\u201can ugly peace\u201d<\/a> \u2013 a complicated patchwork of ethnic blocs stitched together in a complex power-sharing agreement held in check by each side\u2019s power of veto.<\/p>\nFrom her perch on the deck of the cafe where she is more than a customer \u2013 the Turkish owner\u2019s daughter plays soccer with her niece \u2013 Joldi\u0107 looks out and sees a Sikh family taking a dog for a walk through the park. Two young girls squeal as they ride scooters down the concrete embankment of an ephemeral creek. Kookaburras cackle from their perch in black and towering ironbark. A man mows his lawn. She says there is a German word for the relationship to this place she learned from her years as a child refugee in Berlin \u2013 Stammkundin. It means \u201ca regular\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs Bosnians,\u201d she says, \u201cWe\u2019ve always been quite sceptical about what Dayton has done to our country.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat scepticism arose from the fact that agreement froze us in time.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, I think when Gaza happened and when Ukraine happened, I started to shift my views and think: well at least it stopped the war.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt stopped the killing. It stopped the bloodshed on the Balkans.\u201d<\/p>\n
So much blood was shed in the Bosnian war it introduced a chilling euphemism to the English language, a translation of the Serbo-Croatian phrase \u201cetnicko ciscenje\u201d \u2013 ethnic cleansing.<\/p>\n
\u2018When Gaza happened and when Ukraine happened, I started to shift my views and think: well at least it stopped the war,\u2019 Jasmina Joldi\u0107 says of the Dayton Accords. Photograph: David Kelly\/The Guardian<\/p>\n
At Srebrenica, 30 years ago, more than 8,000 Muslim men were detained and executed by the forces of Republika Srpska. The world watched the first legally recognised genocide in Europe since second world war in horror.<\/p>\n
Joldi\u0107 watched in a one-bedroom apartment for refugees in Berlin when those indelible images of Bosnian Serb forces advancing upon the besieged city came through the TV. She can still picture the scene. Her father, wearing purple tracksuit pants and a singlet \u2013 \u201cthe central heating was really hot\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember absolutely everything,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cI vividly remember Dad saying: \u2018oh my God Selma, they are gonna kill them. They are going to absolutely slaughter them.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
On the other side of the Brisbane river in New Farm, where the poncianas are exploding with in blooms of red, Ian Kemish also vividly recalls the Balkans of the mid 1990s. He and Joldi\u0107 have struck up a friendship as both try to make sense of the legacy Srebrenica and Dayton, which they experienced from very different perspectives, 30 years ago.<\/p>\n
Back then Kemish was a 30-something mid-level Australian diplomat. He remembers the flight from Zagreb to Sarajevo, strapped into the fuselage of a big Ukrainian Antonov. Donning a flak jacket and helmet. Driving through \u201csniper alley\u201d, from airport to capital, the driver positioning the car between trucks \u2013 \u201cjust in case\u201d. Sarajevo besieged by Serbian secessionists. Its people, so well dressed and groomed amid the chaos and ruins.<\/p>\n
There was a ceasefire at the time but, nonetheless, \u201cone heard shooting in the distance pretty much constantly\u201d.<\/p>\n
While ending the killing is the imperative, the political solution can be elusiveIan Kemish<\/p>\n
\u201cSarajevo was a sombre place,\u201d he recalls. \u201cThe minarets everywhere are really striking. But also, at that time, every bit of spare land either had cabbages growing in it or it had graves in it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yugoslavia had been famed for its coexistence of religion, Kemish says. Christians, Orthodox and Catholic, Muslims and Jews living and worshipping alongside one another for centuries. Now, a new brand of politician had stoked the fires of ethnic nationalism. Ancient hatreds erupted, Kemish says. Neighbours turned on neighbours.<\/p>\n
Dayton, Kemish says, froze the frontiers where they were, left nationalists in power. Tensions remain and continue to flare. The political framework that is the legacy of the accords is \u201cpretty creaky\u201d, the scepticism of it warranted.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I think about various peace agreements, it\u2019s almost always this way,\u201d Kemish says. \u201cWhile ending the killing is the imperative, the political solution can be elusive.\u201d<\/p>\n
But, like Joldi\u0107, Kemish believes the achievements of Dayton have only become more impressive with time.<\/p>\n
\u201cI keep coming back to one point, which is that, 30 years of peace, in a strict military sense, is a very worthwhile achievement,\u201d he says. \u201cGiven the circumstances in which those agreements were struck\u201d.<\/p>\n
The retired diplomat and novelist is working on a second book, set after the Bosnian war. It is, he says, about people who carry hidden histories and hidden traumas into peaceful places.<\/p>\n
Is it the palm trees or the humidity, Joldi\u0107 wonders?<\/p>\n
She commutes to work in Canberra now \u2013 but there is something in the Brisbane air that tells Joldi\u0107 she is home the moment she steps out of the plane.<\/p>\n
Jasmina Joldic: \u2018We came to Australia not speaking the language. It was hot. It was humid. Shops were shutting at 5pm.\u2019 Photograph: David Kelly\/The Guardian<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are typical migrants, it was the only area that we could afford,\u201d she says, explaining her parents\u2019 decision to settle in Rochedale South on Brisbane\u2019s outer southern fringe two decades ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was really strange, to be very honest. Imagine this teenage kid growing up in Berlin … Brisbane about 24 years ago looked very, very different. We came to Australia not speaking the language. It was hot. It was humid. Shops were shutting at 5pm.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now, her uncle and aunt \u201clive just around the corner\u201d, her sister got married and moved \u201cthree streets away\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo we are all in Rochedale South \u2013 proper migrants,\u201d she says. \u201cWe put our roots down, and that\u2019s home. And, gosh, we love that community\u201d.<\/p>\n
Joldi\u0107\u2019s was one of the families who founded the city of Bijeljina thousands of years ago. It is part of the Serb Republic \u2013 and though she remains connected to and proud of her Bosnian heritage, Joldi\u0107 has cut ties with her ancestral hometown.<\/p>\n
But that is not the story Joldi\u0107 is here to tell today.<\/p>\n
Joldi\u0107 wants to demonstrate the contribution migrants make to enriching Australia, culturally and economically. And she is here out of a sense of duty, to make that point, in a time of rising rhetoric around immigration and race.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a responsibility, as a nation, not to take social cohesion for granted,\u201d she says. \u201cIt can happen quickly and it can escalate and it can escalate horribly wrong. Cohesion is everyone\u2019s responsibility.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is a responsibility, Joldi\u0107 says, to protect the peace and prosperity we enjoy.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd, God, how lucky are we?,\u201d Joldi\u0107 says. \u201cHow lucky are we?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jasmina Joldi\u0107 was nine when she found out she was born into a religion. Her mother, Selma, was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":346037,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-346036","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=346036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346036\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/346037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}