“It seems to me that a part of the tragedy of the Bosnians lies in their belief that Europe is what it is not. Europe did not intervene, it did not save them, because there was no Europe to intervene. They saw a ghost. It was us, the Eastern Europeans, who invented ‘Europe’, constructed it, dreamed about it, called upon it. This Europe is a myth created by us, not only Bosnians, but other Eastern Europeans, too - unfortunate outsiders, poor relatives, the infantile nations of our continent. Europe was built by those of us living on the edges, because it is only from there that you would have the need to imagine something like 'Europe’ to save you from your complexes, insecurities, and fears. Because for us, the people from the Balkans, the biggest fear is to be left alone with each other. We have learned better than others what you do to your own brother. Sitting there at the Sunday lunch with Zijo, Fatima, Amira and their friends, I felt the absurdity of the situation. Why were these people in Stockholm? Was the food they were eating - sarma, dolma, pita, ćevapčići - the reason why they had been driven from their own country? The idea seems crazy, I know, but what else is the reason? They didn’t look different from me, or from those who had scared them away from their home. We even share the language, the education and history of the last fifty years. Our culture and habits might be slightly different, as are our names. Then, there is the food - delicious, tasty and spicy - that somehow seems to have been declared 'wrong’. But if what you eat decides what side you are on, then I should be on the 'wrong’ side, too. It was a sad lunch, because we understand that everything Zijo politely calls 'misunderstandings' - on both the Bosnian and the European sides - could perhaps have been avoided. Ever since that day in Stockholm, Europe has had another meaning for me. Every time I mention that word, I see the Bosnian family in front of me, living far away from whatever they call home and eating their own wonderful food because that’s all that is left for them. The fact remains that, after fifty years, it was possible after all to have another war in Europe; that it was possible to change borders; that genocide is still possible even today. This should be enough to scare us all. This, and the fact that 'Europeans’ - that is, people in France, Great Britain, Germany, Italy, Austria or Spain - watched all this, paralysed. It was all there, on the television screens in their living rooms, shells, bombs, slaughter, rape, blood, destruction - the entire war unfolded in front of their eyes. Everybody knew what was going on and this, in a way, is the curse of the war in Bosnia, in the Balkans, and in - well, in what is called Europe. Should we not, must we not ask, then, what is Europe after Bosnia?”
