Musings
Daniel Callahan
Balkans Dialogue 2011



Before leaving for the Balkans, before the pre-departure trips, before even signing up for the dialogue, I had flirted with the region. In 2007, my parents and I went on a cruise through the eastern Mediterranean, taking me to, among other places Dubrovnik, and that’s where the affair began. The seed that would grow into my love for the region was planted in already fertile soil, Dubrovnik had a rich history going back to the time of the Romans, playing into my affection for history, and had an encounter with 20th century, post communist nationalism, tying it into my interests in both Eastern Europe and international relations. As I made my way through Northeastern I quickly learned that there was a summer study abroad program, and one could take me to the Balkans, obviously I signed up.
The initial meetings and interview with Mladen had me excited long before we were going anywhere, traveling with someone who is not only a local, but a connoisseur of history as well meant that the trip would be engaging and informative for me. Learning that both Dennis Sullivan; the father of the Northeastern Dialogue program, and emperor of International affairs, and Ioannis Livannis; the veritable arch-duke of IAf, and current leader of the other dialogue I want to do, meant that the prospects for this trip were great, and only heightened my excitement. When we were given our fist assignments, reading and documentary watching, I jumped right in, consuming the documentaries in a few weeks, and began reading Holbrooke’s To End a War. This all coincided with the wind down of my co-op, and the weeks immediately prior to departure were full of move out and storage concerns rather than travel, so that when the time did come, there was no room for apprehension, I viewed it as another travel, in fact, I had about the same amount of baggage as when flying home for the summer.
I got to the airport by myself, there were none of those “heart wrenching” goodbyes that I heard about from other kids in the airport, I had gone more than the 5 weeks without contact with my parents before, this would be no different. When all of us finally met up in the airport, I saw a few people I know, I few I knew of and many new people, we exchanged names, and brief life stories, and hopped on the flight to Munich. I changed my seat online for a window seat, not realizing we were all en bloc, during the flights I worried that my relative absence from this prologue to our trip would hinder my getting along with the others, which was only compounded a little later.
We arrived in Belgrade, collected our luggage, and stumbled our way to the bus, meeting Dragan the driver, and Dragan the guide for the first time, driver Dragan maneuvered the bus out of the underground pick up lanes of Belgrade airport with expert skill, again a good omen for the two weeks of travel we’d have on the backend, while guide Dragan gave a minor introduction. Driving through the city for the first time we could pick out the old communist era buildings, the older Austrian buildings, and the new “free market” era buildings, as we approached the hotel, Slavija, the closest thing we had to a home besides the bus, was better than my cynical mind had imagined. When the room situation was being established I was again worried that I would be left un-cliqued due to my being in a room alone, for at least a little while without Miguel, but these fears were belayed as it seemed everyone was as eager to make friends as I was.
By this time I had finished reading To End a War and it helped me to frame the trip a little bit more towards the conflict of the 90s, and how it was negotiated. The book portrayed Milosevic and Serbs as the bad guys, however as I read of the actual Dayton process, it seemed Milosevic was willing to make many more concessions than the Croats or Muslims, mind you, the war in Bosnia was primarily due to Milosevic influenced Serb aggression, but still as Holbrooke points out, it was unprecedented for a force that had never really suffered any major defeat to concede so much. We began seeing the sites, with the first being the Temple of St. Sava, this experience, and this temple itself served as an appropriate representative for the rest of the trip. The church on the outside was beautiful, marble façade, imposing, big windows, but on the inside, it was hollow, the poured concrete walls were visible, none of the windows were decorated, and I see this experience now as a good representative of the region. The people, and the government for that matter, have been trying very hard to make everything right, to make everything beautiful, but something has gotten in the way, in the case of the church, like the case of the region overall, money, war, and foreign interests has hindered the process for the last century.
We saw more of the things to see in Belgrade, wandering through Kalemegdan getting a taste of the ancient through modern military history of Serbia, visiting B92; speaking with the self-proclaimed government watchdog media, and getting a lecture from the Djindjic foundation. These two talks were very interesting; both provided us with examples of the anti-Milosevic movements, as well as pro-reformers and pro-western camps. This is also around the time we went to visit Novi Sad, and this is where my first critique on the program kicks in, Novi Sad was a cool city, and deserved an afternoon of wandering, however I was disappointed by the timing, going to Novi Sad during the Exit festival weekend, and being unable to see the Exit festival left the visit shallow. I for one would have been very interested in meandering through the Petrovaradin fortress, but it was closed for that one weekend we went, for the music festival. We were in Belgrade for two weeks, and only an hour away from Novi Sad all that time, yet the one weekend that we cannot see everything is the weekend we go? On a much lesser note it was very very hot that day, and everyone was in a foul mood, but that is through no fault of our guide or leaders.
