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where all cultures and religions meet, trade, discourse, and intermarry.
It
is the center or hub of Sarajevo that best represents the city. Although
structurally surrounded, the center is in spirit and essence open and
external. Karahasan predicted that the internal (nationalistic) cities of
Western Europe, feeling threatened by Sarajevo's (and Jerusalem's) cul–
tural pluralism, would not only not defend the city, but would con–
tribute to its demise. Published in
1993,
the book proved prophetic.
Others pondering the siege of Sarajevo interpreted events as a general
assault on the concept of "city." For the Serbian architect Bogdan Bog–
danovic, for example, Sarajevo and Jerusalem are not exceptional cities;
rather, they are the very embodiment of the ideal. In response to the
attacks on Bosnian and Croatian cities during the war, he wrote: "The
horror felt by the West is understandable: for centuries it has linked the
concepts 'city' and 'civilization,' associating them even on an etymolog–
icallevel.
It
therefore has no choice but to view the destruction of cities
as flagrant, wanton opposition to the highest values of civilization."
Bogdanovic's plea is oriented beyond the war in Bosnia: "Defending the
city is the only valid moral paradigm for the future.
It
is a light that even
the most humanitarian of humans-as much understanding as they may
have for the rift between nature and man and the plight of endangered
flora and fa una-are as yet unable to see, una ble to understand."
The work of sociologist Adam B. Seligman supports this concept of
the city as being by nature pluralistic and "civilized." He identifies trust
as one of the values of civilization engendered in the city. Seligman sees
the growth of trust as a basic social relation as a modern phenomenon
related to increased urbanization. The relationship of the city to the val–
ues of civilization (or civil society) and the growth or preservation of
trust explains, in part, the threat that Sarajevo, especially, represented.
To some, just by its being a city Sarajevo realized its mythic reputation
for tolerance and respect of difference.
We can proffer ample evidence in the Bosnian War of urbicide as an
assault on the values of civilization-the targeted destruction of cultural
monuments (such as mosques and churches) and, in Sarajevo, of the
National and University Library, where not only monuments to Muslim
culture were preserved, but also records of Muslim political administra–
tion over Bosnia. The assault was verbal as well. In nationalist rhetoric,
such as the
1992
"Warning," signed by officials of Milosevic's Serbian
Socialist Party, the Serbian Orthodox Church and the Serbian Academy
of Arts and Sciences, urbanization is maligned for its effect on falling
birth rates and migrations of populations. Such rhetoric could draw
upon research, in fact, and it did not necessarily emanate from the Serb
