This Was Not Our War: Bosnian Women Reclaiming the Peace [Hardcover]

Swanee Hunt (Author), William Jefferson Clinton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 8, 2004

“Replacing tyranny with justice, healing deep scars, exchanging hatred for hope . . . the women in This Was Not Our War teach us how.”—William Jefferson Clinton

This Was Not Our War shares amazing first-person accounts of twenty-six Bosnian women who are reconstructing their society following years of devastating warfare. A university student working to resettle refugees, a paramedic who founded a veterans’ aid group, a fashion designer running two nonprofit organizations, a government minister and professor who survived Auschwitz—these women are advocates, politicians, farmers, journalists, students, doctors, businesswomen, engineers, wives, and mothers. They are from all parts of Bosnia and represent the full range of ethnic traditions and mixed heritages. Their ages spread across sixty years, and their wealth ranges from expensive jewels to a few chickens. For all their differences, they have this much in common: all survived the war with enough emotional strength to work toward rebuilding their country. Swanee Hunt met these women through her diplomatic and humanitarian work in the 1990s. Over the course of seven years, she conducted multiple interviews with each one. In presenting those interviews here, Hunt provides a narrative framework that connects the women’s stories, allowing them to speak to one another.

The women describe what it was like living in a vibrant multicultural community that suddenly imploded in an onslaught of violence. They relate the chaos; the atrocities, including the rapes of many neighbors and friends; the hurried decisions whether to stay or flee; the extraordinary efforts to care for children and elderly parents and to find food and clean drinking water. Reflecting on the causes of the war, they vehemently reject the idea that age-old ethnic hatreds made the war inevitable. The women share their reactions to the Dayton Accords, the end of hostilities, and international relief efforts. While they are candid about the difficulties they face, they are committed to rebuilding Bosnia based on ideals of truth, justice, and a common humanity encompassing those of all faiths and ethnicities. Their wisdom is instructive, their courage and fortitude inspirational.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Drawing on seven years of interviews, diplomatic and humanitarian work in the region and personal visits to Bosnia throughout the 1990s, Hunt—a former U.S. ambassador to Austria and founder of Women Waging Peace—presents the testimony of 26 women who survived the region's horrific upheavals. Hunt juxtaposes private moments with public meetings and differences of opinion with common convictions. Women speak wrenchingly and courageously about the fight to save their homes and protect their children; the decision to stay or flee; the attempt to preserve their own bodies and souls; and the ongoing challenge to rebuild their lives and society. (The book includes 32 color photos and two maps.) Despite differences of opinion on most other issues, Hunt's ethnically and religiously diverse interviewees all agree that political greed rather than obstinate ethnic hatred fueled the conflict. The director of the Women and Public Policy Program at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, Hunt succeeds in capturing, organizing and analyzing the complexities inherent in conversations with 26 very different people during and after an abhorrent war. "Life goes on, and life wins," says Mediha Filipovic, the only female member of parliament in the first Bosnian national assembly and Bosnia's current ambassador to Sweden. Readers will be inspired by her courage, and that of the others here, in saying so.
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Review

“Here is history watched in its unfolding, then put on record. Women tell an astute listener what they saw, read, and remember even as their careful witness—at once an eloquent and tragic story—is enabled by the knowing attention of a seasoned diplomat and psychologist. This effort advances the kind of history Tolstoy urged be written—a narration of on-the-scene individuals rendered by one herself very much willing to be respectfully among them.”—Robert Coles, Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and Medical Humanities and former James Agee Professor of Social Ethics, Harvard University

“I met Swanee Hunt as a diplomat in Vienna. I worked beside her as an activist in the Balkans. Now I know her as a writer, addressing a world sorely in need of her message of challenge and hope. Her words resonate with the authenticity of an observer and advocate who has devoted not only attention, time, and position, but also soul.”—Queen Noor of Jordan, humanitarian activist for world peace and justice and best-selling author of Leap of Faith: Memoirs of an Unexpected Life

