Bosnia: The lilies and dragons of the World Cup
Football is bringing out in our nation what the corrupt elite would not like to see. When Bosnia and Herzegovina qualified for the World Cup
Football is bringing out in our nation what the corrupt elite would not like to see. When Bosnia and Herzegovina qualified for the World Cup, contagious excitement spread through the country. It was more than just football fever. Three decades after the end of the war, after surviving genocide and the now-infamous Dayton Accords, we’re back on US territory to show we can finally start dreaming beyond that bad deal, which imposed on us harmful political structures and left our country in a straitjacket. Truly, football has brought out the core of what it means to be Bosnian: we are the softest and the hardest of souls, we do our best in adversity, but are tough on ourselves in peace. We are dragons, but we are also lilies. On June 24, when our team beat Qatar and qualified for the knockout stage for the first time in its history, the country was ecstatic. It was not just extreme happiness but a sense of freedom and unity. We Bosnians may excel in quarrels, disagreement and self-deprecation, but boy, do we love this headstrong country. And we love those blue boys. Huge blue-clad crowds took over not just the streets of Seattle and Sarajevo, but every single city and town in the world where Bosnians live. Even Bosnians on vacation in exotic places had watching parties in hotels and took other guests to the streets to sing in celebration. In Republika Srpska, those in power have supported the Bosnian team’s opponents in the past. But this time, many people did not fall for the hate and celebrated at home in front of the TV.
Some even dared to display their joy publicly. In neighbouring Serbia and Croatia, people also defied ethnic politics and openly celebrated with the Bosnians, posting on social media messages of support for our team. Images of Bosnian fans marching through the streets of Canadian and American cities made the news internationally. Ahead of the match with Switzerland, a crowd of Bosnian fans stunned locals as they moved through a notorious neighbourhood in Inglewood, chanting “Palestina! Palestina!”. In between the chants, fans sang. But these were not proud nationalistic songs like we often see in such contexts. Those were not songs prepared by big stars especially for the World Cup. No, those were old songs that organically attached themselves to the game, and that very much reflect the national psyche. The first one is a satirical song by the popular band Dubioza Kolektiv, “I am from Bosnia, take me to America,” a song that cuts deep into the illusion of the American dream and asks Bosnians who easily assimilate to dream another dream, a bigger dream, a dream of the motherland. Funny and nostalgic. Hilarious and sentimental. The second song, which is even bigger, is the love song by the late folk star Halid Bešlić, “Poljem se siri miris ljiljana.” This is a soft and beautifully intimate song, which in translation goes like this: “The smell of lilies is spreading across the field, and the flowers smell like my darling. And the small swallows are coming back from the south, as if carrying her love back to me. In this city, I have no one. Darling, I will die if you’re someone else’s.” Yes, our country was at war just 30 years ago but we are not singing the “we’re-the-best”, “crush-em-all” warrior songs.
The BriefWire