Sarajevo Under Siege: Anthropology in Wartime

135 Pages·2009·11.04 MB·English

by  Ivana Macek

Sarajevo Under Siege
THE ETHNOGRAPHY OF POLITICAL VIOLENCE
Sarajevo Under Siege
Cynthia Keppley Mahmood, Series Editor
Anthropology in Wartime
A complete list of books in the series is available from the publisher.
Ivana Macek
PENN
University of Pennsylvania Press
Philadelphia
Contents
Copyright © 2009 University of Pennsylvania Press
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of review or
scholarly citation, none of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means
without written permission from the publisher.
Published by
University of Pennsylvania Press
Preface Vll
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
Part I. Life Under Siege 1
10987654321
Civilian, Soldier, Deserter 3
1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Death and Creativity in Wartime 34
Macek, Ivana 2
62
Sarajevo under siege : anthropology in wartime I Ivana Macek 3 Struggling for Subsistence
p. em. - (The ethnography of political violence) 86
Tests of Trust
4
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-o-8122-4126-6 ( alk. paper)
1. Sarajevo (Bosnia and Hercegovina)-History-Siege, 1992-1996. 2. Political Part II. Ethnonationalist Reinventions 121
violence-Bosnia and Hercegovina-Sarajevo. I. Title.
DR1313.32.S27M33 2009
Political and Economic Transformation 123
949.703-dc22 5
Language and Symbols
6
Mobilizing Religion
7
Reorienting Social Relationships
8
Reconceptualizing War 191
9
Epilogue 218
225
Notes
235
Glossary
References 239
Index 247
Acknowledgments 253
Preface
In the summer of 1991, war broke out in the former Yugoslav Re
public of Slovenia. On my television set in Uppsala, I watched tanks belong
ing to the former Yugoslav People's Army (Jugoslavenska narodna armija
[JNA]) tear up the lawns in the parks of the Slovenian capital, Ljubljana. Ire
alized that something entirely beyond my comprehension was happening. I
knew about wars in the past and in other parts of the world, but I had been
taught that the Second World War was the last war there would ever be in Eu
rope. Now, a new war was here. I did not know what it meant or what forms
it would take, but I was sure that my understanding of the world would never
be the same again.
The next shock came at the end of the summer: the war started in Croa
tia. I listened to a Swedish radio reporter saying that the air raid alert had just
been heard in Zagreb, my hometown. He sounded very agitated, reporting
from his hotel room near the railway station. The streets were empty as far as
he could see, peeking through his window despite the warning to keep away
from the windows. Journalists were cautioned not to use cameras, as snipers
could easily mistake them for weapons. On television, I saw young armed
men in black and camouflage clothing, mixing military and civilian garb,
with black bands around their heads. Someone called Crni Marko ("Black
Marko") was giving an interview to the Swedish television network. With an
air of self-satisfaction, he identified himself as a unit leader in the new Croa
tian army and explained that they were fighting for the long-awaited sover
eignty of Croatia and freedom from Serbian hegemony. At the end, with a
wide grin, he sent greetings to all the lovely Swedish girls. It was strange to
see these big Rambo-like boys standing there as representatives of my own
people and country.
I was even more deeply disturbed when I heard that one of my best
friends had volunteered for the Croatian army. This young man had a gen
uine pacifist temperament. The year he did his obligatory military service he
developed a nervous ulcer, not only because of the meaninglessness of his
duties but also because he was an individualist who disliked any form of au
thoritarianism. He spoke four European languages, loved to travel, and rel-
Preface ix
viii Preface
was that they rarely filled this vacuum with anything except politically em
ished mountain climbing, spelunking, and skiing in loose clothes which
powered actors on the highest internationa~ institutional levels. News reports
would flutter in the wind, giving him a sense of freedom. He had introduced
most often showed images of destroyed villages and homes, people on the
me to Bob Dylan and ]imi Hendrix, Friedrich Nietzsche and Erich Fromm. I
nd many other varieties of human misery, while the studio anchor
simply could not put these things together with what I had heard. I could not run, a
would read the latest announcements about peace negotiations that were
believe that he had turned into a Crni Marko.
