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Muslims Return to Two Communities
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22438 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
Date : |
8 / 2002 |
533 Words |
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Written and photographed by Peter Slavin
Peter Slavia is a freelance writer based in Virginia. |
The return of Muslims has gone very differently in a village and town only a few miles apart in Bosnia. Pocitelj is a picturesque village set on hillsides rising above the Neretva River. It had gained international recognition for its centuries-old mosque and Ottoman-style homes. The village used to draw thousands of visitors annually and had become popular as an artists' colony. The Croats literally rewrote Pocitelj's history after they drove out its predominantly Muslim population in 1993. They dynamited the ancient mosque and left other structures in ruins.
Since the end of the war, a few Muslims have returned to Pocitelj. They found their homes robbed of everything. Many structures had only the walls remaining. Some Croats have been willing to surrender the houses they appropriated, and others have refused to return properties to their rightful owners. Local authorities have neglected their responsibilities to assist returnees, according to a Muslim with lifelong family ties to Pocitelj. Returnees have also been subjected to verbal harassment and worse.
Rebuilding Pocitelj's monuments is no small task: special stones, skilled workmanship, energy, and long-term commitment are all required. But to date, returnees to Pocitelj have largely been elderly. Young people see no future in the village. There are no schools, no jobs available, and no realistic opportunity for tourism to revive. Pocitelj is becoming a place for old people, and a vital Muslim community may never fully revive there.
Nearby, in the beautiful small town of Stolac, a different picture is emerging. The town, which had several seventeenth-century mosques, was ethnically cleansed of Muslims by Croat forces in 1993. Muslims who returned in 1998 were the targets of some hundred or more incidents. Croats cursed them and threw grenades, stripped the wiring and floors or even set fire to their houses, tampered with the water supply, burned their hay, and cut down their fruit trees. None of the incidents were properly investigated by the police, say UN officials.
But in the past two years, the communal situation in Stolac has improved greatly, according to a UN officer who works with the police. For one thing, Muslim and Croat kids "are now playing together on the [school] playground," she says. "Before, that was unthinkable." Hostile acts toward returnees are now infrequent and more apt to involve words than deeds. About half the prewar Muslim populace has returned.
Why the change?
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