1) WE EXIST, OFFICIALLY
The Community of Bosnia Foundation was officially incorporated with the State of Pennsylvania as a non-profit corporation on December 17, 1993. Today, January 19, 1993, I am returning the federal non-profit status forms (501c3) to be filed with the IRS, with a request for expedited treatment.
I wish to thank Janet Marcus, secretary of the foundation, and Martha Hurt, Kathy Costanza, and Sandi Porter, esquires, of the firm Saul, Remick, Ewart, and Saul, and the firm itself, for requesting, granting, and carrying out the task of helping Community of Bosnia incorporate and file, pro bono. Incorporation and filing for non-profit status is a time-consuming and tricky business. I really don't know how we could have done it without the timely help of the people mentioned above. On behalf of the foundation I express our deepest appreciation for their work. I will be having the articles of incorporation and the non-profit status documents scanned into a file. They can be sent, e-mail, upon request.
For now, directors and officers of the Community of Bosnia are Michael Sells, President, Laurie Hart, treasurer, and Janet Marcus, secretary. Professor Amila Buturovic, a native of Sarajevo, and Andras Riedlmayer of the Fine Arts Library at Harvard University, who is an expert on Bosnian cultural heritage) have agreed to become directors as well. Our first organizational goal is to expand the board of directors and to organize an advisory board with people from various areas of expertise.
2) SISTER-COMMUNITY Adoption Campaign
One of the prime goals of the "ethnic cleansers" is to depersonalize and dehumanize, to strip of all personal and cultural identity, those who survive the "cleansing." A last ritual occurs at Vlasic Mountain, where the armies of Slobodan Milosevic systematically strip people who have already lost everything else, their home, their livestock, their families, their mosques, their cultural institutions, their heritage, of every last remaining personal possession, down to the wedding ring, before turning them over to be placed in "refugee camps."
To resist such de-personalization, we are encouraging PERSONAL CONTACT with these people. It is impossible to overstate how much it means to someone in such a situation to be recognized as an individual and as a person. We have established direct communication to Bosnian survivors of ethnic cleansing who are now living in Kamp Veli Joze in northern Croatia under difficult circumstances. Kamp Veli Joze is organized by the Suncokret group who have done so much for Bosnian refugees. We are now establishing sister-community direct relationships. I have a group of volunteer translators ready to help us in communicating.
The HAVERFORD chapter of the Community of Bosnia has adopted Foca (pronounced Fo-cha, accent on first syllable), the magnificent city in southeast Bosnia whose 500 year Bosnian Muslim heritage was annihilated by genocide squads in April, May, and June of 1992. In February we will be preparing letters and packets for the families from Foca at Kamp Veli Joze.
We are also preparing a library and computer base documentation of former residents of Foca, all historical, cultural, and artistic information we can get on the city, with special emphasis upon the great 16th century "Colored Mosque" (Aladza Djamiya) which was one of the architectural masterpieces of European civilization.
We are now encouraging other sister-city adoptions. By this spring we expect to have established personal contacts with all the communities now at Kamp Veli Joze. If you know of any group interested in such direct, tangible action, please contact me at this e-mail address. (Please note, religious groups are definitely encouraged, indeed, urged to participate. Because of the tragic religious dimensions of the "ethnic cleansing," however, letters should not include confessionally defined prayers and or religious statements; the tragedy of these people should not be used for prosyletization).
3) BOSNIAN STUDENT PROGRAM
There are scores of the most talented Bosnian students now in Croatia. Their homes and schools have been destroyed. Their teachers have been killed. In some cases they have endured the most unimaginable difficulties. Yet they have a deep desire to continue their education. The Croatian government has become increasingly nationalistic and these students are often without financial, psychological, educational, or emotional support in an increasingly hostile environment. Some have been attacked by ethno-nationlist gangs.
In cooperation with the FELLOWSHIP OF RECONCILIATION and the Jerrahi Order of New York, we are trying to find SCHOLARSHIPS for these superb students. About 20 students have already been brought to the U.S. on this program. We are working to get many more in supportive environments.
These students are the memory of the multi-cultural Bosnia. They are also the key to any possibility of a multicultural future. It is for this reason that the nationalists have tried to destroy as much as possible of the educational infrastructure of Bosnia. Lives are at stake. The cultural and intellectual lives of Bosnian students who will otherwise face a wasted future; and the actual, physical existence of unarmed Bosnians behind the Serb army lines who are being brutally persecuted in places like Banja Luka.
