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Last Dance

Originally posted by pedrobono:it's the plane POPmart

Originally posted by pedrobono:[image]
Last Dance

The world famous photo of Inela Nogić as the winner of the beauty pageant in beleaguered Sarajevo and the banner saying 'Don't let them kill us'. Image Patrick Robert / Getty
Inela Nogić became world famous when she was crowned Miss Sarajevo in wartime - then she watched U2 take the credit. A quarter of a century after the war, she looks back on the day that would change her life.

"Here she comes ...", Inela Nogić sings with mocking green eyes. Heads turn around. Here she comes, to take her crown. Terrible. The lyrics are certainly not about our war, and the music is so dull. ”Inela Nogić spoke of Miss Sarajevo, the U2 hit, released on November 20, 1995. Exactly one day before the Presidents of Serbia, Bosnia and Croatia reached the peace agreement ditches that ended the Bosnian War.

The music video for the song features footage of burning apartment buildings and civilians hiding from sniper bullets - interspersed with Inela's face when she learns that she has been named Miss Siege Sarajevo. Her smile went around the world and became iconic, as did the surreal images of the other participants holding a banner saying "Don't let them kill us".

U2 was widely praised for its involvement in the war suffering in the former Yugoslavia. But Inela didn't see it that way. "It was very hypocritical," she says indignantly. "The band members filled their pockets over our back. Without permission, we have been in that video clip for 25 years. Wouldn't it have been decent to pay us for that? "

It is early March when Inela Nogić walks into a café in the Amsterdam Rivierenbuurt. Heads turn around - at 44, Nogić is still a striking sight at 1.80 meters. At first she was hesitant to be interviewed about that wondrous beauty pageant 27 years ago this month. She had told foreign media about it so many times. But that in the Netherlands, the country where she lives since 1995, hardly anyone knows her story, was decisive.


Former Miss Yugoslavia Inela Nogić (44) initially hesitated to tell her story again. Image Sabine van Wechem
The advertisement

That story begins with an advertisement that her mother Izeta Nogić sees in the local newspaper, about a beauty contest on May 29, 1993. The siege of Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia, is then a year in the making. There are an average of 329 bomb hits per day, but like everyone else, Inela's parents just try to go to work. Her father is an architect, her mother a secretary, Inela is a beautiful teenager and the prizes of the beauty contest do not lie: an exclusive model contract, clothing from a chic boutique and, to top it all, a trip to Madrid. If her daughter wins, Izeta reasons, the family can flee the war and build a new life in Spain. When her mom says she has signed her up for a beauty pageant, Inela is stunned. "Are you out of your mind?" She shouts. She, Inela, a rebellious tomboy on sneakers, a fan of heavy metal music and motorbikes. She would rather be outside than in the school desks.

It is not safe there, between the apartment buildings of Alipašino Polje, a child-rich high-rise district west of the center. From the surrounding mountains, Serbian men with mortar shells attack the surrounded city, which is vulnerable in a bowl. Standing in line for bread or water is a life-threatening undertaking, but Inela and her friends have to go outside. "We were young and you don't think about dying," she says. "We even looked up the danger for the thrill. Then we ran through alleys and streets where snipers were active. Dangerous to life, of course. Fortunately, none of my friends group happened to anything. We mainly wanted to have fun. "

When she tells her friends about the beauty pageant that her mom signed up for, they think she should participate. "They called out, Oh, Inela! If you win, you will take us out of the war and we will all live in Spain! "

Inela celebrates her 17th birthday three weeks before the beauty pageant. The city has now been cut off from the outside world by the Bosnian Serb forces; the inhabitants are without gas, water and electricity, and they are starving. Usury prices are charged for food, a pack of coffee costs 100 Deutsche Mark in those days. Her mother makes snacks from the little food left in the house. Inela plays the guitar, there is singing and a spring sun shines on the balcony of their apartment. "Everyone still had the cold of the harsh winter in their bodies," Inela remembers that day. "My father had demolished the iron cistern from the wall so that the thing could serve as a stove. When the wood ran out, because all the trees in the parks had been cut down, he had to heat up his precious collection of books. "
Saturday May 29, 1993 is a sunny and perilous day in Sarajevo. While Inela and her friends drive into town, the bullets fly around their ears, but in the cultural center, a thick-walled building with an underground hall, they feel safe. With the full cooperation of the military leadership of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, every effort has been made to make the competition a great success.

As the room fills up with journalists and visitors, Inela disappears backstage to get ready. She borrowed a black dress and a jacket from a friend, and her aunt's a shiny white bathing suit, trimmed with pink and mint green stripes. It's a bit too big, she has to tie a knot in the shoulder straps. "Look at it," she laughs, showing the photo that went around the world. "Those black shoes, borrowed from my niece, were those Mozart shoes with square toe caps. We actually had to wear elegant heels, but we had nothing left. "

The sixteen participants are getting ready with their last bits of make-up. Not only their faces, but also arms and legs are powdered to mask the bruises and scars they sustained during the war. Her best friend, a Serbian, makes up Inela and combs her with ox gall and chlorine bleached short hair.

"The atmosphere was pico bello," she says. “Nobody was busy winning, especially war or religion, even though some Serbian and Croatian girls participated in addition to Muslims.” She calls this distinction “nonsense”: “My family never practiced religion and suddenly we are classified among the Muslims based on our surname. Before the war my best friend was just my best friend, now suddenly she was Serbian and I was a Muslim. We also interacted with Serb families in the flat. The war made us closer, we were all victims and targets. A sniper's bullet made no distinction between a Muslim or a Serb. "

And then, when all the participants have been introduced to the audience, Barry MacGuire's protest song Eve of Destruction, from 1965, is heard from the speakers.

