Smoldering conflicts, deceptive calm

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The silence. The eerie absence of familiar sounds. That’s the first thing Marie-Janine Calic thinks of when she recalls driving through war-torn Herzegovina 30 years ago. No cars on the roads, no tractors in the fields. It’s only when you can’t hear a single engine that you realize how much they’re part of our normal everyday life in Europe, says Calic: “And then you drive into the city of Mostar and all you see are ruins. And in the ruins, people just sitting there, motionless. It’s awful.”

In 1995, the historian was an advisor to UN Special Envoy Yasushi Akashi, who was sent to help find a peaceful solution for the countries into which the former Yugoslavia had disintegrated. She was happy to contribute her expertise as a historian at the time. Today, her analyses benefit from her having experienced contemporary history first hand. She is constantly reading and hearing analyses from, as she puts it, people “who are very far removed from the real world.”

Click here for the article in the digital research magazine

Smoldering conflicts, deceptive calm: Read the article in the digital research magazine here