One step forward, two steps back: the Bosnian educational system as a means of strengthening ethnonationalism

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One step forward, two steps back: the

Bosnian educational system as a

means of strengthening

ethnonationalism.

Master thesis August 2018

Tea Martic (1365746)

MSc Crisis and Security Management

Under supervision of: Dr. Myriam Benraad

Leiden University

21057 words

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ABSTRACT

After the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina education has become segregated on the basis of ethnonationalism in an effort to suppress ethnonationalistic tensions. This dissertation examines the influence of the infusion of ethnonationalism through education on the students’ historical perceptions of the Bosnian War between 1992 and 1995. Through a combination of a content and discourse analysis of the history textbooks, a survey with the students and interviews with the teachers the purpose of this dissertation is to analyse the interplay between what the books show, what the teachers tell and how the students understand and reproduce this information. After conducting field research in a Bosniak, Croat and Serb primary school, this dissertation finds that the infusion of ethnonationalism through education influences the students’ perception of how and when the Bosnian War started and their perception of who helped Bosnia and Herzegovina during the war. This ethnonationalist influence also becomes visible in who the students consider to be the “winners and losers” of the war. The different perceptions of the history of the Bosnian War are a result of the call for ethnonationalist rights through the right to educate in their own language and from their own perspective. As a consequence, the Bosnian educational system contributes to the societal security dilemma. However, this dissertation also finds that students in schools with multiple ethnonationalities show less ethnonationalist influences and have a more neutral perception of the history of the Bosnian War. Segregation in education has proven to be counterproductive.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

There are many people that I would like to thank for their help and assistance in preparing for my field research. Also, I would like to thank the people that have helped me during my time in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the people that have inspired me to write my thesis by sharing their thoughts and ideas. Foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. Myriam Benraad, for her assistance throughout the whole process, for the understanding and all the useful comments and thoughts. Second, I would like to thank Andrea Knezevic, library assistant at the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals, who made all the documents on former Yugoslavia and the war in Yugoslavia available for my research. Third, I am highly indebted to all the people that brought me into contact with either the schools or the ministries. Nada Stajic, Stana Krajina, Stjepan Krajina and Senad Hedzic, thank you for all your time and effort in order to organize my field research in the best way possible. I would like to give special thanks to Nada Stajic for making my entire stay in Bosnia and Herzegovina so pleasant and adventurous. Fourth, I would like to thank all of the schools, especially their directors and history teachers that were willing to find the time to let me conduct my research and to discuss the current system. It was their willingness to participate in this research that showed both bravery and positivity and made me believe that there is hope for change in the educational system in Bosnia in Herzegovina. Fifth, my sincere thanks goes to Mustafa Mustajbegovic for the inspiring conversations and for always providing food for thought. Last but not least, I would like to thank all of the students that participated in this research. The questions in the survey covered a very sensitive topic and it is likely that these questions reminded the students of their own family history. Therefore, I think that it was very courageous of them to try to answer these questions as honestly as possible. I sincerely admire their bravery.

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One step forward, two steps back: the Bosnian educational system

as a means of strengthening ethnonationalism.

1. INTRODUCTION

“Forming a nation does not presuppose the possession of a common state or language, nor a common culture or shared religion; all that is truly indispensable is the sense of their members that ‘they participate in a common past’” (Budak, 1999, p. 15).

During and after the Bosnian War (1992- 1995), the education system of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) became highly decentralized, politicized and nationalistic, promoting competing visions and identities of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Swimelar, 2013). Education and youth are among the most fertile grounds to study the cultural production of new forms of identity and solidarity (Hromadzic, 2008). While in Yugoslavia education played a crucial role in both creating and solidifying a Yugoslav identity and at the same time respecting ethnic differences, education in post-war BiH represents a key arena for nationalist and ethnic divisions (Swimelar, 2013). According to Swimelar, the three separate ethnonational groups in BiH, the Bosniaks, Bosnian Croats and Bosnian Serbs, all exploit education as a means of manifesting nationalism through calls for human rights, especially for their individual ethnonational group. These rights translate into the right to be educated in their own language, the right to have public support for their cultural preservation and the right to cultural autonomy (Swimelar, 2013). This also translates into the use of textbooks as the most important tool for the promotion and formation of national identity (Bartulovic, 2006). However, instead of promoting a unified Bosnian identity, the textbooks used by different mono-ethnic schools promote separate, exclusive identities (Bartulovic, 2006).

