Twenty-five years after the end of the war, the political and social scene of Bosnia and Herzegovina is still characterized by the mentality of the 1990s. In recent months, we have witnessed political rhetoric that is very much reminiscent of the time before, at the beginning, and during the war. In the first part of this essay, I will try to present some of the reasons for this situation. In the second part, I will point out the responsibility of intellectuals for such a condition. In this concluding section, I will discuss how we have used our academic resources in an attempt to change the situation and strengthen social responsibility.
Today's Situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina
According to some estimates, more than 178,000 citizens have left Bosnia and Herzegovina in the last five years (an estimated 30,000 citizens have left BH since the beginning of this year, in 2019).Footnote 30 The main reason for this exodus is unemployment, followed by the great existential and political insecurity that is present in the country, as well as the lack of hope for any kind of advancement and progress, and the corruption that is evident in education and health and in all other sectors. People are leaving because of complete apathy and despair that the situation can or will ever change. Namely, the Dayton Agreement did stop the actions of war, but not the accompanying phenomena of war (such as those listed previously), as well as the bare evil of the ideology that conceived it, the ideology that is still present in the foundations of society itself. In recent months, political conflicts have intensified to the extent that they increasingly resemble war rhetoric, which for the people, crazed by war and exhausted by the transition, has created additional psychological pressure.Footnote 31
In addition to economic and political instability, a society of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BH society) is also characterized by a pathological burden of the “past that does not want to go,”Footnote 32 a burden that enables today's political manipulation of citizens. It is a selective memory of the collective experiences “of one's ethnic or religious” group, a memory that is usually one of experienced violence, evil, and hatred. Besides the problem of suffered and unprocessed violence, trauma, and hatred, we also have a problem with the new generation that remembers the past by the memory of the adults. This memory is most often emotionally burdened and ideologically instrumentalized, and young people, but also citizens in general, are unable to gain a broader insight, and with it the possible, existentially necessary, liberation from an ideologically instrumentalized past that does not go away.
Sociologist Zygmunt Bauman explains that the evil of the Holocaust belongs not only to a small number of “the bestiality of the Nazis,” and that the Holocaust was not only a “current craze in the context of ordinary wisdom,” which would be “a sterilized image of the Holocaust,” an image that allows “intellectual comfort” and “self-proclaimed moral distance” from something that involves all of us. Bauman claims that the Holocaust was “a result of a meeting between old tensions that modern times ignored and powerful rational and effective means created by civil and modern society.”Footnote 33 Why am I introducing Bauman's speech in discussing BH? I do so precisely because of the horrendous similarity with BH society. Namely, Bauman's old tensions, the powerful rational means created by civil society, and the normality of factors that enable evil, were not only present during the conflict of the 1990s, but have also (I would argue), been intentionally injected into today's society. Listing just a few of these: transgenerational transmission of memory and its associated aspects of trauma, victimization, prejudice, and nationalism; the silence of secular and religious intellectuals; and the betrayal of the institutions that protect them. All of these actors were present not only in the 1990s: they are present in the sociopolitical reality of modern Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The important reason I see for this current sociopolitical mentality is the abuse of collective memory, which is not only one of the main reasons for the outbreak of war, but it is also a dominant environmental feature in today's BH society. This abuse of memory, employed by nationalists to maintain their power, is made possible specifically through the educational system, which is “used for ‘self-reproduction,’ as well as for the production of desirable social opinions and behaviors, or to keep existing social and political relations.”Footnote 34 The education system in BH is not governed at the state level. Because the implementation of certain laws is in the hands of local authorities (in other words to thirteen ministries of education!), today's legal system allows three parallel and ethnically distinct and independent educational systems: the Bosnian, Serbian, and Croatian. Students are taught in a certain manner depending on their ethnic origin, that is, depending on the region in which they happen to reside. This means that in each area, the ethnic majority determines the content and the method of teaching. This fosters the creation of three separate and parallel official national histories, which makes development of a common national identity impossible.Footnote 35 In so-called mixed cantons, where war failed to create a distinct ethnic majority, the phenomenon of two schools under one roof has emerged. In these schools, students of different ethnicities are divided into separate classrooms or use the school interchangeably. Depending on the kind of building, the entrance and the facilities are sometimes also physically marked and separated.
