prijava
SARAJEVO, May 13 (FENA) - Renowned French philosopher and writer Bernard-Henry Lévy today, together with the President of the Party of Democratic Action (SDA) Bakir Izetbegović, visited the grave and paid tribute to the first president of the BiH Presidency, Alija Izetbegović, and afterwards visited the Alija Izetbegović Museum.
After visiting the museum, Lévy told reporters that the visit to the Museum of Alija Izetbegović brings back memories of a great man, of a great resistance, but, first of all, memories of the man who fought a war, won the war, but a man who hated war.
“Alija Izetbegović was a sort of man who hated war with all his being, body and soul; he hated the very idea of war. But when the moment came, when he was compelled to do it, when he was drawn into war because of the aggression, because of the necessity to save his people, he then not only entered the war but he came out victorious. This idea of a wise man, a man of books, a man of faith, who is compelled to wage war and who does it successfully, fulfilling his duty and still being victorious, is one of the most moving ideas to me,” said Lévy.
He added that this is how he feels today visiting this great museum.
“You have all the components of the personality of Alija Izetbegović gathered here. Here you can see a man of faith, a man of books, a man of great quotes that you can read here in the museum, and we also have these weapons. So this mixture and this blend is for someone like me, as a European writer, something really great,” noted Lévy.
He added that tonight, on the stage of the National Theater in Sarajevo, he would send a message that “the 20th century had a lot of devils, but very few angels, and I knew two angels - Václav Havel and Alijć Izetbegović."
"I feel it even more when I visit this museum," he said.
After the visit to the museum, Bakir Izetbegović told reporters that it is very important to have friends like Bernard-Henry Lévy, well-established people respected in the West, influential, persistent, committed, people who speak directly and honestly.
“Such people are not politicians, they are intellectuals and they have enormous influence. Unfortunately, there are not many of them, but there is enough, as it turned out. People like Bernard-Henry Lévy moved the West, they scratched the West's conscience at a time when Sarajevo was besieged, when Bosnia was being divided, when massacres and genocide were committed,” Izetbegović pointed out.
Without such friends, the war could have lasted much longer, added Izetbegović.
Izetbegović noted that Lévy recognized something that Europe had failed to recognize in 1992, and in 1993, “that the ideas which have been the foundations of modern Europe were being annihilated in BiH."
“Meaning that, centuries before the united Europe, Bosnia and Herzegovina in fact has been the precursor of what Europe would yet to become, with the idea that different faiths, identities, cultures can live together. Lévy had recognized that Europe can defend itself by defending the survival of multiethnic Bosnia and Herzegovina,” concluded Izetbegović.
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(FENA) S. R.
