When the war in BiH ended in 1995, I was a happy man. After four years of war, the killing had stopped. I was demobilised after three and a half years of warfare. Though spent and feeling lost like most of my fellow veterans, I felt a mild optimism. My first trips to the seaside after years spent under siege and in trenches, under sniper fire and shelling, seemed like trips to paradise. I went into war at age 19 and came out at age 23. Young enough to pick up my life, but still “old”, with an excess of experience of suffering, violence and the proximity of death.
I still harboured deep dilemmas. Why do people have a tendency towards violence and how do we get dragged into wars even though few actually want them. What is it that hypnotises us, makes us prepared to kill, what sort of force is it? And why?
Before the war, I was an agnostic, I had grown up in such a family and such an environment. I did not believe in the concepts of religion, they were unfamiliar. At the beginning of the war, I saw religion as an extension of the nationalism that had destroyed our country and caused rifts among people.
Fear of death and the senselessness of suffering made me try to understand. Many of my close friends turned to religion looking for a sense of peace. Faced with the challenges of war and the daily awareness of mortality, your own and that of your loved ones, you start thinking about meaning, fate, a higher power. Losing faith in the system, the state, society, even people creates a feeling of deep uncertainty and insecurity.
In spirituality and believing, I found answers to soothe both my mind and my soul. I thank Allah for showing me the way, as we Muslims like to say.
I learned about faith from books of different religions, but mostly from people of different faiths. Also through art, films, books, I saw signs, road signs leading to my awareness of my own belief in God, as He revealed himself to the prophets and as testified by the Holy Books.
Living in Sarajevo, and in the Balkans, where bridges and nodes span cultures, nations and religions, I had always felt connected to different people, whatever their identity and background. I could not reconcile myself to being in conflict with people simply because of their nationality or religion, and I found it hard to bear the fact that the war in BiH had elements of religious conflict. Thinking about this and reading the Koran, I found the following verse:
“… If Allah wanted He could have made all of you a single nation. But He willed otherwise in order to test you in what He has given you; therefore try to excel one another in good deeds. Ultimately you all shall return to Allah; then He will show you the truth of those matters in which you dispute.” (Al-Maida, 48)
I later found out that the word translated from the Arabic here as “excel one another” can also mean “cooperate in doing good”.
These and similar verses from holy texts helped me understand spirituality and God asking goodness and justice from all of us. My cathartic discovery of God in His mercy, benevolent to all people and loving all people, calmed my heart and gave me joy and a desire to testify my faith. My faith grew and I soon became a practising Muslim.
I had the good fortune, and I do not believe in coincidences, to encounter peace activists from Serbia, BiH and Croatia in this period, people deeply committed to peace building, nonviolence and justice. There were among them Christians, atheists, Muslims, … and they were all active on the path to peace. Some of them became my friends and associates. During trainings on nonviolent conflict resolution and peacebuilding, we had the privilege of learning from each other, exchanging our thoughts and feelings, getting to know each other and trying to understand ourselves and our societies. We learned how to work in countries affected by wars, hatred, fear and the collective hauntings of a violent past to find the path to reconciliation, freedom and mutual support and cooperation.
In that process I discovered another facet of my identity, in addition to being a Muslim and a veteran, I also became a peace activist.
At one peacebuilding training, I met a woman from Banja Luka, a devout Christian, who gave me a book on Islamic spiritual tradition that was very important to me and that lead to us having long talks on spirituality. In our free time, we visited the Dervish Teki in Blagaj near Mostar together. There was a lot of beautiful symbolism in a Serb and a Bosniak talking about the war between their peoples, their different spiritual traditions and practices, exchanging religious experiences and learning how to work on reconciliation.
Already at the beginning of my religiosity, I was attached to the notion of God being reachable by many paths for those who seek Him. And, thank God, I never had cause to doubt this. I found that peacebuilding was a path of engaging and working with people, and that religious believers can in that sense look to the example of Muhammad, peace be upon him, and Jesus, peace be upon him, as well as many other prophets and ordinary people inspired by God.
It is interesting that I learned much about applied peacebuilding in particular from atheists and agnostics, people whose high moral standards, dedication and commitment to peace and social justice can serve as an example to many believers. “God works in mysterious ways”.