During the pre-war Socialistic Federative Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY), all cultural and historical heritages from the individual republics were suppressed in order to create a solidifying Yugoslav identity (Hromadzic, 2008). Bosnia and Herzegovina, which had an enormous cultural heritage from their time as a part of the Ottoman Empire, suddenly had to get rid of many of the traditional religious institutions. All memories of previous episodes in history were banned in Tito’s Yugoslavia (Bet-El, 2002). Soon after the death of Josip Broz Tito, the former leader of SFRY, in 1980, the contrasts between the ethnicities became visible again. In combination with the manipulation of these ethnonationalist feelings by the

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politicians, the SFRY became destabilized resulting in the Bosnian War between 1992 and 1995 (Kondylis, 2010). The war ended with the signing of the Dayton Accords in December 1995, resulting in the division of Bosnia and Herzegovina where 51% of the territory has become a Bosniak-Croat Federation and 49% of the territory has become a Serb Republic (see figure 1) (Owen-Jackson, 2015). This Dayton Peace Agreement was not only supposed to end the ongoing war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. By creating a political structure that avoided any ethnic fusion on institutional levels, the creators of the peace agreement expected the agreement to be a long-term solution for the ethnonationalistic tensions in BiH. This high autonomy that was given to the separate entities has also resulted into their abilities to design the educational systems in favor of their ethnonationality (Russo, 2000).

Figure 1: Division of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Republika Srpska (Serb Republic) and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Bosniak-Croat Federation).

Source: Owen-Jackson, 2015, p. 127

While educators and politicians have recognized the role of education in socialization, identity formation and the promotion of peaceful relations; education as a non-traditional ‘security’ issue has been neglected by international relations scholars (Nellis, 2006). However, the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina shows that education can be used not only as a

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Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Bosnia and Herzegovina’s current educational system represents a serious obstacle to the reconciliation, stability, security, institution-building, economic recovery and the sustainable return of refugees (OSCE, 2002).

When summing up potential security threats, education has previously not been considered as a classic potential security threat in comparison to for example organized crime, terrorism and climate change. However, education is a human right and the societal insecurity can be intensified by the human rights exploited by the ethnicities. Swimelar has argued that the Bosnian education system leads to a societal security dilemma (2013). According to Swimelar, this dilemma appears when “the attempts of one group to attain societal security and promote its identity through cultural and rhetorical means lead to perceptions of insecurity by another group, which then attempts also to support its identity and gain security through similar means. These cultural means can be the call for human rights within education, such as the right to learn in one’s own language and from one’s own cultural perspective” (2013, p. 162).

The concept of societal security was first introduced by the Copenhagen School of Security, in order to enable the security analysis to look at the “society” as a referent object, and not only the “state”. As Sadzovski argues, in societal security, “identity based threats and insecurities are of primary concern” (Sadzovski, 2015, p. 55). As Buzan and Waever argue, “survival for a society is a question of identity, because this is the way society talks about existential threats: if this happens, we will no longer be able to live as ‘us’” (Buzan & Waever, 1997, p. 242 as quoted in Sadzovski, 2015, p. 55).

Now, a societal security dilemma occurs when two or more sub-state groups use conflicting and competing nationalisms and identities in order to strengthen their identity and security, which in turn weakens or threatens the identities of other groups, preventing the formation of a common national identity (Swimelar, 2013, p. 168). The uncertainty, misunderstanding and fear created through this societal security dilemma may lead to an unintentional conflict (Sadzovski, 2015, p. 56).

As Swimelar has argued, the Bosnian education system leads to a security dilemma (2013). In order to strengthen their own security and identity, the ethnonational groups may choose to promote their rights through education, such as the right to learn in one’s own language and from one’s own cultural perspective (Swimelar, 2013, p. 162). As already mentioned above,

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education as a non-traditional security issue has been neglected by international relations scholars (Nellis, 2006). Therefore I would like to make a contribution by investigating whether these rights to learn from one’s own cultural perspective and own language lead to an eventual misinterpretation of the history, resulting in more segregation in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In this dissertation I will research to what extent does the infusion of

ethnonationalism through education in Bosnia and Herzegovina influence students’ historical perception of the war (1992-1995)?

The societal relevance of this research is to argue that ethnonational segregation does not necessarily lead to long-term peace between the ethnonationalities, like the creators of the Dayton Peace Agreements hoped. Rather, the segregation can lead to a societal security dilemma resulting in a potential new conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

As the students learn about the Bosnian War in 9th grade of primary school, at the age around 14/15, I will conduct field research and carry out a comparative case study among three primary schools in BiH. However, in order to lay foundation for my research, this thesis will first provide a theoretical framework explaining ethnonationalism in general and ethnonationalism in BiH. Next the methodology will be discussed, followed by an introduction to the Bosnian educational system and the analysis of the results of the research. Finally, all findings are synthesized into a conclusion, where the contribution of the research to the current academic knowledge is discussed and suggestions for any further research on ethnonationalism in Bosnian education are made.

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2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK-

ETHNONATIONALISM AND ETHNIC CONFLICT

Even though there were multiple efforts in Yugoslavia in the early 1990s to remain a multinational state through self-identification, modernization, political participation, demographic considerations and intergroup relations, these efforts were not able to withstand the forces of the rising ethnonationalism in former Yugoslavia (Kourvetaris, 1996, p. 163). This resulted in an ethnic conflict between 1992 and 1995 (Dyrstad, Ellingsen & Rod, 2015). In order to understand the current situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the war that has led to this situation, a thorough research on ethnonationalism, its roots and how it leads to ethnic conflict is required. In order to understand the importance of education in the formation of separate ethnonational identities, I will make an effort to discuss the controversy concerning nationalism and whether it is a social construct or primordial. As I believe that ethnonationalism is a social construct, Benedict Anderson’s theory on imagined communities will be summarized. Finally, I will discuss the intergroup contact theory, which states that intergroup contact can have positive effects on reducing prejudice (Pettigrew, 1998).

