Summary
This research paper talks about education in Bosnia-Herzegovina just after the collapse of Yugoslavia in 1991 when B&H entered into an ethnic conflict between Serbs, Croats and Bosnians. The purpose of this research is to show how history and culture shaped education in B&H during the war between 1992 and 1995. It emphasizes how ethnic wars can reinforce the emergence of nationalism feeling within an education system and how school becomes a center of sharing ideologies and a political tool. It examines the causes of this war and how schools worked during and after the conflict and had to deal with different ethnicities within the classroom. The coexistence of these Serbs, Croats and Bosnians jointly shows even if war ended, the segregation is still present and it occurs under the form of violence between children and against teachers. How is it possible to manage the consequences of nationalism in consciousness?
Education in War and Post-War in Bosnia-Herzegovina
War creates a major disability in a country in terms of education and provokes lots of modification while a nation tries to rebuild its society politically, economically and culturally. The war of Bosnia-Herzegovina (B&H), which started in March 1995 and ended in December 1995, had a broad impact on education within the country. The B&H’s war takes its origins from the breakup of the Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia in 1991 and led to an ethnic conflict between Bosnians, Serbs and Croats. In the post-war conflict, despite the fact the country faces a humanitarian crisis and has to start over, education is one of the problems the country needs to deal with. In the case of B&H, war led to several impacts to the structure of education and particularly in terms of pluralism. How does war create, within the culture, a massive modification of the structure of education during and after the conflict? And how is mentality in the consciousness of the inhabitants affected? Nationalism is one of the examples of consequence of ethnicity segregation in B&H and shows its negative impact during post war. Furthermore, the cultural, political and economic perturbations force the country to face new structural challenges as in B&H school reconstructions, finding new teachers or bringing refugees to their home and reorganizing an education that makes sense and serves children and communities efficiently. In a chronological time, B&H is a relevant example of the impact of war on education structures and its consequences on human consciousnesses, structural development and the reorganization of a structure education. The history of B&H shaped its education and created large modifications of its structure.
For B&H, it is suitable to find the causes of the war to explain its consequences on education. According to Lynn Davies (2005), there exist three different antecedents to conflict which could be enable to help to understand the role of education in the country: “Economic or class relations […], gender relations […] and ethnicity, religion, tribalism and nationalism” (Davies, 2005, p. 359-361). The last one seems the most relevant to B&H and demands to deal with in the depth because the causes of this conflict are from ethnicity conflicts. After its independence in 1992, the three different major ethnicities that are Bosnians, Serbs and Croats quarrel the supremacy and power within the country and Burg, Steven L. & Shoup, Paul S. (1999) defines the causes of war in B&H as: “The essence of ethnic conflict [that] is the struggle between mobilized identity groups for greater power” (Burg & Shoup, 1999, p. 4). The political instability just after the breaking up of Yugoslavia in 1991 and the different cultures of these ethnicities are one of the causes of the conflict (Appendix 1). How was education affected by the confrontation between the different ethnicities in B&H?
During the war, education was profoundly affected and provoked a restructuration within schools. How can schools function during war? Education and conflict are two oxymoron and: “The relationship between education and conflict includes the more obvious effect of war and violence on education itself—disruption, loss of physical and human resources” (Davies, 2005, p. 359). Schools cannot work adequately in war time and are deeply affected. These disruptions are characterized by the decrease of attendance. Children cannot reach schools because of the dangerous of moving. The inner conflict provokes a broad diaspora and leads to the construction of refugee camps where the population does not live decently and there is a lack of food; survival in these extreme conditions provokes the emergence of diseases. In B&H, education experienced these different types of issues and was profoundly disrupted: “Children’s schooling was severely disrupted during the war. Education facilities across B&H were badly affected, with over half of all school buildings in the country being seriously damaged, destroyed, taken over by the army, or used to house the displaced” (Magill, 2010, p. 27). During the conflict in B&H, education was deeply modified and teachers are one of the targets because of their political commitments as underlines Graça Machel (2001) in her book The Impact of War on Children where she shows the impact of war on children: “Teachers are vulnerable to attack because they are important community members and tend to be more than usually politicized” (Machel, 2001, p. 93). Schools lack teachers. So therefore even if children can come to school, there might also be an issue with teacher attendance. No teachers, no students, in the atmosphere of fear, surrounded by destruction is one of the cocktail which just ruined years of education implementation. Yet, post-war is one of the biggest challenges a country has to face and in B&H, the challenge was the emergence of a nationalism feeling between the different ethnicities.
