Recent events in Banja Luka and Trebinje, regarding the violent obstruction of rebuilding
\nthe destroyed mosques while people were stoned, were not at all unexpected, but on
\nthe contrary, gave an overall picture of the situation in BiH. Human rights violation of all
\nkinds is dominant over the past several years in post-Dayton BiH. Minority groups and
\npeople with different political opinion are exposed to direct violence, like throwing
\ngrenades at returnees, setting explosive in cars, etc. It happens often enough, so it’s no
\nsurprise to the public and it makes no headlines in media. It’s enough to watch the news
\nand look at the local papers that resemble to war bulletins and still use the language of
\nhatred. The list of single cases of violence and discrimination with political background
\nwould certainly be very long, in case someone cares to make one. It doesn’t seem to be
\nvery productive to treat each end every one of them, for the sake of public reaction or
\nthe appeal.
\nThe Dayton Agreement, which represents some sort of constitution of BiH, as someone
\nhas already said, did stop the war, but nevertheless did not bring the peace. The absence
\nof war is additionally complicated with the dual understanding of The Agreement from
\ndifferent political factors and inconsistency when it comes to implementation of single
\ndecisions. Victims of war and post-war violence are being manipulated for the sake of
\npolitics, in many regions, authorities secretly support radical nationalistic violent
\ngroups, different political views of situation in BiH are being ignored, and decisions
\nagreed on legal and executive organs are being obstructed. These are just some of many
\nconsequences of unclear articulation and shallowness in the approach to establishment
\nof sustainable peace and building of stable and democratic society.
\nResponsible for these difficulties, however, are not only local actors, but also the international community. It seems that international community, despite its presence in
\nBiH with many instruments to act, does not manage (except for imposing some laws and
\noccasionally arrest war criminals), to set some long-term directives and create a system
\nthat is fair and represents a precondition for development of civil society in BiH.
\nGeneral cause for this situation, in my opinion, is the wrong approach from the very beginning, to
\nthe peace building, civil society, reconciliation, and, if I may say so, facing of the truth about the
\nviolence in this region. Before all, there is an absence of an analysis and reconsidering factors
\nthat led to violent resolving of social conflicts after disintegration of Yugoslavia. This was never
\ncompleted thoroughly. Moreover, although we did to a certain point, analyse social systems
\ncreated after the disintegration of former Yugoslavia, like those of Milosevic and Tudjman and
\nlabelled them as totalitarian and responsible for violence, we never defined what were their
\nhistorical, political or economic causes. On the other hand, when it comes to responsibility for
\nwar, ethnic communities have each their own media enrooted images. Even today, although these
\nregimes are gone, political turmoil, discrimination and violence continue, especially in BiH.
\nOne of the big mistakes in BiH, is also the lack of strategy to build NGO sector, a core of
\ncivil society. There was an attempt to establish NGO sector after the war, with a lot of
\nmoney for their registration, without their previously articulated goals derived from
\nrelevant social demands. Consequently, today there is a huge number of organisations
\nwith a frequent changes of their mission, with no prior need analysis, in search for
\nmoney, or just disappearing because there’s no money. If the end of the war had to be imposed, that should never be a principle of civil society.
\nOn the contrary, it has to be built slowly and thoroughly, while insisting on development
\nof civil and political activism among local people, in order to create the basis for selfreexamination and local initiatives for changes and reconciliation.
\nAll of that, indicates that the end of the war in Bosnia, unfortunately, is still a result of
\nheavy military presence of SFOR and international community, but not the result of
\nreconciliation and actual confronting with violence that has happened and is still
\nhappening. One might say that for many people, intimately, war has not yet ended,
\nbecause of the unsettled political situation or transformation of present social conflicts
\nof all kinds, especially ethnical.
\nLocal individuals, political and civil groups and organisations have primary responsibility\u00a0 different social groups to reconsider their own and other’s views of the problem.
\nOne should certainly put emphasis on education in nonviolent conflict transformation
\nand nonviolence in general, because it’s flexible and multi-purposed, and represents a
\ngood method to create critical mass of groups and individuals capable to deal with
\ndifficulties of reconciliation. It is important to offer programs for work on refining
\nmutual communication, sensitising toward structural and other kinds of violence,
\npopularise nonviolence and philanthropy, and empower people to take more
\nresponsibility for social issues in general. Making education on peace and civil society a
\npart of educational system on each level can be very important.