2.1 The Definition of Ethnonationalism

According to Dyrstad et al., what we consider as ethnonationalism today has previously been labelled as “intolerance (Massey et al., 1999), prejudice (Strabac and Ringdal, 2008) and ethnic exclusionism (Simkus, 2007a)” (Dyrstad et al., 2015, p. 10). All of these previous terms are loaded with negative emotions. According to Manza and Crowley, racial sentiments, anti-immigrant and anti-globalization sentiments fall under a broader scope of ethnonationalism (Manza & Crowley, 2018, p. 29).

According to Kourvetaris ethnonationalism can be defined as ‘subnational movements for autonomy or independence organized along linguistic, ethnic, religious, or cultural lines’ (Connor, 1991 as quoted by Kourvetaris, 1996, p. 164). This can result in ethnic conflict as a consequence of social or political change (Kourvetaris, 1996, p. 164). The collapse of communism in the former Yugoslavia has led to an identity crisis followed by the creation of new subnationalist and revolutionist ethnopolitical movements (Kourvetaris, 1996).

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However, when looking at the word itself, it consists out of ethnos and nationalism, which can be translated to nationalism towards your own ethnic group. According to Chandra, we usually understand ethnic groups to have a common ancestry or a myth of a common ancestry, a common region of origin or a myth of a common region of origin, a common culture or elements of a common culture such as religion, language and customs, a common history, a bond with a homeland and a sense of solidarity (Chandra, 2006). Latest definitions of an ethnic group have incorporated the descent rule, where all of these cultural elements do not matter; all that matters is the parentage. The ethnicity of the parents automatically becomes the ethnicity of the child (Chandra, 2006, p. 407).

According to Chandra, the best-fit definition of an ethnic identity is that ‘ethnic identities are a subset of identity categories in which eligibility for membership is determined by attributes associated with, or believed to be associated with, descent (described here simply as descent-based attributes)’ (Chandra, 2006, p. 398).

Thus, the word itself encompasses nationalism towards the group you descent from which shares the same ancestry or elements of a common culture. However, most dictionary-definitions, just as the definition as given by Kourvetaris, include an element of interest in political autonomy for its own ethnic group. The definition of ethnonationalism as given by oxford dictionaries is “the advocacy of or support for the political interests of a particular ethnic group, especially its national independence or self-determination” (oxforddictionaries.com, 18 May 2018).

All of the definitions above suggest that ethnonationalism may eventually lead to ethnic conflict. This suggestion also becomes visible in Gurr’s theory about state power and communal groups in ethnopolitical conflict. He has come up with three analytically distinct orientations, with ethnonationalism as the first orientation that motivates regionally concentrated people to seek either independent statehood or extensive regional autonomy. Their main political objective is “exit” (Gurr, 1994, pp. 354). The second orientation towards state power is indigenous rights, which refers to the original inhabitants of a country that are occupied with the protection of their lands, sources and culture against the new state builders and developers. Their main political objective can be translated to “autonomy” (Gurr, 1994, pp. 354). Finally, contention of power is a third orientation where groups have a dispute about the distribution of, or access to the power (Gurr, 1994, pp. 354).

Going back to the historical labels that have been considered ethnonationalism, such as intolerance and ethnic exclusionism, I believe that ethnonationalism does not necessarily

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and autonomy suggests intolerance towards the status quo created by the government. If a particular ethnic group perceives disadvantages in their community, their feelings of being disadvantaged translate into intolerance towards the status quo that sustains these subjective disadvantages in the first place.

To conclude, however, I do not think it is a necessity to incorporate interests of political autonomy in the definition itself of ethnonationalism. Rather, in a multi-ethnic state, ethnonationalism can be defined as “nationalism towards one’s own narrow ethnic group instead of nationalism directed towards a common geographical territory and its multi-ethnic identity” (Dyrstad, Ellingsen & Rod, 2015, p. 5).

2.2 Ethnonationalism By Birth or Born After Conflict?

When studying the literature on ethnonationalism, two distinct perspectives on ethnonationalism become evident. There are scholars that regard ethnic conflict and civil war such as in Bosnia and Herzegovina as evidence that the old resentments among the nations and religions were at most suppressed during the time of the communist authoritarian rule (Kourvetaris, 1996; Bet-El, 2002). Bet-El stated “conflict is inevitable in the region, due to embedded disputes between the ethnicities, which had been kept under control by the communism of old Yugoslavia” (2002, p. 216).