During the war, the country was divided into different ethnicities: Bosnians, Croats and Serbs and: “The country was torn apart by violence. The educational system became fragmented along ethnonational lines” (Hromadžić, 2008, p. 544). Two lines which described two different ways of thinking, two different cultures blocked within a war and got stuck in the classroom. School becomes a center of sharing ideologies and reinforces the feeling of nationalism. “Education was turned into a tool for the nationalist political control and advancement of nationalist ideologies” (Hromadžić, 2008, p. 544). Education is a political tool that different actors of the war take advantage of. The question is how is a country able to manage the consequences of nationalism in consciousnesses the post-war peace? Resurgence of feelings of nationalism in a country usually appears in economic, social and political issues and all of these three examples come out during a war and continue aftermath. War leaves negative after effects and this legacy pervades at all level of the society and especially within schools. As in B&H, school became a place of violence because of issues between different ethnicities and their divergent religions. “Some Croat youth described the school as located in the marginal, shady, and dangerous part of the town.[…] These acts including throwing stones at the building, robbery, and one especially violent act by group of young Bosniak” (Hromadžić, 2008, p. 550). The legacy of the Balkan’s war is still present within the walls of school in B&H and has consequences on the education system by reinforcing the sensation of fears and violence. This issue plays a role also within the educational team.
Teachers are also victims of nationalistic feelings within schools. They are often the first persons who are victims directly due to nationalism issues: “Many Bosnian teachers and management felt discriminated against by Croats” (Hromadžić, 2008, p. 552). While students experienced the feeling of differences, teachers also are incorporated into the problem. Teachers have to teach to their own community and cannot be associated to another ethnicity. Croats stays in their classroom as Serbians and Bosnians but —as is shown by Mostar Gymnasium’s experience— only under one roof.
This experience led to bring refugees to school from the process of integration and took place in Mostar in the South of the country: “The process of the integration of schools emerged as the response to the segregation in education. The first step in this direction was the creation of the aforementioned “two schools under one roof”” (Hromadžić, 2008, p. 554). As a result, the idea is positive in term of reunification by bringing two different ethnicities under one school but the project failed because the remains of war is still present and “students of both ethnic groups would together attend “shared subjects” deemed less controversial” (Hromadžić, 2008, p. 555). Therefore, education is disturbed by the impact of war in the Balkans which provokes many disturbances within schools and the organization of the structural process of learning. The long history in B&H about different ethnicities is one of the biggest barriers of education progressivism and this example shows how history mixed with culture can modified structures within the country.
The purpose of the transition from war to peace is always an issue and it is more relevant within the education field. As Kendra E. Dupuy and Krijn Peters (2010) suggest in their book War and Children, they are two different treaties of peace: “A negative peace [which is the] simply absence of armed conflict and direct violence […] and a positive peace […] which entails the presence and promotion of social justice” (Dupuy & Krijn, 2010, p. 105). Yet, in the case of B&H, the social justice is difficult to implement because of the complicated mixture between the different ethnicities. This is “a major challenge for democratization and reconciliation in B&H which is confronting the lack of political mechanism that would accommodate political, social, and cultural plurality in the country” (Hromadžić, 2008, p. 561). The plurality in terms of education is a major challenge in B&H and leads to segregation issues and ethnicity conflict.
War is one of the examples of how history shapes the education system and influences the process of learning of millions of children. In a country as B&H, it is very difficult to change mentalities without going through a long process of working with all of actors who play a major role to rebuild and improve the education system after a time of war. How does culture form itself throughout years is one of the consequences of the complexity of the social, economic and political fields. Development is almost a dream during war and post-war because everything has to be rebuilt and start over. However, even if the road is going to be long, for the sake of children, communities and government have to try to support education during and after war. In the case of B&H, the different cultures as Serbs, Croats and Bosnians has been an impediment to post-war education development and underlined the fact nationalism is always an issue within school. Yet, the country has to deal with it and does not have any choices. When a nation has a “long history of inclusion and exclusion, interconnectedness, and coexistence” (Hromadžić, 2008, p. 561), it is difficult to move forward and think in a progressive way. Education in B&H has to see forward and ought to forget its differences and maybe thinking about the implementation of secular schools which could reduce historical and cultural disagreements.
Bibliography
Burg, Steven L. & Shoup, Paul S. (1999). The war in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.
Davies, Lynn (2005). Schools and war: urgent agendas for comparative and international education. Compare, Vol. 35, N0. 4, 357-371.
Dupuy, Kendra E. & Peters, Krijn (2010). War and children. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger security International.
Hromadžiç, Azra (2008). Discourses of integration and practices of reunification at the Mostar Gymnasium, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Comparative Education Review, Vol. 52, No. 4, 541-563.
Machel, Graça (2001). The impact of war on children. London: Hurst & Company.
Magill, Clare (2010). Education and fragility in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Education in emergencies and reconstruction. Retrieved from http://www.iiep.unesco.org/fileadmin/user_upload/Info_Services_Publications/pdf/2010/Bosnia-Herzegovina.pdf
Appendix
Appendix 1
Ethnic Majorities in Bosnia-Herzegovina, 1991
www.lib.utexas.edu (Retrieved 02/25/13)
