In Memoriam: My Grandfather

On my last visit to Mostar, my aunt gave me 7 audio tapes containing my grandfather's narration of his life. Apparently, he had spent his last few months recording himself and insisted on his death bed that I have the tapes. Touching the tapes, fearful of playing them (I still have not played them), I remembered our last conversation: "I love your topic. I will help you. We will go to the marriage office and get all the statistics you need."

In the closet with the tapes, I also found his old notebook where he jotted down all sorts of things: appointments, telephone numbers and addresses, including all three addresses I had lived at in Champaign, and at the end several numbers, written in a barely legible handwriting. Upon closer inspection I realized one of them was the number of Raif Dizdarevic, former Secretary General of the Bosnian Communist Party. Then it struck me: these were all contacts he was collecting for my arrival. The barely legible handwriting, which sharply contrasted the neat handwriting of the previous pages, reflected his growing weakness during the last few months. My aunt, who remained at his side right up to his last breath, told me that as he was dying he would still jot things down and would constantly speak of his yellow book. The yellow book is an economic manifesto he co-authored with Yugoslavia's leading economists in the 1980s when he was a part of the commission (Kraiger's Commission) formed to design economic reforms which would transform socialist Yugoslavia into a modern social democracy. My grandfather was intensely proud of his work in this Commission as he was the only member of the commission who did not have an economics degree, but was still picked by the republic due to his achievements as an economist at Herzegovina's giant company Hepok, which produced wonderful wine and economically transformed the previously poor Herzegovina.

The scribbled numbers at the end of his notebook spoke of his determination to help me as long as he could keep a pen in his hand. When he could no longer do this, he took his recorder and spoke of his life. My aunt said he would remain locked up in his room for hours on an end and all she could hear was his voice broken up by silences, a few sobs, and even laughter. He knew his time was running out and he wanted to tell his story.

And it is a life whose ups and downs mirror the ups and downs of the very country in which he spent his entire life. Born in the rocky surroundings of the Dalmatian town of Split just a few years after Yugoslavia came into existence (in 1924), he never could make long-term friends as he constantly moved around. His father was a member of the Yugoslav Kingdom's police force the jandarme and an authoritarian who tolerated no dissent within his family. He eventually moved them to Serbia where he spent most of his childhood in the small town of Uzice which would later become the first Communist Republic when the Partisans took over it as Yugoslavia was being dismembered by the Nazis. As a kid my knowledge of his wartime experiences was scant. I only knew he was in the hospital in Zagreb due to his gland problems. It was only after this war and death of Yugoslavia that he dared tell his story.

As Croatia was taken over by the brutal Ustasha all young men were conscripted, including himself, into the regular military known as Domobrani (Home Defenders). His actual military experience is still unfamiliar to me (the tapes hold the answer), but at the end of the war he was captured by the victorious Partisans while they were liberating Croatia. He was one of the thousands who were trying to escape Croatia, fearing Partisan reprisals, and surrendered to the British at the small Austrian town of Blaiburg. In order to please Tito, the British returned all these fleeing soldiers to Tito's Partisans who then proceeded to massacre many of them. Miraculously my grandfather was interned at a camp in Italy where he was investigated for months by the all powerful Secret Police. After concluding he had done no wrong during the war, he was allowed to return to Mostar, given a job, and became a card carrying member of the Communist Party.

What I find fascinating about his wartime experience is that he hesitantly revealed the multiple layers of his past only as the country was falling apart. His story was a part of the larger mosaic of what I call second pasts which began to pop up all over Yugoslavia as the Communists were losing their grip on power and Yugoslavia was dismembered. People unearthed their memories in telling alternative histories that had been banned as taboos by the Communists. Fear, his position as an economist, and his genuine love for the new socialist Yugoslavia (he continued to hold Tito in great regard) convinced my grandfather that barricading this past behind multiple layers was not only necessary, but the right thing to do. Thus, his frantic recording of his memories and his insistence that I have them speak of human determination to tell a story. And to be heard.

One of the first and last things I did while in Mostar was visit his grave to thank him. At the grave I became engulfed into an enormous cloud of guilt for not being with him as he was passing away. I remembered the day I was told of his death. My father called me in Champaign to tell me the news. I was devastated and sad, but I didn't cry. I think the reason for this was the fact this his death was not physically traceable in the remote corner of my American world. I could not feel his absence in my cramped Champaign apartment. The first time I cried after his death was one Saturday morning while I was visiting my parents in Louisville and the regular Saturday phone call my mother had always had "with Bosnia," as we put it, never came. The silence of that Saturday morning was deafening.

