Today, on July 11, a quarter of a century has passed since the brutal attack on the city of Srebrenica by Bosnian Serb militia, which forced the defenseless Muslim population to flee through the surrounding forests leaving their homes, fields and all their possessions.
But in July 1995, the Serbian militia chased them and killed 8,372 elders, young men and children, and brutally assaulted thousands of women who fell in their hands, all of this was done under the eyes of the United Nations 'International Protection Forces' forces, who were present in the city. To maintain security therein, in implementation of Security Council Resolution 819 of April 1993, considering Srebrenica a safe area.
On this day every year, Muslims honor their dead by holding funeral prayer rituals for those whose remains were found during the same year, then they are buried in the memorial center located in Srebrenica, in the presence of the people and a large crowd of Muslims and opponents of injustice, not only from Bosnia but from all Countries of the world.
Srebrenica voice to the world
This year is witnessing a different event. Abdullah Sakaka, Mayor of Sarajevo, took an initiative that won the approval of all. Sakaka says to Al Jazeera Net, "This year, we wanted the voice of Srebrenica to reach the world in a different way. We wanted to communicate this voice through the paintings of the artist Safet Zits. We felt that the works that wandered around the world, which depict all horror, pain, suffering and tragedy, should come to the place that which you are talking about".
"We decided that the paintings would be displayed in the previous battery factory in which all atrocities were committed by Serbian criminals, whose mere mention was terrifying, we decided to respond to the crime with nobility and ugliness with beauty," Sakaka added.
The Mayor of Sarajevo concluded his speech, "We are proud that the city of Sarajevo is the sponsor of this project. We believe that art with its elements of emotion touches the internal state of man, and the image and artwork we see leaves us with a stronger influence than words."
Bitterness of displacement
The exhibition includes 4 art groups: “faces”, “bread of mercy”, “hug” and “displacement”, which are the paintings that took 20 years to prepare, and Zets decided to call the exhibition “displacement”.
Regarding the reason for choosing this name, Safet Zets said to Al-Jazeera Net that "in wars and tendencies a person is exposed to many types of afflictions, he may be injured and may be killed, and he may lose his loved ones, but I think that the most difficult thing that a person may be exposed to is to leave his homeland, to be forced out of it, I experienced displacement twice in my life: the first time when I was a child, when my mother carried me to escape after the Serbs attacked my village and committed brutal crimes after the Second World War, then the second time because of the brutal Serbian aggression against Bosnia in 1992, so I left with my family to Italy.
Safet Zits was born in 1943 in the eastern city of Rogatica, he studied painting and applied art, excelled until he reached universality and became one of the main proponents of the modern art style known as "romantic realism".
Regarding the beginning of talent, he said, "My relationship with art started from a young age. In my early childhood, I aspired to become a great painter, and I realized that I was talented, so I enrolled in high school of applied arts in Sarajevo and worked and practiced constantly to master all the skills that I knew I would need, then I joined At the Academy of Fine Arts in Belgrade in 1969. In the academy I could make a painting in half an hour or an hour, as the rest of the students would take several days working. "
Zets obtained his master’s degree in 1972 from the same academy, then returned to Bosnia with his wife, the artist Evanka, and then the war forced him to leave his homeland, but the country remained inside him, he says, “After I left Bosnia with my family, we went to Udine, Italy, believing that the war will end Quickly, we will return to Bosnia, but after it was prolonged, we moved to Venice, where I set up my studio and started work. The strange thing is that at that unstable stage, I was able to start work immediately, I don’t know how I did it, it might have been a kind of escape, or an expression of Anger or an attempt to take revenge, I do not know, "he added." I found that I harnessed my creative energy against aggression, against injustice, and for the voice of Bosnia to reach everywhere. "
Zets has more than 250 paintings, has become a member of all the important art societies in Europe, and has organized more than 70 solo exhibitions in his homeland and in major cities around the world, and on that he says, "I started showing my paintings and holding exhibitions in the cities of Italy, then in European cities." And non-European: In Paris, Prague, Cologne, and Amman, people liked the paintings and inquired, and we spoke to them about Bosnia and the injustice that takes place in it. "
In 2004, French art critic and historian Pascal Bonavo chose a painting of "Zit" stolen called "The Stolen Portrait", for an exhibition called "I" for personal paintings in the twentieth century, which was put together with paintings by international artists such as Picasso and Marcel Ducham, and Zets also obtained More than 20 awards for his artistic creations, the most important of which was the "Knight of Art" Medal from France in 2007.
On the relationship of art to war, and his famous sentence, "War is the ugliest subject that an artist can address in his paintings." He responded, explaining, "Art is a beautiful thing but rather the most beautiful thing a person makes, and war is the ugliest thing a person does, and I care about expressing feelings and feelings, I care With the visual details that abound in daily life, I express the homeland through the façades of residential buildings, its smooth surfaces, its closed and legitimate windows, vases, jars, chairs, scattered beds, wash basins, mirrors, and other religious symbols, silent and living nature scenes, all of which deplete the stock of my childhood memory And from my longing to my country, for example, my group "Hug", as you see: This is me, and my mother carried me between her arms, and escaped me from the aggressor who destroyed our house and killed our loved ones.
On his opinion, the Italian art critic and historian Roberto Bodassi said, “The (Zets Zets) paintings seem to contain a magic power that is constantly hesitating between appearing and disappearing, as if it were a secret outbreak; sometimes it hurts us and sometimes it makes us happy”; "This is absolutely true," Zets says. "Sometimes you start reading a novel that talks about sad and painful events, but you read it with passion, and you complete it to the end, despite the sadness and pain you feel. The reason is that the author used the beauty of the language with great genius to communicate painful events. I I do the same thing, I use the beauty of drawing and design, I use my art to convey the sad, painful message, and the feelings of those who watch it oscillate between admiring the quality of the painting and the happiness to see it, and at the same time the sadness and pain due to the content of the message that the painting carries. "
On the special relationship with Srebrenica, he said with great sadness, "What happened in Srebrenica is an indescribable inhuman tragedy, I often feel that it did not happen, and that this is a nightmare and it will end, perhaps because I do not want to believe that there is a person who can do that, that what An insult has occurred to humanity. "He added," As a human being before I was an artist, I cannot understand the reason for what happened !! I wonder every time I go to Srebrenica, why? Why did they do this? On my way yesterday from Sarajevo to Srebrenica I was looking at the beautiful forests, The splendid rivers, and the eyes of water flowing everywhere, the place is wide and spacious, accommodating everyone, so why did they kill them ?! What did they gain? All they gained is the curse that will follow them throughout history. "