[ Bosnia-Herzegovina ]

This does not mean that Bruce Lee will unite us, because people are different and cannot be united and we will always be Muslims, Serbs or Croats. But one thing we all have in common is Bruce Lee. (Veselin Gatalo, youth group Urban Movement Mostar)

First I thought it was a joke when I read about it in a Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung commentary (which by the way confuses kung-fu with karate): A life-size statue of the Chinese-American martial arts actor Bruce Lee was erected in Mostar's central park. This statue - co-sponsored by China and Germany - shows Bruce Lee in a fighting position, looking North (that is: neither West nor East). The organisers chose Bruce Lee, who died in 1973 and would have been 65 on the day of the statue inauguration, as a symbol of justice, mastery, honesty, and fight against ethnic divisions... And indeed, about 300 inhabitants of Mostar, Bosnian Croats and Bosniaks, attended the unveiling ceremony. Nevertheless, not everybody seemed to agree: the statue was vandalized a few hours later.

photo source: BBC article, 26.11.2005