\nAlso, lot more should be done on organising as many conferences and lectures, with the
\nsubject of reconciliation, forming multiethnic expert teams to work on analysis of
\nhistorical elements of the present conflicts, and analysis and reconsidering of the Balkan
\nhistory, because it’s been manipulated a lot. Our experience tells us it is necessary to
\nhave a regional approach to work on these problems, including countries of former
\nYugoslavia.
\nIt is recommended to analyse possibilities to start political and civil lobbying for total
\ndemilitarisation of Balkans and to begin working toward that goal, and create
\npreconditions for it.
\nAt the end, although there are many problems, there is also optimism to face all the
\ndifficulties, because there is an increasing number of mostly young people from all
\naround of former Yugoslavia. They have the capacities and capabilities to deal with
\nthe situation through social activism and promotion for their own values and society
\nto deal with these problems. First of all, responsibility means, to condemn and inflict
\npenalty upon actors of violence from one’s own national collective. Right now, that is the
\njurisdiction of The Hague Tribunal – role of The Tribunal in this particular context
\nrequires separate analysis, still however worthwhile it may be, we will leave it for some
\nother occasion. Responsibility also means to re-question one’s political visions and
\nneeds. It is especially important to try and look at the facts about the enormous victims
\nof war and accept responsibility for that, whether or not we were active or passive
\nparticipants of the war and violence. It’s only then that we open some actual possibilities
\nfor constructive reconciliation and transformation of conflicts that caused the violence.
\nInstitutional changes, such as an introduction of the state of law and protection of
\nminority rights should accompany and enable this process, but cannot alone accomplish
\nthe goal of reconciliation.
\nIn order to make such a thing possible, a lot has to be done on empowering and
\neducation, and also de-traumatization of people from this region. The important thing is
\nto popularise different types of peace education, through both NGO activities and
\ninstitutions and structures within the system, and to offer space for individuals from different social groups to reconsider their own and other’s views of the problem.
\nOne should certainly put emphasis on education in nonviolent conflict transformation
\nand nonviolence in general, because it’s flexible and multi-purposed, and represents a
\ngood method to create critical mass of groups and individuals capable to deal with
\ndifficulties of reconciliation. It is important to offer programs for work on refining
\nmutual communication, sensitising toward structural and other kinds of violence,
\npopularise nonviolence and philanthropy, and empower people to take more
\nresponsibility for social issues in general. Making education on peace and civil society a
\npart of educational system on each level can be very important.
\nAlso, lot more should be done on organising as many conferences and lectures, with the
\nsubject of reconciliation, forming multiethnic expert teams to work on analysis of
\nhistorical elements of the present conflicts, and analysis and reconsidering of the Balkan
\nhistory, because it’s been manipulated a lot. Our experience tells us it is necessary to
\nhave a regional approach to work on these problems, including countries of former
\nYugoslavia.
\nIt is recommended to analyse possibilities to start political and civil lobbying for total
\ndemilitarisation of Balkans and to begin working toward that goal, and create
\npreconditions for it.
\nAt the end, although there are many problems, there is also optimism to face all the
\ndifficulties, because there is an increasing number of mostly young people from all
\naround of former Yugoslavia. They have the capacities and capabilities to deal with
\nthe situation through social activism and promotion for their own values and society
\nthey live in.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Recent events in Banja Luka and Trebinje, regarding the violent obstruction of rebuilding the destroyed mosques while people were stoned, were not at all unexpected, but on the contrary, gave an overall picture of the situation in BiH. Human rights violation of all kinds is dominant over the past several years in post-Dayton BiH. Minority […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":6543,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[79],"tags":[2264,1876,1875],"class_list":["post-6760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog-en","tag-balkan-en","tag-empowerement","tag-optimism"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nenasilje.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6760","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nenasilje.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nenasilje.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nenasilje.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nenasilje.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6760"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nenasilje.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6760\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nenasilje.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nenasilje.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nenasilje.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nenasilje.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}