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B: MOSTAR : THE ROLE OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY IN RECONSTRUCTING A CITY
The Bosnian conflict (1992-1995) which played a role in the break-up of Yugoslavia, saw the Bosnian Serbs and Croats, aided by Serbia and Croatia respectively rise up against the republic of Bosnia. This mixture of inter and intra-state conflicts appears a more familiar situation to Aleppo than the case of Warsaw. Mostar’s relevance to the Syrian city comes following the ‘contrived reconstruction’ of one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the region and poses two questions. The first, who should take control over the post-conflict plans for the built environment of the city, and secondly, a question asked by Slavenka Drakuli with reference to Mostar, “Why do we feel more pain looking at the image of the destroyed bridge than the image of massacred people?” (Bevan, 2006). During 1992, the Old Bridge, locally known as ‘Stari Most’, was deliberately targeted by Bosnian Croat artillery fire and collapsed after being hit by a reported 60 shells. With both the bridge and its’ bridge-keepers, ‘Mostari’, giving their name to the city it is, perhaps, understandable why so many would ‘mourn’ (Bishop, 2008) for this architectural piece of history(Fig.7). However, it appeared to have been more than sadness, there was a sense of disbelief. Somehow, and the Aleppian surveys (The Aleppo Project, 2015) report similar observations that, in such conflicts, there is an expectation that people will die, but an assumption that the architecture, especially that which is already older than us, will outlive us further. ‘A dead woman is one of us; but the bridge is all of us for ever’ (Drakulic, 2013). However, is this the only reason the international community paid so much attention to the reconstruction of the bridge? Undeniably, there was a need for the bridge to be rebuilt but with several thousand dead and over thirty thousand displaced, was heritage a priority? The division of the city -with Bosniaks and Muslims in East Mostar and Croatians and Christians in the West- was not seen before 1992, when ethnically diverse marriages made up 30% of the 1991 total. The frontline ran along a no-man’s land at the Bulevar, just 200 metres west of the Neretza river, which itself was long considered the front line by international organisations and media. Stari Most, contrary to belief, did not bridge the divided communities, and in fact, further divisions existed among either side, with
