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Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina 2007

My brother is in Bosnia and Herzegovina currently doing research for his dissertation. He lives in our native city of Mostar. There is no war or fighting since 1995 and city fell into what I call “post war coma”. Meaning, nobody cares about anything. Everyone minds its own business. No one rushes to do anything. If you are tourist or a stranger, you would not notice any national tensions. Or would you? Story below is a testament that city is still psychologically divided between Muslims and Catholics and my brother experienced it first hand.
Last week he got caught up in the middle of hooligan fight between soccer fans, and this is a short story of his experience in his own words.
Just click on the link to read the story.

The Soccer Game

(Velez-Zrinjski: 0-2)

Yesterday morning I felt another bout of depression coming. Actually it was more like melancholy since it was less intense and somehow sweeter, so I decided to take my morning walk throughout the city. It was only when I reached the Lenjinovo and saw rows of riot police lining up both sides of the road that I realized that another controversial, endlessly antagonistic, and hopelessly nationalistic match between the city’s two soccer teams—Velez, which has become the official team of the Muslim East side and Zrinjski, the Croatian West side team—was taking place that day at 1 o’clock in the afternoon at the Stadium on Bijeli Brijeg in the heart of West Mostar. I tried to ignore the police by just walking past them, gently accelerating my pace, hoping to get to the Bijeli Brijeg woods where I would disappear among the trees and follow the paths of my childhood. I guess I was too optimistic since I should have known that nothing goes according to your private little plan in this city.

As soon as I hit the Partizansko Groblje, where the presence of riot police made it difficult to even walk on the sidewalk (so I had to occasionally step off the sidewalk and into the street to avoid bumping into the heavily armed and shielded police SWAT team officers), I heard a booming voice coming from their radios: “They are coming, get ready.” At these words, all the SWAT team people stood at full attention and I quickly got out of their way and stood behind them. In a few seconds, three buses full of Velez fans yelling, “Velez, Velez, Velez,” and waving red Velez flags, sped through the narrow street towards the Bijeli Brijeg Stadium. The buses were flanked on both sides by heavily armored police cars, whose sirens and honks created a sense of an impending crisis in the center of the city: the few passerbys (I later learned that everyone in the city avoids being on the street during these matches) froze on the spot, staring at the strange procession, reminding me of those anniversaries of Tito’s death when every human being in every corner of the city and the country would freeze at the sound of the siren, announcing the exact moment of his death. But these were not silent postures of respect. This was plain fear. Two old ladies, carrying grocery bags, seemed to be the first ones to move as they rushed towards the woods, one of them repeating to her companion, “My dear Jesus, my dear Jesus.” Their decision to step out of the collective pause inspired the other passerbys to do the same and everyone started walking again towards their destinations. As I rushed between the rows of SWAT team officers, I heard a powerful explosion at which I immediately turned around towards the main intersection which I had just passed. The smoke prevented me from seeing anything, but the smell made me realize that the explosion was the sound of tear gas being fired. At this, the passerbys, including myself, started running away from the intersection to be followed by a reverberating noise: cheers, shouts, loud cursing, mixed with the sound of clanking metal. As the noise got closer (I still couldn’t see anything except for the smoke), a car full of SWAT team officers rushed towards the intersection. The riot police jumped out of the car and rushed towards the center which seemed to be the epicenter of the noise. At this I realized that the center, or Avenija as it is known, had just become the battleground between the riot police and fans (I didn’t know whose fans), or better said, hooligans. This is when I started running towards the Omladinska neighborhood, just below the stadium, which I considered to be a safe haven since my aunt lives there. However, as soon as I hit the main street in Omladinska, right below my aunt’s balcony, I saw a huge mass of people moving towards me, actually running, as if they were being chased by the billowing smoke behind them. Once again, the stingy smell and the masks which most people in the mass were wearing made me realize that it was tear gas. I felt trapped. Turning left I ran in between the socialist-era high-rises. Certainly, these high-rises had never been the beautiful architectural achievements as they had been described by their socialist creators, but they had always offered us children large enclosed courtyards where we would hatch our childhood plans away from the main streets. As I ran in between these buildings and found myself on a basketball court, completely enclosed by the high rises, I thought of playing soccer with my brother and his friends on this same court. My brief nostalgic excursion to my childhood was rudely interrupted by that chilling reverberating noise. I looked towards one of the tunnels connecting the main street with the inner courtyard and saw a crowd of about 20 teenagers (they couldn’t not have been older than 15!) screaming, “Zrinjski,” “Ovo je Hrvatska,” and running. As they rushed by me, the sound of screeching tires was followed by another squat car, which was apparently chasing the Croatian fans. At this I ran towards the same tunnel, hoping that as the trouble seemed to have moved away from here, this would be a safe route. As soon as I reached the end of the tunnel and found myself on Avenija, I was greeted by that awful stench of tear gas, at which I went back to the courtyard. Not knowing what to do or where to go, I wandered around the courtyard, finding another tunnel, leading to another side of the Avenija boulevard. I walked through it, so carefully as if I was stalking someone, and realized that I was on a safe side of the boulevard. I looked behind me and saw the billowing smoke in the distance and the reverberating noise suddenly subsided. I took another side street and found myself rushing towards the Carinski Bridge which would take me to the safe East side of the city.

