Dove non suoanano più i fucili - Europuglia

Another play for adults is the one by Kolacoskj, a Polish writer who writes about everyday
life of common people. “What are you doing? Why don’t you think where you’re
going? This was the message of that play.” Muhamed said, “Polish puppeteers are fantastic.
The satire is useful after all, either under a dictatorship or under an embryo of
democracy like the one we are now experiencing. Those in power must be satirized.”
Muhammad looked so sweet. He was about to leave the director’s post of the Puppet
Theatre very soon. In his words we sensed his strong disapproval regarding the new
leadership, but he said with careful consideration, “Maybe time has gone by for those
belonging to my generation.” After retiring, Muhamed will work freelance. However,
when he talked about the golden age of the PT, the rebuilding of a permanent laboratory,
of a new puppeteer school after the war, the happiness of seeing a Croatian
group merging together with what he defines as his creation, overcoming differences
in religion and tradition, and when he talked about the twinning with the city of Reggio
Emilia thanks to the project Una montagna di aiuti (A mountain of aid), and about the
touring show on the water legends, to which he contributed a story about Neretva
which he was told by his grandmother (published in a multilingual book about water
stories of all the Mediterranean countries); when he remembered all this,
Muhammad was unable to hide his emotion. “Water links people. There is a little stream
which goes through the land up on the hill where I was born. It is called Bona.
Ancient Romans called it that because the water was very good and fresh.”
Muhamed is like his water, a very good man. He is like all those people who have
devoted their life to the world, trying to improve it and not to use it for their own interests.
We said goodbye to him with a grateful heart not only because he walked up
to our terrace in the heat to talk about his life, but we thanked him for what he has
done, because he has never given in and because we knew that till the end of his
days he will keep on shaping young minds who want to learn this anachronistic and
romantic art.
The following day brought some black clouds that gradually cleared during the morning
leaving a humid haze in the air. We went to see the studios of Radio Studio 88,
which was the first to broadcast current affairs programmes about society and eco-
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nomics, cultural programmes, and very good music of all kinds, but not the so-muchhated
folk music. The intelligentsia as well as the youth have rejected the gypsy conventional
representation that Bregovic and Kusturica pass off as Yugoslavian tradition
all over the world. Radio Studio 88 was started by Americans but now its survival
strictly depends on a concept which Bosnians are learning to endorse: to stay on
the market. They have international partnerships, they get donations and money for
advertising spaces by a few local firms. Amila is the manager of the radio station and
she was radiant and passionate when she talked about broadcasting in Herzegovina,
although that day was the tenth anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre, and the
radio station was broadcasting only classical music.
She was proud to tell us that all the members of the staff get national insurance contributions
regularly (that are about 68% of the cost of an employee) and, although
wages are low, she thought that a 600-800 mark monthly wage is a good reason not
to go away. Because this is the main problem in Bosnia: young people dream of
going away as soon as they can. (As we were recording the interview, Francesco
Lanzo managed to see an e-mail that a very young secretary was writing to a friend
of hers in California: want to run away, unbearable atmosphere at home).
Amila clarified that theirs is not a radio station for amateurs. She has worked in the
USA and at the BBC, where there are some quality standards to be respected both
in the content of programmes and in the music. In Herzegovina it is quite difficult to
define the level of a high standard because it is difficult to find the same target
audience. In fact, according to statistics, radio Studio 88 is the third radio station in
terms of ratings in the whole region. But how can they know what type of education
the people who usually sit at a coffee shop have? In general, Amila knew that a high
percentage (88%) of people with a degree is unemployed. Nevertheless, the cultural
level provided by the two Mostarian universities is very low and with the passing of
time it is getting lower and lower, with professors co-opted by Churches, programmes
which are very different from each other, and educational qualifications that
have no value outside former Yugoslavia.
Amila is not only a journalist but also the chairman of the Herzegovinian Journalists’
Union. She is the one who has wanted the deontological rules which regulate the
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