The eastern world, it is explodin,
Violence flarin, bullets loadin,
You're old enough to kill but not for votin

Inela sees her mother and sister standing in the full room, looking at the cameras aimed at them and feeling young, strong and indestructible. With their beauty, she hopes, they can beat the war. Thanks to the beauty pageant, the world can no longer watch passively as its city is destroyed. The competition is attended by 52 journalists, 23 TV crews and 41 photojournalists - most of them from abroad. After running her laps, Inela is interviewed briefly. The presenter asks about the burn on her leg, which is too big to hide with makeup. She tells stoically about the ride on the back of the motorcycle where she had hit the exhaust with her calf.

While the jury is deliberating, the sixteen girls sing songs backstage. And no, the thought that she may be the winner does not occur to her for a second. "I didn't even hear it when my name was announced. The organizers came to get me out of the dressing room, I had to be on the podium as one of the three finalists. "

Symbol of hope
The camera images, taken from the room by American filmmaker Bill Carter, show how unexpected her victory was: breathlessness, bewilderment and then a sigh of relief. A magical smile. She throws her flowers in the audience. "I remember being especially happy that I hadn't disappointed my mom and friends." That evening they had a party at home and fantasized about the fantastic prizes they would be handed over at a special lunch.

"But I never got those prizes. The festive lunch was always postponed, it was too dangerous. And at some point I heard nothing more. My friends had already divided the clothes that I was going to get. "In the weeks after the beauty pageant, there are hordes of foreign journalists on the doorstep. They ask Inela about her life and future plans. She replies that she does not think about it, because she may be dead tomorrow. "It was only when I fled the city almost a year later, in April 1994, that I realized how much impact the beauty pageant had had. How many people saw me as a symbol of hope. "

She then reads the stories for the first time, which are increasingly intensified in subsequent years. That the participants in military clothing had marched across the stage. Or that she received an automatic rifle for her award. "All bullshit," she says. She is amazed that the wartime beauty pageant still has such great appeal 27 years later. A French company is busy with a play. A Bosnian film, in which her character is played by a Croatian actress, is in the making. Sarajevo museums still have pictures of her crowning achievement, and when she walks around town with her children, strangers address her as "Miss Sarajevo." "Actually, I've been Miss Sarajevo all my life. My children are proud of it. It is a precious memory for me. "

After the match, Inela meets Marco, a Dutch photojournalist who regularly resides in the besieged city. It is love at first sight. They get married, and because Inela is not yet 18, her parents have to give permission for the marriage. "We moved to the Netherlands together. I was happy to leave the war behind, even though I was mostly lonely in the first few years. I had never been outside my home country, never without family and friends before. "

Hit material
So it will be 1995. Inela, who makes money from modeling, is in Paris when she gets a call from someone whose name she has never heard before: Brian Eno, a world famous music producer. He tells her about a new song he made with U2: Miss Sarajevo. They are going to record a video clip, opera singer Luciano Pavarotti sings along, they use the images of the American Bill Carter, who made a mini documentary about the beauty pageant. "Great," she tells Eno. "When the song came out a few months later, everyone yelled that it was so beautiful. But I didn't like it. It was all so thought out. "

Two years later she reads that U2, on September 23, 1997, gives a concert in Sarajevo. She must be there, as a former Miss Sarajevo, and the main character from the song. But an invitation is not forthcoming. "My husband at the time sent an indignant email to U2 management. That they had made a lot of money from the hit Miss Sarajevo, and that he thought they should at least invite me to the concert. "Good idea, they email me back. When the Sarajevo song is played, Inela will be asked to take the stage.

Inela goes to the concert, but is not asked on stage. However, there is a short meeting with the band and she can go to a resort in Crete. There is a party at the holiday bungalows in the evening. In her finest clothes and new black leather boots, Inela stands by the pool when one of the band's managers jokes her into the water for fun. "I was completely done with those guys. After three days I flew back to Amsterdam. Bono and the other band members have never asked me once how it was for me during the war. She didn't care. "That ironic look again. "A few years ago, U2 turned Miss Sarajevo into Miss Syria, depicting the Syrian Civil War, while a beauty pageant was never held there. But the marketing is smart, very smart. "

Scars
Inela Nogić is now a graphic designer. Her son and daughter, twins she had with her second Bosnian husband, are now as old as she was when she won the beauty pageant. Every year she goes back with them to visit her family, friends and ex-husband, who returned to Sarajevo. As she walks through the city, she sees the scars of the war everywhere, with an estimated 12,000 casualties and 56,000 injured. Bullet holes in buildings, overgrown ruins, asphalt crumbled by impacts. The many cemeteries and memorials, such as the one in the shopping street Ferhadija, where in 1992 mortars killed 16 people who were waiting at the bakery. Or the Roses of Sarajevo: the places where residents were shot and where the asphalt was painted with red paint.

It doesn't emotionate her, Inela says. Not anymore. "But I am angry with corrupt government leaders who are putting the money for reconstruction into their own pockets, so that the war is still visible everywhere even after 25 years." She remembers with nostalgia the city before the war, when Yugoslavia still existed. "I'm not exaggerating when I say I had a perfect childhood. Life was simple and fine, and Sarajevo was an insanely progressive city. It was teeming with artistic, musical and special people. A wartime beauty pageant, "she says firmly," could only have been conceived in Sarajevo. "