planned, a ceasefi.re that was broken, and the statement~ made ~y diplomats
Like many young people in the former Yugoslavia, I had believed that
and heads of state. This strange juxtaposition left the viewer with a sense of
conditions of life and work were better in the West than at home. Before the
incomprehensibility mixed with terror and empathy for the people hit by the
war, however, few had the opportunity to leave. I came to Sweden in 199o as
war. After a year or two of such information, a sense of powerlessness, some
a student in ~he lan~uage cooperation program between Zagreb University
times combined with rage, took over, as information combined with passiv-
and the Swedish Institute. My grant was for the spring term, and after that I
ity led to indifference. . .
decided to use_ my ~rivate ~esources in order to study cultural anthropology
To my enormous relief, when I met the people I was looking for m Za-
at Uppsala Umversity. I enJoyed my studies and the new friends I made.
found that our relationships remained essentially intact. They dis-
Once the war began, it became easier to enter Western countries but gre b , I .
missed out of hand my vaguely patriotic impulse to leave Sweden and be with
co~ing ne~essity, m~king
_out of as a refugee, was much more difficult than
my family and friends when times were hard. When I asked my best friend
this choice of ones own free will. For my part, the start of war in my home
whether I should return, she said simply that it would do no good to anyone
town meant that within a month I felt compelled to go to Zagreb and see for
if I were in Zagreb. I could only go down into cellars when the air raid sirens
myself what was going on. Was anything left of the world I knew, and did I
sounded. It was much better that I was in Sweden, doing what I wanted to do
have anything in common with the people who once were dose to me? To
with my life. A meeting with a colleague, who had outspoken pro-Croatian
get~er with Kar_ine Mannerfelt, a Swedish friend and journalist, I took the
national feelings before the war, proved to me that people's ideas were chang
tram to Zagreb m October 1991. We encountered the first signs of war in the
ing, but that this process was by no means a one-way road to n~tio~alism.
Mu~ich railway station. Sitting at a table near ours in the cafe was a Yugoslav
"You know;' she said, "I always thought that the immense emigratiOn of
family: an elderly couple dressed like villagers, a younger couple in modern
Croats in this century was due to the Serbs pushing us out, but now I have re
clothes: and some children. In the evening when the train to Zagreb arrived,
alized that the Croats were leaving because other Croats would not let them
we reali~ed that the elderly couple was going back to Zagreb while the younger
live:' A year after this she moved to London with her husband and daughter.
generatiOns were staying in Munich. The only others getting on the train were
As I was in Zagreb with a journalist, for a few days we went to the most
a group of young men who looked like a college sports team, except that
obvious site of war: the front line. It was only about 30 kilometers south of
~e. un~erstood that they were volunteers, perhaps second-generation Croats
Zagreb. The units watching the line were mostly composed of local residents,
hvmg I~ Germany and elsewhere, traveling to join the Croatian troops in the
some of whom had been drafted, and others who had volunteered. After
war agai~st the Serbs. When we arrived in Zagreb the next morning, the rail
showing us the no-man's-land and the positions of Serbian snipers on the
way statiOn was empty. I spotted a man in military-style civilian clothes with
other side, they invited us for pancakes in one of the deserted houses that
a big camera bag over his shoulder getting off the train. This was war: empti
functioned as their base. Inside the country kitchen, seated at one long table,
ness and foreign correspondents.
eating and chatting with all these men of various ages and one girl, t~e atmo
As I write this account sixteen years later, I realize that as outsiders we
sphere suddenly felt familiar-like being at scout camp, or commg to a
all receive the same first impression of war, usually through the media. We see
mountain hut after a long day's strenuous climbing in the Alps. I understood
a society collapse into a state of war, which empties out meanings and causes
that had I not been living in Sweden, I would be one of these people guard
a vacuum of norms. War correspondents, shooting cameras instead of
ing ~he city's last line of defense. It scared me, and for a moment I felt priv_i
weapons,_ equipp~d with lenses of different calibers, their combat jackets
leged to be just a visitor from abroad. Later on, after the war had started m
stuffed With film mstead of bullets, usually provide us with this information.
