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Monday, June 15, 1998

Time at The Bruin provides experience for life

My hands were trembling as I walked out of the room, clutching my tape recorder and notepad to my chest. It was an opportunity I had never dreamed of. He was a foreign dignitary who had requested to speak to me specifically. The best story of my life.

Before this experience, I had never cried on a story. (I had been too above that as a journalist.) Nor had I ever been so profoundly humbled by any subject as I was by Fahrudin Rizvanbegovic.

He walked into the Bruin office on a Saturday afternoon, flanked by a translator and a friend. I greeted him confidently with the limited Serbo-Croatian I knew, while secretly reveling in the clip of a lifetime.

How many college journalists get to interview the Bosnian secretary of education? I greeted him with "Assalamu Alaikum," the Muslim greetings of peace, knowing he shared my faith.

I was intimidated and exhilarated, but I was too arrogant to let it show. An hour and half later, I was humbled and grateful.

Keeping up with my prepared list of questions (a must for any journalist), we discussed the state of education in Bosnia, the nature of his trip to the States and the rebuilding of Bosnia after the war.

Everything was routine until my last question. The response to my simple inquiry of "How did you get into this position?" resulted in an answer that totally floored me. Rizvanbegovic was telling the translator about his education and teaching, when suddenly I heard him say in Serbo-Croatian, "... when I got out of the camp."

Camp? Thoughts rushed through my head. So I responded the only way I knew how, with a question. I interrupted his casual remarks with an astounded, "I'm sorry. Did the minister just say that he was in the camps? The concentration camps?"

And the translator, just as casually said, "Yes, the minister was in the camps."

While I sat in shock, Rizvanbegovic spent the next 45 minutes recounting his experiences.

In June 1993, the elite intellectuals of Bosnia were rounded up and placed in concentration camps by Serbian captors. Rizvanbegovic, then a professor, was one of them.

He was placed in a concentration camp in Croatia, where he was held from June to December of 1993. He survived solely on 1/16 of a loaf of bread and a glass of water each day.

One month after they had captured the elite, all the commoners were taken into custody. While he was in the camp, his wife and daughter were persecuted, and their house was torched.

By the time he left the camp, he weighed only 120 pounds - just a skeleton of the tall, dignified man sitting before me.

Not only was he physically tortured, but the reminders of his life outside were also destroyed. His 300-year-old home, located in an aristocratic historical area, was destroyed along with heirlooms, family documents and his prized possession - his library.

Freed in December of 1993, Rizvanbegovic was released in Zagreb for 48 hours but not allowed back into Bosnia.

After two months in Zagreb (Croatia), he was finally flown back into Bosnia after a personal plea to Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic.

When he finally got back, Rizvanbegovic immediately wrote a literature textbook. He used writing - an art I had taken for granted - as "his weapon." That moment crystallized my outlook on the profession I hope to enter.

Two and a half years ago, President Izetbegovic asked him personally to accept the position of minister of education, science, culture and sports.

Even after all he has survived, Rizvanbegovic is dedicated to minimizing the differences between the ethnic and religious groups of Bosnians.

With the help of the Turkish libraries and also a number of other sympathetic countries, they have slowly pieced together new collections of heritage. Rizvanbegovic wants the children of Bosnia to learn from the past and not be trapped by it.

His task has been far from easy. All schools were destroyed during the war, according to Rizvanbegovic, because Serbian forces strategically targeted centers of education, considered "keys to the future."

Since 1995, most of the schools have been rebuilt. The major reforms in education have been through a transition from a communist to a democratic way of teaching and running schools. Their school system is free from all ideology, implementing what it finds most attractive in other countries' educational systems.

Throughout the interview, I never detect any anger or resentment. The only hint of that comes when he describes the actions of the Serbs being executed with "barbaric hatred." It is a phrase he uses often.

I am astounded by his humble demeanor as he reminds me that the war criminals still need to be put on trial.

For days after our meeting, his words resounded in my head.

"If I can live and work alongside the people who imprisoned me, then people of other groups should be able to do the same thing."

A profound statement, considering all that he had been subjected to. But the most stunning incident that occurred that day happened after he had left.

I scurried back to my office, eager to document the horror he had seen and forgiven. I rewound the tape, wanting to review his numerous astounding statements. To my unending horror, I had made the blunder of a thousand amateur journalists. I had not tested my equipment.

The only thing on that tape was static. Not only that, but I had been so captivated by his words that I had not thought to take any notes.

While it proved impossible to publish that interview, it was just one lesson I have learned as a journalist.

The Bruin has changed me far more than I have changed it. In three years, The Bruin has transformed me from a timid, shy freshman lost in the chaos of UCLA to a junior (barely) commandeering reporters and talking back to cops. I couldn't see the change coming, but somewhere along the line it happened.

So far, UCLA has been about finding myself as both a Muslim and a journalist - and, more importantly, how that combination can be used to effect change. I'm a different person now than I was three years ago, and I am grateful.

This job, this place has helped me grow and learn about all walks of life. But one simple man reminded me of what Allah (God) teaches:

"Nay, seek (Allah's) help with patient perseverance and prayer; it is indeed hard, except to those who are humble," (Qur'an, 2:45).

Edina Lekovic

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