The tapes will break the silence and help me tell his story.

Obama's chances in November

Since Barack Obama is all but the certain Democratic Party nominee for the President of the United States, I thought I'd play with the electoral map in addressing the supposed weakness of our candidate: the oft-repeated notion that he is completely out of touch with the white blue-collar workers. Hillary Clinton has often pointed to this fact in highlighting his vulnerabilities come November given the fact that white blue-collar workers comprise the two most contested battleground states--Ohio and Pennsylvania--which Obama has to win in order to take the White House. His losses in both of those states, as well as his huge loss in my home state of Kentucky, seem to confirm the validity of Hillary's argument. While I think there is some truth to this and he indeed, has a problem in winning over the white blue-collar, lower middle class vote, I think that playing with the electoral map, taking into consideration the demographics of some battleground states, might undercut Hillary's argument and show him to be a much stronger candidate than she makes him out to be.

Let's take the worst case scenario and assume Obama will loose Pennsylvania (21 electoral votes) and Ohio (20 votes). This means he has to pick up the 41 electoral votes in some other states. In 2004, Kerry narrowly won Pennsylvania 51-49% and given the fact that Kerry's wife's family has deep roots in Philadelphia and he ran a strong worker-oriented campaign with Edwards on his ticket (and he was white) this might actually happen. Ohio always ends up disappointing the Democrats and in 2004 Bush won 51-49%. Although I am not very familiar with Ohio, I know the area adjacent to Louisville, especially the Hamilton county which includes the greater Cincinnati area. Cincinnati is a city that is deeply divided along racial lines, a division that was only exacerbated by numerous incidents of white police officers shooting unarmed African-Americans. However, Bush carried this county by only 6% points which can be explained by a big African-American population in the city. If this population turns en-mass in November and I have no doubt that they will, Obama might do better than Kerry in this county. But let's still assume the worst and agree that Obama will loose Ohio. Which states might come to the aid of Obama in case this happens?

I believe the following states might be in play in November: Iowa (7 votes), Missouri (11 votes), Virginia (13), Colorado (9), N. Carolina (15), New Mexico (5).

Iowa and Missouri are both in play this fall. Obama has literally camped out in Iowa for the past 15 months and has built an enormous grass roots organization that can crush any organization McCain establishes in the state given his abysmal performance in the Republican primaries there. The state also has 30% independents who tend to go over to the Democrats at times when the Republican brand name is in the toilet. If Obama chooses a conservative (maybe even a Republican a la Chuck Hagel) as his running mate, he will win the state given the fact that Bush carried it by only 10,000 votes (less than 1%). Missouri is also pretty much in play given St.Louis' huge and very active African-American population as well as the state party's support for Obama all bide very well for him. Bush won Missouri 53-46%, so it might be an uphill battle, but given Obama's appeal among independents and moderates as well as his ability to cause a massive African-American turnout never seen before, will all certainly help close the gap.

In Virginia, Obama's comfortable win over Hillary shows that in this state he did win over many white voters who will follow him into the general election in November. Bush won the state 54-46%, but Bush's abysmal popularity rating and Obama's conservative running mate would go a long way towards putting the state in play. This is why I think Obama should seriously consider Senator Jim Webb of Virginia as his running mate. This former Marine whose son is still in Iraq has been an early and persistent critic of the Iraq war and he enjoys considerable popularity in the state. I think his autobiography would enhance Obama's national security credentials (although a five-year old would have more legitimacy in this arena than Bush and the Republicans) and Obama's chances to win Virginia. In Colorado, which Bush took by only 5%, Obama has also built a strong grassroots organization the results of which we saw in his comfortable win over Hillary in the state's caucus. I know that North Carolina might be a long shot, but the African-American turn out this November will be like nothing like we have seen before, and this might be enough to carry him over the top considering the fact they comprise over 21% of the state's population. Finally, New Mexico. Here, Bill Richardson can do a lot of campaigning on behalf of Barack and offset Obama's weakness among the Latino communities. This may not be such a long shot if we remember that Bush carried that state by less than 6,000 votes.

