Interview with Svetlana Broz

 

In former Yugoslavia she worked as cardiologist at the military Medical Academy in Belgrade . For last four years she is living in BiH capital, Sarajevo and developing an idea of civil courage and giving lectures abroad. She is a grandchild of Josip Broz, better known as Marshal Tito, the leader of Yugoslavia until his death in 1980.
During the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH) she began to offer her services first in clinics in the Serb-controlled areas. Later she laid aside her doctor's coat and during several years of traversing the war zones in BiH she gathered stories of people aided or rescued by their supposed ethnic enemies. She published them in a book. At the moment she is working on the theme of mixed marriages that occurred during the BiH war.

In an interview at her home in Sarajevo she discusses the idea of civil courage, rebellion against insanity man, war in Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH), blending between nationalism and religion, war survivors, anonymous heroes, Muslimization' of Sarajevo, living her hometown, former socialist system, post-war situation in BiH. She reminiscences about her first book Good people in evil time and the work during wartime. She presents her work on married couples in BiH and a researche if war provoked a decline of marriages between members of different ethnic groups. She remembers her lecture at the Hague International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

Quote: Civil courage simply is a quality that we need to have and that will lead to the respect of differences. It's a new term that refers to the quality that enables people to always reject what is indecent in men.


by Sasa Petejan