Utgave - Etter Lemkin

ÅRGANG 2, NR. 1 (2010) 83
homes and family members. In some cases their whole village was
destroyed.
The next task is to share how they experience the present situation.
What is the current quality of the communication and cooperation?
How do they experience the ethnic segregation? There are reasons why
these communities are segregated, and in many cases strong political
and public will to keep it that way in the future.
For instance the case of Vukovar; a city which was bombed for 87
days during the war. Vukovar is also by many seen as the place where
the breakup of Yugoslavia started. In Vukovar a Serb/Croat coalition
had the power for eleven years with a political goal of keeping the
municipality ethnically segregated. The Nansen Dialogue Centres
strive to be political neutral while facilitating the dialogue meeting,
but in these cases we argue strongly in favour of an inclusive state.
We support integration, not segregation. We argue that a state built
on respect for democratic values and the protection of human rights
is an alternative to social and political mobilization based on ethnic
principles.
The final task is to identify the obstacles to improvement of the
cooperation and discuss what we can do about it. In the case of
Bratunac in Bosnia Herzegovina, the dialogue seminars have focused on
discussing ethnically segregated schools in Kravica and Konjevic Polje.
The majority of the local population does not favour integration of
the schools, even though ethnically divided schools means transporting
their children to schools further away from home. Ethnically separated
schools still exist in order to secure ethnically pure upbringing. Today
there are more than 50 divided schools in Bosnia Herzegovina.
This ethnic politics is challenged through asking whether a municipality
run according to professional and democratic principles, rather than
ethnic-based principles, can be more efficient in dealing with the
everyday human needs of the citizens. While ethnicity may have its
place in ceremonies and holy days, in art and traditions, in certain
myths and legends, the state should be built on European standards
and Euro-Atlantic integration might have a stabilizing effect. During a
weekend dialogue seminar many questions are touched upon and few
answers are given. There is no magic “quick fix” to reconciliation, but
a process is started. Through the focus on municipal development it
becomes easier to look forward in the same direction.
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