Being in Mostar for the opening ceremony of the new United World College was a trip into history at a number of levels. At one level, it was an opportunity to reacquaint myself with a city that I loved very much when I last visited 20 years ago, but which has since been through the horror of war. And the evidence of fighting is still everywhere to be seen in Mostar. I had heard that Mostar witnessed the longest, most sustained and fiercest fighting during the break up of Yugoslavia. But I could not have imagined the severity of the destruction until I walked along the road that used to be the front line. The fighting may have stopped over a decade ago, but walking along the former front line is still an eerie experience, with the skeletal shells of buildings with facades pockmarked with bullet and shrapnel fire bearing testimony to the misery and suffering experienced by the population.
One of the damaged buildings on the front line is the famous Mostar Gymnazium which now houses the United World College. Like the other buildings along “Snipers’ Alley”, the façade of the building is heavily damaged with thousands of bullet marks, as well as graffiti that appeared while the building remained empty for several years after the fighting ended. This was the second facet of my journey into history, because the establishment of the College is a powerful statement of peace and harmony, the basic founding principles of the United World Colleges when they began almost 50 years ago. Like the North Korean Initiative that we are involved with at LPCUWC, the establishment of the College in Mostar takes the UWC movement back to its true foundations and origins.
The opening ceremony on Tuesday was not held in the College, because there was nowhere large enough to hold the hundreds of people who attended. The opening ceremony was held instead in the large Herceg Stjepan Kosaca Centre, about 5 minutes walk from the College. The President of the United World Colleges, Her Majesty Queen Noor of Jordan spoke eloquently (as always), her theme being the strong statement for peace made by the establishment of the new UWC. The Prime Minister of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Mr Nikola Spiric, also spoke, but as my Croatian language is less than fluent, I did miss the subtlety of his no doubt kind words. There were, of course, many other speeches, but particularly noteworthy for me was the quality of the student performances – for a school that opened its doors less than a year ago, they have already produced some very impressive young men and women.
Although the outside of the College presents a fallen grandeur – a magnificent Austro-Hungarian building tarnished by bullet holes and graffiti – the interior is being beautifully restored, as I saw when I visited the College on Monday. The building is shared with Mostar Gymnazium (a school for local students of all nationalities), and most of the UWC classes take place on the top floor plus one wing of the floor beneath that. The science laboratories were renovated using German aid funds, and the result is superb, being some of the best science laboratories I have seen anywhere. Renovations are continuing, and by the time the new influx of students arrives in September (including one pioneer student from Hong Kong), a new wing of classrooms will be ready for use by the UWC.
The students attending the UWC in Mostar are certainly having a brilliant experience. On one hand, they are experiencing the International Baccalaureate (IB) program, with its emphasis on academic rigour and all-round development. But more than this, they are learning in the environment of the historic city of Mostar, a cultural centre with a rich multi-ethnic tradition spanning over 600 years, with fine buildings, cobble-stoned streets, the iconic bridge (now restored, see photo below) and a stunning mountain backdrop. And finally, they are learning about international understanding in a genuinely post-conflict environment, with students from many countries around the world, in a building still riddled with bullet marks, and surrounded by other bullet-ridden buildings which still survive as empty war damaged shells.
What an amazing experience for any 16 year old!