We met with the special Prosecutors Office on War Crimes, members of Parliament from the Democratic Party and with members of CANVAS, these meetings too tied in with the pro-reform, anti-authoritarian feeling we were exposed to at the Djindjic and B92 offices. All of these experiences helped us to understand just how unliked the Milosevic regime was by large sectors of the public, and all of the people we met with during these days did something to change their situation. These meetings, I think, all helped to better inform us on the conflict, its resolution and its outcomes, firsthand accounts are better than anything we could read in a book, and they certainly fit within the framework of the program.
My favorite meeting in Belgrade was with the Belgrade Center for Security Policy, the organization was created to focus the issue of why democratic control of armed forces is necessary, and the role of the Yugoslav forces in the conflicts of the 90s. I found this meeting particularly interesting because that is something that I might want to do for a career. While I completely agree that transitional justice and political and social reforms are necessary, that’s not my area of interest. This meeting fit right into my point of view that state power is engendered by its monopoly on violence, and appropriate democratic use of the violence is necessary for a just and healthy society.
The last meeting we had in Belgrade was with an MP, or youth MP, from the Democratic Party of Serbia who describes themselves as center-right. He had a lot to say, and for the first time on our trip it wasn’t blatantly pro-west. While talking to some of the other students I found that they did not particularly like this presentation, but I thought it was absolutely necessary, as I said it was not pro-west and EU accession, it gave us a different point of view on the current and future politics of the region, while the presenter may not have been the best rhetorician, he certainly knew what his party was all about.
Our unlucky journey to Nis was interesting though a little disappointing. As I said earlier I enjoy history stuff, so the prospect of stopping to see a Roman Villa, that was frequented by Constantine was exciting, though in reality, it was mostly some tarps covered in gravel, and ultimately not all that important to the dialogue, being that while Rome is awesome, it had little bearing on the conflict of the late 20th century. However the end half of that trip, visiting the Skull Tower was pretty cool, and had relevance to the issues of the Balkans today, what with the Serb-Muslim, and everyone’s feelings on Kosovo.
Kosovo could have been cool, we only had one meeting there, with an NGO which promotes inter-ethnic youth dialogue, and helping Serbs that fled Kosovo to return, but our hotel was too far away from anything to be too interesting, and we were there for all of 36 hours. If I had to sacrifice a free day in Belgrade for an extra day in Kosovo, I certainly would. I also would like to have visited some of those “cradle of Serb Orthodoxy” churches in Kosovo, and more pertinent to the dialogue, maybe a meeting with an organization which is run by Kosovar Albanians?
The trip from Pristine to Sarajevo was tumultuous; again we could not do anything about it, so no hard feelings there. While I recognize we needed food and potty breaks, I was not a big fan of Mokra Gora, a tourist trap on the top of a big hill, the food was ok, I am glad we did not spend as much time there as originally intended. Sarajevo was very cool, again a situation where if I had to trade a few days in Belgrade for a few days in Sarajevo I would. Visiting the old Serb Orthodox church and closing that with a talk with a Sarajevan Serb who was involved in the war, had multiethnic friends and now lives in the States was very interesting. This Dragan seemed like a very cool guy, he had a touching story that was apposite to our dialogue. Seeing the memorial at Srebrenica was also important to our trip, I guess seeing the gravestones made the entire thing a little more real, imagining 8000 people and seeing 8000 stones is quite different. Though I think we could have used a little more information on what happened during the Srebrenica incidents, I watched all the documentaries, and they didn’t go into much detail, maybe during the bus ride an explanation as to how these atrocities were taking place all over the immediate area, in the other small towns and the hands of some Serb paramilitary forces, some ragtag bands of Serbs and whoever else, because the museum there painted a pretty bleak picture of Milosevic commanding Mladic to roll in there and kill, which I don’t think is exactly how it happened.
The visit to the Constitutional Courthouse in Sarajevo was in my opinion the most important visit we had in Bosnia-Herzegovina. We spoke to two international judges from the US, which was very cool because they had a deeper connection to us than any of the previous speakers, and could break things down into ways that we understand. They did an excellent job explaining to us just how hard the post-war justice process has been, how important the international community has been, and how hard the local governments are working to bring about justice. Unfortunately it sounds like the international presence there will be drawing down in the coming years, and future meetings with international judges may be difficult. The same day we spoke to Azan, our first non-Serb speaker, even after having left Serbia six days earlier. Azan is a Muslim, fought in Sarajevo to defend his neighborhood and family, and eventually commanded a portion of the Muslim army that was established there as the war dragged on. Not only was his story very cool, but it was different, entirely different than what we had been getting up until this point, I cannot emphasis how much I valued his perspective on the conflict, he had firsthand knowledge of how things happened and it was from an entirely different perspective than what we were used to.
