In front of the City Hall and the City Library in Vienna, yesterday was held a public reading in support of the initiative of the National reading room “The City Hall is ours!”. It is aimed against the commercialization and privatization of the City Hall, the former building of the National and University Library of BiH and one of the cultural symbols of the city of Sarajevo and BiH.
The public reading “Two cities, one fight” in Sarajevo, was attended by a group of citizens who have requested that the City Hall opens one day a week for free visits, but also to open a joint reading room within the symbol of Sarajevo.
The citizens sent a message that the City Hall belonged to “all of us” before the war.
“It was like a beehive, we were looking for books and documents, read, studied, met and discussed them in the hallway. It belonged to everyone who came there. When it was burned down in 1992, we believed that it wasn’t the end of her story, that the treasure of knowledge will be opened to everyone again,” said participants of this protest.
Among participants was also Bedita Islamovic who works at the National and University Library of BiH. She works at the library for more than 30 years, and she said: “I have opened the door of this building for 11 years. Memories of that period of my life are just beautiful. It was a time when students stood in line at 7 AM to get a place in the reading rooms. Unfortunately, the National and University Library was forced out of the building with grenades and flame,” explained Islamovic.
(Source: fokus.ba)
