Komšiluk

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Komšiluk is a Serbo-Croatian word meaning "neighbourhood". In the context of the multi-ethnic Bosnian society, komšiluk has the meaning of "friendly co-existence of neighbours of different ethnicities".

Komšiluk is made of mutual respect, reciprocal help and assistance, work and neighbourhood relationships, and invitations to important events of a family. People engaged in a komšiluk are called komšije.

A symbol of komšiluk is the sugared coffee shared in fragile, handleless cup ("fildzan": a famous editorial of Oslobođenje introduced the term "fildzan-Bosna" to suggest the idea of a fragile, multicultural Bosnia and Herzegovina).

The komšiluk, by opposition to ethnic and cultural integration, was used as an argument for the rise of nationalist parties in the beginning of the 1990s. Biljana Plavšić, of the Serbian Democratic Party, in November 1990:

In the past, relations between komšije were so, one respected what was other. This is how, in a reasonable way, this issue has to be solved. By respecting these principles, national parties can solve it in a democratic and parliamentary framework (interview in Javnost, newspaper of the SDS, 1990).

After the beginning of the war, the komšiluk was both described as an illusion and as the idealisation of ethnic cleansing. Alija Izetbegović, in 1994, said:

Life in common is a beautiful thing, but I think and I can say freely that this is a lie, this is not what our soldiers are dying for. (...) our soldier in the hills, who suffers in the mud, does not so to live together, but to defend the toprak, this land which some want to rip from him. He risks his life to defend his family, his land, his people".

while Radovan Karadžić said:

Blood has been spilled, a historical process of separation has taken place, and it is better now to be good komšije than to be once again mixed and experience new antagonism (Borba, 19 October 1993)