“Swanee Hunt is a diplomat, human rights advocate, and teacher. With This Was Not Our War she shows she is also a gifted listener and writer. In these pages, Hunt captures the rationales and rationalizations for war as well as the despair and stirring dignity of twenty-six women who lived through the Bosnian horrors. Hunt lets the women speak for themselves, telling the story of Bosnia’s descent and recovery their way, and, in so doing, she shows just how vital their voices, insights, and talents will be in rebuilding Bosnia and its shattered lives.”—Samantha Power, author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning “A Problem from Hell”: America and the Age of Genocide

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 344 pages
• Publisher: Duke University Press Books; 1St Edition edition (November 8, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0822333554
• ISBN-13: 978-0822333555
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #813,517 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #75 in Books > History > Europe > Bosnia and Herzegovina
  • #91 in Books > History > Europe > Yugoslavia

More About the Author

Swanee Hunt is Eleanor Roosevelt Lecturer in Public Policy, founder of the Women and Public Policy Program, core faculty at the Center for Public Leadership, and senior advisor to the working group on modern-day slavery at the Carr Center for Human Rights, all at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

An expert on domestic policy and foreign affairs, Hunt is president of Hunt Alternatives Fund, a private foundation working to support leaders of social movements, combat the demand for purchased sex, achieve political parity for women in high-level positions (in the US and globally), strengthen youth arts organizations, and increase philanthropy. She also chairs the Washington-based Institute for Inclusive Security (including the Women Waging Peace Network), which conducts research, training, and advocacy to integrate women into peace processes.

Her seminal work in this area began when, as the US Ambassador to Austria from 1993 to 1997, she hosted negotiations and international symposia focused on stabilizing the neighboring Balkan states and encouraging women leaders throughout Eastern Europe. Building on her extensive work with US non-governmental organizations, she became a specialist in the role of women in post-communist Europe.

Raised in a corporate family in Dallas, Texas, Hunt made her mark as a civic leader and philanthropist in her adopted city of Denver, where for two decades she led community efforts on issues such as public education, affordable housing, homelessness, women's empowerment, and mental health services for two mayors and the governor of Colorado.

Hunt is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations; she has authored articles for Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy Magazine, International Herald Tribune, Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe, Dallas Morning News, Huffington Post, et al. Her first book, This Was Not Our War: Bosnian Women Reclaiming the Peace, won the 2005 PEN/New England Award for non-fiction. Her memoir, Half-Life of a Zealot, was published in 2006. Her third book with Duke University Press, Worlds Aparts: Bosnian Lessons for Global Security, was released in September 2011. She is currently writing Rwandan Women Rising.

Hunt has had more than a dozen one-woman shows of her photographs in five countries. Her musical composition, "The Witness Cantata," for five soloists and chorus, has had nine performances in six cities. Hunt holds two masters degrees, a doctorate in theology, and three honorary degrees. She was married for 25 years to Charles Ansbacher, international conductor and founder of the Boston Landmarks Orchestra, who passed away in 2010. Her world includes their three children, and a menagerie of cat, parrot, horses, bison, and grandchildren.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "If all soldiers were women, there would not be so much bloodshed.", August 17, 2005

By 

Mary Whipple (New England) - See all my reviews
(COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: This Was Not Our War: Bosnian Women Reclaiming the Peace (Hardcover)

Feeling utterly betrayed by their leaders, twenty-six women from all over Bosnia meet with Swanee Hunt, former US Ambassador to Austria and Chair of Women Waging Peace, a global policy initiative. In their own words, they describe the war which ravaged their country and reduced it to rubble. As they make clear from the outset, this war was not a result of age-old ethnic antagonisms in the Balkans, where city after city had been peacefully multi-ethnic and where most families had loyalties to more than one group. It was the direct result, they believe, of the nationalism fomented by unscrupulous politicians, especially Slobodan Milosevic and Radovan Karadzic, as they seized power and wealth in the vacuum which existed following the death of Marshall Tito.

The twenty-six speakers are Serbs, Croats, Muslims, Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, atheists (former Communists), and Jews, all bright, articulate women who are, and have been, working to heal their society. They include engineers, several journalists and physicians, a teacher, a member of the Bosnian Parliament, a professor at the School of Economics, a landscape architect, a member of the seven-member shared Presidency, a farm wife, a flower shop owner, a teenage student, and an art gallery owner, and they represent all areas of Bosnia, from Srebrenica to Mostar, Tuzla, and Sarajevo.

