When others sell their souls, they demand payment upfront. I, on the other hand, agreed to collect mine after death. However altruistic it may seem, mine is the ultimate form of selfishness. Since it is a form of selfishness never before witnessed, it has yet to be given a name. Perhaps because I am searching for what has no name, my journey is nameless and infinite. I, too, am a traveller in search of infinite names.
Within this journey lie journeys of their own. One quest gives rise to others; endings emerge within infinity, and the boundless becomes a boundary. On one such journey, in October 2026, we crossed borders by air. We apologised to the places we passed along the way. We found ourselves in Saray Ova—or, for those with a great many palaces, in a place called Sarajevo.
Just as a person is defined by their surroundings, a journey derives its meaning from those who travel it. The travellers this time are somewhat different from our ancestors of five hundred years ago. Instead of horses, they have wings. Their weapons are kindness. It is not war cries but laughter that echoes across the plain. Their saddlebags are empty this time; they will leave having gathered dreams. Being angelic is their shared trait, and heaven has become commonplace… Sympathy has fallen into disrepute; we have grown weary of love.
The plane that brought us here without a trace of shame brazenly continued on its way. We, meanwhile, felt embarrassed to ask where we might find a mosque. It turned out that Bosnia, like the rest of the world, had changed its priorities. It had become increasingly preoccupied with keeping busy and finding ways to pass the time, making its journey more difficult—in other words, developing. Let the universe tell this tale, then. Perhaps it has grown tired of exploding; the story is being told over and over again.
You know how everything comes with a matching set? Well, here is another combination for you: Muslim, Christian, Asia, Europe, and a little genocide on the side. For now, its name is Sarajevo. A place of salvation for those who have lost their identity, where they might rediscover themselves. It has buildings that were once burned and shot at, buildings that still smoulder, yet it has mastered the art of pretending none of it ever happened. The war is there for all to see, but discussing its causes is forbidden. Such a stunted state…
The Izetbegovićism of a vale built around a palace
Perhaps it is difficult to be here, but nothing comes without difficulty, does it, Ali? Perhaps dying is unpleasant, but living is a kind of dying, too. If there is genocide, then there is a reason to come here. Someone said that a place taken by the sword can only be vacated by the sword. My cousin spoke of our ancestors. “Be quiet,” I said. “Someone will hear us—even our own minds will hear us.”
“Can what has been conquered never be unconquered? Stop looking for excuses to speak!” I might have said, yet he would have found another excuse. He is the child of those who always find excuses. I silenced him and, like everyone else, turned my attention to my own pain. By pretending that someone else’s suffering mattered to me, I turned with the rest of the world and carried on.
Sarajevo lies in a valley. For three years, Serbian snipers positioned in the surrounding mountains terrorised the people of the city trapped below. Much like the hard-line zealots who target us in our own country, though their siege lasted longer. Yet the people endured. They did not abandon their land. Some did leave, but without severing their ties to their culture.
The current situation satisfies neither the Serbs nor the Croats, while the Bosniaks are ignored by everyone anyway. The Serbs do not seem likely to be satisfied under any circumstances. Their aim is not to be satisfied; if it were, their own country would be more than enough for them.
Why Is Your Mouth So Big, EU?
The European Union has done everything in its power to ensure that the status quo here remains unchanged. In a country whose political structure is almost evenly divided among federative entities, forty per cent of the budget goes towards bureaucratic salaries. Politicians have competed with one another to ensure that nothing new ever happens—except, of course, when it comes to the demands of the European Union.
The country has rotating presidencies. There are hardly any Croats left in the country, yet the system pretends otherwise: Croat, Serb and Bosniak presidents take turns ascending the throne.
In history class, we studied Austria-Hungary’s annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908. It still feels as though the annexation is ongoing. Even so, we have to ask ourselves: what is the alternative? The United States? Russia? Turkey, which cannot even attract twenty people to one of its own cultural events? Unable to reach a conclusion, we continue our status quo tour.
The Rest of the Trip
We turn a deaf ear to the breathtaking scenery of the Blagaj Tekke because Serbian tavern music drowns out five hundred years of Sufi tradition.
There is a city of viziers called Travnik. No one visits its viziers, yet the fact that passers-by fail even to notice them continues to gnaw at our minds.
There is Bosnian coffee, Bosnian lokum, Bosnian kebab—all of them, in essence, Turkish, though their Turkish origins are concealed. We turn a blind eye, for even we conceal our own identity.
Whose cities have known war and hostility—ours or theirs? If these are cities, then what are ours? Why, for instance, is there no nature left in our country? We cannot enjoy the trip because we spend all our time trying to silence our thoughts.
We leave Sarajevo content, yet pensive, after attending the Cultural and Intellectual Days organised by Bağlar House of Literature, Thought and Culture, which we visited at the invitation and with the support of the Presidency for Turks Abroad and Related Communities (YTB). We are learning many names, adding names upon names. At least we are seeing what survives the longest. Buildings fade a little slower, ideas are even more immortal, but knowledge is the most immortal of all. We continue to produce works
