I remember one of the teaching assistants for my introductory course on modern world history kept going on about how important it is to remember how big the world is and how our position determines our perspective of it. Even geographical maps that are meant to help us understand the size of the world are often misleading: The distortions that accompany cartographic projections, especially on maps we commonly use in Europe, make Europe look too big, almost as big as Africa. The Eurocentric approach left little room for others, in every sense, not just spatial, devoted far less attention to Asian history, not to mention the history of Africa. There’s a scene from the cult film Kuduz that best illustrates our inability to wrap our minds around the size of the world, to get to know it and visit its various places. The scene is when Bećir Kuduz is taking his night school exams.
– How are you with geography? Can you list the major cities in the Republics?
– I’ve been to Foča…
– That’s not a major city…
– It was to me…
That is why for me, meeting people from Asia was always primarily a matter of geography and understanding how relative the terms big and small are. When a man from India tells you he belongs to a small ethnic group that lives in a small area, you must ask how small. Often, it will turn out to be an ethnic group of some ten million people living in an area that is the size of the Balkans.
Different Contexts
The meeting of peace activists from India and Bangladesh, on the one hand, and those from Europe, mainly the Balkans, on the other was an opportunity to explore these extraordinary ordinary issues and get to know each other. It had been postponed several times due to the COVID-19 pandemic and was significantly altered compared to the initial idea that would have included an exchange of visits, but the meeting was finally organised at the end of March in Bosnia and Herzegovina. From the perspective of the Centre for Nonviolent Action, this was a way to continue and deepen cooperation with people from Asia that started almost ten years ago.
The exchange programme with 17 participants (six from India and Bangladesh, nine from the former Yugoslavia and two from Germany) was initially conceived as a space for exchanging experience, knowledge and mutual empowerment among people coming from different contexts but working in the same field – peacebuilding and promoting human rights. In addition to self-reflection and re-examining our work so far, we hoped that the exchange would be conducive to developing new ideas in dealing with the past and working in our communities.
We got so much more than that for a number of reasons. One was the motivation of the participants, another was the workshop format that took us from the personal towards the social, and yet another was certainly the safe space that we created and that enabled deep self-reflection. All of this meant that the outcomes were more characteristic of a peacebuilding training with highly motivated and experienced participants, rather than an exchange or conference or another type of lower-intensity meeting that would have required less introspection, less preparedness to own up to mistakes and misjudgements, and less openness to discussing the dilemmas and questions with which we struggle.
Is there a more complicated country anywhere?
Some of the credit must also go to our study visit to Mostar. Three days in sunny Mostar were an opportunity to get to know both the city and each other. As one of our local guides said, Mostar is a good place for such meetings, because in a small area where everything is within walking distance, you can encounter all the main hallmarks of post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Balkans: invisible borders that refuse to disappear, conflicting memories, with three or in the case of Mostar four cultures of memory that run parallel to each other without ever meeting, the destruction of war still visible today, but also signs of life, which somehow goes on despite everything. We talked about the life that goes on in Mostar as it is today with reporters, representatives of religious communities, prison camp survivors who, despite or maybe precisely because of these circumstances, are working together on peacebuilding… Someone once praised Herzegovina to the legendary Vahid Halilhodžić who is from Mostar, saying such beauty doesn’t exist anywhere else. With characteristic Mostar wit, Vaha replied: It does, it does, you just haven’t been anywhere else. I remembered this when at one of the meetings with local actors we heard the question/claim: Is there a more complicated country anywhere? There is, half the world would reply, to both comfort and disappoint you at the same time.
We returned to Sarajevo and spent the remaining five days doing ten workshop sessions, delving deep into some topics, only touching upon others, and leaving some unopened because, despite working both mornings and afternoons, there still wasn’t enough time. In the first part, we focused on getting to know each other better, investigating needs, discussing issues we see as values that we have in common. At the same time, through all the topics and discussions, we introduced each other to the contexts in which we work. The issue of similarities and differences of our contexts, quite complex due to the realistic lack of knowledge on both sides, was thus made easier, more interesting and fruitful.
An Opportunity for Self-reflection
Moving from the personal towards the social, this was also an opportunity for self-reflection, a personal evaluation and an evaluation of each individual organisation, but also a broad self-evaluation of peacebuilding work. The issue of change theories that we take as our starting point in our work became one of the central topics of our exchange, because it is so crucial in determining our work at the level of our societies and of our individual organisations. We did not shy away from examining our organisational structures and questioning how our internal structures reflect the values we advocate. Readiness to admit our own mistakes and misjudgements is important and necessary to keep us from getting mired in repeating programmes and activities when they are not effective or when the circumstances in which we work are significantly altered.
Relations with external stakeholders, ranging from various international institutions, governments and government organisations to donors, have a strong influence on our work, so this meeting was also an opportunity to discuss why we have someone’s support, our experience with external stakeholders, the difficulties we have encountered and what needs to be changed and by whom. Finally, we also broached the question of burnout as an important issue in peacebuilding work which is often so personally consuming, difficult or impossible to “leave at the office”, with results that are not easy to measure or see and where progress is often not linear. How do we protect ourselves, how do we help our colleagues, how do we protect our organisations, these are just some of the questions we discussed.
The eight days we spent together were a rare privilege. Since we are most often focused on programmes and activities centred on results, it proved useful to set time aside for self-reflection and self-evaluation. Even with long-standing partners, where we have a long history of cooperation, it is important to take stock and ask why we support each other, where we see opportunities for improving our cooperation, what are the difficulties… With those coming from different social contexts, that kind of exchange is equally fruitful because it enables us to learn from the experience of others, to see aspects that are specific to a singe country or region, but also trends that are global and impact all of us, such as the rise of right-wing, rigid and exclusionary politics. It is also important that we get to empower and motivate each other, that we get to talk about peacebuilding at a time when the world is on the brink of a world war and when we are seeing global backtracking in terms of human rights and world peace.
We are particularly grateful to Bread for the World and Edda Kirleis and Martina Fischer who were among the precious few with the sensibility to recognise the need for this exchange and provide it with support. We have known Martina and Edda for years, but their dedication, activist spirit and extensive knowledge and experience are always inspiring. For years, standing shoulder to shoulder with us, sharing ups and downs, Edda and Martina have become ours: this makes their contribution to this exchange so special, because after years of work, they could speak from a dual position, from within and from outside. Maybe we take it for granted because we know them, but their readiness to accept this exchange as a two-way process where we are all both learners and teachers is no less remarkable.
We regret that the pandemic reduced our original idea somewhat, making it impossible to have mutual visits, one-on-one meetings and the participation of people from other parts of Asia that was initially planned. The pandemic has compelled us to do many things online. And while many things are doable online, meetings such as this only make sense when we meet face to face. Only then can India and Bangladesh stop being such far away countries you know so little about. Perhaps they remain just as far away and perhaps you still know too little about them, but now that you have friends there, you will never again be indifferent to news from that part of the world.
The photo gallery is available HERE