Bosnia and Herzegovina, I realized that during that day the war had entered
The problem with Western media reports on events in the former Yugoslavia
X Preface Preface Xl
me. It was no longer happening somewhere else to somebody else. It was my become my former homeland in a double sense: I had left it for Sweden, and
war, and I was in it. while I was gone it had ceased to exist. I was born and raised in the former
During the late spring of 1992, when war broke out in full in Bosnia and Yugoslavia, and when contemporary Croatia was formed I was already in
Herzegovina, I wrote about the situation in the former Yugoslavia and na Sweden. Croatia today is a strange state construction for me; it makes me feel
tional identities, but as an anthropologist I studied Africa and such intrigu more like a foreigner than its citizen, although the country and people still
ing phenomena as witchcraft. That summer, refugees from Bosnia and feel like home. Focusing on Bosnia, the least nationalistic of the former Yu
Herzegovina started arriving in Sweden in large numbers, and since I needed goslav republics, seemed not only less personally fraught but also potentially
a summer job I began interpreting for the Swedish authorities. For three more politically revealing.
months, I worked full time at a refugee center, with the feeling of utter injus This book is a result of my endeavors to make some sense out of the war
tice constantly hovering over me. How could it be that these people, who had in the former Yugoslavia, to put my world together again, so to speak, to
always been the least nationalistic of all Yugoslavs, had to suffer because of na make it somewhat more comprehensible, predictable, and safe again. In this
tionalist ideologies their leaders were promoting? Slovenes had always been sense, the story of the Sarajevan siege that I tell here has a wider meaning for
Slovene patriots, Croats had a history of nationalistic movements, and Serbs anyone with experience of massive political violence or the drive to under
took particular pride in their defense of the nation against both German fas stand it. Students and researchers may find in these pages meaningful theo
cists and Turks, but Bosnians? They were the most anti-nationalistic people of retical tools for framing war and a method for fieldwork during wartime.
all. How could they be nationalists, when they lived good lives in a milieu Diplomats and humanitarian workers may find it useful as a guide to the
composed of at least four major nationalities? They married and raised chil local knowledge that is crucially important for any constructive work in cir
dren in that mixed milieu; they made friends and had neighbors across eth cumstances of war. People caught in the midst of war or recovering from its
noculturallines. I was certain that there would be bloodshed if a war defined ravages may find that it eases the damage to know that others, in different
as a confrontation between different national groups ever started in Bosnia times and different places, have shared their experiences.
and Herzegovina, and because of that I thought it was impossible. But just The main difficulty with telling a story of such a massive destruction is
that sort of war began, and unfortunately my worst fears materialized. For the that the social fabric, cultural habits, political ideas, moral beliefs, and even
whole summer I wanted to do something about it. I wanted to write about language are destroyed along with the physical environment. So much de
Bosnians and explain that they were not nationalists as the media had por struction creates a void in which nothing seems to remain. Nothingness has
trayed them, that Yugoslavia was not a boiling pot whose lid had suddenly no form, so how can it be presented? We communicate through words and
been lifted, allowing people whose mutual hatreds had been suppressed to storytelling; we need language and forms to articulate our experiences and
show their true nature. I had time only after my summer job was over, and I knowledge and make them available to others. In writing this book about the
wrote. I realized that all my energies went into following, understanding, and social consequences of war, I have utilized the same strategies that Sarajevans
explaining to others what was going on in the former Yugoslavia. I searched used to cope with its destructiveness. I found forms in Sarajevans' everyday
for a way to fuse my intellectual work and my personal engagement. lives in a city under siege: in the artifacts, practices, ideas, and phrases they
I decided to write a project proposal for a grant to do research on the came up with while living amid utter devastation. The description of these
processes through which national identities were being formed in Bosnia. I creative processes and their results in all aspects of life, including the compli
chose Bosnia, rather than my native Croatia, not only because it seemed most cated story of national feelings and politics, gives form to the destruction of
unjust that Bosnians were being hit hardest by a nationalistic war but also be war, much as a photographic negative or a shadow image can make a form
cause I could not stand the idea of working with the aggressive Croatian na emerge before our eyes. My hope is that, although this is my story, it will be
tionalism of the early 1990s. This decision was painful, because it meant recognizable to Sarajevans who were there during the war.
