EXCERPTS
FROM INTERVIEW WITH "BIGI"
Conducted by Leon Gerskovic in Sarajevo, Bosnia in July 1999
Bigi: My full name is Mesid Musimovic. I was born in Belgrade 33 years ago, but I grew up in Pristina. Now i live in Sarajevo.
Leon:
What was your life like before the war?
Bigi: As I mentioned, I was born in Belgrade. My father was born in a little town in the Sandzak called Brodarevo. My mother was also from a small town -- Plavo, Montenegro. Our family gatherings are enormous. People show up in big groups. That’s why I am scared of any family events like weddings or the birth of a child. Just on my father’s side, I have 64 family members and only seven of them are women. Can you believe it? Family members on my mother’s side number around 65. They are a little bit more balanced between men and women. Those are only family members. You can imagine how many friends I have. That’s how I was born.
When
my parents got divorced, I went to live with my mom in Pristina. I finished
high school there and started university. I didn't finish and I really hope I can,
if not here in Sarajevo then back in Pristina.
Bigi: Yes, my mom
is Muslim and so is my father. Therefore, I am
a Muslim as well. But really I choose to be a
man before anything else. I don’t really
like to express my national identity. Ethnic
expressions have resulted in lots of things in former Yugoslavia, some of which are really
not that positive.
Leon:
I agree, but here national identity often runs parallel to religious identity and
religious identity is something that is very personal to many people. So what is your religious belief?
Bigi: My religious
belief is also something that was passed to me by my parents. It is Islam. But
I am not based only on that identity. Every
good religion respects other religions. All the books – the Bible, the Koran and the
Talmud – say this, but people don’t apply it in reality. And because religion doesn’t practice what it
preaches, I don't really want to express my identity in that way.
Leon:
I understand. So let's get back to your
personal story. Please tell me more about your life in Pristina.
I finished a high school for economics. I was a very good student. But I was always a bit rebellious, a bit of a punk. After high school, I wanted to go to university to study law. One thing people have to understand about our country -- Serbia, Yugoslavia, Bosnia -- is that people are corrupt. The Director of the Law School was a family friend and he promised me that he would get me in to the program. But I did not make it. So, in a panic that I would not have any further education, I chose an architecture program. It was one of the few programs that really would let me express my creativity, my organizational skills, and that feeling about the creation of space. But somehow, I was completely bewildered by the application and never made it to the architecture department's office. I went into the office for the civil engineering department, thinking it was the architecture department, and asked the secretary where to put my application. Like a typical bureaucrat, she didn't ask any questions and just told me which box to put the application in. So when I started university in September, I thought I would be studying architecture and instead found myself assigned to all these engineering classes. But this turned out to be a blessing in disguise because all that technical stuff really paid off later when I decided to go into radio.
One of my good friends got a job as the main producer of a radio show. His name was Zvonko Tarle. He was half Serb and half Croat, so naturally he ended up in Pristina trying to create a multi-ethnic radio station where he got Albanians, Serbs, Montenegrins, and Roma to create a “Free People” radio station. Since I loved alternative music and unusual sound – whether it is the sound of an electric saw, water drips, or little drums – I wanted to come to radio to play some music or get a late late show where I could play some stuff. Maybe Zvonko noticed my organizational capabilities and slowly we started to work more and more together.
But in 1998, we started having lots of problems. For the law and for the government, it was unthinkable that Albanians, Serbs, Montenegrins, and Roma are sitting together in one office and creating music programs and information for the well-being of everybody in youth culture. One day in early July 1998, more than 20 police officers came to the station around midnight and told us we had no license to broadcast, so they would have to take us off the air. They even pulled their guns on us. It was really ugly.
But the more they tried to stop us, the more we came together to keep it going. Since I was coordinating for Contact Radio, I was asked to coordinate a few other projects, including an NGO for feminist rights. I even got a nickname from my friends: “Fuf Fuf” because "FUF" stands for First Urban Feminist. Who would have ever thought that a man, a Serb, or a Muslim would be in a position to talk about creating women's rights. And here I was all three. It was very strange.
Leon: Did you have much support from the international community? I've talked to a lot of other people who had to mobilize their own projects at that time because the EU, the UN, USAID and other organizations didn't really start with anything until the war happened?
Bigi: I was talking to many larger and small foundations to help us out – not only financially, but consulting with us as to how to go about in creating these ideas that we have and how to work my connections with other people. I did receive some consulting services, but their whole approach was based on not wanting to help us unless they could see that what we were doing had some kind of results. Nobody wants to throws their money away on the street and wait for somebody to pick it up.