Bryn Mawr, Villanova, Rosemont Colleges have said they would offer scholarships. Haverford, University of Pennsylvania, West Chester are very supportive and we strongly hope that each will be able to contribute. In some cases colleges offer a scholarship, but look to the community to come up with living expenses. The response to a letter I sent to the Haverford community has shown a moving and overwhelming generosity on the part of people. I have just received the wonderful news that a faculty member has offered a room on campus for a Bosnian student at Haverford. I am sure we will be able to raise whatever living-expense money Haverford college is not able to provide. I wish to express appreciation to Tom Kessinger and Delsie Phillips for their understanding and support; Haverford has very little money for international students and it is no easy matter to address this kind of urgent issue. I expect to make a proposal for some long term plans to provide a fund for international students from cultures that are threatened with genocide.
This spring we are planning a region-wide publicity campaign to raise funds for students coming to our area. We have information on several programs to help Bosnian or Eastern European students on scholarship with living expenses. Having many students in the area will also relieve Bosnian students of the cultural isolation that Bosnians can feel when they come as individuals to the United States.
The nationwide program is going strong. Brandeis, Dartmouth, St. Norbert, Gonzaga, St. Josephs, Emory, Washington University in St. Louis, Butler College, Cornell, Macallester, are just a few of the institutions that have shown support and that may well offer a scholarship. (We are keeping a formal record of which people and institutions were willing to act to save lives and which were not). If you have any contacts with any private high school, college, or university, that would be willing to provide a scholarship, please let me know.
In November, two Bosnian students in this program spoke at Haverford's collection. I spent the rest of the afternoon with these two students, other Bosnian students, and people involved with the program. I cannot adequately describe the moving story of the students, Dalila Suhonic of Bosanski Gradiska and Emir Pasalic of Prijedor, and the character and generosity they showed. Any institution wise enough to admit and help fund a student like this will be immeasurably enriched.
4) BOSNIAN REFUGEE STATUS
I have contacted the U.S. State Department Bureau of Refugee Affairs and received the criteria for refugee status. They are very strict and apply to the following categories only: 1) Survivors of torture, rape, or concentration camps; 2) Vulnerable Bosnians of mixed marriages; 3) Bosnians with close relatives in the U.S. The "ceiling" for refugees is 5,000 to 10,000. A goal of the Community of Bosnia is to send this information to as many people working with refugees as possible.
We have learned that the State Department and UNHCR are denying refugee status to ex-detainees outside the former Yugoslavia, in apparent violation of their own stated criteria, on the technical grounds that ex-detainees outside former Yugoslavia are "not vulnerable." We will be writing those responsible for this decision, presenting the testimony of survivors on conditions in their original concentration camps and in the refugee camps, and asking these officials whether they wish to go down on record as having approved this treatment of survivors of genocide.
5) PROFESSOR AMILA BUTUROVIC AT HAVERFORD
Professor Buturovic, a native of Sarajevo, is spending the semester at Haverford as a visiting professor in the Department of Religion. She is teaching courses on Islamic Literature and Civilization, Islam and the West (the Islamic Heritage of Bosnia) and Islamic Philosophy. Professor Buturovic just finished her dissertation at the Institute for Islamic Studies at McGill University in Montreal. She will be helping the foundation in a variety of ways; speaking in the area about what is happening to her homeland. I wish to thank my colleagues in the religion department and Bruce Partridge for their help in making this superb appointment.
I must mention that Professor Buturovic's family has suffered along with all Bosnians. Her only sibling, her sister Aida, was killed in the deliberate shelling of the National Library in August, 1992 when she was returning from a last minute effort to save some of the invaluable manuscripts of the library. Her father was killed by a sniper. Her mother is, like all Sarajevans, a prisoner of constant shelling, hunger, lack of heat, lack of water, in a city the UN has labelled a "safe haven" and from which the UN allows only the grievously wounded to leave. Her cousin was recently injured in a shelling of an apartment building; he was the lone survivor. We are working on ways to help her mother leave Sarajevo to join Amila and are trying to determine the condition of Amila's cousin Mirza.
6) COMING EVENTS AT HAVERFORD AND BRYN MAWR
Professor Buturovic and I will be speaking at the Collection on FEBRUARY 1, 10:00 AM, Haverford, Chase 104. Professor Buturovic will speak on "personal reflections on the Bosnian tragedy." I will speak on the topic "Genocide in Bosnia: What practical things can we do." At 11:00 after the collection, I will meet with those who wish to work on specific tasks. I'll announce a meeting place at the collection and beforehand on e-mail.
On FEBRUARY 2, Professor Buturovic and I will speak at the local Amnesty International Group at Borders Bookstore in Rosemont, 7:30 PM.
