Surviving Peace: A Political Memoir

210 Pages·2014·3.501 MB·English

by  Olivera Simić

Olivera Simi´c
How do you pick up the pieces after your life is shattered by war? How do s
you continue living when your country no longer exists, your language is
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no longer spoken and your family is divided, not just by distance but by
politics too? What happens when your old identity is taken from you and a new one
imposed, one that you never asked for? r surviving peace
When Olivera Simić was seven years old, President Tito died. Old divisions
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re-emerged as bitter ethnic conflicts unfolded. War arrived in 1992. People were
no longer Yugoslavs but Serbs, Croatians, Bosniaks. Old friends became enemies A PoliticAl MeMoir
overnight. i
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In this heartfelt account of life before, during and after the Bosnian War and the
NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999, Simić talks of her transition from peace to war
and back again. She shows how she found the determination to rebuild a new life i
when the old one was irretrievable. n
Traversing four continents, she takes us on her winding journey from Bosnia to
Australia, revealing the complex challenges of adjusting to life in a new country
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and exposing the harsh reality of the post-traumatic stress that accompanies her.
Simić strives to find the balance between wanting to move on to a different

future and a pressing need to look back at a past that won’t go away. The pull of
p
her homeland remains irresistible despite it being ravaged by destruction, and
her exposure of the war crimes that took place there means she is labelled both a e
‘traitor’ and a ‘truth seeker’.
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Surviving Peace is one woman’s story of courage that echoes the stories of millions
of people whose lives have been displaced by war. As we still face a world rife with c
armed conflict, this book is a timely reminder that once the last gunshot has been
fired and the last bomb dropped, the new challenge of surviving peace begins.
e
Reading Surviving Peace made me pause. Sometimes it was a page that made me stop
to think, to picture, to wonder. Sometimes it was just a graphic phrase. Olivera Simić has
been there: the ‘there’ of denying the dissolution of one’s national identity, the ‘there’ of O
struggling against militarism’s enticements, the ‘there’ of making honest postwar sense
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of the insensible. Surviving Peace is a feminist gift to all of us. i
v
—Cynthia Enloe, author of Seriously! Investigating Crashes and Crises e
r
as If Women Mattered a