Dyrstad, Ellingsen and Rod belong to another group of scholars, who do not believe “that widespread nationalism on the grass root level per se leads to civil war, we observe that it can serve as a reservoir that nationalist and populist elites can tap into in order to promote nationalist politics, thus hindering a consolidation of the post-war state” (2015, p. 5). These scholars believe that a conflict emerges out of other factors, whether social or economic or political, and that an increase in ethnonationalism is the result of conflict.

Whether ethnonationalism results in conflict or is the result of conflict leads us to the debate on primordialism. Primordialism is “an explanation of group solidarity as derived from ‘primordial’ ties which bind people together, either by virtue of genetic links” (Smith, 1998 as quoted by Coakley, 2018, p. 332). Primordialism claims that nationality is something given to human beings by birth and is as natural as speech, sight or smell and that nations are something ancient (Özkırımlı, 2017 as quoted by Coakley, 2018, p. 334).

Gurr argues that one view on ethnic identity is this primordial view, where an ethnic identity is genetically based and therefore stronger and more important than loyalties to larger social units, such as the state (Gurr, 1994, p. 348). Primordialism as a theory would imply that

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ethnic violence is a result from antipathies that are permanent characteristics of the ethnic group and thus that hostility among ethnic groups is an eternal condition (Fearon & Laitin, 2000, p. 849).

The opposite view is that ethnic identities do not weigh more than any other type of identity and that “they become significant when they are invoked by entrepreneurial political leaders in the instrumental pursuit of material and political benefits for a group or region” (Gurr, 1994, p. 348).

However, when we consider ethnonationalism solely as an instrument used by politicians in the pursuit of political benefits for a group or region, we dismiss the mindset of ordinary people who actually think that they are born into an ethnicity and thus think that ethnicity is primordial. Thus, even when ethnonationalism and ethnic identity are imposed top-down by politicians in order to achieve political goals, it would not work if there were no ordinary people that believe that ethnicity is primordial. Therefore, it is crucial for politicians to make the people believe that the ethnic groups that have been created by humans are not created but primordial. This process is also known as a process of reification, where human phenomena and products are presented as if they are non-human. Instead, they are “facts of nature, results of cosmic laws, or manifestations of divine will” (Berger and Luckmann, 1967, p. 106). As Berger and Luckmann argue, reification can be described as “an extreme step in the process of objectivation, whereby the objectivated world loses its comprehensibility as a human enterprise and becomes fixated as a non-human, a non-humanizable, inert facticity” (1967, p. 106).

Hence, even though I do not believe that ethnonationalism is something primordial, I do believe that politicians try to reify ethnonationalism and ethnic identity to make the ordinary people believe that this identity is a fact of nature. Once they succeed and the community believes that ethnicity is given by birth, even when it is not necessarily true, one can speak of ‘everyday primordialism’, where the community in their everyday lives and interactions believes in ethnic primordialism (Fearon & Laitin, 2000, p. 848).

2.3 Ethnonationalities as imagined communities

In his book Imagined Communities; Benedict Anderson explains how and why nations have become socially constructed. Anderson mentions the paradox where nationalism is relatively new in the eyes of historians while in the eyes of nationalists; nationalism is an antiquity that

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of a nation which states that it is “an imagined political community- and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign” (Anderson, 1983, p. 6). These communities are imagined as, even in the smallest nations, none of the members will know all of their fellow-members, yet will always feel connected to them (Anderson, 1983). An imagined community is imagined limited, as even the biggest community will have finite borders isolating and separating them from other imagined communities (Anderson, 1983). An imagined community is imagined as sovereign, as every nation dreams of being free (Anderson, 1983). Finally, according to Anderson, an imagined community is imagined as a community because it is considered as a “horizontal comradeship” (Anderson, 1983, p. 7).

Anderson argues that “nationalism has to be understood by aligning it, not with self- consciously held political ideologies, but with the large cultural systems that preceded it, out of which - as well as against which - it came into being” (Anderson, 1983, p. 12). One of the cultural systems that preceded nationalism was the religious community, which started to decline with the explorations of the non-European world, when the conception of men became widened both culturally and geographically. This decline was strengthened by the “gradual demotion” of the sacred language used by religions (Anderson, 1983, p. 18).

The other cultural system was the dynastic realm, with its legitimacy derived from divinity and not the population (Anderson, 1983). However, after 1789, the principle of legitimacy had to be “loudly and self-consciously defended”, leading to a decline in dynasties (Anderson, 1983, p. 21). However, these two cultural systems can be seen as precedents of the nation as religious communities regarded themselves as cosmically central and connected their community through the sacred language and dynastic realms made the difference between their dynasty and foreigners very clear (Anderson, 1983).

Together with a change in the “apprehension of time”, where simultaneity became introduced in the eighteenth century through the emergence of newspapers and the novel, it became possible to think of the “nation” (Anderson, 1983). Both the newspaper and the novel showed how it is possible to think of different events performed at the same time, by actors who are largely unaware of each other (Anderson, 1983, p. 26). This made it possible for people to think about themselves, and to relate themselves to others simultaneously, similar to people from an imagined nation (Anderson, 1983, p. 26).

