„Lent in Sarajevo“
– that’s how the Würzburg IPPNW group called their reunion with
former guest
students from the successor states of the former Yugoslavia. A meeting of friends,
last year in Skopje/Macedonia and this year in Sarajevo. The group from Würzburg had the
longest trip to get to the meeting point: it took two doctors and
6 students 28 hours of driving. But also the students from Belgrade and Novi Sad spent
endless
hours on buses to get there. Three of the students arrived from Mostar,
accompanied by several of their fellow students. Professors from the
medical
faculty also attended the evening activities. Sanela Banovic who had
participated in the Würzburg program two years ago, had organized
the meeting
with the help of family and friends, who welcomed us with their
overwhelming
hospitality.
“More than
60 guest students have been to Würzburg
over the last couple of years”, tells us Dr. Wolfram Braun. “Each year
in
August, 5 students visited us, from Macedonia,
Kosovo, Serbia,
Bosnia
and Herzegovina.”
How did it all start? The Würzburg IPPNW regional group had
offered practical assistance
during the war in former Yugoslavia.
They collected money and medical equipment for the hospital in besieged
East Mostar and had
asked the people of Würzburg for
donations, also organizing with a
large
exhibition which gained a lot of attention. While the war was still
raging, at
the end of 1993, the Würzburg group sat down with professor Ulrich
Gottstein
and reflected on what might be done now and after the war to restore
peace and foster
reconciliation in the war-torn region. Ulrich Gottstein
finally had an idea which might work: “Why
not invite medical students from the different successor states, bring
them
together and help them enter into a dialogue regarding their experience
during
the war, their reservations and their future?”
A simple but
brilliant idea: to establish a network of
future doctors spanning this troubled region and bringing together
people who,
through their medical responsibility, will work for peace in the area.
The
Würzburg group readily adopted this idea. From then on, each year
Paeivi and
Bernd Köhler organized a 4-week medical training course at the
Missionary
Medical Institute for guest students, including a variety of
theoretical
courses and practical training units.
Other
members of the regional group, doctors and
generations of IPPNW students got involved in assisting and looking
after the
guests, so that the “hidden curriculum” (exchange of ideas regarding
their
experience, the image each group had of the other, common ideas for the
future), was always a central part of the stay.
Sarajevo.
This beleaguered city had become a symbol of the terrifying war raging
in Southeast Europe at the end of the
last century. Before,
for centuries Sarajevo
had been the symbol of a fruitful and tolerant
peaceful coexistence of different religious
and ethnic groups. This
became apparent during a walk around the city: the Ottoman-Muslim part
of the
old city with its many mosques and the city center built by the
Habsburg
dynasty with its catholic cathedral are
right next to each other and in the same
neighborhood you can find the Serb-orthodox
church and the synagogue. On the other side of the river, above the
Grbavica
district, we stood for quite a while in front of the memorial
commemorating the
dead of Sarajevo during German occupation in World War II and
overlooked the
city, listening to Milinko Banovic, Sanela’s father, who told us of his
experience during the last war.
So many
stories! The war has left its imprint on the lives
of so many people in this part of Europe,
even
the childhood and youth of the students. Mirza was living near Mostar
with his Muslim
family. In mid-1992 he, his parents and his sister fled to Munich. Her
attended school there for 4 years
– and then, when his mastery of the German language was perfect and he
had
adapted to Germany and felt at home there, the family return home – to
a home
that was foreign to him.
Silvija, a Catholic Croat and her family, staid
in Sarajevo
during the
siege. They were kept hostage by the bosnian army, one sister died.
Sanja
experienced the siege in Sarajevo,
fell fatally ill and could only be saved by various surgical
interventions. Nowadays, the students have to find their private and
professional future in societies riddled
by numerous problems: the economic effects of the transformation,
affecting all
east and southeast European countries, have been considerably
intensified by
the aftereffects of the war in these parts. In Serbia,
Bosnia
and Herzegovina
(BiH), hundreds of thousands of refugees and displaced persons have to create a new livelihood for
themselves and their families. Many head for the big cities like Sarajevo and Belgrade,
where the urban population complains about how their cities have
changed due to
this influx.
Even after
the war has ended, countless mines are
still hidden in the ground, warning signs can be found everywhere. On
account
of the topography of BIH, heavy machinery can not be used to clear the
ground
of these mines, so for the next hundred years, farmers, hikers and
playing children
will continue to be endangered by these mines.
Professor
Ifeta Licanin whom I visited in the
psychiatric ambulance of the university clinic reported that a rising
number of
PTSD patients are now undergoing a second traumatization, for example
by losing
their job. BIH society is torn and marked by envy and resentments:
people
having staid in Sarajevo
during the siege, now claim that the scarce jobs should go to them and
not to
people returning from safe havens abroad. War profiteers rule many
sectors of
the economy, politicians are often influenced by special interests and
by old
and new networks.
The war has
considerably complicated coexistence in
the multi-religious,
multi-ethnic state of BiH. Christian churches and Islam have gained
significant
influence, putting at an disadvantage the former tolerant currents and
“mixed
couples”, comprising after all more than 30 percent of the population,
are
stigmatized. The once common language is now divided into Serb,
Croatian and
Bosnian, primary school students no longer learn both alphabets like
before the
war. Each entity in BiH has its own school books, providing children
with a
certain image of “the others” which will stay with them in the future,
as well
as memories of the war circulated in their families.
Against
this backdrop, Ulrich Gottstein’s idea of a
medical peace network and its implementation, summer after summer by
the
Würzburg IPPNW group, can not be praised enough. Even tough some
one-to-one
conversations with some participants of the Sarajevo meeting revealed, that even
they
were not free of certain resentments
towards another group – they became friends on a personal level,
crossing frontiers
and groups. Watching them together during
trips, during parties and in many talks with each other, gives hope to
the
concept of a peaceful future in this part of Europe.
Many more ideas for peace projects and concepts for nonviolent conflict
management such as these are needed!
In Sarajevo,
the idea first formulated by Gottstein and the Würzburg group has
been met with
an enthusiastic response: the contagiously active Sanela Banovic, who learned about IPPNW during her summer
stay in Würzburg , has founded an IPPNW group and convinced no
less than 4 of
her professors at the medical faculty to join her in her efforts. Professor Zakia Mornjakovic
presented to us the ambitious program of the
young BiH IPPNW: several projects for health and environmental
education in
schools, a project regarding old people and their attitude towards
medication
as well as, like in Würzburg, an annual meeting of medical
students from the Yugoslav
successor states with focus on medical issues and much room for
discussions and
leisure time.
The
Würzburg IPPNW group will continue its project “Bridges
of Understanding” this summer and hopefully also in the coming years.
After the
Köhler family left for Tanzania,
Dr. Renate Geiser is in charge of organizing the medical training
program at
the Missionary Medical Institute and
will keep it going. Dr. Wolfram Braun, Homayoun Pakzamir and other
doctors and
students will hopefully always continue to assist and help.
I want to
wish the Würzburg group the same
perseverance they have demonstrated so far and
that they may find many supporters. I hope
that everywhere within the
German IPPNW, doctors and students can be inspired to participate in
peace and
reconciliation projects for Southeast Europe.
Ulla Gorges
IPPNW Germany