If you are thinking "God Fedja is hallucinating if he thinks that Obama can win these states," you should keep an eye out on local special elections that have been taking place in several districts that had previously been as red as the color of the Soviet flag. The Congressional seat in the Prentiss County in Mississippi was taken over by the Democrat Travis Childers. Despite the fact that the district voted for Bush by a 25% margin and the state's GOP constantly ran TV ads associating Childers to Obama and Reverend Wright, Childers took the seat by a 54-46% margin! In Louisiana, the Republicans lost another seat that had been in their hands for more than 33 years. Democrat Don Cazayoux won despite another anti-Obama campaign with TV ads saying: "A vote for Cazayoux is a vote for Obama." And finally, in Illinois' 14th district, Dennis Hastert's former seat was taken over by Democrat Bill Foster in a fight against the xenophobic and limitlessly stupid Republican Jim Oberweis who ran on a transparently chauvinistic anti-immigrant platform (and lost!). Foster made the campaign a referendum on Bush's performance and sailed to D.C. These are pretty clear harbingers of what is to come to the Republicans in November. And despite of how overdue their crushing defeat will be, oh how sweet it will be!

In ending this long post, I still think that Obama's supposed weakness among the whites is overblown. Take Kentucky for instance. Even though it would be hard to fathom an Obama victory in the bluegrass state, considering the demographics of Eastern Kentucky, Obama did not even try to win the state or even close the gap. I emailed their campaign repeatedly, offering my services as soon as I got back into the country. I wanted to go door to door, call people, and do whatever else necessary. They did email me back and thanked me for my support, suggesting a few things I could do online, but the local organizers never bothered to call me. And Obama came to Kentucky (and only to Louisville) once! If he had tried harder, his loss would have been narrower. And there is plenty of time between now and November. I guess the point of my rambling is that he will not lose Ohio and Pennsylvania and will be embraced by the core of the Democratic party voters!

Am I too optimistic?

A Huge Day for Obama!

Today was probably the best day Obama has had since he started his campaign more than a year ago. Bush's reprehensible (but not surprising) remarks in front of the Knesset comparing "some senators" who want to negotiate with our enemies to Neville Chamberlain's policy of "appeasement" towards Hilter in Munich in 1938 gave Obama an incredibly rich opening to shape the debate on American foreign policy. And today, he did just that, proving once again, that he will be a remarkable candidate and if elected, an era-changing president.

For Bush to mention Hitler on the 60th anniversary of Israel's establishment and to launch this political attack on foreign soil is probably unprecedented. But nothing can surprise me anymore coming from this utter failure of a man. This is the man who through his cowboy diplomacy emboldened Iran, by removing its secular rival regime in Iraq, enabled Hamas to come to power in Gaza and then cut off all aid to the Gazans even though it was his administration that insisted on having the elections (despite the warnings of Israel). This is the man who on a visit to an amputee clinic in Texas in June 2006, housing veterans of the Iraq war, tried to identify with their pain by stating: "As you can possibly see, I have an injury myself--not here at the hospital, but in combat with a cedar. I eventually won. The cedar gave me a little scratch" (Amputee Care Center, San Antonio Texas, 1 June 2006). Just the few hours before he made the offensive speech to the Knesset, he said in an interview to Politico.com that he gave up golfing to commiserate with parents who lost their loved ones in Iraq: "I don't want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf. I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal."

In his brilliant and appropriately aggressive remarks, Obama responded by hitting all the right notes: 1) Bush's idiotic cowboy behavior has made us less safe, emboldening Iran, putting Hamas into power, and allowing N. Korea to develop a nuclear weapon. 2) Bush's foreign policy has been an aberration of the American tradition of negotiating with one's enemies as it was practiced by most presidents, including JFK (with Khruschev during the Cuban missile crisis), Ronald Regan (with Gorbachev), and Nixon in meeting with Mao. In his profoundly informed and thoughtful response, Obama showed once again why he is such a remarkable man and a perfect president to follow the disastrous 8 years of Bush-Cheney.

If the Americans take a second to turn off their "Dancing with Stars," and Fox news, and listen to what Obama has to say (and I think many of them are tuning in), Obama will certainly be the next president of the United States. I think today, he is one huge step closer to this as he has defined the terms of the debate which the Democrats cannot lose.

Every time I listen to Obama, I feel proud to be American!

Travel rant

After almost 30 hours of travel, I am finally home. As I attempt to recover (and good news about Obama certainly help with this!) not only from the jetlag, but from the limitless ineptitude of the airlines and airports in this country, I wanted to share my experience with you fellow travelers out there so that you can make better travel choices and avoid the nightmare of a trip that I had to go through. The best way to avoid this is simple: Do not ever fly through O'Hare!

