My Take on the Gates Arrest Controversy

I cannot help but think about the Gates arrest through the prism of my own experience. While I do not wish to imply that I understand what it feels like to be a black man in America during an encounter with a white cop, after reading about the arrest, I was reminded of my own experience in encountering an authority that once upon a time thought of me as a threat.

In late summer 2001 I was wrapping up my vacation in Mostar and was on a bus to Zagreb, along with my grandfather, from where I would fly back to the US. The southern border at Vinjani, between Croatia and Bosnia, is a primary target for all kinds of smugglers and the EU has been pushing Croatia and Bosnia hard to crack down on this border if they were ever to join the EU club. As our bus made its way along the rocky, nausea inducing winding roads of Western Herzegovina I was beginning to fall asleep next to my grandfather who was wide awake. It was my grandfather who woke me up from my hazy sleep, saying: "We are at Vinjani", the border crossing. A polite Croatian police officer walked into the bus and asked everyone to take out their passports. At this time I still carried my Bosnian passport along with my recently issued American Green Card. I handed the police officer the passport and the Green Card. After staring at it suspiciously, he asked me to step off the bus. At this point, I immediately became furious.

Now, an outsider looking at the situation could say "Well, he was disrespectful to the police officer. The officer has a tough job, blah blah blah." But the only reason an outsider could not comprehend my response if he/she did not know the history of my encounters with the Croatian police in general and in particular, my interaction with the border police at this particular border crossing.

In the scorching summer days of 1993--as the war between Croats and Muslims in Mostar exploded into a daily face-to-face, street by street combat--the Vinjani border crossing became both, a symbol of hope for Mostarci who wanted to escape the fighting, and a menacing obstacle for Muslim men trying to secretly pass into Croatia and escape the Bosnian Croat army concentration camps which had popped like mushrooms all over Herzegovina in the early summer of that year. In June 1993, my mother and I were leaving the city on a bus a day after my brother and my father had escaped the city in a cab of a known smuggler. Our original plan was to meet up in Split but we did not know if my brother and my father had actually made it the night before. Our anxiety about their fate was mixed up with our fear, if not panic, about the Vinjani border crossing. We had heard stories of Croat police taking all Muslims off the bus and then taking them in an unknown direction, probably to concentration camps, or worse. At the border, the Croat police took everyone off the bus, and then proceeded to rummage through everyone's baggage, take everyone's IDs and hoard us into the small police station under the scorching sun. A Muslim man begged an officer to let him pass as his son was suffering from epilepsy and looked like he was about to pass out. The soldier laughed at him (in front of my very own eyes) and called him a "pussy" for crying. The man, along with his son was hauled away in a police van. When it came our turn, my mother produced her birth certificate which showed clearly her Croatian heritage: her father was born in Split and her mother in Zagreb. The officer looked at the birth certificate and laughed at the Serbian spelling of my mother's name (Snezana as opposed to the Croatian version "Snjezana") shouting "Oh you are not a real Croat, look at your name." At this, my mother (a tiny woman) snapped the certificate out of his hands and told him that "I am a bigger Croat than you will ever be!" At this, the officer asked her to accompany him to a separate room in the police station at which I immediately pushed my way between him and my mother and followed them at the annoyance of the officer. I was terrified of what might happen in that room. As soon as we walked into the room, the officer changed his demeanor apologized to my mother justifying his behavior by saying he "didn't know you were Croats." My mother demanded he let us through. At this, he sighed, stamped our documents and we were on our way (on a much emptier bus this time) to Croatia where we re-united with my father and my brother.

So when I was asked to step off the bus almost exactly 8 years after this nightmarish incident, the first memory that popped into my mind was of the thug who treated us like dirt and worse of all who might have harmed that man and his epilepsy-stricken son. But this time, I had a green card and felt empowered. I told the police officer that I will not step off the bus until he tells me the reason for this. At this my grandfather politely told the police officer that I am a student in America and that I am on my way "home." The officer persisted: "this bus will not leave until you step off and follow me to the police station." I kid you not, but this was the same police station from the summer of 1993. But I honestly could not feel any fear probably because I was so angry. In the station, I demanded to know why I was taken off the bus. Then I realized that the incident arose out of the officer's confusion regarding the Green Card. He kept asking me what this document meant. In my attempt to clout myself into a more powerful status, I told him it meant that I was "under the protection of the US government" and that the document was tantamount to a US passport. He then proceeded to make small talk asking me why and for how long I had been in Mostar. I told him, in a very rude manner, that I was there for two months and the reason for it was because this was "the only home I will ever have and that I can go there any time I'd like." He wrote down my green card number and instructed me that I was now free to go back to my bus. I snapped the green card out of his hands, like my mother had done the same with her birth certificate eight years earlier, and stormed out of the station. I remember the sound of the door slamming behind me. Actually, I remember regretting the slamming the moment I stepped out as I was afraid it might have given him an additional excuse to hold me. I climbed on the bus to find my grandfather absolutely terrified as to what might have happened to me. The entire bus was staring at me. Then and there I vowed I would get my American passport and next time would immediately ask to see US consular staff if I were hassled again. I was too upset to talk to my grandfather and only told him of what had happened once we got to Zagreb.

I could not help but think of this experience when reading about Gates' arrest. In my mind, the professor was completely justified in his reaction and it is the police officer who has to apologize.