With one voice, they blame their politicians for the atrocities of the war, pointing out that their leaders' manipulation of the international press and their sectarian chauvinism led to ethnic fundamentalism in a country which had previously been multicultural. The imposition of traditional roles on women led to their enforced withdrawal from decision-making, and they universally agree that that they might have been able to influence the direction of the country toward more cultural understanding and better communication if they had been allowed to continue their previous political, professional, and social roles.

The stories here are lively, personal, often incredibly sad, and absolutely unforgettable. Beautiful color portraits of the women, along with brief biographies, make each woman a "living" voice, and the reader is struck by how much these women typify women around the world. Most remarkably the women, despite the losses of parents, husbands, sons, and friends, all continue rebuilding their country, ignoring ethnic labels as they work to get housing for all refugees, find medical supplies and equipment, establish a women's collective, work with rape victims, plan conferences to bring together women from all over the country, make radio broadcasts, organize news agencies, write books, promote international awareness of the atrocities in Bosnia (especially in Srebrenica), care for the elderly, become ambassadors, and run schools.

Hunt's book and the words of these remarkable women are a major achievement in the understanding of this terrible war, a war far different from what most of us have been led to believe. Fourteen magnificent photographs, in addition to the women's portraits, will wring the heart--an unrecognizable national library, a snow-covered Sarajevo soccer field which is now a cemetery, and a decimated dormitory in the Olympic village. Yet amidst the carnage are smiling women who are changing the face of Bosnia. As Kada tells Hunt, "Thank you for telling my story. What's written down will last." n Mary Whipple

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A profound, compassionate, eloquent book from the heart, May 25, 2005

By 

Andrew Solomon "NoondayDemon" (New York, New York USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: This Was Not Our War: Bosnian Women Reclaiming the Peace (Hardcover)

This is an exquisitely executed book about the struggles of women in Bosnia to survive the ravages of a war fuelled by political expedience and glamorized as an ethnic struggle. Swanee Hunt's own tone of moral outrage never eclipses the voices of the women she has interviewed. She writes of them with love, and also finds much love in them, a love only more startling for having survived such intense hatred. This book is a great, great achievement, both for its singular mix of empathy and for its clarity. As Primo Levi and Viktor Frankl found meaning in the Holocaust without diminishing its horror, so Hunt finds a language of strength and power in these compromised lives. This is a book about the very best and very worst of humanity.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This Was Not Their War, But All Wars are "Ours", February 12, 2005

By 

J. Laurie - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: This Was Not Our War: Bosnian Women Reclaiming the Peace (Hardcover)

This Was Not our War by former U.S. Ambassador to Austria Swanee Hunt is a deeply troubling and hopeful work. First-person accounts of twenty-six Bosnian women from diverse backgrounds form a narrative for understanding conflict and daily life in the Balkans during the 1990's. As the reader meets these women and enters into their experiences, and especially their powerful movements to build a peaceful society, we not only encounter their lives, but through them gain some sense of the struggles and hopes of people caught in other similar contemporary human disasters in Cambodia, Rwanda, and the Sudan.

The women whose stories are presented here are teachers and politicians, business owners and factory workers, journalists and physicians. They are Muslim, Orthodox, Jewish, Catholic and non-religious. They are Croats and Serbs and very clear that the ethnic distinctions on which so much destruction was based was largely a myth of justification amplified out of all proportion by those who made the war.

Each woman who was interviewed is presented with a photo and a brief biography which had great impact on me as a reader, bringing them to life. And once they were alive, then the narrative and history also came to life in a much more personal way. They are like women I know, my friends and neighbors.

I believe it is in making that connection that this work is most important and valuable. When the people involved in war seem like strangers to me, I can tend to distance from what I read and see and hear. The particulars of these women in their photos, narratives and biographies broke through that kind of shield. In doing so, I came to understand that the Bosnian conflict, while not of their choosing or design, was like all wars, our war, in which we all participate and suffer and to which we all have power to respond. Our way as humans in this world does not have to be this kind of warring madness. Ambassador Hunt's book helps us see the possibilities of other ways.