1. I wonder how Hitler would have felt about such an outcome to the war.

2. Are we going to see a state of Palestine established somewhere in Europe or the USA in the near future? Or does it take 6 million dead Palestinians before this deaf, dumb and blind world of ours comes to? “Oh my God, how could this happen?!” Here’s a clue:

I have never been keen on the international meddling in my country’s affairs since it had only made things go from bad to worse in the war that made a refugee out of me. It’s still very crippling for my country to be run by a “High Commissioner” and a zillion other “internationals”. When I was in BiH in 2001 for the first time after the war, I remember getting a distinct zoo keeper vibe from the international soldiers who were all over.

Not once did I see them talking to any locals. In Šipovo they kept flying their helicopters really, really low over the rooftops, even on Sundays, so that we had a hard time talking while sitting in front of the house. My cousin told me that it was because they were training new pilots there. They drove their vehicles way over the speed limit even in town areas because they were above the law (and that’s not all they used their immunity for - that’s one of the problems of giving 19-year olds that kind of power).

And the very first thing I saw after crossing the border from Croatia was a military vehicle they just left running while they had lunch at the same restaurant that we did. The engine was running the entire time they were there, for over half an hour, and I remember looking at the green mountains in front of us and wondering whether they would ever have done something so profoundly stupid in their own countries. I wanted to go over and say something, but armed teenagers are hardly people you can reason with.

It’s very hard to explain what I felt when I saw this pack of sugar. It’s just a detail from a long trip around the country, but in a way it really crystallizes the whole situation. These oh so noble internationals who were there to civilize us. Where would we be without them, I wonder. Still trying to make fire, no doubt. I just felt sick.

The writing says “Everyone has the right to freedom of movement”. Message by the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Meanwhile, Egypt has closed its border to Gaza while Dubai, one of the richest countries in the region, showed its support by canceling all New Year’s festivities. What a grand gesture. I wonder how many Palestinians’ lives were saved because of it.

The slogan “Never again!” doesn’t make any sense anymore. How can anyone say “never again” when such brutal mass murder of children and other civilians is taking place right under our very noses? Never again what - genocide? Genocide didn’t stop happening with the end of the Second World War, no matter how much some countries would like to pretend it did. It happened in Bosnia-Herzegovina, it happened in Rwanda, it’s happening in Darfur and what exactly should we call the massmurder of Palestinian civilians? Surely not a “quest for peace”.

Recommended links:
A Mother From Gaza
Diary from Gaza under siege

I’ll be back with stories from Vienna shortly

To make the most of my time in Vienna, I’ve arranged to meet with the local NGOs Asyl in Not and ZARA, which I heard a lot about during the last UNITED conference. I hope we can exchange examples of best practice and learn from one another. The articles on their web pages show that we are not only fighting the same injustices but also face the same challenges while doing so. For example, Danish and Austrian authorities treat asylum seekers in scarily similar ways - the signs of “Fort Europe” are impossible to overlook.

Of course, I also hope to find the time to sample some of the local pastries and visit some “Before Sunrise” locations

Since being a delegate also involves some paper work after the meeting, there’s a good chance I won’t be so active on the blog this week. But once all of that is done, I’m sure I’ll have a lot to write about the metting and the local NGOs who have been kind enough to find time for me on a very short notice.

Here’s my guide to Vienna Before Sunrise

What the Danish People’s Party aims at, of course, is assimilation. Anyone who doesn’t eat pork or drinks alcohol is a potential enemy of the state. Anyone who dares to wear more clothes than satisfies their voyeur tendencies is actually a poor exhibitionist whose family violates their most inner desires and we must therefore free them. And so on and so on.

Integration is this party’s worst nightmare, hence law proposals that would destroy it. Principals at elementary schools warn that passing a law against anything Muslim would just lead to Muslim parents moving their children to private Muslim schools and perhaps to a creation of parallel societies in Denmark - which is exactly what the Danish People’s Party wants. Successful integration means no more ethnic hatred = no more fear of the “other” = no more enemies to protect the poor endangered Danes from = no more reason to have a party like the Danish People’s Party.

It’s a clear cut case of them or integration, so of course they’ll do anything in their power to sabotage a good thing. What I find most amusing though is the fact that the very existance of my non-assimilated self is a threat to them, as is my boyfriend and every other person in this country who doesn’t suffer from the same complexes as they do. Makes me want to send them a Christmas card that says BOOH! just to freak them out

Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

In the night between December 7th and 8th, a mosque in southeastern Bosnia-Herzegovina was burned down. It was the night before Eid al-Adha, or Kurban Bajram, as it is called in BiH. The mosque lies in the village Fazlagića Kula, near Trebinje; a region now dominated by a Serb population due to ethnic cleansing that began in the 1990s. If this is a case of arson, as much points to, then it’s just another sign that the ethnic cleansing continues to this day.

The mosque in Fazlagića Kula has been targeted before. In 1992 it was blown up and burned down, but reconstructed in 2003. A total of 37 Muslims have so far returned to their homes in the village. On the morning of Kurban Bajram, when they were supposed to go to prayer in their finest clothes, the villagers found their mosque in ruins and a stench of smoke and fire was hovering over the village. But they had their prayer anyway, in the ruins, under the open sky.

The returnees have been attacked numerous times, they have recieved death threats - and threats about setting the mosque on fire. The fact that the local authorities never did anything about it speaks volumes of the “Republika Srpska”. Fact is that this entity breaks a number of articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on a daily basis:

Article 3: Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person. (And also the first part, considering the fact that the entity was established through genocide.)

Article 7: All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. (…)

Article 8: Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.

Article 9: No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

Article 13, 1. Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each State. 2. Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.

Article 17, 2. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.

Article 18 as quoted above.

Article 26, 2. Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.

And that’s just a quick run-down.

Today on the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, I encourage you to pledge your own commitment to it by signing here. A day may come when we too could be forced to fight for these rights by other means, but today we can at least send a clear message to all those who flout them: These are the principles of a world that’s moving forward. Where do you want to go?

Read more:
Café Turco: Mosque arsoned in “Republika Srpska”
Jasmin’s Heart: Mosque burned in Bosnia Today
Jasmin’s Heart: Thoughts on a Meaningless Crime

When I was little we all used to go to my grandmother’s and her old, old house would get so full that they would send us children out in case it collapsed! At least that’s what they told us. Mine is a family of comedians so I have a lot of stories like that.

Eid Mubarak - or Bajram Mubarek Olsun, as we say in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Switching the blog to English turned out to be a really smart decision that helped reach more readers. And here I thought that my Bosnian-Danish-political-activist niche was too narrow for that

My text about my impressions from Serbia made it to the linking stream at Belgraded.com and from there to Global Voices Online, who has since mentioned several other of my texts. The text was also partially translated into French by Dragan Grcic for his human rights watch blog. Another text translated into French was RESF: Activism at its finest, which recently appeared in the first issue of RESF Strasbourg fanzine.

I’ve decided to keep my old mirror blog at urbanblog.dk, but now it’s a separate blog only in Danish. Mixing languages would probably not help promote the blog, so I’ll see if I can avoid it (although comments are still welcome in other languages, as long as I understand them).

Last but not least, I’ve revamped the design of the blog. It’s so much nicer now, don’t you think? There are some problems with it in Explorer, but why some people still don’t use Firefox I’ll never understand….