general disillusionment about politics in this country. So personally, I am simply not that interested in politics although I know that I should be.
Okay and from what you said before – how it’s all around you – from your limited view of the election, how do you think it’s been, this past month?
I think as many people have told you already (coming out of the election polling station) – I think it has been very dirty because I just recently my father brought in a special newspaper in which one party basically said really really bad things about all the other parties and that was in a way a response to the fact that one of the main people who is running for the president is actually the owner of a major newspaper. So he was able to say bad things about these people and now they are saying bad things about him.
And I watched some debates on TV and they were really… so much against each other. But I watched a video clip there was one tv show that asked candidates some basic questions that even I could answer, even though I’m not interested in politics, questions such as “what is our national hymn, how many lines does it have”, really really stupid questions – “when did Sweden join the European Union?” and some of them really couldn’t answer or one guy, they asked him what’s the largest national minority in Bosnia and Herzegovina and he said the Bosniaks. And everyone just burst into laughter … so it wasn’t very good.
How would you describe Bosnian politics?
Hmmm, you basically have – you have people who have opposing views and they probably spend more energy on fighting against each other than doing anything good. And also another thing is the fact that not many concrete things are done. They do a lot of talking, which is mostly empty promises. I mean I believe there positive examples that there are positive things I don’t want to sound too negative but they are not that exposed because of the overwhelming quality of – bad politicians
During the conflict and after – Bosnia was defined along nationalist/ethnic lines. Is that still the case?
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Photo Caption: Enlarged versions of the official ballots are posted outside the room of an official polling station in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. People living in the Canton of Sarajevo had four different ballots to fill out. Across the country, people are voting in six different political races. With more than 8,000 candidates running in the national elections, voters have a wide selection to choose from.
Today is election day in Bosnia and Herzegovina and it marks the end of an official month-long campaign and even longer un-official campaign that has been going on since late last year. I headed to a local polling station in Sarajevo, with Adna, my translator, to find out how people were feeling about the election campaign (whether they thought there were changes from the last election?), how they felt about voting and whether they thought the election outcome would provide positive changes for Bosnia.
Across the board, all views expressed about the campaign described it as a “dirty” political game. One man said it was all the same politicians but a few new ones… so he thought that was a good thing. There was a woman who compared the 2008 elections in the US when Obama was elected as a similar situation Bosnia – that it was all dreams of the people that things would get better. “I don’t think too much of changes… I don’t think that EU, because I don’t think Europe would want to help us.” But another woman I interviewed said that she thought the country would eventually move towards the EU because “it suits the EU as well and the international community as well and us, of course just I think it will be very difficult.” She also said she thought that someone – the international community, had to do something with Republika Srpska leaders, who were advocating for separation.
One woman whose husband was killed in the war said that she hoped Haris Silajdzic, the current presidential would hold on to his seat because he took care of war veterans and war veterans widows/families.
A man who came holding his young daughter in one arm with another sticking close by her dad, said he was voting for their future.
Everyone who voted said they remained optimistic, even if it was just in a “tiny bit of my heart” as one man described with a wry smile.
And 18-year-old girl voting for the first time said it was her duty and to quote Gandhi – in voting, she was “being the change she wanted to see in the world”
An older gentleman told me that he hoped the Social Democrats would win and take power away from the nationalists.
As we were leaving the polling station, an older lady approached Adna and asked her for help in voting, so of course we waited while she did her civic duty.
From what I could see in the city today – it was like any other day, a slow Sunday with lots of people sitting outside and enjoying a cup of coffee in the sunny, beautiful early fall weather. And the election process seemed very smooth, with no problems but this was of course, in Sarajevo. I heard in a few other places, Zenica, Trevnik, it was not so calm, but I’ll hopefully have more on that tomorrow.
Photos of the polling station below and the voting process below.
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I wrote a story for the Globe and Mail’s website about the lead-up to the vote in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Read the article here
Picture Caption: In the local language “Dosta!” means “Enough!” This word with the accompanying symbol is found all over the city and is the work of a citizen activist group
A gallery of other political signs I’ve captured with my camera while out and about Sarajevo can be found below.
The 2010 national elections will be the second time that Bosnia has organized its own national elections in the post-war period (2006 being the first) without international aid. There will be international observation for the October 3rd polls, however. The Office for Democratic Institute and Human Rights and Organisation (ODHIR) in partnership with the Organisation for Security and Co-operation of Europe (OSCE) has sent observers to all of Bosnia’s post-war elections and has again sent a team of both short-term and long-term staff to help observe the election campaign and the election day itself. I spoke with the Head of the Mission, Ambassador Daan Everts about the changes he’s seen in this election campaign and what challenges remain ahead for future elections in the country.
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Bosnia and Herzegovina’s political system is one of the most complex in the world. It was established in 1995 during the Dayton Peace Agreement, in the immediate aftermath of the four year war that devastated the country and surrounding Balkan region. The new system was designed to give reassurance and equal representation to all Bosnian citizens but its many levels and ethno-nationalist slant has instead led to political stalemate and a continued focus on nationalistic politics. A brief description of each level is found below.
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Photo Caption: View of Mostar from the Stari Most bridge (World Heritage site)
I visited the city of Mostar (in the southwest part of the country) earlier this week. While there, I spoke with Osvit Seferovic, a Bosnian expat who moved to Mostar in February 2010 from France where he’s lived with his family since 1992. While the main interview was about his work with LDA Mostar, a local democracy promotion agency, Osvit also spoke candidly about his own views on Bosnia, after having lived away from it and then coming back. Click below to listen to him speak about ethnic identities, corruption and their links to politics.
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