But we just organized ourselves to a point where some of those foundations started looking to us. One woman from a Swedish aid organization came to Contact Radio often. We had only one computer in our office and every time she came by, the computer managed to crash. We were rebooting it once, twice, even three times a day until it was starting to lose memory and completely died. Most of the equipment that we have is half-professional and half-non-professional. Some was brought in to the radio station by the guys who were working there – like the CDs and cassette players. For the news, we used microphones and other equipment. finally, after the war started in Kosovo, we were able to get a contract with USAID for some technical equipment to replace the transmitter which the police destroyed.
Leon: We had a war in Croatia. We had a war in
Bosnia. And Europe and the rest of the world could have helped these multi-ethnic
projects like yours when they knew ethnic conflict was spilling into regions in Serbia.
Bigi: Yes, exactly. We didn’t get the computer in 1998. But in 1999, yes. I was even joking with my colleagues, “Guys, we have received computers from the Americans. So I guess that means they’ll be dropping bombs pretty soon.”
Humor
aside, to go back to your question: whether the European Union and the rest of the world
knew what would happen. Yes they did. But they never bothered to ask ordinary people
about it.
The difference between the war in Croatia of 1991, the war in Bosnia of 1992 and the war Kosovo in 1999 is that, during the wars in Bosnia and Croatia, the network of NGO’s and other organizations didn't yet exist in the region. But, by 1999, there were already over 100 NGOs operating in Kosovo. Lots of them were local, but there were many international ones as well. The UNHCR was already in Kosovo.
But UNHCR made two very catastrophic mistakes just because they didn’t ask ordinary people “What would happen if the bombs start falling?” Because an ordinary Serb would say, “If they start hitting us, we will kill our neighbors,” because they are so influenced by what they see on their little TV screens. They were frustrated by what they were seeing on the TV because they were bombarded by nationalistic songs with titles like We Will Not Give Up Our Homeland and by soundbites from SPS [Milosevic’s party] leaders just brainwashing them completely. So, if the UNHCR had asked a brainwashed person like that – who have an 80% majority – they would have a real picture of what was to come.
Even
if they asked an Albanian person who was not under the brainwashing machine of the Serbian
propaganda, he would tell you the same thing without question. That’s where the UNCHR made two of those
mistakes. First of all, instead of getting rid
of one man – Slobodan Milosevic – the NATO Alliance made 12 million Serbs
suffer because of one man. The second thing
they did wrong was to leave 700,000 people without
homes, jobs, food, and water. In one word, it
is a tragedy. Now Kosovo is not a part of
Yugoslavia. Now we have Serbs who, by American
judgment, are at fault. On the other side, we
have Albanians who are victims; by some estimates, there are 15,000 of them in mass
graves. So what did we achieve? The world is now spending $231 million on Kosovo
for food, for K-FOR troops, for this and that. But if a tenth of that money had been
invested in Kosovo before the war, this would be solved.
Leon: “Better to prevent than to
cure.”
Bigi:
Sometimes it seems that the attitude is that it is better to cure even if the patient
might die. It's like that joke, "The
operation succeeded, but the patient has died.” It’s
not really important about the life of the patient. It’s
more important that the surgeon feels the operation was really successful. It’s more important that the surgeon was able
to locate the mistake, but he was unable to save the person’s life.
The most precious thing is human life. That’s what I tried to do through my work. To help people. Not to help by pushing someone in front of a car. Or to give him a $1,000 handout. But to take him by the hand and ask him if he has a job, can he read, can he write? Maybe you need to spend three years to train him, but then that person would be more beneficial to the country. Maybe even the village mentality could turn into something productive; at least he would earn more, so he could pay more taxes.
Leon: So what happened to Contact Radio once the war started?
Bigi: I was one of those people who was a complete optimist. I always felt Milosevic was the sort to choke-hold people and then let them go. But by mid-March 1999, we had to decide whether to put 12 young people’s lives in danger or to have our program off the air even if it mean people asking why they are not hearing us any longer. I decided to take the more painful path. Two days before the war began, really it was the most dangerous time in Pristina. You couldn't even go outside because you could sense in the air that something was going to happen. Something unknown. But soon we knew what it was – airplanes, bombs, mines, etc. etc.
I
talked to some of my colleagues and told them we were going to Novi Sad for additional
radio training. Not just to get them out of there, but just so, if nothing ended up
happening, at least they would learn something from a more experienced production team. The rest of the staff I sent to Belgrade. The only people left in Pristina were me and the head of the
Technical Department. That guy I felt so sorry
for -- both of his parents were from mixed-marriages and theirs was a mixed-marriage as
well, so he had five nations and three religions in his blood. He defined himself as
a Yugoslav and no chains of any religion or any nation could have imprisoned him. Plus he
was a great worker. The two of us stayed in
Pristina and just waited. We weren't broadcasting, but it was better not to be using
our airtime than to not exist at all. Then a
state of emergency was proclaimed and I realized it was really the end. I decided it
was better for me to leave too.
