Travel Reference
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Big men drove by in
little beaters. High-school
students crowded around
the window of the local
photography shop, which
had just posted their class
graduation photos. h e
schoolgirls on this cruis-
ing drag proved you don't
need money to have style.
Through a shop win-
dow, I could see a newly
engaged couple picking
out a ring. One moment I saw Nevesinje as very dif erent from my home-
town...and the next it seemed essentially the same.
And then, as my eyes wandered to the curiously overgrown ruined building
across the street, I noticed bricked-up, pointed Islamic arches...and realized
it was once a mosque. As if surveying a horrible crime scene, I had to walk
through its backyard. It was a no-man's land of broken concrete and glass. A
single half-knocked-over, turban-shaped tombstone still managed to stand.
h e prayer niche inside, where no one prays anymore, faced a vacant lot.
h e idea that there had recently been a bloody war in this country is
abstract until you actually come here. Walking these streets, I talked with
locals about the cruel quirkiness of this war. h e towns that got of relatively
easy were the ones with huge majorities of one or the other faction. Towns
with the most bloodshed and destruction were the most diverse—where
no single ethnic group dominated. Because Nevesinje was a predominantly
Orthodox town, the Serbs killed or forced out the Muslims and destroyed
their mosque. Surviving Muslim refugees reportedly had to walk for a week
over a mountain pass to safety in Mostar—where, Serbs like to say, “h
Nevesinje teens gather to see class photos.
ey
found better living conditions anyway.”
Remaining impartial is an ongoing challenge. It's so tempting to think
of the Muslims—who were brutalized in many parts of Bosnia-Herzegov-
ina—as the “victims.” But when traveling here, I have to keep reminding
myself that elsewhere in this conl ict, Serbs or Croats were victimized in
much the same way. Early in the war, outcast Serbs migrated to safety in the
opposite direction—from Mostar to Nevesinje. On the hillside overlooking
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