Later that day I learned that seven police officers and several fans were hurt in the riots. A small bank as well as several cars were burned. The culprits turned out to have been Zrinjski fans, trying to get to the Velez fans, but having been prevented in this by the organized Sarajevo-based SWAT teams, they decided to throw themselves into the fight against the police.

Flustered by having been caught in what it seemed like the middle of this riot, I rushed towards my cousin’s house who had invited me for lunch that same morning. After throwing at me all kinds of creative epithets for having gone to “their side” during this match, I told them what I had experienced. Their reaction depressed me even more than the riots I had just seen. “Of course they would do that,” my cousin said. “That’s why I hate going to their side. I feel so unsafe.” I repeated several times that these seemed to have been small groups of teenagers and that these kinds of riots accompanied many soccer matches all across Europe, my cousins insisted that this was directed against the Muslims and that this once again showed just how divided the city was. On my way to my cousin’s I had stopped by at one of the coffeehouses on the East side to meet my American friend Adam who was sitting in a company of two heavily built men and a blonde woman. They had been sitting in that café all morning, waiting for the game to be over so that they could go home. Still flustered from all the running and tear gas inhalation, I couldn’t immediately understand what the game had to do with their home. “Well we live on their side,” one of the bodybuilders said bitterly. “See this is why you should never come back to this damn city,” the other one added. “In case you have anything here, sell it, sell everything,” he shouted. “And then get the hell out! And never come back!” he shouted so that the whole café could hear him. I finished my cappuccino and made my way to my cousin’s apartment, overlooking the beautiful Neretva canyon. But the beauty of their view was not on their mind. Their pessimism, if not downright despair, echoed the words of the bodybuilders. I had lunch, a cup of coffee, and decided to take off. After this experience I really needed a drink, so I met up with Adam at a local bar and had a liter of good German beer.

Now that I have written this I realize that this experience might have a lot to do with how I feel now. I have to admit that yesterday as I was caught in the middle of the riot, I felt the adrenalin rush and wanted to see what was happening. The adrenalin rush, however, must have been quite short. Only a few minutes later, after hearing the first explosion, I felt that instantaneously paralyzing fear of being trapped, which I had felt so many times during the HVO raids on Muslim apartments during the war. I could hear that same fear in the words of the two bodybuilders and my cousins. That same fear I could see in the eyes of the Velez fans whose faces I saw from my cousin’s window as they dejectedly returned from the game. Velez lost 0-2 to Zrinjski. Zrinjski’s Mostar continued the orgy of celebration into the evening hours. Velez’s Mostar, however, continued to retell the stories of fear.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 14th, 2007 at 2:16 pm and is filed under Politics, Religion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.