It took years of effort, but at a contentious July meeting in South Africa, Mostar’s Old Town was finally added to the United Nation’s World Heritage List, giving it status as a unique cultural place on the globe.
A lifeline into and out of a city under siege a decade ago, a tunnel beneath the Sarajevo airport forgotten by residents and snubbed by officials as a historical memorial, has nevertheless become an unlikely magnet for tourists.
Why has a country full of buried treasures lost the will to exploit them? Too often, archeological wonders beneath the surface of BiH stay unstudied or are allowed to decay unless international scientists get involved.
As the Sarajevo Film Festival, which brings worldwide attention to the work of regional filmmakers, wound down this weekend, some BiH filmmakers were asking why most of this year”s limited funding from the Film Foundation went to Croatian directors.
A local film industry is still a dream to many Bosnian filmmakers. Many are asking if the government is doing enough to support the building of an industry that could be a major economic help to the country as well as a source of pride in its post-war future.
The usual divisive politics between BiH’s two entities has left Republika Srpska with practically no filmmaking at all, except for student films.
Reading about a country’s culture is a little like being told about the flavor of an apple without tasting it. But that’s all children in both BiH entities can do because their teachers are not taking them to see the other entity’s culture. Cultural education, like so much else in BiH, is still controlled by the heritage of political agendas from the war.
From unexcavated buildings under the village of Mošunj to Sarajevo’s National Museum, economic opportunities are being overlooked from a heritage BiH citizens and their children are not even aware is slipping away forever.
Cultural monuments and institutions seem to be close to last on post-war BiH’s priority list. But before everyone lets the country’s heritage crumble away, here is an inventory of what is being lost.
The canton minister of culture wonders if you can properly appreciate a Nobel Laureate’s literary library upstairs, if there is a party going on downstairs.
The latest chapter in the long standing power struggle between the FBiH institute and a state level preservation commission over control of historical sites and national monuments. It looks like the state commission is winning.
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