Education in Bosnia-Hercegovina: The Case for Root-and-Branch Reform

Abstract

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) maintains that its work is contributing to reconciliation in the former Yugoslavia. In the particular case of Bosnia-Hercegovina (BiH), however, there are many internal obstacles to reconciliation, not least the country's education system. This is not only unwieldy and highly fragmented, as evidenced by the existence of 13 different Ministries of Education, but it also keeps children divided, exemplified by the phenomenon of “two schools under one roof.” Reconciliation is quintessentially about the restoration and repair of relationships, which in turn involves processes of rehumanization and trust-building. An education system that keeps young people divided, however, thus helping to fuel prejudice and stereotypes, is a critical impediment to reconciliation. Hence, the central contention of this article, which is premised on the so-called “contact hypothesis,” is that the education system in BiH must be fundamentally reformed. Unless and until segregation and exclusion are replaced with integration and inclusion, the prospects for genuine reconciliation remain somewhat remote. The example of Brčko District, it is suggested, offers a possible template for reform. Yet it is BiH's desire to join the European Union that may prove to be the ultimate catalyst for a much-needed overhaul of its education system.

Janine Natalya Clark is a lecturer in the Post-War Reconstruction and Development Unit (PRDU) at the University of York, in the UK. Prior to this, she was a postdoctoral research fellow in the International Politics Department at Aberystwyth University (2006–2009). Her research interests include postconflict societies (particularly in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda), reconciliation, transitional justice, war crimes tribunals, perpetrators of war crimes, and restorative justice. Recent works include: “Learning from the past: Three Lessons from the Rwandan Genocide,” African Studies, 68 (2009); “Plea Bargaining at the ICTY: Guilty Pleas and Reconciliation,” European Journal of International Law, 20 (2009); “The Limits of Retributive Justice: Findings of an Empirical Study in Bosnia and Hercegovina,” Journal of International Criminal Justice, 7 (2009); “Genocide, War Crimes and the Conflict in Bosnia: Understanding the Perpetrators,” Journal of Genocide Research, 11 (2009); and “From Negative to Positive Peace: The Case of Bosnia and Hercegovina,” Journal of Human Rights, 8 (2009). Her first book, Serbia in the Shadow of Miloševic: The Legacy of Conflict in the Balkans, was published by I. B. Tauris in October 2008.

I would like to thank the Leverhulme Trust for funding this research, which was part of an Early Career Fellowship (2007–2009).

Notes

1. According to Fletcher and Weinstein, for example, “[T]there have been virtually no studies that systematically have attempted to examine or measure the contribution of trials to reconciliation and social reconstruction” (2002: 585). Similarly, Byrne highlights “the absence of rigorous research on the actual impact of the process of international justice on local communities in Rwanda. Hence, there is a weak empirical basis for projections of the broader legacy of the ICTR [International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda] and its relationship to peace and reconciliation” (Byrne 2006: 487).

2. In his annual report to the Security Council in 1994, the ICTY's first president, Antonio Cassese, declared that “The role of the Tribunal cannot be overemphasized. Far from being a vehicle for revenge, it is a tool for promoting reconciliation and restoring true peace” (International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia 1994: para. 16).

3. Between May and August 2008, the author visited the following areas: Central Bosnia (Ahmići, Gornji Vakuf-Uskoplje, Vitez); Eastern Bosnia (Bratunac, Foča, Goražde, Kravica, Potočari, Srebrenica, Višegrad); Hercegovina (Čapljina, Mostar, Stolac); North-west Bosnia (Banja Luka, Keraterm, Kozarac, Prijedor, Sanski Most, Trnopolje); Sarajevo and North-east Bosnia (Tuzla). A total of 165 semi-structured interviews were conducted with 171 interviewees, of which 109 were men and 62 were women. The interviewees included ordinary people (in particular victims), officials, and representatives of international bodies.

4. It has been noted that “[T]he public in many countries [throughout the former Yugoslavia] is…engaging in denial of war-related responsibility.…In each case, civilians have been unwilling to accept the truth about what their military and political leaders did during the war years” (Aucoin and Babbitt 2006: 116).

5. Nelson, for example, underscores that “Everyone in Bosnia-Hercegovina has experienced a plethora of traumatic events; no one has been left untouched by war” (2003: 306).

6. According to the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) in Sarajevo, which was established in 1996 on the initiative of the then US President Bill Clinton, “Out of a population of 3.4 million at the end of the conflict in 1995, an estimated 30,000 persons [in BiH] were unaccounted for. Today, the fates of approximately 13,500 persons remain unknown. Most are still in mass graves” (2007: 11).

7. Chapman maintains that “‘reconciliation’, like ‘truth’ and ‘justice’, is an abstract and ambiguous term that carries a wide variety of connotations and understandings, and so far, there is little consensus on what it means or on how to promote it, particularly in deeply divided societies” (2009: 144–145). Hjort and Frisén, for their part, observe that “Reconciliation has been defined in many ways, and the meaning of the term is by no means clear” (2006: 147).

