Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Credited with persuading Foreign Secretary William Hague to launch a campaign against rape as a weapon of war.
On the island
Eight records
Prija teljari dieste (My Old Friends, Where Are You?)
guest's reason from transcript: 'Prija teljari dieste, My Old Friends, Where Are You? It is kind of a song looking back at the times where everyone was friend today, the people are dispersed around the world. It's loaded with a meaning for me today.'
guest's reason from transcript: 'I discovered English language. And I think that leads us to your second disc. Tell us about it. Ah, my second disc is Cambodia, sung by Kim Wild. Who at the time I knew everything about. I was a proper fan.'
Kraitanana Shadravana (Near a Tiny Fountain)Favourite
guest's reason from transcript: 'It's called Kraitanana Shadravana, and it is a song that I remember my parents listening to. ... these old songs, and they would listen to them. ... these days I just look at it as like Sicily. That was really quite beautiful.'
guest's reason from transcript: 'It's um Fast Car by Tracy Chapman. I remembered very vividly when I heard this. I um entered a bedroom that I was given to sleep in. There was a record player and there was a there was a record on it.'
Pluni izapia (Spit and Start Singing)
guest's reason from transcript: 'It's called Pluni izapia by Moja Yugoslavia. It's a song by Bielodugme. This is a song that came out just before the war, addressed to Yugoslavia that feels the winds of change. And it calls on Yugoslavia to get up and start singing.'
guest's reason from transcript: 'I was at University for Languages ... I was passing by a record shop and in the window there was Madonna True Blue. And I walked in and bought a record. I never went to that party. And I rushed back home and I put it on my record player.'
guest's reason from transcript: 'Oh, it's Vivaldi's Fall season is my favorite part. I love listening to this because it kind of gives me space to think and I love intensity of winter.'
guest's reason from transcript: 'Yes, my last disc is actually again, it's a singer from Croatia, Josipa Liset, and it's a song about one youth, which I am still working out what it means, but I think in essence it's a story about youth growing up under communism, believing in all the promises, but fearing that the promises may steal the beauty of youth and a time that can never be given back, but living in hope.'
In conversation
Presenter asks
5:09What do you remember about growing up [in the former Yugoslavia]?
As I mentioned, obviously, Yugoslavia was a communist country at that point, and you were in the party youth organization when you were six. It was quite sort of dramatic almost. They would put you in a hall, youth hall. You swear allegiance to Yugoslavia, Social Territory Republic of Yugoslavia, and to the Communist Party and represent Tito as a supreme commander, and you would become a pioneer, and then you'd become a communist. I never became a communist because I was kind of disappointed in it. I was probably one of those very rare rounds when I was called in and said, 'You're fourteen. You're a very good student. We have made a decision. You're going to be accepted in the Communist Party.' And I remember sitting ... at this long desk with other sort of few people like me, and I was given tea and I said, 'I can't do that.' And the leader of the Communist local Communist party said to me, 'What do you mean you can't do that?' I said, 'I can't, the party is corrupt.'
Presenter asks
21:56Your first job at Westminster was in the House of Commons Library, filing press cuttings. What was it do you think that they saw in you?
I think they saw someone who was just happy to have a chance and privileged to be accepted and keen to prove that I have something to give back.
Presenter asks
The keepsakes
The book
The luxury
I wouldn't need to have a conversation with maybe myself or leave a few traces of my experience for whoever comes next on a piece of paper.
What was your reaction at first to the idea of [Angelina Jolie making a film about Bosnia]?
I was mad because I was thinking, why does a Hollywood actress who never visited, never lived, never experienced hardship of this kind, why who gives her right to do a film about the most difficult part of the history of the country that I was born in? And then I saw that the film was shown in the Holocaust Museum in DC and I thought, well, maybe there is something in it. So I mentioned that to William.
Presenter asks
23:19Why couldn't you talk about [the rape camps]?
Because out of those were other people's experiences I had no right to talk about. And to be honest, I felt ashamed that my country of birth, that my women, Bosnian women, were treated that way. But then I realized that they don't have a voice. And guess what? I just happen to be the place where someone wants to listen.
Presenter asks
27:22The [PSVI] summit was criticised. It was described as ineffective and costly. What's your response to that?
Delighted. I was the one who initiated setting up of the Committee on Preventing Sexual Violence. I think you can only achieve something if you are open to transparent and regular measuring of your outcomes. If in twenty, thirty years' time we can look back and say that was the beginning of the end of this being treated as a secondary crime, I would be very, very happy if we see justice for women, not only for women of Bosnia ... but for women of Kosovo and women for Iraq, Syria, and for Yazidi women, and for women of DRC and Angola and Haiti. If we see that for the first time there are successful prosecutions, I would say that we have succeeded.
Presenter asks
30:16How has the knowledge that it was by chance that you found your way out [of the war] and that you avoided the experiences that the people you are trying to speak for went through affected your point of view and your life?
Anyone who has left their home and didn't share in blood and tears, maybe in tears, not in blood, occasionally does find it quite difficult and find it something to harbour guilt. But then you can wallow in the guilt or you can try and turn it round and say, 'Yes, but I do have this knowledge and I have this opportunity and one should feel guilty for having your opportunity not doing much about it.'
“I geninely never, ever thought that it would be possible to suffer at the hands of your neighbours and of your friends until the very moment where you could almost see the tanks.”
“This is what happens, basically. You have so-called Yugoslav National Army comes and encircles the town, blocks all the radio and TV stations, so you are completely you have no idea what's going on, marks all the houses of non-Serbs, releases paramilitaries who rape, separate, and kill. And then a badly injured man from Doboj was sent to deliver a message to Gračanica, my hometown, to surrender. And he had a list of names of the families that are going to be first to be killed. And my family's name was on the list.”
“That is what I think of when I hear people being negative towards people who are seeking safety. I always want to remember that they too had a teacher and a mother.”
“Being a refugee is not a choice. You don't make a choice. You're forced to leave.”
“I don't want to forget. I wanted to be out there. Because that is who I am. It's part of me.”