SUS Ch.

5 - 7 Mihael Dasovic B block HL

Summary:

Ivana opes up the fifth chapter explaining how people were divided along ethnonational lines into
Muslims, Serbs and Croats. Serbs were looked down upon, because they were the ones who
caused all the destruction however there were some Serbs who were accepted and were viewed
as “good Serbs” who were still considered to be Sarajevans.
The primary aim of Yugoslavia was to unite these nations by forming a nation consisting of
Slovens, Croats, Serbs, Montenegrins and Macedonians; creating political ideology under the
name of “brotherhood and unity”. Bosnians could not declare themselves as Bosnian nor did they
language exist in the past until 1994. Due to that reason Bosnians would put the letter “H” where
ever they could just to make Bosnian language happen.
During the war Bosnian was going through tough Economical situation as they were not paid
much, they would not get paid for extra hours/shifts and they were struggling to earn the money to
support the family. People have realised that this was due to bad politicians who were working in a
favour for themselves rather than for the people, meaning that they were breaking the law and only
looking after themselves. People only looked after themselves, they didn’t care about other
countries. Bosnians put a big emphasis on media as it was their main source of the information
regarding the war, killings, attacks, etc. However, because the media staff has to be present
everywhere the first victims of the war were media staff members. Author also mentions the
importance of the colours, green is the colour of the Bosnians and blue is the colour of Croats.
People who were slavs but were not Bosnians were called Russians, meaning that they were good
people who did not interfere nor were they working with any of the opposite sides, Croats/
Bosnians, therefore they were called “Russians”. Celebration of religious holidays became popular
during the war, but people had hard time finding the resources needed for the feats, because of it’s
shortage during the war. Many people would betray and disobey their Bosnian citizenship for the
Croatian citizenship and would convert to Christianity just to escape the military service and to
obtain the Croatian citizenship which allowed the to move to Croatia and cross the border without
any troubles. However, by doing so they were betraying their culture, religion and country.

Quotes:
“The more extremist Croatian and Serbian politicians claimed that Bosnian Muslims were “really”
Serbs and Croats who has converted to Islam during Ottoman rule: thus, the whole republic could
be decided between Serbia and Croatia”
In this quote we can see that, nor Croatia or Serbia, viewed Bosnia as a country but rather
a part of their own country because they didn’t acknowledge them as Bosnians but Serbs and
Croats. They did not have a language thus they could not have a country. Their religion was
accepted due to Ottoman empire but their ethnicity was not acknowledged, they were still viewed
as either Serbs or Croats regardless of their religion.

“If you want to divide us, you can divide us only into raja and papci!”
Statement given by a protestant, meaning that you could only identify Bosnians as either
Bosnians or jerks (Serbs/Croats). You would either accept them for who they were or you would
not accept them at all.

Questions: