When I was in my last year of college, a public debate began in Boise over the constitutionality of a 60 foot high, 4500 pound, illuminated cross that stands (notice I didn’t say “stood”) atop a tall rock plateau (aptly named “Table Rock”) just east of the city. The land on which the cross stands is privately owned by a Christian group, who bought the small area surrounding the cross from the Idaho State Department of Corrections in the 1970s. Under the constitution of the United States, religious monuments such as the cross are not allowed on publicly owned land (such as Table Rock), and the sale of the tiny parcel where the cross stands has been questioned by groups like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), since the majority of the land surrounding the cross remained public, and the sale was not highly publicized.

Like almost everyone in Boise at that time, I found myself reflecting on the significance of the cross, a symbol which means very little to me religiously, but culturally (I am a native Boisean), means quite a lot. I grew up on the western edge of Boise’s city limits, practically in the next town, but the cross was visible at night, every night; for me, a simple way to get my bearings, to remember which direction I was pointed. I’ve hiked the dusty trail up from the old penitentiary to the top of Table Rock on a hot Boise afternoon more times than I can say, and despite my aforementioned lack of religious leaning, the cross somehow propelled me up that steep climb, gave me something to reach besides the flat, dry, featureless top of the plateau. I’ve smooched a few boys at sunset up there, in plain view of that big symbol of faith, and faithfully sworn love to a few there, too, though maybe not the same ones.

While the cross’s symbolism for me was purely nostalgic, for others it was at once insulting, inspiring, grossly offensive, spiritually uplifting, mildly annoying, or the perfect setting for canoodling. It meant all these things at once, and had for more than 40 years before all the ruckus began. Although it can be easily argued that Boise’s cross was always public, gleaming as it does for all to see, whatever it meant to an individual was a private matter until 1999.

On my husband's and my first night in Mostar, I stepped onto our hotel balcony and was confronted by a large, illuminated cross seemingly suspended over town, and in my delirium from almost 24 straight hours of traveling, I instantly felt at home. Even now I glance out my living room window, see it there, and still instinctively associate it with my hometown, despite what I now know about it. Mostar’s cross, unlike Boise’s, has never been anything but public, and the debate over what it stands for is as unavoidable as seeing the cross itself. Emily Gunzburger Makaš, a PhD candidate from Cornell University, speaking at an Eastern European Studies gathering in 2005, frames the debate in this way:

"The most notorious ... and the most seriously contested site in Mostar is the 33 meter Jubilee Cross on Hum Hill, erected in 2000 by Mostar’s Bishop in celebration of the birth of Jesus. At its dedication ceremony, the Bishop said that the cross was meant “to spread the fruit of peace to all sides of the world” in the hope that “the thunder of tanks and cannons never again be heard from Hum.” After the Bishop spoke of peace, a former Croat general spoke of how he had conquered the hill in 1992, ending the attack on Mostar by the Republika Srpska and the Yugoslav armies. However, he failed to mention that a year after conquering Hum, the Croats shelled the city themselves from that very same hill, killing and injuring hundreds of people and destroying the Old Bridge and scores of other buildings."

The Bishop’s words, whether or not you choose to believe their sincerity, mark out a particular meaning for Mostar’s cross that is similar to the one claimed by a plaque that used to (until it was stolen!) adorn the side of Boise’s cross:

May this Cross inspire those who see it to better Citizenship, Higher Ideals, and Happier Living.

But also like Boise’s cross, so much of its meaning is loaded into what is not said about it. This is the nature of symbols, though: it is what we don’t say about them that lends them their power. That’s one reason we use them—to stand in the place of words. But that’s also why they’re so tricky: whose words are being replaced? Which meaning is accepted as the “right” one? It’s one thing to hang a cross on the wall in your own home; very few people are around, besides your household members, who might dispute its meaning. But it’s another thing entirely when a monument is erected in public, even more so when it’s placed at the highest point in the town. And may I say, even more still when the monument in question is a symbol whose primary association is not with peace, or citizenship, higher ideals, or happier living, but first and foremost with Christianity. Ok, some could, would, argue that Christianity is synonymous with peace, higher ideals, etc., but I think I’m not alone when I say that these are not the very first things that come to mind when I see a cross.

I already mentioned some of my own personal associations with Boise’s cross, and how these associations transferred to Mostar’s cross when I first arrived here. I am but one citizen among many thousand, in both Boise and Mostar, and my individual reading of these symbols is trumped by the collective reading of each of these communities. In the case of my hometown, the overwhelmingly loud majority shouted for the preservation of the cross, and the man who suggested its removal was pretty much ridden out of town on a rail. That does not mean that nobody is offended by the presence of the cross, but those who are simply live with it. In Mostar, however, simply living is complicated.

I was crossing the Neretva River the other night on the pedestrian bridge, from where one can easily see a contestable triumvirate: the cross on Hum Hill, the bell tower of the large Franciscan Church, and below that, a minaret from the mosque just down the street from my house. All three glow warmly, invitingly, and if you didn’t know a thing about this town, you’d be inclined to wax sentimental about the impression of religious diversity this little scene makes. Remove the scene to a town that wasn’t destroying itself from the inside out a mere twelve years ago, and it could very well have associations with religious freedom, tolerance, respect, diversity; but the war taints almost everything here. I can afford myself these cozy moments of nostalgia and sentimentality, but others are not so lucky.