The Ferhadija Mosque

DUST BOOK TWO PART ONE MAPS, COMPASSES AND MINEFIELDS A BOSNIAN IN WALES The last luminous leaves of autumn hung swollen gold from the dark branches of tall trees around Trigonos, the house by a lake in North Wales. Slate-grey waters lapped the shore in the shadow of the cloud-shawled curves of Snowdon. Ros Tennyson, now our advisor on partnership, had invited us to Trigonos to discuss the next stages of the Soul of Europe’s work in Bosnia. Donald and I met with Adnan, our colleague from Sarajevo, and Mirza and Samir who had translated for us at the Coventry Consultation in Coventry. Mirza and Samir had fled Banja Luka during the ethnic cleansing when they were boys, and had now settled with their parents in London. Mirza, a twenty year old with a compact physique delicate and tough as porcelain stared across the dining table, dark damp eyes smarting from recollected pain. ‘I don’t care to stay in the past,’ he said. ‘The future is what matters, how we change our lives, how we make our country a richer and better place.’ 1 His family were among the last to leave Banja Luka towards the end of the war. The writing had been on the wall for several years, many Muslim friends having already left or disappeared. But eventually the time came when Bosnian Serbs turned up at their house with guns and ordered them to leave. A bus took them to the border with Croatia. Mirza had just turned fourteen, but a slight growth of dark hair on his chin and upper lip made him look eighteen, which turned out lucky for him and the other passengers. More Bosnian Serb soldiers stopped the bus along the road to Croatia. ‘Are there any Muslim men under eighteen?’ one of them asked. ‘If so they must get out here.’ The soldiers were culling Muslim boys. Mirza tried to keep a low profile, feeling the intensely protective and frightened gaze of his mother urging him to be silent and not move. ‘If you don’t hand them over and we find any boys on the bus we will shoot all of you,’ the soldier threatened. But before he began his inspection an incident on the road distracted him, and he gave only a cursory glance over the passengers. He did however pause at Mirza. But noticing the ghost of a moustache on the boy’s face he allowed the bus to move on. Mirza’s premature hairiness saved his life and also the other passengers. The bus disgorged the refugees by the wide River Sava, where they were left to fend for themselves. Fortunately UN troops patrolled the opposite bank, so although Bosnian Serb soldiers cocked their rifles waiting for opportunities to kill a Muslim for the Holy Serbian Fatherland, the refugees remained relatively safe. Eventually boats took them across the river to Croatia and Mirza’s family made its way to the UK. A devout Muslim, Mirza observed Ramadan, so during his stay at Trigonos he only ate and drank in the evening. He told us how being a member of the Banja Luka 2 Choir he had been one of two Muslims who performed at a concert in front of Radovan Karadjic, sitting prominently on the front row next to Bishop Jefrem. He remembered the special beauty of the Ferhadija Mosque. He used to enter whenever he felt sad or stressed and the warm space and exquisite wall decorations would inspire him. After kneeling in prayer he would look up at the dome and feel peace in his soul. Then one day he cycled past and saw the mosque in ruins, rubble everywhere, the minaret lying in pieces on the ground. He now remembered the people passing by, many of them Serbs, stopping in their tracks and staring in stunned silence at the desecration. No one could grasp the enormity of the vandalism. ‘I am the only one here who remembers the Ferhadija Mosque as it used to be, and saw its destruction.’ • Some months earlier Denis Arifovic, our contact person in the Bosnian town of Bihac, visited Trigonos and made friends with Ros Tennyson’s youngest son Addy. Addy, like most young boys, thought of war as glamorous and exciting. Denis spoke to him of the daily experience of siege and survival; how hard it was to come by shoe-laces, for instance, wearing the same clothes day-in-day out. He spoke of discomfort and deprivation. This shocked Addy, whose only knowledge of war came from films with their adoration of massive artillery, fast action and inevitable triumph. ‘What do you think we missed most?’ Denis asked the boy. Addy paused thoughtfully, taking in all that he’d been told and came close: ‘Sugar?’ ‘Coca Cola!’ said Denis. • 3 RETURN TO BOSNIA IN AUTUMN 2001 ONE MAN’S EVIL IS ANOTHER MAN’S GOOD ‘If you get Bishop Jefrem to meet Mufti Camdzic in Coventry I will personally buy a ticket for you to have a holiday in Hawaii,’ Reis Mustafa Ceric had joked with us before the Coventry Consultation. He assumed along with everyone else that we would fail. So we arrived in Sarajevo expecting an upbeat reception. However the Reis looked depressed. ‘Is it better to be alive or dead?’ he asked rhetorically as he strode into the room. He was referring to the invasion of Afghanistan, terrorism, Bin Laden and Islamophobia. We had been waiting as usual for several minutes in his austerely furnished reception room where a little light filtered through the barred windows into the chilly gloom. The only picture on the walls was a small black and white photograph of Alija Izetbegovic, the Bosnian Muslim leader, kneeling in the Begova Mosque. A young woman wearing a hijab served us Turkish coffee on individual brass trays. Trying to resist the Reis’s melancholy mood we launched into a discussion about the follow up to Coventry and talked forcefully and positively about future developments in Banja Luka and the possibilities of rebuilding the Ferhadija Mosque. ‘The difficulty is working with the Republika Srpska,’ sighed the Reis, not sharing our enthusiasm. It now dawned on us he had not expected to see us again. We had become a nuisance. The positive outcome of the Coventry meeting had wrong footed him. His fez was 4 perched slightly askew above a sad and perplexed face; he must have put it on hastily without checking in a mirror. Ifet Mustafic, his chef-de-protocol, attended the meeting, sitting solemnly on a chair by the door. Normally busy with other matters, his lean and monk-like presence indicated the importance of this occasion. Ifet wrote copious notes and bestowed an occasional friendly nod and smile, rare gestures which came only when deserved. After the meeting of political and religious leaders in Coventry the project to rebuild the Ferhadija Mosque had suddenly become a reality. The Reis looked uneasy about this, but not wanting to discourage us he set out to warn us of the immense problems ahead. ‘The Republika Srpska is a result of ethnic cleansing. The choice is simple: you either cancel out the Republika Srpska or you give in to Karadjic. The Dayton Accord may have stipulated conditions to establish peace, but the present demography and political divisions in Bosnia are based on Karadjic’s vision and hopes for his people. Accepting the Republika Srpska means acknowledging Karadjic and his policy of ethnic cleansing as a given fact.’ ‘You don’t give up!’ exclaimed the Reis, exasperated at our persistence. ‘We have to do things for ourselves and need to learn how to take responsibility.’ He told us about a recent ceremony in Trebinje for the laying of a foundation stone for a destroyed mosque. Trebinje is in Southern Bosnia where Serbs and Croats had massacred many Muslims and burnt their homes. Jacques Klein, then the United Nations Representative in Bosnia, drafted a statement to be signed by all the religious leaders. The Orthodox Metropolitan complained but grudgingly agreed. Klein, though good at 5 twisting arms, could not change attitudes however many documents might be drawn up and signed. The Reis considered the best way to proceed in our project might be to present everyone with a fait accompli, but then reverted to his former pessimism: ‘Don’t expect outcomes. As Hobbes said, make an effort and try not to be hypocritical. Tell your Prime Minister Mr Blair that to secure a good future for Muslims in Europe only professional, not voluntary, representatives of Islam should be allowed.’ By voluntary he was referring to the dangers of self-appointed imams with personal political agendas setting themselves up as teachers and influencing disaffected young people in their communities. He continued: ‘Europe must help Muslims establishing their own schools, train and educate imams in Europe, not importing them from distant parts of the world where they have different traditions and cultures. They are embarrassing for Muslims who are now European. But those who live in Europe must respect European traditions. So don’t import imams. This is the job of governments. Muslims must be part of the system. At the moment only the voices of the extremists are being heard. We have to open up serious dialogue. In New York no one heeds the messages. The European Union and America must understand that the problems will not be solved by arresting Bin Laden.’ The Reis now warmed to his argument: ‘I hate my friends coming to talk about reconciliation. Sometimes I prefer lemon to sugar.

Load more