 By Haris ALIBASIC: A tunnel like the one in Sarajevo, that together with the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, helped keep the City of Sarajevo alive, while aggressors on the surrounding hills were aiming at helpless civilians. That tunnel was in its darkness, underneath the ground 800 meters length, and it was the light of hope. Without that tunnel, Sarajevo would have been at an even greater risk. Gazans use tunnels to bring necessities back to the Gaza area. They don’t use the tunnels to run away. They are cut off from the rest of the world, by a blockade imposed by Israel, Egypt and Jordan. Tunnels are the only way back into freedom and basic necessities needed for families for Gazans, just like they were for Sarajevo people. |
As we watch the atrocities and killings every day coming out of the Gaza strip, the part of the Palestinian homeland currently under Hamas control and under attack from Israeli Army, pictures of war from Bosnia inevitably come to my mind. Together with my family, I survived several sieges, a siege of Doboj and the surrounding villages, a siege of Tesanj and Maglaj, and I was in Sarajevo while it was still under siege. I remember the long nights, with no electricity, no wood for fire, no flour, no food, and no place to stay. We would talk about digging tunnels out of the siege, and into freedom. But not to run away, but to come back and bring back food, supplies, and even cigarettes and car batteries – so that we can run our small radios and listen to Hajrudin Fermic tell us of the bravery of Bosnian solders on the frontlines around Maglaj.
A tunnel like the one in Sarajevo, that together with the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, helped keep the City of Sarajevo alive, while aggressors on the surrounding hills were aiming at helpless civilians. That tunnel was in its darkness, underneath the ground 800 meters length, and it was the light of hope. Without that tunnel, Sarajevo would have been at an even greater risk. Gazans use tunnels to bring necessities back to the Gaza area. They don’t use the tunnels to run away. They are cut off from the rest of the world, by a blockade imposed by Israel, Egypt and Jordan. Tunnels are the only way back into freedom and basic necessities needed for families for Gazans, just like they were for Sarajevo people.
What makes us what we are, are our families, our friends and people we can help. There are moments where we make our families happy and share perhaps the last meals with those we love the most. Such moments are even more important and even more precious when one is under siege and one counts every second as blessing from God. Many in Maglaj, Tesanj, parts of Doboj territory and everywhere in Bosnia who lived under siege can remember those moments, when I was able to share the precious last 20 kilograms of flour caught the night before during the food airdrops, some 15 miles away from home, some time after midnight, during subzero temperatures, on the hills surrounding Tesanj.
Gazans will continue to suffer. Their immediate Arab neighbors will not change their policies and will continue to issue empty threats and demand justice, while keeping the borders closed on Palestinians. This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone, knowing the 40 plus years history of the Arab treatment of the Palestinian issue. In the meantime, our politicians in Bosnia are bickering over an agreement, which emerged from Prud under the leadership of Sulejamn Tihic, the chairman of the Party of Democratic Action [SDA], and Milorad Dodik, Prime Minister of the Republika Srpska, the smaller entity in Bosnia. In essence this agreement is paving the way for ethnic division of the [Bosnian] Federation and creation of a third entity, recognition of the results of genocide and ethnic cleansing on the ground, giving away of state property to entities, which will lead to the disappearance of Bosnia-Herzegovina. This indeed is the plan which can lead to creation of a Bosnian Palestine.
In order to divert attention from the main issue, which is his agreement in Prud with Dodik, in his address to the main committee of the SDA, Sulejman Tihic said it “was high time to give up the policy in which the focal point is the victim philosophy, the story of aggression, genocide and injustice done to the Bosniaks.†Tihic added that “the policy of pandering to unrealistic demands by some categories of the population should be abandoned, as this seriously threatened stability of the Federation.â€
Not only does Tihic try to sell us the agreement he is making with the qualified enemy of Bosnia, he would like to forbid us remembrance of the genocide, aggression, burned homes, lost memories, raped sisters, mothers, wives, murdered children, maimed amputees, torture, concentration camps, grenades, starvation, beatings, sieges. He wants to collectively close our eyes and pretend as if nothing happened, while he is creating a Gaza situation for Bosniaks. Well if his plan passes, Bosniaks may start digging a tunnel from Sarajevo to Gaza and into Egypt , because the Bosnia we have known for a thousand years will cease to exist.