S
Olivera Simić’s impressive Surviving Peace made me weep while enriching my
i
understanding of human suffering at times of conflict and post-conflict, thanks to her m
scholarly insights woven skilfully within ‘herstory’.
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´c
—Amr Abdalla, Vice Rector 2004–2013, University for Peace, Costa Rica
A deeply human narrative set within the growing
body of feminist writings on war.
—Kathleen Barry, author of Unmaking War Remaking Men
www.spinifexpress.com.au
[email protected]
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What does the harrowing experience of war look like from the inside of a woman
living through it? What happens when the ways she internalizes war collide with the
views of others—from parents and family to media and propaganda? In Surviving
Peace, Olivera Simic´ reveals dimensions of war that few others have considered, let
alone understood. With her we engage in loss of homeland, language and identity.
The scars that are left are rarely, if ever, made as visible as they are in this book.
A deeply human narrative set within the growing body of feminist writings on war.
—KATHLEEN BARRY, author of Unmaking War Remaking Men
The lines of enmity and amity that course through the Balkan wars and their
aftermath in diverse diasporic communities have found their biographer in Olivera
Simic´. Like Rebecca West, she has written a song of experience—an intimate but also
reflective book of living through the devastating politics of the former Yugoslavia.
Recalling a past that remains present, it grapples with the pressing questions of what
it means to live with and, importantly, live on, with the predicaments of survival and
hope. This is a book to be read here and now.
—PETER D. RUSH, Director of the International Criminal Justice programme,
Institute of International Law and the Humanities, University of Melbourne
Olivera Simic´ has written a moving, highly personal account of her experiences
during a turbulent decade. She brings home, better than any other account I have
read, how people on the ground experienced the war in Yugoslavia. She shows
how surviving a war changes one’s psychology, including how one thinks about the
present and the future, while turning memories of the pre-war era into nostalgia.
I am so happy that Simic´ has written this book; I was unable to put it down and
read it in one sitting.
—SABRINA P. RAMET, author of The Three Yugoslavias:
State-Building and Legitimation, 1918–2005
Too often, when we read or hear news of wars in places we know only how to
locate on a map, we forget that in each story there are people, people with histories
and emotions and lives which are often irreparably damaged by the time the page
is turned or the radio broadcast ends. Olivera Simic´ reminds us that war hurts
people in so many, many ways and is never really over. It’s an important and timely
reminder of the truth.
—MADELEINE REES, Secretary General, Women’s International League for
Peace and Freedom (WILPF)
Olivera Simic´ offers us a unique voice of dissent, in the face of immense loss and
continuing trauma, prepared to face complex truths about war and hopeful that we
may yet learn to resolve conflicts without violence.
—DIANNE OTTO, Director, Institute for International Law and the Humanities,
Melbourne Law School
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Olivera Simic´ passionately opens herself to the vulnerability of expressing an intense
loss of homeland and belonging. Her pain is deep, penetrating the depths of the
soul. In telling a courageous story of experiences of war, the reader is carried on
an incredible journey of what it means to survive peace. This is an engrossing story.
I commend this book as an intimate narrative of hope for a non-violent future.
—ELISABETH PORTER, author of Peacebuilding: Women in International Perspective
Bursting with often difficult yet unforgettable stories, Surviving Peace describes
Olivera Simic´’s dealings with war and violence, and with life during ‘dirty’ post-
conflict peace. It speaks to all whose lives have been touched by massive tragedies,
social transformations and dislocations due to war. And it will speak to all those
wishing to help prevent wars and create true and sustainable peace. Simic´ remains
constructive and positive, optimistic that ‘another future is possible’. Surviving Peace
is an important step in that direction.
—IVANA MILOJEVIC´, author of Breathing: Violence In, Peace Out
In her inspirational and engaging memoir, Olivera Simic´ has ensured that no one
will forget the former Yugoslavia. Her experiences of war and the paradoxes of
survival are an individual story, but also universal, as she shares her struggle to find
meaning, belonging and identity in post-conflict Bosnia-Herzegovina.
—CLAIRE MOORE, Australian Labor Senator
Surviving Peace uses insights from psychology, trauma studies, philosophy and
sociology and interweaves them with intimate memories of life before, during and
after the war. Olivera Simic´ shows us how experiences of war and postwar shape
people’s connections to themselves, to others, and to places and times that have
marked their lives.
—DUBRAVKA ŽARKOV, Associate Professor in Gender, Conflict and Development,
International Institute of Social Studies/EUR, The Hague, Netherlands
This is a powerful and compelling book that opens a dialogue about a traumatic
and hurtful past. It brings to life personal and political tragedies with courage,
strength and compassion. Olivera Simic´ is a brave woman, and this book shows