Our visit to the Bosnian Parliament was cool, learning about how the government works, or nowadays, doesn’t. While it was primarily a tour I liked it, the lady who spoke to us fielded our questions well, and explained the overly complicated way in which the parliament in Bosnia-Herzegovina works, she seemed rather unbiased towards any one ethnic group which was refreshing. In my opinion we spent too little time in Sarajevo, there are probably more people that we could talk to, and more importantly some Muslim cultural stuff to see maybe? We as a group did not enter a single Mosque, nor did we speak to any Muslim social or political leaders, I feel I would have gotten a better experience of certainly Sarajevo, and the dialogue overall had we gotten more on the Muslim/Bosniak perspective.
Mostar was another cool old city, the fact that it is predominantly Croat in Bosnia-Herzegovina was interesting, and meeting with the members of the Croat Party of Bosnia-Herzegovina was also interesting. While the kids that they had speak to us did not seem to be all that knowledgeable on how exactly the party worked, or how they intended to go about what they wanted, it was a different perspective than the Serb-centric we had been getting for the 3 weeks previous. This is a good a point as any to throw my comments in about Balkan politics, it seems, particularly in Bosnia-Herzegovina, that everyone runs on a platform of victimization, they have their ethnic bloc, and the politicians claim that their party was victimized the most, and therefore needs reparations, in my opinion this is a terrible way to run any kind of politics, particularly in a place where reconciliation and state-building are so important.
Our trip to Dubrovnik also had its ups and downs for me, I appreciated the stop at the old Serb Orthodox Monastery, the history thing intrigued me, and it is an example of the ethnic cleansing that took place during the war, so that’s all fine and dandy. The stop at the purported miracle site, was little more than a food and potty break, the non-Vatican recognized miracle site was secondary, and irrelevant to our studies. Going on Dubrovnik itself, while I absolutely love the town, was inappropriate. Dubrovnik was not directly involved in the politics or the fighting of the war, it was shelled for a few days, but that’s it, it has immense historical value, but it didn’t fit into our dialogue. This continued onto Split, again a beautiful historic city, and the Plitvice lakes, a natural wonder for sure, but this period didn’t fit within our framework. These days were framed as a mini vacation, a sort of R&R for us; however I feel that having that before the end, made it harder for me to finish strong. One of those “Oh we get 4-5 days of vacation and then we get Zagreb to finish strong” turned into a “The trip is done, time to chill out” attitude, and speaking to a few other students they felt similarly.
Our situation in Zagreb was similar to that of Pristine, too far away, and too little time. Our hotel was on the outskirts of the city, we spent as much time in the mall eating as we did in bed, not an authentic Croatian experience by any means, but more time in Zagreb would not have meant much had we not gotten more substance, presentations by more Croatian organizations maybe a legitimate presentation by members of parliament rather than a walking tour of the building. Our discussion with the Foreign Policy Advisor at the Presidents compound was phenomenal. He had a lot to say, all of it interesting, he laid out the five-fold way in which Croatia had to transform, how hard it was for the Croatian and other regional state governments to gain the trust and support of their people in the face of historical precedence. He spoke about how important the EU, and supra-national bodies like the EU are to reconciliation and peacemaking and keeping in the region, he spoke on how the Balkans conflict was not all that unique in the long history of Europe. All in all he was a great speaker, and I think the program would suffer greatly if that wasn’t set up for next year. I found this presentation again valuable because it provided a different point of view, helping to encourage dialogue in my head between the various actors, his talk did not focus on the victimization of Croats at the hands of Serbs, or Yugoslavia or the international community, admittedly that may be because of Croatia’s relatively good standing after the conflict, but it was nice to see that not every person running the various governments down there are stilted by ethnic ideals.
The final talk we had, with the Serb Business Association in Zagreb felt almost superfluous, we had spoken to so many Serbs both in Serbia, and as minorities in the other regions that this felt like it was too much. While I found it interesting that the organization had a history going back to the Austro-Hungarian empire, I was burnt out, and was sick of the Serb victim story.
I regret nothing, I enjoyed almost every minute of my dialogue, I made an effort to go to every presentation and talk we were given, and while I may have been seen and not heard, I absorbed more knowledge in those few weeks than I could have in a dozen classes on the region. Wandering around, touching, tasting and hearing the experiences of the Balkans will leave an indelible mark on the framework through which I examine conflict and negotiations, as well as international relations. Most importantly I think that this dialogue has taught if not the group at large, me, that despite atrocities in the name of relatively arbitrary ideals, there are examples of goodness and integrity that have a profound effect on those immediately around them, and the world as a whole. That kids in OTPOR, or men like Djindjic, can have a beneficial impact on their country, and men like Azan or Dragan can make a positive difference in the lives of their neighbors. Or how the international community can step up to the plate and help in state-building, and encourage reforms. Our multiethnic world will not survive if we focus on our differences; I realize that now more than ever, having seen people that killed and died over those ideals realize that celebration of difference, and praise of similarity is the best way to live in the world today.