Bosnia and Hercegovina

16.08.2015

Mostar

On the way to Medjugorie. I did not take photos in Medjugorie itself. Hard to say why. I did not feel too much secure there. Religious atmosphere of that town seemed to me religious atmosphere of Konya in Turkey. I had an anticipatory feelings all the time that wrong facial reaction, attitude, move or even revealed somehow thought and you could get into serious trouble there. And hard to say what behavior may be perceived as within limits and what not. As some of you probably know catholic religion isn’t the light version of Christian religion itself. And some bigoted catholic people may not only seem „too” serious but may be. I observed how easily our driver got into argument with two a bit fat looking fat from extreme stress policemen. And problems appeared like sometimes in Poland. Just from nowhere. Just due to stupid collective thinking, some seriousness about what is permitted and what not. And collective psychoses I know also from overly religious environments in Poland seem to be a very similar phenomenon there with one distinction. In that part of Hercegovina I was sure that it is enough just a one spark. Just one. To lit the big flame. These people seem haunted, preoccupied by not ideas. But extreme feelings of devotions what only catholic people may understand. I doubt if I ever got screwed into it. I remember even in primary school I was going to church because one girl started to be attractive to me too much too ignore that obsessive feeling that I started to feel so I followed my instinct. And often my mind was just preoccupied by content of romantic or sexual kind when seriousness of bigoted catholic people is for me a bit strange. Every time I got closer to such environment some disintegrating anxiety started to dominate me due to my values, how some of them have been perceived in my home – where choices, personal freedom was just a principle and so obvious that when today I see how I am „fished” by bigoted bankers from PKOBP or some lecturers before who tried to appeal to me in terms of something only they perceived to have common with me. For me to see myself and my way through life as completely the matter of my choices when I face people who are lead by religion more than own instincts, beliefs, personality, values – own discovered things about themselves I feel something of the kind of panic. Polish behave such a way they reveal prejudices all the time. From cleaners to bankers. They never getting my point and where ends their freedom and starts mine want to revenge me all the time for what they never admit that completely do not understand about me. They believe there are principles to be subject to but not of universal moral kind but more particularly social trends, current religious principles what moves people in this meaning right time or other blur to me manifestations of hyperreligious collective culture where room to own choices, own thoughts to lead ourselves are intentionally limited. And this is not politics. Politicians make a secondary use of it. The key problem is that voters are like this, majorities and they elect bigoted people to conservatively preserve such a status quo because what disintegrates me and my personality this means limiting on ownership for own authorship of decisions, actions due to own well known principles, goals, thoughts, often spontaneous. Instead of it eg. in Poland there are some collective movements that influence what is personal all the time. This integrates such people and disintegrates me in terms of my focus to personality as well in my worse periods when I am more prone to such a manipulation. Religion is as much manipulation as politics. And there in Hercegovina during my lonely visit there with a tiny intl. group (two Jews, me and one Anglo-Saxon – btw. a good sample who may be in general interested in some wider perspective on diversity, religion etc. – Jews as a rule – they like to widen their horizons, English and American people due to massive heritage of own culture to understand today’s world they actively were shaping maybe too much so they feel responsible – I see this during my every travel that they realize what their politics did to the world throughout our human history and me – not typical Polish but somehow Polish in terms that I engage in everything that really matters like Polish do) I felt insecure not in Bosian multicultural destroyed Mostar. No. There I felt moved by even really grown local heroes – big guys who could tell you a lot about their role in modern bloody history of that little historical city. In Medjugorie I was feeling like a typical idiotic pet like young people are treated in villages in East of Poland. Like just from point of view of the religion – nobody – someone whose main goal should be just to listen. Catholic bitches is what completely does not drive me in this life. And I have one. And I am sure that I have no purpose to return to Hercegovina. And I’ve never been again in Croatia since 2015 and I do not feel any need to return there too so far. And I am not sure if 2 travels was enough for me. Or what I experienced in Mostar. Or what I did not fulfill from relationships point of view. Overy religious environments make me a bit scared as a rule.