The
problem for me was to be a Muslim with Albanians and not to know how to speak their
language. Or to be with Serbs – who
really can be very radical. Even that 10% that
I talked about before could really just kill me – bang bang. Worse, I hadn't finished my required military
service and I didn't want to go into the army because this was not a time of peace when
going to the army would simply mean completing a few exercises and a little bit of
solitary life. I could have survived something
like that, but it is against my principles if I were required to serve something where
killing or torturing somebody was the way of doing things.
So I decided to leave that territory and see what would happen after that. My main concern was to stay alive. You can imagine, from one side there is an army who
wants me and the other side is a group of guerrilla who call themselves freedom fighters
who want me. And in the middle of that, you
are passing through territory where you see planes above you from who knows what country
dropping bombs where you don’t know if they are for you or against you, but you know
they could hit you as well. So I had no choice. Left,
right, up and down there were enemies. I had
to leave.
Leon: So how did you make it to Sarajevo?
Bigi:
It took my mom and me five days to get here and we arrived with only 30 deutschmarks. We had started with 2500 DM, but every roadblock
required a payment. Police blockades where they would say “Yes you can
pass” or “No, you cannot pass.” Basically,
it’s very simple. Just put 200 DM in his
pocket and say you are just going to see your cousin in Sandzak. He lets you pass.
Then, when you get to Montenegro where there is another police blockade. And again, you wait for an hour. 300 or 400 DM later.
The way you know if you didn’t give them enough is that they would say
“Well, you know, I have a colleague of mine…” or they would say “Let
me ask my boss…” That means fork over a little more money. And then there is another police stop going from
Montenegro to Bosnia. There they actually made
me get off the bus and told me I had to register at the closest army barracks. I told them my mom is sick and gave them 300 DM. And then they say, “OK, there is a change of
guards now.” And then, from his demeanor,
you realize you have to give about 100-200 DM to all five police officers, including the
boss. So I am in the middle of that square and
I became friendly with all those police officers – exchanging cigarettes. But they are still not letting me pass and there is
a change of guards. So, at that point, I just
stopped the first car and said, “No matter how much money you ask, just take me to
the first village in Serbia.” So they
took me to my father’s hometown where some uncles of mine had a car. So, you see, everything is possible with money. And thank God, I had money to get to Sarajevo even
though, by the time I got here, I had only 30 DM left.
I still don’t know if I believe in fate, but my arrival in Sarajevo was at 2:00 am. Nothing was open in the city, not even a store that was supposed to be open 24 hours a day. It was raining. My mom has a weak heart and had fallen down when we got off the bus. A guy saw this and took us in and let us sleep at his place for a night. It was an unbelievable scene. I never imagined myself in such a situation. It was like something out of a movie.
The guy took us in and the next morning, we went to a refugee camp in Rakovica, about 15 km from Sarajevo. We were there with about 1400 other people, the majority of whom were also Sandzak from Kosovo. My mom and I were living in a room where there were 12 of us. A woman was sick, but we had to take it. We had to figure out some way out. I was trying to find a way out, but we couldn’t go from door to door, knocking on doors. I thought about going to the UNCHR and those international organizations. Who could help us? They all said they were unable to help us. Even the Bosnian government told us they were unable to help us. All we could get was some food.
So I decided to take action into my own hands and find some kind of job. I tried with NGOs, then with restaurants and bars since I have some experience as a waiter. I finally got a job. I got a girlfriend. Found friends. Everything except an apartment. And in time I will get that. I found myself here in Sarajevo in spite of some problems. I have had some awful experiences here in Sarajevo because I speak with a Serbian accent. People here who went through the war blamed the Serbs. With my accent – and it’s not important if I am called Misud or Mirko – they don’t like my language. But in Kosovo now, it might be worse because I don't speak Albanian. Still my focus now is on returning to Kosovo. I would like to try getting work there. But it's still very very difficult. I’m asking myself that question every single day – to go back or not. But I think it is much deeper than that.
I don’t know if you understand me. You don’t have those old friends and old places that you grew up in. But, then again, to return to the old environment but under new circumstances. It is very difficult. But I am ready to revisit that with a new adventure just to see if that would be for me. I still hope that there are enough rational people where they would be able to reconnect and create a new society.