Working on reconciliation, following a brutal war, is no simple task. The explosion of violence and injustice, which is what war is, leaves behind devastated cities and villages, but also wreaks havoc in people’s hearts. Mass killings, crimes, sieges, genocide, … this is a heavy burden to bear, understand and carry through life. Most distressing is the human propensity for destruction when formerly ordinary people become violent killers. It is difficult to find solace; pain and apprehension seem to linger. As a warning, a challenge to all generations, to learn how to deal with their identities and their past.
At such moments, when the burden seemed too heavy, I would remember this verse from the Koran:
“And if Allah had not repelled some men by others the earth would have been corrupted. But Allah is a Lord of Kindness to (His) creatures” (Al-Baqara, 251)
Since I was a participant in the war myself, prepared to kill the enemy, it was not easy for me to completely understand my own motives and the states I was in. I am relieved by the awareness of human limits, weaknesses, propensity for violence, that I learned about through Islam. This also helps me understand my former enemies.
“I do not exculpate myself. Lo! the (human) soul enjoineth unto evil, save that whereon my Lord hath mercy. My Lord is Forgiving, Merciful.” (Yusuf, 53)
In the past years, I have worked with war veterans from BiH, Croatia and Serbia. Together, we visit sites of suffering from the past war. With my friends – former enemies, members of warring armies in BiH and in the Balkans in the 1990s – together we honour the victims that our armies killed. Sometimes we talk about it, sometimes we are silent. We want to send the message that we are sorry and that today we stand together against war. We often disagree about the past, but we trust each other and would leave our kids in the other’s care. There are believers among us, Christians and Muslims, and there are atheists, but we all have a deep need for peace and a profound understanding of what war means. We hope that our gestures of reconciliation and condemnation of crimes, we are saving some future lives.
At such moments, I remember the verse:
“For that cause We decreed for the Children of Israel that whosoever killeth a human being for other than manslaughter or corruption in the earth, it shall be as if be had killed all mankind, and whoso saveth the life of one, it shall be as if he had saved the life of all mankind.” (Al-Maida, 32)
The role of religious communities in the wars in the Balkans was controversial, to put it mildly. Apart from rare messages of reason and calls for peace, they mainly spoke up in support of ethno-nationalism and the warring sides. Unfortunately, even after the war, they are often an obstacle to reconciliation, both by glorifying the war and bestowing blessings on war criminals, and often by blatant calls for discrimination and intolerance towards the other.
This is why some 9 years ago, we launched an initiative called “Believers for Peace”. About a dozen of us, Christians and Muslims from the region, came together to try and promote the peaceful aspects of our religions. We also want to encourage other believers to engage in active promotion of peace and nonviolence as a principle, inspired by our traditions. Together we also wrote a declaration that has already been signed by hundreds of people:
http://www.vjernicizamir.org/deklaracija/dkelaracija-bos
Even we believers for peace often disagree on various points related to our faiths, wars, the past. Our communities are in conflict, sometimes even at war, all the while invoking God and faith. One of the fundamental principles of peacebuilding is nonviolent conflict resolution as an integral part of daily life. Conflict is a type of trial in interpersonal relations, and violence can be the outcome. In interreligious dialogue, and in dialogue with people who do not share our opinions, it is important to keep in mind that our attitudes and our knowledge are limited.
“And if thy Lord had willed, He verily would have made mankind one nation, yet they cease not differing, Save him on whom thy Lord hath mercy; and for that He did create them. (Hud, 119-120)
In December 2014, I visited Jerusalem. The sacred place of monotheism was full of long barrels, army, policy and daily tension. I saw that the sanctity of that place was enveloped in violence. I spent a long time praying at the Al-Aqsa Mosque and I wept. When I came out of the mosque, I was calm, and I was not afraid, because I had met peacebuilders there too: Jewish, Christian and Muslim. There is hope while there are people like them.
I would like to conclude with a testimony of Muhammad, peace be upon him, that is very significant to me: “By the One in Whose Hand my soul is, you will not enter Paradise until you believe, and you will not believe until you love one another. Spread the greetings of peace (As Salaamu Alaikum) among yourselves. Beware of hatred, for it is like a blade that cuts not just hair, but faith.”
Adnan Hasanbegović
This article was published in German in Spinnrad, Zeitschrift des Internationalen Versöhnungsbundes (Spinnrad Magazine of the International Reconciliation Society) – Austria, No. 1/April 2016.