If you have any financial or time flexibility try to avoid flying through Chicago's O'Hare like the devil avoids the cross. This is probably one of the most inefficient airports in the world and when you add to this the fact that it is also one of the busiest (if not the busiest!) the end result is complete chaos. I landed at O'Hare with 1:45minutes to catch my flight to Louisville, but the combination of idiotic ticket sellers at United and the behavior of the TSA people made me miss my flight. Since I was flying out of Bosnia, the Bosnian ticket officials could only give me a boarding pass to Chicago, so once I landed at O'Hare I had to go to the United check in counter to get the boarding pass to Louisville. Well, it took about 30 minutes to get through passport and customs, but after a fairly smooth process, I ran into the stony and substanceless smile of a woman from the United who for about 15 minutes tried to explain to me that I would not make this flight. I told her that I had almost 50 minutes to go and if I went through security pretty quickly I could make it. She was confused as to why I would want to do that since there two more flights to Louisville that evening. I tried to explain (this time raising my voice) that after sitting in a small seat with no leg room for 10 hours I really wanted to get home as soon as possible and that if she could just go ahead and issue my boarding pass, I would make the flight. Well finally after having lost the precious 15 minutes, I ran to the train to get me to terminal 1 (I was at the international terminal 5). Which brings me to my next point: why in the world does United have its planes scattered through all the terminals? The immensity of the airport and the slowness of the train transporting passengers from one terminal to the other seems to be designed to slow people down so that you would have to stay longer at the airport and buy more things.

Anyway, after managing to get to terminal 1, I encountered another obstacle to getting home that night: the lovely and friendly TSA officials. The line at the security checkpoint dashed my hopes that I would make it onto that flight. I politely asked the stocky TSA woman if I could go ahead and cut the line since my flight is about to leave (and several people in the line said, "yeah go ahead") but she sternly warned me that "I would have to wait like everyone else." Suppressing my Eastern European ingrained urge to cut the line, I waited until it was finally my turn (some 30 minutes later). Once they looked at my boarding pass and entered my passport info into their black laptop, the TSA officials exchanged ominous glances and told me that I "had been selected for additional security clearance." Every time I fly to Bosnia or from Bosnia on a one-way ticket (I normally get better deals through "Student Universe" this way), I go through this additional screening. This time, however, it was much more "additional" than it had ever been. They literally took apart the insides of my shoes, and went through every individual item in the bags. They opened the laptop, turned it on, and then turned it off. I really have no problem going through this shit every time, but I was in a hurry and I tried to explain (very politely) this to the TSA people, which only seemed to make them even more determined. I think the fact that my country of origin is Bosnia and that I was sweating profusely (from all the running) did not help my case. After some 20 minutes later, I was finally told that I could go.

Well, this did not help as it took me another 15 minutes to run to my gate. The new tunnel addition at O'Hare, while beautiful, takes forever, so I naturally, missed my flight. Not to worry, the ticket official said, since there was another flight to Louisville at 6:58 but this one was full. I would be placed on standby and in case of not making it, I would be placed on the 9 o'clock flight and would eventually get there by midnight. If only it had worked that way!

Since O'Hare is insanely busy (and I had read that there had been serious management shuffles at the airport due to the mess), planes are almost always delayed due to the traffic jam at the tarmac or the idiotic overbooking of airlines which means that there is a lack of planes. This is apparently what happened in my case as they were desperately waiting for a plane from Iowa to land so that it could refuel and take us to Louisville. Well, the plane was delayed for two hours and by the time it finally got there, the skies over Chicago literally began to burst with lightening and all the southbound flights were soon grounded. By this time, I had not slept for almost 24 hours. As the rain quieted they boarded the plane and I fell asleep as soon as I hit the seat.

I woke up shortly afterwards thinking that we had landed, but then realizing we were still on the runway. The captain soon spoke: "I am sorry to inform you that all the southbound flights were canceled and we have to wait go get another route from traffic control, so we will turn off the engine to conserve fuel." The people grumbled. "Why did they fly us out in the first place if they knew the forecast?" the passenger behind me loudly asked the question that was on everyone's mind. The announcements from the captain kept coming, each informing us that we would be on our way soon, but the plane was still parked in the middle of the runway. Some 2 hours later, we were informed once again that we would be on our way soon but that the runway was so backed up and we were 9th in the line. By this time, the person behind me started losing it and would bang his fists against the seat. People started shouting at the pilot telling him "to take his time." Of course, this was not the poor man's fault, but what do you expect when you imprison 50 people in a small plane for 3 full hours! Yes, you read correctly: 3 hours! We boarded the plane around 9 and took off little after 12 am.

I was in Louisville, 2:30 local time and I am still sleepy.

