Muslim Women Activists in North America: Speaking for Ourselves

3: War Zones: Anecdotes

33 Mariam Bhabha Ihad entered Bosnia. However, it looked like Sarajevo airport was as far as I would get. It was the spring of 1994 and the Bosnian war was still raging. I was trying to deliver money and mail to central Bosnia, which had been cut off from the outside world for the past two years. As president and one of the founding members of the Toronto-based Bosnian Canadian Relief Association, I had been to Bosnia on three previous occasions. I had visited refugee camps to assess the needs of refugees and others affected by the war. On one occasion I went to receive a relief shipment sent by BCRA from Canada and to supervise its distribution. This time, however, I was here on behalf of a Saskatchewan-based organization. I had conducted a speaking tour in Canada for the organization to raise funds for Bosnia. The organization then persuaded me to deliver the funds as I had contacts in Bosnia and would find it much easier to get around. Bosnia held a special place in my heart. I had grown up in a small town in rural Quebec—a twelfth-generation Québécoise. We hadn’t learned much about the outside world; I remember when we moved to Ontario when I was fifteen being surprised to meet Christians who were not Catholic! I converted to Islam in my early twenties and lived as a Muslim for twenty years without really knowing that there were Muslims in Europe. There had been Muslims in Europe for over five hundred years. And 3 War Zones Mariam Bhabha Bosnia Anecdotes 34 War Zones: Anecdotes when the war in Bosnia broke out in the spring of 1991 I felt choked. The faces of the people that I saw on TV were familiar to me. They were like me, European Muslims. The war in Bosnia also choked me because my dad had been in World War II and I had heard and read stories about that war. My grandfather, who had lived with us as I was growing up, had told me stories about World War I. I had never imagined that there would be a war in Europe again. That was the reason my dad had spent his twenty-first birthday in a concentration camp just outside of Munich: so we could have a good and safe life. Getting into central Bosnia this time around was daunting, as the only entrance to the area was through an 800-meter tunnel in besieged Sarajevo, and the only way to get into Sarajevo was on a military flight operated by the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) from Zagreb, Croatia. A few days earlier, having made the rounds of various UN offices in Zagreb, I was able to convince the authorities that my humanitarian mission warranted space on a flight to Sarajevo and they issued the necessary papers. On the appointed day I reported to the UN authorities at Zagreb airport wearing the required helmet and flak jacket. My seat was not guaranteed. I had to wait until the soldiers and supplies were checked in. Eventually I was told that I could board the plane. My bags were searched. In addition to the funds from Saskatchewan I had letters and money for families of Canadians in Sarajevo and central Bosnia. I was afraid that unscrupulous officials might confiscate the money from me, but they didn’t. We boarded the plane through a wide ramp under the tail of the plane through which military vehicles were also being boarded. We sat on small pop-down seats. The plane was not insulated so the one-hour flight was noisy, cold, and uncomfortable. Except for ten civilians the plane was filled with Dutch UN soldiers. I was the only woman on the plane. On arrival at Sarajevo airport I discovered that there was no transportation to the city. UN forces from France were in command. I asked them for use of a telephone and was informed that the phones were reserved for military personnel. It was just as well because although people in Toronto had given me the name of a family, I knew that they did not speak English and we would have had trouble communicating. Mariam Bhabha with her husband, Mohamed Bhabha, at their home in Oakville, Canada, August 2000. Photo courtesy of Mariam Bhabha 35 Mariam Bhabha Despondent, I walked out of...