Therefore, it is not surprising that Anderson regards the emergence of print capitalism as the origin of imagined communities (1983, p. 37). With the emergence of print capitalism, the amount of publications in the vernacular increased in order to maximize circulation as the majority of people was not able to read the sacred Latin language (Anderson, 1983).

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According to Anderson, these print-languages have led to the creation of national consciousness in three different ways: they created unified fields of communication below Latin but above the vernacular, it gave a new fixity to language which leads to the idea of antiquity which is so central to the idea of the nation and the creation of “languages of power” which dominate over other languages creating sub-nationalities (Anderson, 1983, pp. 44-45). Anderson ends the chapter on print capitalism by stating that “we can summarize the conclusions to be drawn from the argument thus far by saying that the convergence of capitalism and print technology on the fatal diversity of human language created the possibility of a new form of imagined community, which in its basic morphology set the stage for the modern nation” (1983, p. 46). Soon, governments adopted these new languages and a nation-state could be created (Anderson, 1983).

Thus, in his book Anderson extensively discussed the creation of a nation as an imagined community. Also, he discusses how modern nation-states instill their nationalist ideologies “through the mass media, the educational system, administrative regulations, and so forth” (Anderson, 1983, p. 163). In imperial times, education was used as a tool to assimilate the children from the colony to the nation of the colonizers (Anderson, 1983). Thus “age-old” nationalism has become in a way propagated through mass communication and modern state-controlled educational institutions (Anderson, 1983, p. 227). Here the role of history in education becomes apparent, as the idea of antiquity in nationalism is very important (Anderson, 1983). As Anderson mentioned in the beginning, in the eyes of nationalists, a nationality is an antiquity that cannot be traced back to a certain beginning (Anderson, 1983). Therefore, teaching a common history becomes crucial in propagating age-old nationalism through education, as it gives a sense of connection to the nation throughout the past and present simultaneously. According to Anderson, this simultaneity and the feeling that the whole nation is moving steadily down history is a necessary condition in the idea of the imagined community (Anderson, 1983, p. 26).

2.4 Ethnonationalism in Bosnia and Herzegovina

According to Sekulic et al., the resurgence of ethnonationalism in Yugoslavia has been one of the most severe expressions of ethnic subnationalism (1994, as quoted by Kourvetaris, 1996, p. 172). It is known that throughout history all Balkan states have relied on ethnonationalism in their nation-building process (Stavrianos, 1958 as quoted by Kourvetaris, 1996, p. 174). All

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than citizenship, so this has been reflected in their national histories, public institutions, national literature and education (Kourvetaris, 1996, p. 174).

When Hodson et al. conducted research on ethnic intolerance before the war in Yugoslavia they concluded that, even if there were ethnic divisions, these divisions were a weak explanation for the development of the war (1994 as quoted by Dyrstad et al., 2015, p. 7). Before the war in Yugoslavia, a substantial part of Yugoslavia and BiH in particular used to declare itself as Yugoslavs instead of declaring themselves part of their own ethnic group. Pre-war inter-ethnic relations were often described as peaceful and neighborly (Dyrstad et al., 2015).

The last census in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was held in 2013, showed that the current population of Bosnia and Herzegovina is divided in Bosniaks (48%), Serbs (37%), Croats (14%) and a remaining group (1%) (Dyrstad et al., 2015, p. 8). Even though BiH has experienced geographical segregation of the ethnic groups, the population has stayed rather mixed (Dyrstad et al., 2015). On a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 stands for “strongly disagree” and 5 stands for “strongly agree”, Dyrstad et al. have concluded that the mean score for ethnonationalism among the population in BiH is 3.07, which means, “neither agree nor disagree”. This number has been based on a survey on ethnonationalism indicators among the citizens and the results have been shown in table 1 (Dyrstad et al., 2015, pp. 12- 14). The geographical distribution of ethnonationalism per region in Bosnia and Herzegovina has been shown in figure 2.

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Table 1: Ethnonationalism indicators in BiH as gave by Dyrstad et al., 2015, p. 14.

Figure 2: Geographical distribution of ethnonationalism in BiH (Dryad et al., 2015, p. 15)

Dyrstad et al. predicted that members of a local minority should be more ethnonationalist than members of a local majority. However, in the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the opposite is

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true as minorities turned out to be less nationalistic than the majority of the region (Dyrstad et al., 2015, p. 18). On average in BiH, if the homogeneity of a region increases, the ethnonationalism of both the majority and the minority increases as well (Dyrstad et al., 2015). Thus, if a region is more heterogeneous, the ethnonationalism of both the majority and minority groups decreases.

