I try to steer clear of politics because it’s often an area where people’s egos are intimately tied and it’s not worth losing friends over, but sometimes maybe it’s worse to not say anything at all. I recently visited the spot where World War I began, on a street corner in Sarajevo, Bosnia Herzegovina. I wanted to share my thoughts about what I’ve learned, because what happened in that city seems very relevant today.
On this street corner, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire was shot by someone people describe as a Serbian nationalist, which through complicated alliances brought all of Europe and America into WWI. From what I’ve read about him, he seems to me like a 19 year old kid that was manipulated and radicalized by foreign militants. Does that sound familiar?
Nationalism is the often repeated claim by politicians that your country is the best, and must be ‘protected’ from outside influence. This protection usually consists of overt aggression and uncalled for violence and hate toward foreigners and minorities. It’s rooted in the same instinct that drives professional athletics, a sense of belonging and rallying around an invented enemy. It comes along with economic and social policies that stifle the lower class, decrease international cooperation and raise tensions and walls.
Nationalism resurfaced in Bosnia in the 1990s. There are three major populations of people there, the Bosniak Muslims, the Croatian Orthodox Christians and the Serbian Catholics. They decimated their country, killing over 100,000 people because identity and religion mattered more than their lives. The city of Sarajevo underwent a 3+ year long siege from April 1992 to Feb 1996, during which 14,000 people died.
The country is still divided into these three groups. In fact they have three presidents. You have to choose one group when you register with the government as an adult, and your choice affects your career opportunities and therefore the rest of your life. They speak three ‘different’ languages that are actually the same language. The younger generation is moving away from this outlook thankfully, but strangely enough it’s still there.
As a result of the violence in the middle east and the refugee crisis Europe has been trending towards extreme, nationalistic political groups. It seems there is a large effort throughout the world recently to draw up boundaries between ‘us’ and ‘them’, to build walls and to alienate others. It goes without saying that this is happening in the US as well.
We have seen what this kind of thinking results in, and it should be avoided at all costs. People want to belong to something, to work together to have a purpose, but inventing false enemies and preying on fear should not be employed by leaders for power.
*As a side note, I wanted to say that Bosnia and Croatia are both very peaceful nowadays, the people are wonderful, the landscapes are gorgeous and it’s super cheap! The past is always present, from bullet holes in walls to tough expressions on peoples’ faces, but it seems like everyone is moving on and determined to grow and enjoy the peace there today.