SARAJEVO, JULY 9 (ONASA) – Snježana Mulić-Softić, a journalist and writer who passed away after a battle with a serious illness, was farewelled by a large number of family members, friends, colleagues from journalistic and literary life at the memorial service in Sarajevo.
Tarik Đođić, director of Al Jazeera Balkans, Edin Krehić, senior editor of the Al Jazeera Balkans portal, where Mulić-Softić was the editor in recent years, and Damir Uzunović, founder and director of Buybook, where the commemoration was held, spoke at the commemoration.
Krehić recalled his first editorial meeting with Snježana, in the press center of the Municipality of Novi Grad during the war in 1994.
“Since then, we haven’t lost contact, sometimes more often, often less often, until our paths crossed again on Al Jazeera Balkans, as it simply should have been.” Snježa enjoyed working as a journalist. Not only and exclusively for salary. There is much more, most often inexplicable, unfathomable… Pure love, writing passion and personal satisfaction when you see your text, among many others. And every published text truly made Snježa happy and satisfied”.
He said that Snjezana mostly wrote “about people we just pass by and don’t notice them, but she saw them”.
“She did not spare herself, nor those younger than her. She sought sacrifice, excellence, appreciated a beautiful sentence and a style that resembled Meliha Varešanović, the heroine of her text, a lady who, in the middle of war and shooting, dressed as if she was going to a premiere in the theater, proudly walks down the street. That’s how she was: always impeccably dressed at the sniper windbreak, in the newsroom or at the film festival […]
Snježa was an old writer, an author who cared about every text, every sentence, every comma.
At the end there is always a full stop.
And it’s always too early…
“Đođić said that the journalistic work of Snježana Mulić-Softić is in many ways similar to the mission of Al Jazeera Balkans. “When we wanted to create Al Jazeera in 2011, we said that we would be the voice of those who do not have a voice, whose voice is not heard. From big ties, benches in parliament, governments, ministers, sometimes these little people don’t get their turn,” said Đođić.
“Snježa always found ways to connect these high politicians with small people. Her stories were always on the side of those who can’t get a voice and rights, can’t get a life. In this, to the greatest extent of all of us at Al Jazeera, and there are some of us, it was about giving a voice to the voiceless. Her texts evoked emotion, but also a concrete legal and political reaction in order to make these people better off.”
He stated that his colleague Snjezana had been ill for a long time, but that it could never be concluded from her appearance and behavior that this was the case.
“I met her often… Neat, like a little girl, always smiling and optimistic. A month ago, while she could still move, while we were seeing off some other people suffering from the same disease, she said: ‘I am indestructible’. Not for a moment did we have the impression that she had surrendered. She fought and, thanks to that fight, was an example of how to look at such difficult life situations with optimism. We are left without Snjeza, but she will be a role model for the younger ones, and I will remember her as a little girl who is now traveling to a better place.”
At the end, Uzunović spoke, who spoke about Snježana’s first books, his collaboration with her, and read her story “Obituary” in which she wrote how she imagined her death.
During her career, Snježana was a journalist and editor of BH Dani and Slobodna Bosna magazines, she worked at Hayat Television, and for the last 12 years she was a journalist and editor at the Al Jazeera Balkans portal.
She is the author of the award-winning short story collection Box by measure and the novel The Return.
Her stories were included in several anthologies of BiH prose. She was a member of the BiH PEN Center. She won the “Srđan Aleksić” Journalism Award, she was also awarded for the best story about Srebrenica and received other awards.
She is the author of two documentaries: Letter recommended by the heart and Jetimi.
The funeral will be held at the Vlakovo City Cemetery on Tuesday at 14:00.
The Tevhid will be studied on the same day, at 14:00, in the Bosnian Mosque on Alipašin Polje in Sarajevo. (end)