2.5 Intergroup Contact Theory

Dyrstad et al. have shown that in Bosnia and Herzegovina ethnonationalism has proven to decrease as the heterogeneity of the region increases (2015). In 1954, Allport formulated the intergroup contact hypothesis in which he argues that intergroup contact can reduce prejudices towards the other group if the situation for the intergroup contact is marked by four key conditions: equal group status within the situation; common goals; intergroup cooperation; and the support of authorities, law, or custom (Pettigrew, 1998, p. 66). For equal group status within the situation, Allport stressed that it is important that both groups expect and perceive equal status in the situation (Cohen & Lotan 1995, Cohen 1982, Riordan & Ruggiero 1980, Robinson & Preston 1976 as quoted by Pettigrew, 1998, p. 66). Allport listed common goals as another key condition because an active, goal-oriented effort can reduce prejudices towards the other groups (Pettigrew, 1998, p. 66). Therefore, group projects and sport tournaments are crucial in in schools in multi-ethnic regions to set common goals for the children of different ethnonationalities.

The third key condition is intergroup cooperation, where the realization of common goals must be an interdependent effort without any competition between the groups (Pettigrew, 1998, p. 67). The final condition for intergroup contact to reduce prejudices is the support of authorities, law or custom. According to Pettigrew, intergroup contact is more widely accepted and has more positive effects if there are explicit social sanctions (Pettigrew, 1998, p. 67). When authorities support both groups in the situation, norms of acceptance become imposed (Pettigrew, 1998).

This theory can also be applied to education, therefore this thesis will also analyse whether these key factors are present in multi-ethnic classes.

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3. METHODOLOGY

For this research, I will conduct a comparative case study among 3 primary schools in Bosnia and Herzegovina:

- A Bosniak primary school in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina - A Serb primary school in the Serb Republic

- A Croatian primary school in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina

The reason I have chosen these cases is because they represent schools of the three major ethnicities that have been at war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. As there are no Serb schools in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Serb school is located in the Serb Republic. Because the Serb Republic has one curriculum for all schools, whether they are Bosniak, Serb or Croat, I have decided to incorporate a Bosniak and Croat school from the Federation, as the federation allows for more variation in the school curricula.

Even though most schools are segregated on the basis of ethnonationality, in some regions it is impossible for a student to attend the school of his own ethnonationality due to for example the distance of the school. Therefore, if there are no mixed schools nearby and the school of their own ethnonationality is too far away, some parents may decide to send their child to a school of a different ethnonationality. In order to examine what influence this has on the child I have created the following subquestion:

- How does the decentralized ethnonational education system influence a student from ethnonationality a attending a school from ethnonationality b?

In order to achieve the best results in this research, it is necessary to examine the interplay between what the books show, what the teachers tell and how the students understand and reproduce this information. Therefore, I will gather data through three different methods:

- Surveys among the primary school students in the form of a history-test on the Bosnian War 1992-1995.

- A content and discourse analysis of the chapters on the Bosnian War 1992-1995 in the used history books.

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3.1 Surveys (SEE APPENDIX B)

As the students learn about the Bosnian War 1992-1995 in year 9, I have created a ‘survey’ in the form of a history test on the Bosnian War 1992-1995. The history test is one general test that will be produced to all students from year 9 from all three cases. The test is composed of open questions, consisting of questions about the facts of the Bosnian War, and questions that are more subjective to measure the ethnonationalist feelings of the students as well.

The test will be made available in both the Latin and Cyrillic alphabet. The students may choose in which language and alphabet they wish to answer.

Afterwards I will check objective questions compared to my control variable: the history of the war as described by Muhamed Filipovic in his book “Pitanje Odgovornosti za rat u Bosni

i Hercegovini 1992- 1996 godine” (The question of responsibility for the war in Bosnia and

Herzegovina 1992- 1996). I am well aware that it is hard to find an objective history of the Bosnian War. However, Filipovic analyses the responsibility of multiple countries and how they contributed to the war in a critical and structured way. In my opinion, neutral answers neither favour nor disfavour any of the ethnicities in Bosnia and Herzegovina and mention critical points in the history of the Bosnian War. Thus, when certain events are not mentioned, it will also be considered as a distortion. Therefore, certain chapters of Filipovic his book will serve as a control variable.

For every question, whether it was objective or subjective, I will create 4 categories to sort out the data gathered:

- The given answer inclines Bosniak ethnonationalist influence. - The given answer inclines Serb ethnonationalist influence. - The given answer inclines Croatian ethnonationalist influence. - The given answer is neutral.

Within these categories, again, two separate categories will be created:

- The student answered according to the history that has been taught at his or her primary school.

- The student did not answer according to the history that has been taught at his or her primary school.

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To be able to separate the answers in these two categories, a content and discourse analysis of the history books and interviews with the teachers are necessary, in order to find out what is exactly taught.

3.2 Content and Discourse Analysis

The second method I will use is content and discourse analysis of the chapter on the Bosnian War 1992-1995 in the history books the schools use. Again, I will compare the history that is taught in these books with the history of the war and the responsibility of the war as written by Muhamed Filipovic. The information that is gathered will be linked to the place of publication of these books and to the answers that the students have given on the history test. For each fact, points will be given where 0 points means the history taught is neither favouring nor disfavouring any of the ethnicities. When a fact is distorted, it will receive 1 point. For each book, the points will be added to a final sum. The higher the sum, the more facts have been distorted in the book. Each fact that has been distorted will be analysed to see whether the distortion is in favour of the ethnonationality that the school belongs to or not.

