What is happening in Bosnia and Herzegovina?

By efe5064, February 18, 2016

For this post I wanted to talk about the interesting history of Bosnia and Herzegovina, a small but incredibly diverse country located in the South East Europe, commonly referred as the Balkans. Sarajevo, the capital, until the 20th century,  was actually the only major city in Europe to have both Catholic and Orthodox churches, along with  synagogs and mosques. It is also the place where World War I started with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand!

Anyways, first of all, Bosnia and Herzegovina used to be a part of a country named Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia. To be more correct, the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina was a constituent republic of Yugoslavia from 1942 to 1992, which later became independent with the name  Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Overall, Yugoslavia gave birth to 7 new countries and during their creation time some sorrowful events happened.

Let’s first start with the flag so you can understand the reason for those events; the yellow triangle represents the three populations of the country, Serbs, Croats and Bosnians. Bosnia is the name of the region located in the north, and Herzegovina is used for the south of the country.

However, officially the country is divided into two separate entities each one with about half the land of the country; the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republika Srpska.

I think I have emphasized enough that the country has a very ambiguous map along with a rich culture. Well… I also need to state that it is not very peaceful in there. Even though politically the country has peacefully stable rules, (they have 3 presidents, one for each group of people) the population itself is facing some problems because of the horrifying genocide history. Let’s keep it simple for this post though; all you have to know is that there was a genocide in Srebrenica, in the 1990s, which caused the death of more than 7000 muslim Bosnian men and boys. Today, Bosnian muslims represent 45% of the total population. And now the group which committed the crime (Serb), is living together with Bosnian.

In school, Muslim children learn that the events of Srebrenica were a “genocide,” while Serbian kids are told they were a “tragic accident.” So there are still some differences culturally which affect the everyday life of the population. [source]

I will talk about the psychological problems the population is facing today. A study (you can watch the whole video here), tried to answer the following question;

How do innocent people deal with the knowledge that the members of their own group that they identify with have committed a horrible crime . How should they deal with this burden?

It turned out that most Serbs, when being reminded of their group’s atrocities with photos of the genocide, some preferred to burry everything under the carpet and deny the past.

Of course some were ashamed of what their group have done. A 24 year old Serb, who has seen the genocide, but was not involved in it, admitted that he felt guilty and ashamed of his nation. The study went further and found out how did these emotions affect the people’s thoughts; the “criminal” group thought that their group should apologize for the reparation of their relations with the victim group. However, when asked it wasn’t to be recognize and share their pain but it was because they wanted to get rid of the shame- which is obviously not fun to live with-  and restore the damaged reputation of their own group.

However, the “victim” group, Bosnians, were showed different videos of the same Serb actress reacting to the genocide in different ways;
-with no emotions;

-clear acknowledgment of the topic;

-shamefully.

The victim group seemed to prefer the no emotion reaction and they were uncomfortable watching the actress expressing shame. The explanation behind that was that because they thought victims did not want to see the human side of the perpetrators. The victim group wanted to conserve the dichotomy between the groups. They were also satisfied seeing the acknowledgment.

In essence this social problem does not have a specific way to solve it and unfortunately this is a crucial problem that Bosnia and Herzegovina is facing today. Studies are trying to find explanations to figure out a solution to leave the past behind in the most correct way, while kids of Serbs and Bosnians are taught about this same issue in different ways. The government should take action because acknowledgment of the past is important to maintain a sustainable and healthy future in the nation. However it seems like the population’s mindset is far away from agreement.

 

2 Responses to “What is happening in Bosnia and Herzegovina?”

1. Kerri Schopf February 25, 2016

   Elif,
   This is a very informative post and gave me a lot of insight into a country that I know very little about! I actually had a teacher that was from Bosnia and she was the sweetest lady. She had to escape when she was a child by hiding underneath a blanket in a truck. Her story is amazing and demonstrates some of the unrest in that country.
   I love how you explain what the flag means because this is something that I often wonder about other countries. I know the meaning of the layout of our flag but I never know why other countries’ flags are the way they are.
   It is also very stunning to me that the genocide is taught in extremely different lights in the schools in the same country. The Serbian children will know nothing different than the fact that it was an “accident.” It is important that we learn from our past so that we do not repeat the same mistakes. This makes me wonder what is being taught in our school systems through a very different light than what actually happened.
   I’m sure it will be a long and difficult task to bring these two groups back together and allow them to come to an understanding. However, these things don’t just go away on their own so it is good they are trying to find a way to address the problem.

2. kjs5903 February 18, 2016

   Elif,

   I found this post to be very interesting! This topic is brand new to me, I was fully unaware of the genocide that had occurred between the Muslims and the Serbs in the Balkans. I can’t imagine the tensions which must arise in this country with the two opposing cultures living so closely together. Here in America we see conflict between racial and ethic differences, and these are not even a result of any previous conflicts! I imagine that there are many extremest groups that still hold the past very near and dear to their hearts and this must cause great conflicts within the nation.

   Even more intriguing is how the school systems between the two groups differ in their ways of teaching the history of the Genocide. What one group refers to as a “genocide” another titles a “tragic accident”… this clearly shows that divide is still very apparent. This made me think about Germany, and I wonder how their school systems teach about the Holocaust. I wonder if other European countries highlight the atrocities more than Germany does, or whether it is about equal.

   The psychological research you discussed really fascinated me. I imagine that if I were a Serbian, I would feel guilty of my previous ancestors as well. It would be hard to feel proud of being a Serb while living in a place where you are surrounded by the Bosnians who suffered so much pain at the hands of your people.

   Yet, isn’t this all too similar to our own conditions here in the U.S.? I am thinking in terms of slavery. Obviously now, even though there are some who are still discriminatory, the majority of America view all races as equal. But clearly, it wasn’t always this way. White supremacy was in full force not too very long ago, and as a race, we have much to be ashamed of when you consider how terribly we treated immigrants, slaves, and African Americans.

   However, I don’t feel shameful about this necessarily, because all these events happened before my time; I don’t feel responsible for those atrocities. It would be interesting to see whether older generations, say, those our grandparents age, have more feelings of guilt towards this subject than the younger population. I would imagine they would since they were living during the time period when this was taking place.

   Interesting blog post yet again Elif! Keep up the good work.

   Katie