8. In their discussion on truth and reconciliation commissions, Hamber and Wilson contend that “[T]he idea of dealing with the past through a national truth commission ascribes a collective identity to a nation, and assumes that nations have psyches that experience traumas in a similar way to individuals” (2002: 35). This argument, it is suggested, can similarly be made with regards to national reconciliation, a notion that fails to capture the inherently interpersonal nature of reconciliation. It is the view of this author, therefore, that when we are speaking about reconciliation in postconflict societies, the primary emphasis should be on the grassroots level, because it is here that reconciliation poses some of the greatest challenges (Halpern and Weinstein 2004: 304).

9. School curricula, for example, “can potentially be used to teach tomorrow's adults to build peace and promote the development of civil society in the post-war situation” (Baranović 2001: 13–14).

10. In March 1999, an arbitration tribunal established Brčko District as a self-governing administrative unit. While Brčko is simultaneously part of both the Federation and of the RS, neither entity can exercise political authority within the District.

11. There has been no official census since 1991. In 2005, however, the country's population was estimated to be 4,025,476 million, of which 48 percent were Bosniak, 37 percent were Serbs, 14.3 percent were Croats, and 0.6 percent were “others” (Bosnia and Hercegovina Ministry for Human Rights and Refugees 2005: 79).

12. The Office of the High Representative (OHR) is the principal civilian peace implementation agency in BiH. In accordance with the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords, the High Representative is charged with overseeing—on behalf of the international community—the implementation of the civilian aspects of the Accords. Annex 10 of which sets out the High Representative's mandate. The current and seventh High Representative is Valentin Inzko from Austria.

13. Between 1992 and 1995 some 2.2 million people fled their prewar homes in BiH, that is to say more than half of the prewar population of almost 4.3 million people (Bosnia and Hercegovina Ministry for Human Rights and Refugees 2005: 21).

14. http://www.oscebih.org/documents/29-eng.pdf

15. Sometimes, however, bussing children to other areas is a necessity; “Return often, but not always, takes place in rural areas with branch schools accommodating only students between grades one and four” (Božić 2006: 334).

16. Furthermore, because the 2002 Agreement gives priority to returnee teachers in the teaching of national subjects (Article IV), this means that “[S]tudents and parents are getting used to teachers of their ethnic background, reducing or preventing the building of trust toward teachers coming from other ethnic groups: the dominance of national subjects over general subjects may offset the positive effect of integrated teaching of the latter” (Božić 2006: 333).

17. It is not only in BiH, however, that the teaching of history poses significant challenges. In postgenocide Rwanda, for example, there is no consensus as to how history should be taught (Warshauer Freedman et al. 2004b); and in Russia, history textbooks take a very selective approach to the past, openly examining crimes of the Stalinist regime yet remaining silent on more recent crimes against the Chechens. According to Sherlock, “The same fear that drove many Soviet historians to deny the forced incorporation of the Baltic states in 1940 now guides many Russian textbook authors in their treatment of Chechen history—that the open and honest discussion of past crimes will not lead to peaceful coexistence or perhaps reconciliation but to the further unravelling of the new Russian state” (2007: 232).

18. Denial, or more specifically what Cohen (2001) terms “interpretative denial” can be found among the Bosnian Serbs, Bosnian Croats, and Bosnian Muslims alike (Clark 2009a, 2009b).

19. In the Croatian textbook Povijest, for example, “The acts of Serbs are presented as violent and harsh, thus constructing the idea of barbaric Serbs” (Torsti 2007: 84); while in the Serbian textbook Istorija, there is a strong anti-Croat bias (Torsti 2007: 85).

20. http://www.un.org/icty/cases-e/factsheets/achieve-e.htm

21. According to Article II (4) of BiH's Constitution, “All refugees and displaced persons have the right freely to return to their homes of origin” (http://www.ccbh.ba/eng/article.php?pid = 827&kat = 518&pkat = 500).

22. The largest number of returns was registered in the first three years after the signing of the Dayton Peace Accords; 177,787 in 1996, 252,780 in 1997, and 139,570 in 1998. After that, the rate of returns slowed down—there were just 75,033 returns in 1999—and then increased again during the period 2001–2002, during which there were 98,865 and 107,909 returns, respectively (Bosnia and Hercegovina Ministry for Human Rights and Refugees 2005: 210).

23. The two schools under one roof system also exists in parts of Croatia, for example in Vukovar, a city close to the Serbian border that is inhabited by Croats and Serbs (Warshauer Freedman et al. 2004).

24. By 2005, for example, 73 percent of refugees and displaced people had returned to the Federation, whereas just 25 percent had returned to the RS (and 2 percent to Brčko District) (Bosnia and Hercegovina Ministry for Human Rights and Refugees 2005: 213). Those who have returned to the RS are mainly elderly.

25. Author interview, Gornji Vakuf-Uskoplje, August 13, 2008.

26. In Gornji Vakuf-Uskoplje (Central Bosnia Canton) and in Mostar (Hercegovina-Neretva Canton), both of which are divided, Bosniak interviewees were generally far more in favor of changing the two schools under one roof system than the Bosnian Croat interviewees. Similarly, Weinstein, Warshauer Freedman, and Hughson found that in Mostar, “While the Croat youth are more neutral than negative, the Bosniak young people are clearly in favor of integration” (2007: 58).

27. Author interview, Gornji Vakuf-Uskoplje, August 14, 2008.

28. Author interview, Mostar, August 19, 2008.

29. Author interview, Gornji Vakuf-Uskoplje, August 13, 2008.

30. When recently asked why Bosniak and Croat children could not attend school together, the Education Minister in Central Bosnia Canton replied, “because here we are dealing with apples and oranges and we all know that is not the same thing” (cited in Kreso 2008: 368).

31. To cite Warshauer Freedman et al., “The educational setting can become a conduit for the government or leaders’ views, presenting political ideas and beliefs as either ‘correct’ or ‘incorrect’” (2004: 226).

32. Author interview, Sarajevo, June 19, 2008.

33. Similarly, Božić notes that “Although segregation is not the cause of protracted hostility between the Catholics and Protestants, there is a consensus that the conflict in Northern Ireland has been reinforced by the existing school system” (2006: 325). The first integrated school was established in Belfast in 1981, but over 90 percent of children in Northern Ireland attend either a Protestant or a Catholic school. The 1989 Education Reform Order was an attempt to address this situation through the introduction of a national curriculum to be taught in all schools in Northern Ireland. Furthermore, “all schools are required to incorporate community relations into their teaching through the introduction of the statutory and cross-curricular themes known as Education for Mutual Understanding (EMU) and Cultural Heritage (CH)” (Niens and Cairns 2005: 339).

34. Author interview, Gornji Vakuf-Uskoplje, August 12, 2008.

35. To cite Arendt, “[W]e live our lives not by ourselves but among our fellow men,” in one of the “many and manifold forms of human community” (2003: 158).

36. According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), “Social trust in BiH is virtually non-existent: international comparisons, including countries such as Iraq, relegate BiH to the last position.” In a national survey of BiH in 2007, for example, only 7 percent of the 3,543 respondents said that most people can be trusted. In contrast, 93 percent of respondents said that it is necessary to be very careful when dealing with people (United Nations Development Programme 2007: 21–22).

37. Author interview, Gornji Vakuf-Uskoplje, August 14, 2008.

38. Author interview, Gornji Vakuf-Uskoplje, August 13, 2008. It might be argued that this interviewee was very naïve. How could she not have known that war was going to break out when the increasing threat of armed conflict was a recurrent theme within the media and when leaders like Radovan Karadžić, currently on trial at the ICTY, were openly brandishing the scourge of war? In her diary entry for March 24, 1992, for example, 11-year-old Zlata Filipović wrote, “There's no more trouble in Sarajevo. But there are in other parts of B-H.…Terrible reports and pictures are coming in from all over. Mummy and Daddy won't let me watch TV when the news is on, but you can't hide all the bad things that are happening from us children” (1995: 26). That war was becoming increasingly likely, however, does not mean that everybody had reconciled themselves to that fact. For some, it did not become a reality until April 6, 1992, when the war formally began. Even when war had started, there were people who did not believe that it would reach their towns and villages. The Bosnian Muslim interviewee in Gornji Vakuf-Uskoplje was just one of these people. Yet she was convinced that her Croat friend had known what was going to happen in the town. From the interviewee's perspective, therefore, the Croat's failure to warn her or to help her was a betrayal of their friendship. This perceived betrayal, in turn, had helped to foster and fuel the interviewee's lack of trust in the town's Croats. What is more, this is in no way a unique case. In their research on betrayal and trust in Vukovar in Croatia, for example, Ajduković and Corkalo found that “While some interethnic friendships died gradually, for many the crucial moment was when their friend left town without any explanation or saying goodbye. This was seen as a deep breach of trust” (2004: 292). They cite the case of Evica, a Croat health worker, who felt deeply betrayed when her Serb friends failed to forewarn her of the impending Serb attack on Vukovar. As a result of this experience, Evica had reached the conclusion that “This was not a real friendship at all. Perhaps it was a sincere friendship years ago when we were children. Even then, maybe it wasn't so sincere, since the family of my husband was rather wealthy and they were poor” (cited in Ajduković and Corkalo 2004: 292).

39. Oberschall, for example, notes that schools can become “a learning experience for ethnic conflict management” (2007: 237).

40. In Srebrenica, for example, Serbs and Bosniaks have their own separate cafés. The same is true of Croats and Bosniaks in Stolac.