This school system has created a homogeneous school environment where students do not meet those of other ethnicities (or religions), which raises the level of ignorance and consequently intolerance toward anyone labeled as other. This school system only deepens the differences and divisions, promoting ethnic segregation and separation because it indoctrinates students and exposes them to the political and ideological goals of the teachers and local authorities. In this situation, the teaching of history is particularly questionable because various books used across the country present the events in a contradictory way, or at least an unbalanced one, and the presentation of historical events or their analysis from multiple perspectives is completely absent.Footnote 36
Collective Guilt and Intellectuals
Given this situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina, personal responsibility and commitment to positive changes in the society are not the matters of academic interest or personal preference or political engagement of one's desire and free choice. The commitment to the truth and justice and the common good of society as a whole becomes a matter of the elementary duty for all citizens, especially the ones who have the opportunity to do anything in any way for the sake of positive change. This is perhaps how moralizing instruction gets its legal urgency, especially if we consider the fact that history is repeating itself. If the war repeats, if this generation is going to “correct the past” historical injustices by committing new ones—as many of the perpetrators of the atrocities in the 1990s claimed to be “correcting” what their people suffered during World War II—will this generation be perpetrators or victims? If we today still promote that kind of memory, even through our school system, we create a generation that will “hate” other ethnic groups because of historical injustices or crimes that their group suffered long ago. In the end, even if they do not become perpetrators, aren't they today's victims, a product of our moral guilt and our shame because we failed to create a “culture of memory” that will remember and honor victims but without a wish to “correct the past” with a new crime? In a globalized world, hasn't the time come to also globalize the guilt, which Jaspers refers to as a political responsibility?Footnote 37 The collective guilt for the world in which we are living becomes clearer in light of Jaspers’ understanding of political guilt, or the guilt of citizens, because they bear political responsibility for the way in which they are governed. Jaspers summarizes: countless small omissions, conformist adaptation, cheap excuses and seamless promotions of injustice, contributions to the creation of a public atmosphere that prevents a clear view of things; everything listed makes evil and injustice possible, therefore, they are all prerequisites for the political guilt of citizens.Footnote 38
Pope Francis argues that nation-formation is a difficult, slow, and time-consuming process in which every generation is involved. Therefore, it is a moral obligation for everybody to act as a responsible citizen and “not as a mob swayed by the powers that be.”Footnote 39 If the human person is a social being and politics cares for society and the common good, then no one, intellectuals in particular, can be relieved of political responsibility.Footnote 40 Rightly because of the political responsibility, the actual silence of intellectuals from secular and religious provenance contributes a great deal to the creation of the aforementioned structures of evil and sin. I refuse to speak about the intellectuals who directly participated in the formation of ideological constructs, as well as in the processes of spreading hatred, violence, and intolerance because, among other things, they betrayed the title of intellectual the moment they positioned themselves on the side of ideology or the ruling oligarchy. It remains for me to speak of those who remain silent, though it is doubtful that they too can be called intellectuals. But to be in the position to speak of these intellectuals who dishonored this honorable name by silence and conformism, it is necessary to define what this dishonesty consists of as well as what an intellectual should be.
