Out of darkness

“Before, we lived together as brothers without distinction, then the propaganda instilled hate in people’s minds. Today we try to work with the younger generations because the history of the war is still a taboo”. Esmuda, a Muslim woman who survived the Trnopolje camp, is running the association Heart of Peace in a Serbian enclave with other women who were victims of violence “I’ve never received any psychological help. I don’t hate but I cannot forgive. If I could, I would leave the country today, because there hasn’t been any justice, but at this point it’s too late”. Those are the words of Dijana, a Serb woman-prisoner at the Mussaza camp, and an IDP in the city of Foca after being forced to leave her native village in Konjic. Today she works in her vegetable garden, the only compensation obtained through the UN’s refugee Agency (UNHCR), trying to alleviate the suffering experienced at the hands of the fighters. Even after twenty-one years, two opposite histories are teaching at school in Bosnia Herzegovina, there is high level of discrimination in public institutions and most of the women didn’t receive any compensation or psychological support. While the conflict was characterized by a policy of extermination against the Muslims of Bosnia Herzegovina, these stories offer an account of the conflict – and the following years – free of any hierarchy of pain or ethnic classification. All have suffered – whether Serb, Croat or Muslim – and all today, struggle in silence, in a patriarchal society, imbued with nationalism that is a direct result of the international agreements that ended the conflict.