leaving the exciting world of African anthropology. But I had become en In this book, I have not attempted to explain why or how the war oc
tirely occupied by the challenge of understanding the situation of people in curred, the key questions that interest many political and social scientists. I
my former homeland. I say former homeland because by 1992 Yugoslavia had focus instead on constructing an account of what happened to people on the
xu Preface
ground, because this is the basic knowledge that we generally lack. What hap PART I
pened cannot be comprehended through an analysis of MiloseviC's negotia
tions with Lord Owen, or by counting the dead and the bombs that hit
Sarajevo. The war cannot be encompassed even by such powerful abstrac Life Under Siege
tions as "genocide" or "crimes against humanity." What happened was in
comprehensible to both locals and outsiders. The Sarajevans whom I got to
know shared their lives, experiences, and perspectives with me as best they
could. Through the discipline of anthropological analysis and reflection, I
share the knowledge built on this lived experience with readers.
I have employed two models to understand what happened during the
siege of Sarajevo. One is based on Sarajevans' concern with whether they
were still "normal." This question judged wartime existence by peacetime
standards. It was almost always directed to those of us who came from the
outside, for Sarajevans knew full well how profoundly their daily lives had
been transformed by war. The other model is based on the seemingly contra
dietary moral stances that Sarajevans-like others in similar situations
adopted when it comes to destruction and the killing of human beings. In the
existentially lethal and ethically sensitive circumstances that cannot be
evaded in wartime, most of us respond by espousing a variety of positions,
sometimes sequentially but often simultaneously, trying desperately to rec
oncile and justify our beliefs and practices despite grave instability and seri
ous doubt. None of these positions proves entirely satisfying or tenable, but
all of them are grounded in efforts not only to survive but to retain our com
mon humanity.
Chapter 1
Civilian, Soldier, Deserter
How can people who have never experienced war understand
what it is like to live in a city under siege in a state that has disintegrated into
warring national.armies? The terror aroused by the constant threat to life is
intensified by the disruption of everyday existence that living in a war zone
entails. Most of us have experienced a similar kind of shock on a smaller
scale. Our first confrontation with the death of a person close to us, a disas
trous accident with casualties whose faces we recognize, or a natural catastro
phe in the place we call home-experiences of devastating loss seem
incomprehensible and make us feel powerless. The world as we knew it has
been destroyed. With no satisfactory way of dealing with this unprecedented
existential situation, we question our previous faith in the orderliness of the
world and the social norms that had governed our lives up to that point. This
feeling of disorientation is not necessarily harmful in itself; indeed, it might
even be necessary for the process of mourning that we must undergo to re
orient ourselves to a new reality. War is like other experiences of devastating
loss, but with two crucial differences: the losses are caused by fellow human
beings, and we can never reorient ourselves completely to the new existential
reality. Time after time, as the violence of war inflicts new losses, we are over
whelmed by the incomprehensibility of the situation and our powerlessness
within it. As Michael Taussig puts it, we find ourselves swinging wildly be
tween "terror as usual" and shock (1992:17-18).When the agents of death and
chaos are not impersonal forces but other people, former compatriots, and
even neighbors, who suddenly bring destruction down upon us, the situation
is even more profoundly unsettling. The faith in humanity on which society
itself is founded is constantly undermined, and every action we take to try to
save ourselves seems trivial or pointless.
In this light, some of the most shocking experiences of loss and disorien
tation in our peacetime lives in Europe and America resemble wartime expe
riences. Deaths caused by criminal gang violence in the inner cities and by
terrorist attacks in New York City, London, and Madrid-as well as the
4 Life Under Siege Civilian, Soldier, Deserter 5
"peacekeeping operations" that the United States, NATO, and the United Na three different modes of perceiving war. At first, people are so struck by the
tions conduct in African countries and the ongoing wars in Afghanistan and outbreak of a war they had thought impossible that the social norms they
Iraq-are all caused by people, yet they are incomprehensible and out of had thought secure collapse. I call this initial disbelief and the vacuum of
control. In these circumstances, we react in ways that are similar to those of meanings that follows the "civilian" mode of perceiving war. Then people at
people caught up in war. This resemblance makes the experiences of people tempt to order and explain the events and actors, adopting what I call the
in Sarajevo during the siege of much more profound interest to us than we "soldier" mode. Aligning themselves with one or another of the warring
would have expected. sides, they seek protection and solidarity, giving some meaning to the risks
Both the immediate experiences that being caught up in war entails and they must face. The soldier mode offers a moral rationale for conflict, mak
the moral dilemmas that arise when struggling to survive in a city under ing the destruction and killing seem necessary and even acceptable. Finally,
siege make untenable the notion that wars are rational, controlled, some people realize through their own experiences of war that these explanations
times even honorable, ordered and limited by the laws of war, with legitimate do not hold and shift to a third standpoint that I call the "deserter" mode.4
aims and clearly distinct opposing sides-a notion that still dominates the Abandoning the neat divisions between citizens and armies, friends and foes
practice of international politics.1 Almost without exception, whether con that mark the civilian and soldier modes, people give up allegiances to any
flict rages across international borders or attempts to impose new bound opposing side and take responsibility for their own actions. This stance does
aries between peoples, war is gruesomely devoid of logic. Perhaps that is why not constitute treason or betrayal but expresses profound skepticism about
fiction and film seem to capture wartime realities more powerfully than jour the high ideals that justify vicious acts and an effort to recover some small
nalistic accounts and expert analyses. The moral unacceptability of"the laws measure of humanity in a world gone berserk.
of war" becomes appallingly clear when we examine the terminology de These modes of feeling and thinking are not necessarily sequential or
signed to disguise the more ghastly rules of war: "collateral damage," "low mutually exclusive; often people hold them simultaneously or shift back and
intensity conflict," and "ethnic cleansing" are among the euphemisms that forth between them as their situation changes. Everyone caught up in a war,
obscure killing, starvation, and displacement. War legitimizes mass murder or dealing with war as a journalist, diplomat, or researcher, employs all three
and destruction of property, which no other legal system allows on such a of these perspectives. The inconsistencies in perceptions of war that are char
scale within such a short period of time. 2 acteristic of those who are subjected to it involuntarily arise not only from
By trying to find the causes and logic of war-often in hope of under war's chaotic character but also from the best efforts to come to terms with it.