Numerous debates and numerous texts on intellectuals bring to light all the weight and complexity of a precise definition of this vocation. But a consideration of the weight inherent in the possibility of speaking about their role and eventual responsibility in shaping the world anticipates some fundamental, common characteristics of intellectuals in these texts. Even though many intellectuals were creators of fatal ideologies and were the servants of criminal leaders and regimes (but also their victims), in public but also in scientific discourse, intellectuals are still recognized as models of humanity. An intellectual is considered to be an autonomous individual, incompatible with collectivism, who is loyal to his or her conscience and the truth, because of which in public life bravely and often at the cost of his or her harm, unveils the lie, injustice, corruption, and evil of the ideological regime. Intellectuals should change public opinion, influence social change, and, as critics of society, connect knowledge and facts in an effort to appease opposing parties by offering constructive alternatives. Intellectuals are (should be!) people of ideals, independent, unbreakable, incorruptible (because power positions and wealth are not the goals of their actions); they should pursue prudence, the demand for truth and justice, criticality and self-criticism, and courageous responsibility for others, for the community and the world at large.Footnote 41
In our society a kind of intellectual suicide has occurred because intellectuals have abandoned their primary roles of criticizing the pathology of society and of promoting social change, by either retreating into an exile of silence or engaging in an existing ideological political structure.Footnote 42 But as soon as they subjugated the spirit to political power (which means ethnic ideology in our country), they gave up universal values and became prisoners of narrow ethnic interests. Political engagement would not be inherently wrong; on the contrary, it would have been desirable if politics had succeeded in preserving its original dignity. But because our political activity is problematically focused on self-promotion, career, self-interest, and profit, at best promoting the interests of one's own ethnic group, dealing with such a policy does not offer the possibility of engaging in politics that at the same time maintains independence, steadfastness, and moral principality, that which is required of the intellectual.Footnote 43
In addition, the intellectuals in our region, these “postmodern verbal entertainers,”Footnote 44 are characterized not only by the exile of silence or joining the establishment, but also by a kind of hopelessness, an alleged inability to change anything, a resignation that makes them “preachers of skepticism,”Footnote 45 sterile pessimists who have their irresponsibility justified with the morality of pure hands that is inaction. This kind of resignation and indifference to the existing present, this fanatical and cynical disregard for reality prevents any public engagement that would create community and the connection needed for the objective to change the environment. This kind of resignation necessarily leads to conformity, and conformity leads further to all forms of justification for all kinds of evil.
How Can Academics Use Their Resources to Shape Reality?
To answer this question, I cannot offer some universal recipe, but I can present what I tried and what our Catholic theological faculty at the University of Sarajevo is doing today. In a conversation with friends who then worked at our Inter-Religious Council (Božana Katava and Daniel Eror) in 2013, the idea was born to make the topic of my doctoral thesis: “Is forgiveness of violence in ethnic conflicts a moral obligation?” available to the general public. Together we proposed the project to the Renovabis foundation and received funding from them. I conceptually designed the whole project, which lasted for three years, each year consisting of six panels, open to all citizens, and one conference at the end of the academic year, on the same topic but at a higher academic level. The general title of the project was: “From War to Reconciliation: The Contribution of Religious Communities to the Restoration and Healing of Society.” I designed the project to gain an insight into what was before, what we have now, and see what to expect next. Within three years, I presented topics through tribunes and conferences: Violence in Ethnic Conflicts (What Was It? in 2014–2015); Injustice in BH society (What Do We Have Now? in 2015–2016); and Forgiveness and Reconciliation (What to Do Next? in 2016–2017).
The forums were open to the general public, and for each panel, I invited guest lecturers from different scientific disciplines but also different religious backgrounds. We ended each conference with a collection of papers that we endeavored to submit to different faculties and libraries and distributed them to students to make the topics available to the general public. These scientific conferences were attended by local speakers and world-renowned experts from countries such as the United States, Italy, Germany, Israel, England, Slovenia, and Croatia.
The aforementioned three-year project was the first project of its kind in BH, the first time since the war that an academic and religious institution began to systematically and openly address these topics. Therefore, it took us twenty years to start to work together, at least in this way, to face what has happened, to begin the existentially necessary catharsis of communities and society as a whole. Given the previous social role of intellectuals, can we justify this period of silence by anything other than the aforenamed resignation and withdrawal from the social scene, or by aligning with the established system for the sake of one's own profit and comfort? Disregarding whatever the reasons for such disinterest and ignorance of reality are (which may be different from the ones I cited), the implication is unmistakably clear: a conformism that prevents any change because, among other things, it allows the subtle creation of Bauman's normality of social means that enabled the evil.
In addition, very few academics came to the aforementioned conferences, although the invitation went to a large number of faculties in BH, all major institutions, parishes, and organizations. Only the invited lecturers and three colleagues from my faculty came to the last conference on the subject of forgiveness, so the meeting boiled down to the fact that a dozen lecturers presented their own topics to one another. From this point of view, the meeting itself for me was devastating, and I felt humiliated in front of the speakers I invited, who came from as far away as America and Israel. This very response from our academic society has materially presented to our invited foreign lecturers the gravity of our situation and our relationships, however, and it has also revealed the absence of academic and broader social interest in such topics.
