In the spring of 1992 Bosnia was a country with no chance whatsoever. While other countries of disintegrating Communism were underpinned and elevated by the old nineteenth-century idea of a national state, the Bosnian people was made up of three nations and Bosnia could not contain three states. While everyone paid attention to the countries emerging from the Soviet Union and while the whole Western world worried (and expressed its worry in convertible currency), beside all those Ukraines, Russias, Belorussias, Lithuanias and Estonias Bosnia was like a drop of ink accidentally spilled on a precious paper about which no one worried.

In March 1992 the West was seized by a mild irritation with that Bosnian blot. While the newly emergent states in Bosnia's immediate neighbourhood sought their chances in the encircling region, Bosnia was encircled only by them. While all the other states born from Yugoslavia stipulated conditions to one another, Bosnia was in no position to stipulate conditions even to itself. While Slovenia agreed to a confederation and Macedonia to a graduated federation, while Serbia agreed to nothing at all and Croatia only to what Slovenia would agree to, Bosnia agreed to everything. While in all these other states there lived people increasingly destined for a common fate, in Bosnia each nation had its own fate. In the spring of 1992 Bosnia was alone, an anonymous and disarmed country, with a people divided between those who feared war, those who knew war was coming, and those who saw their chance in war. After tanks from the East had swarmed into Bosnia to help these last, Bosnia was a land with no chance whatsoever. At that time, however, hardly anyone would have been aware of this. Those Bosnians who had decided not to be something else believed that Bosnia had a chance, because it was protected by civilizational principles; while those Bosnians who had decided to be Serbs and nothing else feared that Bosnia had a chance, so at the start of the war they did not smash Sarajevo though they could have without anyone getting angry with them. If they had not lived in the illusion that Bosnia had a chance, the Bosnians would have gone mad and killed themselves before they could be killed by Serbs who had no wish at all to be Bosnians. If they had not lived in fear that Bosnia had a chance, the Serbs in all likelihood would have killed Bosnia off effectively.

However, as the war went on and the country grew smaller and more butchered, its chances grew. The brutal attempt to murder a country without a chance turned paradoxically against the murderers. Already in the course of 1993 and 1994 Bosnia's disappearance became impossible, even though more and more Bosnians were beginning to doubt its chances. By the time the Croat-Bosniak war began and too large a number of Bosnian Croats began believing they need not be Bosnians, it was already too late for the Bosnian state's destruction. This is why that war ended as soon as the Washington Agreement was signed; but since identity is easily and quickly lost but only slowly gained, those Bosnian Croats who had fought against the Bosniaks still did notgrasp that this agreement meant that they must again accept the attribute attached to their national name, and that this attribute was of fateful importance to them.

After Dayton Bosnia became a country with a very real chance. But there are even fewer Bosnians who believe in this than was the case after Washington. Some do not believe because all their earthly faith is spent; some do not believe because they never had any belief; some do not believe because their suffering has taught them despair; still others do not believe because it does not pay them to believe. It does not pay them to believe because, as Bosnia's chances grow, the time it will take to realize them is being prolonged ad infinitum. Perhaps Bosnia cannot realize its chances during our lifetime. But the country is now here to stay.

To take just one example, Bosnia is here to stay because of Brcko. Whatever the arbitration commission decides, Bosnia's chances will grow. If the town is given to its murderers, and even if the Bosnians fail to resist this effectively (which is almost inconceivable), it will be only a thin little lifeline for Banja Luka to breathe through, and sooner or later the longing for more air will return the latter to Bosnia and Brcko along with it. There is no way for the western part of Republika Srpska to survive outside Bosnia. The eastern part of Republika Srpska has no meaning without its western part; nor is it possible, now that Gorazde has survived in Bosnia.

Or take Mostar! This is a city in which everything is the opposite of what it was in Berlin. A wall had to be built in order to divide Berlin, while to divide Mostar it was necessary to destroy a bridge. In Berlin it was the eastern part which did not wish to be the same city as the western part, while in Mostar it is the western part which does not want that. Divided cities survive, however, only so long as the idea of their division lives. And since this idea is not of divine inspiration, in time it dies. With every passing day in Mostar Bosnian (and Herzegovinian) chances grow. Perhaps the evidence today still renders this paradoxical, but very soon it will not be. Mostar must be a single city, just as Bosnia must be a single country and the Bosnian nations must return to the identity of their homeland.

Pray God that no country in this world ever again remains without a chance as Bosnia did in 1992. Pray God that the Bosnian people, all the Bosnian nations, regain a faith in their country.

Miljenko Jergovic, born Sarajevo 1966, is a poet and journalist writing for Oslobodjenje. He wrote this text as a guest contributor for Lailjan. His Sarajevo Marlboro has just been published in English translation by Penguin (London 1997).

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