Our Wonderful Guest Speaker

Last week a wonderful guest speaker, Mrs. Zala volcic was invited to our class to talk to us about the history and the hidden tragedies of after the war in 1990s that happened in Bosnia and Hercegovina. She wanted to break down the elements in the idea of people becoming "the other" and how they started to hate each other, get suspicious, and finally kill one other. She explained how the war started in 1991 and ended in 1998 but truly the war is still going on. People do not trust and accept each other and are in the denial of 1990s war. During 1992-1995 war reported between 20,000 and 50,000 victims. Rapes were carried out to humiliate or destroy the identity of a victim and sexual violence consisted as a weapon of war. By watching the movie the week before, we were able to nicely open up the discussion she was looking for. We all expressed our feelings and thoughts toward this movie which consisted of shock, anger, and mystery. We opened up the discussion to the role of Media in transforming people to "the other.” people started standing against each other. They started to get divided into groups based on different cultures and opinions about their city’s history and this was how “the other” was created amongst them. One of the questions we put on the table was that, can cinema bring us together when law fails to do so? The answer we came up with was that the role of media and cinema is crucial, it can tear people apart or it can bring people together. For example even though this movie will not attract a younger generation, it will be shown to a group of audience and will educate them about this problem. On the other hand, when another kind of media, Journalists, got involved in the reports of these situations in Bosnia, they were being accused of becoming the source of killing amongst the people; The journalist were accused of encouraging killing with their writings. Media plays a big role in our lives. It can almost be the source of a lot of information that we do not gain while watching the news. A lot of events, problems, tragedies, and celebrations that become stories and plot of movies, would have never reached people's eyes if it had never been made into a movie. Movies inform us about the world we live in and what is happening around us.  Our guest speaker mentioned that If we do not deal with the historical aspect of a country, the history itself will hunt us again; and that is what happened to Bosnia and the people of it. By denying and not confronting the problems that occurred after and during the war ( the rapes, the rape camp, and all the killing that happened on the bridge that people now a days walk on without acknowledge the tragedy that happened underneath their feet), the people and the city is still in the war with itself and its past history. People are not calm and satisfied. They fear from their own mankind and their place of birth.

Our guest speaker was very passionate about this topic and issue that it made the discussion table very much more exciting, engaging, and interesting. She was very kind and listened to everyone’s comments and opinions. She was so passionate about the subject and was very educated about the problem that it made me feel like she was the film maker of this movie. She listened to our opinions very carefully that it made us feel very special and our opinions very valuable. 

It was absolutely a great class, even though we missed our professor very much, but we would love to have Mrs. Zala volcic back for another wonderful discussion.