3.3 Interviews with the Teachers and Directors.

The final method to gather data is interviews with the teachers and directors. In these open interviews, I will ask open questions on how they teach the history, how the students react and whether they perceive certain information as distorted. The second part of questions will be on parts of the history books that have been rather subjective. I will ask whether these teachers are aware of this distortion and how they communicate this information to the class. These interviews mainly serve for a better insight in the students’ responses on the history test. For each case, I will conduct an open interview with two people: both the history teacher of year 9 and the (assistant) director of the school.

3.4 Unit of Analysis and Unit of Observation

In this research, the unit of analysis is the primary schools in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The unit of observation are the students, teachers and history books from primary school (year 9)

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in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Year 9 specifically because that is the year when students are taught about the Bosnian War 1992- 1995.

3.5 Conceptualization and Operationalization

Ethnonational education system – an education system of either Bosniaks, Bosnian Croats or Bosnian Serbs that manifests nationalism toward their own ethnicity through a mono-ethnic curriculum favouring their own cultural and group rights.

Indicators:

- The language of instruction of the school and the alphabet used in the school (Latin or Cyrillic alphabet).

- The holidays favoured and celebrated by the school.

- The place of publication of the history books (e.g. Istorija, published in Belgrade, used by schools in the Serb Republic (Torsti, 2007)).

For each school, the separate indicators of an ethnonational education system will be discussed.

“Two schools under one roof”- This is an administratively unified school with two separate curricula. There is a unified management, while preserving ethnic segregation and segmental autonomy for the separate ethnonationalisms (Hromadzic, 2008).

3.6 The Cases

As already mentioned before, Bosnia and Herzegovina has a complex legal system when it comes to their education (Russo, 2000). In the Serb Republic all schools conform to one system and curriculum on the level of the entity, where the Minister of Education has the most influence. The system in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina is more complicated as the decisions about education have been taken down a level and are made on the level of the canton (Russo, 2000). However, according to Besim Dzanovic, director of the primary school in Tesanjka, even within cantons with a significant number of people from the other ethnonationality (whether Bosniak or Croat), schools have chosen to take the regulation of the school down for one more level to the level of the municipality. On this level, the municipality mayor functions as the prime minister and the head of social activities functions

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as a ministry of education. Often these heads of social activities have no connection to or background in education (Dzanovic, personal communication, 26 April 2018). In total I have contacted nine different schools that were all willing to participate in this research. What surprised me was that smaller schools both in the Serb Republic and in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina did not require approval of the ministries of Education. Bigger schools in the Serb Republic and schools in larger cantons in the Federation required an approval by the ministry of Education (Serb Republic) or ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports of the particular canton (Federation of BiH). Unfortunately, after keeping me in suspense for two months and multiple official applications, both ministries declined because they were “too afraid” of the sensitive content about both the war and ethnonationalism in general. The applications have been declined on the basis of “not contributing to the improvement of the educational system in Bosnia and Herzegovina” for five of the nine schools I have contacted. The four remaining schools, that did not require an approval of the ministries, were happy to participate as they were convinced it would improve their reputation if they allowed the research to be conducted. As Besim Dzanovic, director of the primary school in Tesanjka, said: “if our educational system cannot be on the level of Europe, the least European thing we can do is be European in our mind-set and allow for research” (personal communication, 26 April 2018).

The schools that agreed to participate are primary school “Kulin Ban” in Tesanjka, “21. Mart” in Matuzici, “Ivana fra Frane Jukica” in Zabljak and “Milan Rakic” in Kotorsko. All four schools are located in villages in a radius of 11 kilometres around one bigger city: Doboj. The geographic location of these schools is shown in figure 5. There are clear borders between these four schools that are located not far away from each other: these borders are visible but also tangible through the conversations with the directors and teachers. In the region there is a clear line dividing the Serb Republic and the Federation of BiH and simultaneously a line dividing the Croat Canton of Usora from the other Bosniak Cantons surrounding Usora. The primary school in Kotorsko is located in the Serb Republic, the primary school of Zabljak is located in the Usora Canton and the primary schools of Matuzici and Tesanjka are located in the Bosniak Cantons surrounding Usora Canton.

Primary School in Matuzici

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is a mono-ethnic Bosniak school with the majority of the students Bosniaks and only two Croats attending the school. Mrs Halilovic told me that she finds it unnecessary for the children to be taught about the war and that the war is too recent to be discussed in history class (personal communication, 26 April 2018). She mentioned that a few years ago they did try to introduce the war to the children of year 9 by showing them a movie about the war. Half of the class was laughing nervously while the other half was crying. Therefore the school immediately decided not to teach about the war anymore. When students do come with questions about the war, Mrs Halilovic refuses to answer. As this research is focused on what the children learn about the war and the primary school in Matuzici refuses to teach about the war, this school does not meet the requirements for this research. Therefore, the research itself will only include the primary schools in Tesanjka, Zabljak and Kotorsko.

