Goal for the Week:
Vocabulary Midterm
Converse and Comprehension
Result:
Review Vocabulary
Film: Noz
Dialogue
Method:
Unfortunately, we did not have the midterm this week. It was a hectic week for the both of us, and we weren’t able to meet as frequently. We’ve decided to put the midterm and vocabulary on the backburner for now. Instead, we worked on a dialogue. I anticipated questions that curious Bosnians might ask me were I to be in the country at that very moment. Questions include the following: how are you today, why did you choose to study Bosnian, what about Bosnian culture excites you, what do you plan to do with your Bosnian, how did you end up at the University of Richmond, and so on. Milica helped me to construct professional and impressive answers. This is a way to build vocabulary and become “automatic” in answering a body of information I want to be able to convey and that I will very likely be asked.
We also watched a film called Noz, which means knife in English. It was the first film I saw of the Bosnian Serb perspective of Orthodox and Muslim relations. The opening scenes aptly characterize the sentiment. While a Serbian family was celebrating their Christmas pre-WWII, an especially holy day, Muslims barged into their houses seeking to take their land. It is believed in this film that the Muslims entered on this particular day because they knew that the opposition would be unarmed. In front of the entire family, the Muslims raped and killed their women (they filmed this), burned the house, and burned the father of the household in the Orthodox Church. Most insidiously, they took the baby son, and sought to raise him as a Muslim. For Muslims and Serbs, according to the film, to be converted and set against “one’s own kind” is the most damaging blow to the opposition. Following this event was cyclical impulsive, angry retaliation, further offensiveness, cruelty, regret, and an unhappy ending.
I watched the film with two Bosnian Serbs, who said that this film is a decent synopsis of Serbian views of what really went on during the Bosnian War. It wasn’t that they were the aggressors; it was that they were protecting themselves from Muslim aggression and dominance. Having this other perspective provides a much better picture of why both sides really harbor a strong sense of resentment and distrust for the other. I think both sides are really irritated at the fact that their “opposition” refuses to feel their pain and take responsibility for their blatantly cruel actions. Without this responsibility, there can be no forgiveness. With each side in pain, vying for revenge how is one to trust the other side and move forward?
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