that she knows better than most the painful consequences of speaking truth to
power, and the courage that is needed to do so. For those who have followed events
in the former Yugoslavia periodically and from a distance, glancing occasionally
at headlines and news flashes, Surviving Peace explains what happened and what it
means. Her hope, that despite the trauma and devastation a future that transcends
ethnic, nationalist and religious lines may prevail, is an inspiration.
—JULIANNE SCHULTZ, editor of Griffith REVIEW
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Olivera Simic´ is a feminist, human rights activist and academic at the
Griffith Law School, Australia. Originally from the former Yugoslavia,
Dr Simic´ has lived and studied in Eastern and Western Europe,
the USA and South America. She has published one monograph
and three co-edited collections, book chapters, journal articles
and personal narratives. She completed a Doctorate of Law at the
University of Melbourne in 2011. She now teaches international law
and transitional justice at Griffith Law School and lives in Brisbane. In
2013, she was a nominee for the Penny Pether Prize for Scholarship
in Law, Literature and the Humanities, and won the Peace Women
Award from Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom
(WILPF, Australian branch).
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Other books by Olivera Simic´
Regulation of Sexual Conduct in UN Peacekeeping Operations (2012)
Peace Psychology in the Balkans: Dealing With a Violent Past While Building Peace
(2012) with Zala Volcˇicˇ and Catherine R. Philpot (eds)
Transitional Justice and Civil Society in the Balkans (2013) with Zala Volcˇicˇ (eds)
The Arts of T ransitional Justice: Culture, Activism, and Memory After Atrocity (2014)
with Peter D. Rush (eds)
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Surviving Peace
A Political Memoir
Olivera Simic´
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First published by Spinifex Press, 2014
Spinifex Press Pty Ltd
504 Queensberry St
North Melbourne, Victoria 3051
Australia
[email protected]
www.spinifexpress.com.au
Copyright © Olivera Simic´, 2014
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication
may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any
means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without prior written permission of
both the copyright owner and the above publisher of the book.
Copying for educational purposes
Information in this book may be reproduced in whole or part for study or training purposes, subject to
acknowledgement of the source and providing no commercial usage or sale of material occurs. Where copies
of part or whole of the book are made under part VB of the Copyright Act, the law requires that prescribed
procedures be followed. For information contact the Copyright Agency Limited.
Editors: Pauline Hopkins, Susan Hawthorne and Renate Klein
Copy editor: Maree Hawken
Cover design: Deb Snibson
Typesetting: Palmer Higgs
Typeset in Bembo and Futura
Indexer: Karen Gillen
Printed by McPherson’s Printing Group
Cover photograph of Travnik © Aleksandar Trifunovic´. Reproduced with permission.
Parts of this book originally appeared in papers published in the International Journal of Women’s Studies,
International Feminist Journal of Politics, and the German Law Journal. A version of Chapter Four was first
published in the Griffith Review.
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data:
Simic´, Olivera, 1973– author
Surviving Peace: A Political Memoir / Olivera Simic´
9781742198941 (paperback)
9781742198910 (eBook: ePub)
9781742198903 (eBook: Kindle)
9781742198897 (eBook: pdf)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Bosnian Australians—Biography
Refugees—Biography
Peacekeeping forces—Bosnia and Hercegovina
Yugoslav War, 1991–1995—Refugees
Sarajevo (Bosnia and Hercegovina)—History—Siege
1992–1996—Personal narratives
Yugoslav War, 1991–1995—Peace—Psychological aspects
949.7024082
This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through
the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body.
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All gulfs open up in war. The act of love turns into an act of hatred. It turns into
the betrayal of the woman and into the betrayal of humanity … In all wars,
atrocities stifle the victims’ scream for help. Therefore, those who are in
a position to scream ought to do so as loudly as they can.
—Iren Meier in Women’s Side of War (2008, p. 390)
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Contents
Acknowledgements ix
Map A Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) xi
Map B Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) xii
Preface The Past Lives On 1
Chapter One Journeying Through War and Peace 9
Chapter Two Traitor or Truth Seeker? 27
Moral Responsibility 36
The Masculinity of War 39
Truth Seekers 45
Paying a High Price 46
How to Face the Past? 53
Chapter Three Moving From War to Peace 61
The NATO Bombings 62
Life as a Refugee 67
Building Peace 72
Where Are You From? 77
Chapter Four The Past is the Present 83
Chapter Five Victims and Survivors 99
From One Disaster to Another 105
Facing the Past Begins 115
Chapter Six Between Remembering and Forgetting 129
Minefields 137
Conflicting War Memories 141
Epilogue Troubled Homeland 151
Appendix Timeline of Yugoslavia’s Disintegration 165
Glossary 169
Bibliography 173
Index 185
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