standing it and being able to control the damage it inflicts, if not stop or pre
vent it in future-we unavoidably fall into reifying the divisions into distinct
warring sides, with their aims and justifications for mass violence. Such was Imitation of Normal Life
the case with many expert analyses of war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but
also with many Sarajevans in their attempts to orient themselves in chaotic As I focused on the experience of violence, I listened closely to what preoc
life circumstances and to justify their often morally ambiguous practices. In cupied my informants and how they spoke about everyday concerns. I no
order to avoid the pitfalls of oversimplifying war and ignoring its incompre ticed that people in Sarajevo often used the concept of normality to describe
hensible, unjustifiable, and unacceptable nature, I chose to let individuals' some situation, person, or way of life. The concept carried a moral charge, a
lived experiences of violence stand at the center of research and from that positive sense of what was good, right, or desirable: a "normal life" was a de
point to trace the effects of war on society and culture.3 This account ex scription of how people wanted to live; a "normal person" thought and did
plores Sarajevans' subjective responses to the death and destruction that en things that were regarded as acceptable. The term pertained not only to the
gulfed their city and their repeated, though often futile, efforts to make sense way of life people felt they had lost but also to a moral framework that might
of the disturbing and irrational situations in which they found themselves. guide their actions. Normality not only communicated the social norms held
After struggling to orient myself in the midst of chaotic and contradic by the person using it but also indicated her or his ideological position. The
tory experiences, I realized that these feelings and ideas could be sorted into preoccupation with normality reflected Sarajevans' utmost fear and their
6 Life Under Siege Civilian, Soldier, Deserter 7
• Chaos reigns-a vacuum of meaning, disorientation, and normlessness.
• New truths compete to fill this vacuum: political ideologies, media in
terpretations, social contacts, rumors, and individuals' own experiences.
• A new norm emerges, but it too is disrupted as the cycle continues.
Massive political violence disrupts the way we know the world works in
peacetime and makes it worthless for orienting ourselves in a war zone. We
feel plunged into a state of chaos, yet we are forced to take action in response
to constant emergencies. What we previously found meaningful has been
shattered, vanished, or become impossible, even inconceivable. As we strug
gle to make some sense of our situation, we seek desperately to fill this vac
uum with new meanings. At this point, differing interpretations of the
conflict compete for our allegiance. These contesting truths are promulgated
by politicomilitary organizations and power elites; they are manufactured or
propagated by the media, whether politically controlled or independent; they
arise and circulate within our social circles, often in the form of rumors; and
they come from our own desperate efforts to make sense of our disparate
personal experiences. Amid a dizzying variety of interpretations, we settle on
Figure 1. In 1995 graffiti appeared saying: "Nobody here is normal" ("Ovdje niko nije whatever seems to us the most useful guide to action and a notion of the
normalan"). Sarajevo, spring 1996. Photo by author.
world we can live with. On this basis, we join with like-minded and similarly
situated others to develop a new norm, however provisional. But the cycle is
repeated as new experiences fracture whatever tentative certainty and fragile
utmost shame: that in coping with the inhumane conditions of war, they had consensus has been attained. The process continues on all levels of our lives,
also become dehumanized and that they might be surviving only by means from the most existential through the material to the ideological.
they would previously have rejected as immoral. Had they become psycho Two examples illuminate this process. The first highlights how percep
logically, socially, and culturally unfit to live among decent people? tions of normality changed on the most basic material level. A young
Social norms are always in flux. Each person continuously defines and re woman, a doctor of medicine who became a friend, told me a story from the
defines his or her norms of conduct and perceptions of society in accordance first months of war, when most Sarajevans were still reasoning within their
with his or her daily experiences. In the context of war, the wholesale de peacetime standards. She and a friend of hers were going to a party one Sat
struction of people's homes, the intensity of chaotic feelings, and the con urday evening. As parties were very rare at that time, they fixed themselves up
stant demand to respond to unprecedented conditions make the pace and the best they could. Her friend even put on nylon stockings, which were al
scope of change so dramatic that it is more easily noticed than in peacetime. ready a scarce commodity. As they walked, the shelling started, and the ex
I found it useful to follow the process of change in perceptions of normality plosions were very near. My acquaintance threw herself into the nearest ditch
in order to understand and explain people's experiences of war in Sarajevo. and shouted at her friend, who was still standing in the street, to do the same.
Schematically, change can be described as a process that occurs again The bewildered girl shouted that she could not because her nylon stockings
and again: would get torn. "To hell with your nylon stockings;' replied my acquaintance,
"It is your head that will get blown off if you don't get down immediately."
• A norm exists. The second example illustrates the changes in the relations between
• Violence disrupts normality; the norm does not hold anymore. neighbors who belonged to different ethnoreligious and national groups and