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Knitting two worlds back together


Arts and crafts were always one of my favorite things when I was younger. I’m wondering, though, whether we made a mistake by not making arts and crafts mandatory for people throughout their lives, particularly people who hate each other, say, people in war-torn countries or people with different ideologies.

Though Bosnian Serb and Muslim women viewed each other as enemies not so long ago, hundreds of them have since linked up as business partners and knitting buddies. That is, a Tuzla-based non-governmental organization, known as The Bosnian Handicraft, hires women of diverse ethnicities — “mainly refugees who lost their men and homes during the 1992-95 war,” to use their hands to knit carpets, stockings, socks, and various other garments to sell to buyers abroad.

The Bosnian Handicraft was begun in 1995 to help Muslim women establish their economic independence after more than 7,000 men and boys were massacred in the eastern town of Srebrenca. Economically, the group has experienced quite a bit of success, selling over 3,000 pairs of socks to Robert Redford’s Sundance catalogue and to French fashion house Agnes B. The group is in negotiations with prospective British clients.

What the program’s creators weren’t expecting was just what a cathartic experience knitting could be, but numerous women insist that the program has saved their mental health. And by working alongside other women — many of whom they once saw as the enemy, once blamed for the loss of their loved ones — they’re learning how to not just live and work alongside the enemy but also to start to let go of the pain and hatred that defined their past. In the process, they’re starting to see these women as business partners and fellow knitters and creators, putting aside their differences to achieve a common goal of economic independence.

Reading things like this, it’s difficult not to think, “Yeah, right, as if knitting could save the day.” But I imagine that years and years of pain and suffering in which one loses her loved ones, her sense of home, and even a part of herself, fighting wouldn’t seem worth it anymore. I can imagine that if all one had left was her knitting, that might not seem to be much of a reason to keep struggling to survive. But if one was lucky enough to survive — if one had already suffered that much and made it that far, giving up might not seem like much of an option either, leaving coping as the best possible solution. And if it proves to be cathartic, then the struggle might not seem as pronounced.

But it’s difficult to imagine the tensions disappearing altogether or to imagine that economic incentives could make all of the difference. In other words, perhaps it’s a Bosnian form of detente (cooling for tensions), but it may take generations — even centuries — until the tensions cease to lie just below the surface.

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