This book isn't ultimately about Bosnia. It's about the way we think of the imprecise art of war making. As U.S. exploits in Iraq remind us, we repeatedly enter war without adequate intelligence, in every sense of the word. What can we learn, looking through the eyes of a diverse group of women who experienced the carnage of Bosnia? Hindsight is invaluable when trying to avert the next conflict; but more important is insight, probing the social core and moving beyond convention. Whether the crisis is Croatia, Congo, or Korea, we must bring women who have their fingers on the pulse of their communities to join the war makers
around the decision-making table. This book lays out the case for their inclusion.

Raising Their Voices

Most accounts told and listened to by Westerners convey little grasp of Balkan culture. Prewar Bosnia was a poor region, behind the Western European standard, with hard-line communist political officials. On the other hand, Sarajevo was more thoroughly multicultural than most American cities. Socially, traditional rural values blended with avant-garde urban thinking. People in villages worked their fields and tended livestock. Intellectuals traveled frequently outside the country.

This cultural complexity was obscured as the barbarity of the Bosnian war was thrust on the world by international media. Many journalists oversimplified the story. The result has been many easy, but wrong, assumptions that have been salt in the wounds of women like FAHRIJA, who tells a pithy story from her time in upstate New York, as a refugee: Since skin is my medical specialty, I decided to work as a cosmetics consultant, handling brands such as Dior, Clinique, Clarins. I would dress nicely every day for work, regardless of how I felt. That was my way of fighting back, showing I was alive and not broken. My clients, 'rich ladies, would ask, "Where are you from? Paris?" Id answer, "No, I'm from Bosnia." They'd say, "But there's a civil war going on there!" I would explain that it was not a civil war but a war of aggression. The women would say, "But aren't you fighting Muslims over there?" Then I'd say, "I'm Muslim." They were always surprised. Most people I spoke to in America thought all Muslim women were uneducated, repressed, and covered in black cloth. I'm obviously the last person to fit that ridiculous notion.

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Indeed, debunking "ridiculous notions" is one of the goals of this book. Bosnian women themselves are the most logical ones to address these errors. My role was to record their voices. In our sessions over the course of seven years, my training in psychological counseling was more useful than a degree in international relations as I taped multiple interviews with each of the twenty-six women in this book. They are advocates, politicians, farmers, journalists, students, doctors, businesswomen, engineers, mothers, and daughters. They're 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 jewels to a few chickens. But for all their differences, they have this in common: Each survived the war with enough emotional strength to work toward rebuilding her country, whether in modest or grand ways. Together, their perspectives provide a complex portrait of the war, as well as possibilities for peace.

For an anthropological review of the life of Bosnian women before or after the war, historical analysis of the Balkans, or comprehensive accounts of the war, the reader can find many excellent sources listed in the bibliography. I've tried to include just enough information to provide a context for the stories the women tell in these pages. Generalizations are inevitably flawed, especially when encompassing twenty-six persons with such different backgrounds, experiences, concerns, and hopes. Nonetheless, I've found several broad themes consonant with their values and convictions.

I've resisted the temptation to launch into a polemic on gender differences, even though some of the women I interviewed have strong—some might say strident—views about the differences between men and women in war and peacetime. Elsewhere we can argue about whether women are more or less bellicose than men. I've included a few comments of the women, with virtually no discussion. Likewise, this book is not an in-depth exploration of the terrible effect of war on women. True, Bosnian women have suffered far out of proportion to any complicity in causing the conflict. It's important that their suffering be documented and addressed; but that's not my emphasis. These women may have been victimized, but they approach the reader grounded in strength.

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In fact, I expect the women portrayed in these pages will become new friends to the reader—even as they have become important influences in my life. Here, traditionally muted members of Bosnian society speak out, for the betterment of their own lives and communities. Their understanding of the causes of the war and their wisdom regarding the path toward peace are not only instructional but also inspirational for anyone dealing with conflict (which is, after all, everyone). My original intention was only to illuminate the most outstanding examples of women-led activity that has gone into rebuilding Bosnia since the recent war, embodied by women like EMSUDA, who sighed to me once, I wish I could sit down by myself and tell my story—from beginning to end. I just haven't had time. But over the hours as we talked, the women brought up personal material so important—and so intriguingly consistent—that I added the first section, to give context to their descriptions about their work. The result is two major parts: lessons learned from the personal experiences of the women during the war, and the basic principles by which they are working to heal their country—and themselves, in the process.

At its most leveraged use, this book may serve as a wake-up call for policy shapers about the basis of our assumptions. In these women's words are insights that could, or should, change the fundamental scope of foreign affairs. But shifts in the public policy paradigm are insidiously difficult. in the pages that follow, I'm critical of the shortcomings I perceive in many who've steered international Balkan policy through treacherous waters these past ten years. At the same time, I recognize that they made agonizingly difficult choices, often with limited information.

Many of the women in this book I met while in my diplomatic or humanitarian roles in the mid 1990s. I had no intention of writing about them. But over time I've read one account after another attempting to describe the war. Most chroniclers have focused on historical prelude and horrifying statistics: 150,000 dead; 2,300,000—more than half the prewar population—expelled from their homes. They've described the exploits of political leaders and warriors (overwhelmingly male). Conspicuously missing is the ground-level story lived by wen over half the adult population:' women who tried to hold family and community together against overwhelming odds. This book addresses that gap in the current understanding of the war, reorienting what became a dramatically genderskewed account of Bosnia in the last decade of the twentieth century.

We've much to learn about how to foster change in alliance with women who wield influence not only in their families but also throughout their communities. Top-down policies should be critiqued by ground-level actors—men or women. In this account of Bosnian women's actions to heal their country are examples of work policymakers ought to be funding in every conflict area of the world. When I selected the key characters for this volume, my primary criterion was that they be actively working on rebuilding their society. I wasn't even aware of their hardship stories or their views about the reasons for the war, expressed in part I. Quite apart from what they have suffered, these are strong, capable women. Supporting their work, launched in the most discouraging conditions, should be a goal in foreign policy work around the world.

In an age of instant communication, where our guerre du jour is served up with breakfast bagels, the conviction that change is possible can preserve the public's capacity to care. To borrow from justice Richard Goldstone, former chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague, I hope my readers will be "rescued from the numbness of our over-intellectualization and transported into a realm where human emotion—sorrow, empathy, and finally hope—are alive."

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