Mostar Greets me with Silence

Last week, I went back to Mostar for the last time before I take off for the US. I struggled to say good-bye to the city I once called my hometown, but the city was silent. I walked the streets of my neighborhood and stared at the familiar names sprawled in graffiti on the stadium walls, many of the names now dead, but most scattered across the world. My interaction with the names of my childhood friends echoed the seductive power of nationalist thinking that reigns over the city: "Denis, Dado, Coba, Sano, I wonder if they were Serb, or Croat? Jasko, he must have been Muslim." I had forgotten the faces and voices of these people, but their names could help me place them into neat labels which now replaced any personal memories erased by the passage of time. The trouble was that these labels could not help me remember if it had been Jasko or Denis who helped me hide our neighborhood stray dog from the murderous animal control deputies. Was it Sano or someone else against whom I won my first fist fight at our makeshift stadium, now a garbage dump? Was it Coba who taught my brother how to play a guitar in our building's basement? Time had emptied these names of any substance they had possessed and has turned them into Serbs, Croats, and Muslims. The most disturbing aspect of this interaction was that I had become very skilled at guessing their nationality based on their first or last names (just that day I had spent several hours "counting" mixed marriages in the city's marriage office). I had become an accomplice to the crime that had made me a stranger in my hometown.

Trying to fit into the routines of my relatives, who live scattered across the two divided sides of the city, only increased my feelings of alienation. I would call each of them several times per day in an attempt to arrange a coffee or lunch date, and with each additional equivocal response my melancholy deepened and my intense desire to leave soon became unbearable. After trying to convince myself that I had done nothing wrong to deserve such aloofness, I finally had to face the fact that yes, I had committed an act for which the city would never forgive me: I left. Leaving the city as it literally burned down under the barrage of artillery fire might not have been my choice and the city would have forgiven me. But not coming back after the war was my choice and for this, the city would never forgive me. The indifference with which it greeted me mimicked an awkward meeting of two former lovers who after a long and passionate relationship had gone their separate ways. And now, so many years after the flame of passion had been extinguished, they were no longer angry at each other. They simply had nothing to talk about.

On my last day the metaphorical silence of the city became literal. East (Muslim) Mostar was commemorating the brutal murder of thirteen Bosnian Army soldiers who had been captured in their command center on West (Croat) side on May 9, 1993, the first day the war between Muslims and Croats broke out. With heavy anti-aircraft fire the Bosnian Croat Army (HVO), which they had parked literally in front of our building, burned down the command center, and arrested the thirteen young men. They were paraded on the Croatian national television and never seen again. Only last year, thirteen years after that horrible day, their remains were found in a secondary mass grave on the outskirts of Mostar. One of my best friends' brother was among the "missing thirteen" as they became known. The trials against those responsible for the crime (being held in Mostar and the Hague) revealed that after their arrest, the young men were taken to the university building, brutally tortured and murdered.

Last week, May 9 2008, East Mostar held a public Muslim funeral for the thirteen and they were buried with highest military honors. The funeral was attended by the country's highest political and religious Muslim leaders (and a pro-Muslim Croat member of our presidency) and the East side of the city declared a day of mourning. Some stores and cafes were open but there was no music. People were also respectfully restrained in that there was no shouting, singing, laughing as a result of which, the East side was eerily quiet on that Friday morning. In contrast, if you walked across the bridge and onto the West side, you were greeted with music blaring from cafes. For the Croat part of the city, this was just another day.

As my taxi drove me from the West side to the bus station on the East side, I asked the cab driver (a big Catholic cross hanging around his rear view mirror) about the funeral. "Oh those poor souls," he said giving me hope that finally, here is a Croat who commiserates with these men. "They were murdered by their own," he exclaimed. "What do you mean?" I asked, trying not to get angry and thinking of my friend who lost his brother. "Well, Juka killed them. He was a Muslim wasn't he?!" he almost shouted as if he could sense my anger. "I guess so," I dropped the matter as we approached the station. Indeed, the men were murdered by a unit led by Juka Prazina, a Muslim thug and a bandit who after fighting for the Bosnian army, switched sides and fought on the side of the HVO. The fact that at the time of the murders Juka's militia was an HVO unit and that the attack on the Bosnian army command center was conducted by HVO and ordered by top HVO generals (many of them now in the Hague) did not disturb the seemingly flawless logic of my cab driver. This logic suggested that Juka was a murderer with a Muslim name and this relieved the collective Croat body of any responsibility. Disturbingly, the cab driver felt the need to speak on behalf of this collectivity and act as its public defender.

As our bus rolled out of Mostar and towards Sarajevo, I looked at the throngs of people walking towards the main square where the funeral was to be held. I felt utterly exhausted. I could not wait to get home. I never felt more American that on that day.