Keeping the Peace by Will Stanton

In 1967 when I traveled through Yugoslavia, all the diverse states and ethnic groups were unified under the stern, deft hand of Marshall Tito.  Keeping the peace required a person of his universal admiration, status, and cleverness.  Although I was, at the time, quite young and not particularly well versed in world affairs, even I could see the underlying signs of entropy and conflict.  Sewn together at the end of World War I into a makeshift nation, differences and suspicions between Muslims, Orthodox Christians, and Roman Catholics, were just too deeply engrained for the nation to last once Tito was gone.

The western-most state of Slovenia had more in common with Austria culturally and ethnically than it did with its eastern counterparts.  Also, for a so-called communist state, it was very democratic, in some ways even more so than America.  Upon my entering adjacent states, I noticed differences in the cultural, religious, and political atmosphere.  During World War II, the Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia claimed to be an independent fascist state with an uneasy mix of Muslims and Christians.  Farther east, Serbia seemed more primitive and populated by stern, dour people who easily adhered to communism.  Muslim minarets were in far greater evidence than in the western states.  I had no idea that, after Tito’s death, my perception of Yugoslavia being an uneasy alliance of very different peoples would prove to be so prophetic.

I recall in particular the ancient town of Mostar in Bosnia.  I took a picture of the world-famous stone bridge that arched over the deep ravine of the Neretva River. 

16th Century Mostar Bridge

Of my  more than three hundred slides from that year, that color slide of the old bridge and the stone buildings on either side of the ravine was one that literally was of prize-winning quality.  The Ottoman architect Mimar Hayruddin built the narrow, stone bridge in the 16^th century, and the bridge was the subject of many paintings and photographs over the centuries.  During the early 1990s, however, neither the bridge nor the peace stood.

In 1992, the area of Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence from Yugoslavia. The central government in Beograd, Serbia, retaliated.  Mostar was subjected to an eighteen-month siege by the Yugoslav People's Army.  They first bombed Mostar in April, 1992.  The Croatian Defense Council responded.  Continued shelling destroyed the iconic bridge, the Franciscan monastery, the Catholic cathedral, the bishop's palace (with a library of 50,000 books), and a number of secular institutions as well as fourteen mosques. 

Civil War Destroyed the 16th Century Mostar Bridge

It took the intervention of the United Nations and the European Union to attempt to bring relative peace to the area by forming a Croat-Muslim coalition and then trying to convince the Serbian government in Beograd to accept a peace plan.  The Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina was comprised of a majority of Muslims and a minority of Christians.  Fighting broke out among them, too.  Before the agreement could be signed, the Muslim-led forces fought bitterly against the Christian Croats in attempt to control Mostar.  The Christian Croat forces dominated Mostar, controlled the  western part,  and the Muslim Bosniak population was expelled and driven from their homes to the eastern side.  Peace, empathy, and humanity crumbled among the ruins of Mostar’s stone buildings.

Finally, a U.S.-led agreement was signed, and Mostar was placed under E.U. administration with the German mayor from Bremen governing and a British general in charge of U.N. troops.  The peace accord resulted in a very shaky union of two autonomous regions, the Serb Republic and the Bosniak and Croat Federation.  Decision-making was run by a system of ethnic quotas that has stagnated making agreements and has stifled economic recovery.  The editor of an independent Mostar website has stated, “They never will reach agreement.”

Nine billion Euros have been spent rebuilding the region including Mostar’s bridge and city buildings, but there still is no reconciliation among the inhabitants.  The two city-sections each side of the river still have their own electricity provider, phone network, postal service, utility services and university.  Croat and Bosniak schoolchildren attend separate classes, studying from different textbooks.  The Croats, in the majority, want the town unified.  Suspicion and hatred are so deep that there appears to be little chance of that.  In January, the situation took a violent turn, when a bomb blast toppled a monument to fallen soldiers of Bosnia's Muslim-dominated wartime army.

Such hate and violence is not unique to Bosnia.  I have pondered long and hard about the failings of humanity, its capacity to hate and to harm its own kind.  For one contributing factor, I am well aware of the continuing debate concerning the relative merits of religion, good versus bad.  Muslim, Christian, Jewish, whatever, sometimes I wonder if Bill Maher is right; the world would be better off if there were no such thing as religion.

But, that is only part of the problem.  Much of the blame is placed upon individuals, their failure to grow into informed, wise, caring people who feel genuine empathy for others.  Inflexible, unquestioning belief in one’s own religion or politics and denial of other people’s religion or politics is symptomatic of just one aspect of the religiosity-mind, a mind so entrenched in one’s own beliefs, even if they defy fact and reality, that any attempt to see beyond them is hopeless.  Any attempt to prompt such people to look beyond themselves and to consider other people and their ideas is met with strident resistance, anger, and sometimes even violence.  We see such toxic mindlessness today even in our own Congress and among the voters and media-pundits who support them.

The wide difference between well informed people with good critical-thinking skills versus those persons with religiosity-minds astounds me.  The famous philosopher Schiller once stated, “Against stupidity, the gods themselves labor in vain.”  I realize that medical researches have found actual evidence of certain differences in brain structure between people that give an indication of which way one may think.  I also realize that learning plays a large part in how one develops his beliefs and method of thinking.  I can only dream of a cure for the religiosity-mind, some medical procedure perhaps on the genetic level so that all those born in the future will develop inquiring, thoughtful, empathetic minds.  Perhaps only then will the world have a chance of keeping the peace.

© 13 May 2013  

About the Author  

I have had a life-long fascination with people and their life stories.  I also realize that, although my own life has not brought me particular fame or fortune, I too have had some noteworthy experiences and, at times, unusual ones.  Since I joined this Story Time group, I have derived pleasure and satisfaction participating in the group.  I do put some thought and effort into my stories, and I hope that you find them interesting.