As poet Mak Dizdar describes in “Blue River” there exists a country: “Beyond dread, beyond doubt, beyond nine, beyond ten, deeper and stronger, beyond silence, beyond darkness.” It is here that a good country exists. A country shaped like a heart. That country’s name is Bosnia-Herzegovina and a strange people live in this heart-shaped land.
In 1984, viewers from across the region laughed at the skit “Nadrealisti” in which Rizo sells the City Hall of Sarajevo to American tourists for 25,000. Today, 30 years later, we have representatives of the city administration and employees of the National and University Library in Sarajevo.
Tuzla, an example of multiculturalism in Bosnia-Herzegovina, does not experience issues related to national identity as much as other areas, but this merely raises more questions. “Why is Tuzla not progressing despite such an advantage?” Mirza Haličević reports.
Despite the fact that it went through the most brutal armed conflict in Europe since World War II, Bosnia-Herzegovina’s multiculturalism —albeit now tinged with horrific war memories — is at least three levels above Western multiculturalism.