We managed, however, to arrange for students from the Orthodox Faculty of Theology in Foča to come to our conferences and also provide them with an overnight stay at our Catholic seminary. After the conferences, there was a social gathering at the Theology Bar. Many students have told me, from all three peoples (Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croats), that this was their first time to talk in person and socialize with students of other religious and ethnic backgrounds! Ergo, an entire generation of students, namely adults, was brought up and educated in the same country without the opportunity to meet fellow citizens of different ethnicities or religions. Without the ability to grasp their side of the story, without the possibility of knowing their “humanity,” because until then they were known only through the prism of someone else's memory—most often through the prism of perpetrators and collective guilt. From this point of view, despite the low attendance, the project was still successful. If only one of them has revealed the dimensions of humanity in another, different from oneself, I cannot wish for any greater success for this project.
In addition, another important aspect of the forums and conferences mentioned previously is that it helped cultivate the idea of a larger project. Namely, after completing the project described previously, in the academic year 2017–2018, the Catholic faculty of theology, the faculty of Islamic sciences and the Orthodox faculty of theology in Foča launched a joint master's program called “Inter-religious Studies and Peacebuilding.” To my knowledge, a joint master's program of this kind is unique in the area of our wider region. The program is conceived through modules, and in addition to the theoretical construct offered by the three faculties, with their specificities, students also have a practical module on peacebuilding, taught by professors from the faculty of political science. In this master's program, students have the opportunity to learn about the belief systems of all three religions (Islam, Orthodoxy, and Catholicism), as well as their understanding of war, violence, forgiveness, and peace, after which they switch to the practical application module. In these three years, we had a total of about thirty students, which is a surprisingly satisfying number given our circumstances and the overall situation in the country. The composition of the students was diverse, both from an ethnic and religious standpoint, which is added value to the overall program. There is also a plan to start a summer school that would be a shortened version of this master's program in English, for which we are still waiting for a sufficient number of students.Footnote 46
In conclusion, the current situation in BH testifies to the failure of the Dayton Peace Agreement; it could not have been any different because this agreement was a political compromise on territory trade. The current state of affairs in the country confirms that the hatred awakened by war cannot be “reconciled by political agreement, endured suffering cannot be healed with compromises, and intolerance and fear of the other eliminated by forced coexistence.”Footnote 47 Having in mind that this situation goes beyond political issues and political solutions, the responsibility of intellectuals in changing society, especially those of Christian provenance, is more than evident. The peculiarity I place on the intellectuals of Christian provenance does not relate to some greater or better intellectual or moral specificity, but Christ's claim of responsibility placed on Christians: to be the salt of the Earth and the light of the world! Concretely, this would mean that Christians, especially intellectuals, especially because of the knowledge they possess and the influence they have, should, if not correct, then at least not consent to the hatred awakened by war. Endured suffering, if not to be admitted and unreservedly condemn, then at least by no means should be banalized with political compromises because by doing so suffering repeats posthumously. And bigotry and fear of the other in any case should be attributed themselves because: “Hate and crime in our neighbor is our defeat, no matter how much we justify ourselves that we have done everything and are without sin.”Footnote 48
Simon Wiesenthal stated that anyone who, during Kristallnacht, as a result of persecuting Jews from their apartments and their jobs, was looking forward to getting a job or an apartment from Jews, was as responsible for Auschwitz. Therefore, as far as it is necessary to build a community after each of the crimes committed and to seek the truth, determine responsibilities, prosecute perpetrators, plead for forgiveness and reconciliation, so necessary, perhaps even primarily, is to eliminate the normality of structure that led to the violence. It seems to me that our personal noninvolvement in crimes or mental and moral condemnation of crimes and what has happened does not excuse us from the responsibility and does not make us less guilty. The morality of pure hands in the face of crimes against man becomes a true perversion of morality. From the position of today's situation in the country, each of our involvement (even without concrete action) in the structures that support this war mentality makes us responsible for eventual crimes in the future because we did not prevent the normality of their preparation.