On FEBRUARY 10, Andras Riedlmayer of the Fine Arts Library at Harvard University and the Aga Khan Program in Islamic Architecture will offer a slide-lecture at Haverford on "Bosnian Cultural Heritage and its Destruction." I am presently trying to put together a small exhibit to go along with Riedlmayer's lecture.
The 20 minute slide show I saw Andras Riedlmayer give at the Middle East Studies Association was stunning. This 50 minute slide-lecture is a very rare opportunity to get a glimpse of the magnificence of Bosnian culture, the ways in which the various religious monuments stood, side by side, for 5 centuries (despite misleading stereotypes about "age old antagonisms") and the systematic way that ethno-nationalists are targeting such monuments for annihilation. This promises to be a rare and memorable presentation.
FEBRUARY 15, Bryn Mawr College, 7:30, Campus Center, 105: Professor Buturovic and I will be participating in the nationwide activities arranged by Hillel association. Mindy Shapiro at Haverford Hillel is arranging the viewing of a short videotape on Bosnia, some brief comments by Amila and myself, and discussion of how we can best act in regard to this key moral challenge of our time.
MARCH: Direct mail fundraising and a benefit concert.
MARCH 30: Amir Pasic, Professor of Architecture at the University of Mostar and winner of the 1986 Aga Khan award for his reconstruction of the ancient city of Mostar will speak on: "Mostar 2004: Reconstructing the multireligious Bosnian city." I hope you can come and meet this remarkable man.
If you know of any group (church, synagogue, temple, college, human rights) that wishes to be involved in helping Bosnians, please let me know at this e-mail address. We would be happy to address them and help them become constructively involved.
IN CLOSING
Let me address a concern expressed by many: the issue of political action vs. humanitarian action. I believe it is a mistake to consider either, on its own, as viable.
Political action alone, without a personal focus, is vulnerable to being "handled," turned into abstractions by entrenched interests. Bosnia can be presented as "far away." Humanitarian action alone, without a moral and political horizon, amounts to feeding the victims before execution--a statement made bitterly by Bosnian officials as the UN allows civilians to be killed on their way to receive their meager UN rations. Used in this way, humanitarian action can become an excuse to avoid the roots of aggression.
The Community of Bosnia as a non-profit humanitarian Foundation will not engage in partisan politics or the support of any political candidate. But every act we engage in is tied to a moral and political horizon in the larger sense: resistance to ethno-fascism; support for multicultural Bosnia and multicultural societies; healing of religious and ethnic polarization; and implacable opposition to religious persecution, ethnic persecution, and genocide. This horizon embraces both the knowledge that what happens in Bosnia concerns us IN ITSELF and the knowledge that what happens there will determine what happens in other areas throughout the world where would-be "ethnic cleansers" want to see if the world will resist them.
Every act can be meaningful, contacting one refugee, writing one letter, however small it may seem. It is both a practical act of humanity as well as a refusal to allow the depersonalization that is at the heart of "ethnic cleansing." When people are statistic (15 killed today in shelling at Sarajevo), the world can easily write them off. As individuals, with names, faces, and biographies, they are not so easy to dismiss.
I just heard from Amir Pasic that his father was killed in the shelling of the Muslim side of Mostar. Yet Dr. Pasic is speaking of the reconstruction of Mostar. If Bosnians, who have been through so much, refuse to acquiesce to hopelessness, I think it would be a luxury and a betrayal for those of us who are free to move and act to give in. "Ethnic Cleansing" won a cheap victory with a big army and a weak geopolitical climate. Whether it will succeed in the long run is yet to be seen.
We encourage you to participate with us in any way you can. Local volunteers can coordinate activities with me after the Feb 1st collection.
Financial contributions of any amount would be deeply appreciated. Checks can be made out to "Community of Bosnia" and sent to me or Laurie Hart, Haverford College, Haverford, PA 19041-1392. We will not be employing professional fundraisers and none of the directors and officers are paid--our contributions then will go directly into helping Bosnians.
Yes I can participate in the Community of Bosnia in the following ways: as a local volunteer helping set up a sister-community adoption chapter passing on a copy of this newsletter
financial contribution (checks can be made out to Community of Bosnia and sent to Michael Sells , President or Laurie Hart, Treasurer, Community of Bosnia, Haverford College, Haverford PA 19041-1392)
With appreciation for all your support, Michael Sells, for the Community of Bosnia.
(PS if you have a friend interested in Bosnia please feel free to forward a copy of this newsletter or print out a hard copy; those with an e-mail account can subscribe by writing "please subscribe COB" to msells@haverford.edu).
Michael Sells, Chaiperson, Department of Religion, Haverford College, Haverford, PA 19041. Day Phone: 215-896-1027. Fax: 215-896-1224. E-mail: msells@haverford.edu