[REFUGE]E by Adnan Mahmutovic

Self-Published by A. Mahmutovic and A. Osmancevic
c/o Werk, St Eriksgatan 72, 113 20 Stockholm, Sweden
www.refugeebook.com
Genre: Historical Fiction
ISBN:9163166690, $12.95, 95 pp, 2006

This book is a collection of short stories and poetry about Bosnian refugees in Sweden. The main character in the stories is a woman named Almasa, and I quote from the back cover:

"Almasa, a woman already not young, a woman daily growing less Bosnian but not becoming more Swedish, a woman with irrepressible memories of violence, a woman looking for intimacy and home, writes, ‘It didn’t happen in a day. It wasn’t a spontaneous reaction of anguished souls that rushed into our homes like starving dogs to devour our provisions. Nothing like that. At least not in my hometown. Bosnia is a small country, but the war had many faces. The stories of its every man, woman and child make a ladder to the moon of suppressed memories.’"

And to continue from the book:
"Everything started off by renaming and prefix-ation. Grounding cliches of war. The word ‘Serbian’ was annexed to our mother tongue and with it, to everything else as in an avalanche. The names of streets and municipal buildings mutated. Houses of other nationalities were emptied one-by-one, or in smaller clusters, on a daily basis by so called Serbian soldiers. I say ‘so-called’ because until just a year or so before the havoc, everybody was Bosnian. The Serbs were in Serbia as the Swedes were in Sweden. Or perhaps I’m a misinterpreter. Now proposals were put forward that people be labelled by their nationality (as Jew, Gypsies, Poles, and some other not so long ago). Suddenly the word Muslim became a nationality-marker. My father would just mutter, ‘Ridiculous’ at any such thing and go on with his silence. It was a ghostly sight, to see my father bitter and silent.

The aggressors, themselves beside tanks armed with rotten reasons, knew we had no weapons, having confiscated the few hunting rifles that had been gathering dust in people’s cellars. In the middle of it, we were still busy furnishing our house and working in fields. Even the bloody footages from places all over Croatia, followed by Sarajevo, and other Bosnian cities, towns and villages, could not make us believe the war was really here to stay. At least till we were gone.

Firstly, men who would not join the party and kill Croatians lost their jobs and consequently, so did their wives. Next came a curfew. Students were being harassed in schools. Going to the market to buy vegetables meant risking a beating. Still, nothing could make us believe it all was more than just an ephemeral whim of a malevolent wind.

It went on. Frequent raids. Taking a few men every day to test the pliability of bats and batons, to examine how severely you could be insulted and humiliated. Razing of the mosques and burning down a house or two per night. They would drive by like American ghetto gangsters, shooting, drifting around like a materialized scarecrow message: your house could be next.

So little by little, people put on their best shoes, packed what a pair of calloused hands could carry, and fled for their lives. Some walked forest corridors. Others were stuffed into dusty old buses and transported abroad to the beneficent countries that sheltered refugees from the Balkans.

This is how I became a ‘run-ee’ or run-away-ee’, as we nicknamed ourselves.

Take care.
Almasa"

I have quoted Almasa’s letter from Chapter VII, Red Cross Message–Unadulterated, because it is the heart of these stories and also, because it is a poignant example of how, even today, such tragic things can happen, that evil does exist . . . and that no place, no town, no city and no country is immune to technically organized evil.

We choose to suppress unpleasant memories and move on with life, but it is important to remember evil does exist and is just waiting for the right opportunity. You may not believe it could happen to you or us, but many great civilizations and governments have passed away, and if we do not pay attention, so may we.

Through Adnan’s little stories you will catch a glimpse and feel for life as lived by these Bosnian refugees. He’s a good writer and is telling us something we need to hear . . . remember: pay attention to what’s happening around you and never take for granted the life and freedoms we enjoy.

To get more information or to purchase this book, please go to:

http://www.refugueebook.com or write to adnan.mahmutovic@yahoo.se. Adnan will send the book anywhere, shipment free, media mail for 6.99 pounds or $9.99.

Reviewed by Kaye Trout - June 13, 2006 - Copyright