3.7 Number of Respondents

For the case of the primary school in Tesanjka, I have interviewed the history teacher of year 9 and the director of the school together. In total, 25 children received the survey and all 25 students were willing to respond. In the primary school in Zabljak I have held separate interviews with the history teacher of year 9 and the assistant director of the school. In Zabljak 12 students of year 9 received the survey. However, one of the students refused to answer any question (except for the eighth question, where he said that everybody loses in war), as his opinion was that we should not talk about the war anymore and we should only look forward. Finally, for the case of the primary school in Kotorsko I conducted separate interviews with the history teacher of year 9 and the director of the school. The survey was handed to 14 students of year 9 and all of the students were willing to participate.

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4. THE CURRENT BOSNIAN EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, children start attending primary school from the age of six. As there is a relatively small number of kindergartens in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the majority of the children is not familiar with any pre-school knowledge and has spent most of its time at home, moulded by their families and direct surrounding. The primary school lasts for nine years so most of the children are at the age of 15 when they finish primary school. At the end of year nine the children have an external evaluation for two subjects: Croatian/Bosnian/Serb language and mathematics. This external evaluation determines which secondary schools the children can apply to. Secondary schools are either general (gymnasium) or vocational (economic secondary school, technical secondary school) and last either three or four years (Pasalic, personal communication, 27 April 2018).

In general, the Bosnian education system already has flaws concerning outdated teaching and learning methods, extensive curricula and untrained and underpaid educators (Bozic, 2006, p. 326). These problems are evident in both the Serb Republic and the Bosniak-Croat Federation.

Since the beginning of the war in the 1992, the Bosnian educational system moved away from a centralized Yugoslav system and curriculum to a system with more pronounced differentiations (Swimelar, 2013). Based on the majority in a certain region, it was decided who could attend classes, which language of instruction would be used and which subjects would be included in the curriculum (Russo, 2000).

Post-war Bosnian education has become politicized, fragmented and ethnonationalist feelings have become central to this system (Russo, 2000; Bozic ́, 2006; Nellis, 2006; Clark, 2010). Both entities in BiH have designed their education systems in different ways. Where the Serb Republic has adopted a centralized education system with the Minister of Education on the entity-level having most influence, the Bosniak-Croat Federation has a much more decentralized education system where the cantons of the federation create education-policy (Russo, 2000). The legal status of education in BiH is even more complicated with a complex relationship between at least six legal systems (Russo, 2000). The educators and policymakers must take into account the legal systems of BiH as a whole, the entity level system (Federation or Serb Republic), the system of the former Republic of BiH, the system of the

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former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and the system of the Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosna (Russo, 2000).

Bozic argues that the current education system of BiH exhibits three types of systematic segregation: ‘(1) “two schools under one roof”, (2) busing children into monoethnic schools, (3) teaching of so called “national subjects”’ (2006, p. 326).

The phenomenon of “two schools under one roof” is a phenomenon that is only evident in the Bosniak-Croat Federation (Bozic, 2006). Because education is more decentralized in the federation than in the Serb Republic, this has resulted in this very physical segregation (Bozic, 2006). In these “two schools under one roof”, the Bosniak and Bosnian Croat students and teachers are segregated both psychologically and physically (Bozic, 2006, p. 328). Even though these schools are located in the same building, they have separated legal identities, administrations, school boards, school directors and teacher’s rooms (Bozic, 2006, p. 328). The students of the different ethnonationalities do not engage in any contact as they often have either different shifts or separate entrances to the building (see figure 4) (Bozic, 2006).

Figure 4: “Two schools under one roof” in Travnik. The Bosniak students enter through the door on the left, the Bosnian Croat students through the door on the right. There is a fence in between the two entrances.

Source: https://politicalviolenceataglance.org/2017/03/14/bosnia-and-herzegovina-two-decades-after-dayton/

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are 32 of these schools left (see figure 5) (Diskriminacija, 09 June 2017). Even in schools where unification did happen, the Bosniak students and Bosnian Croat students still follow different curricula and use different schoolbooks, with separate classes and teachers from their own ethnonationality (Bozic, 2006, p. 329).

There are more than three different curricula: within the Bosniak-Croat Federation there are already a few different curricula: one issued by the Minister of Education of the Federation and other curricula offered by the individual cantons. The Serb Republic and Brcko District have their own separate curricula. Brcko District has the only curriculum in BiH that does not show any particular nationalist orientation (Palmberger, 2016).

In principle, the children are allowed to enter every school. However, as schools and curricula are ethnically biased, the children from the minority ethnonationality are expected to accept the ethnonational bias of the school (Palmberger, 2016, p. 94). For a child to attend the school of another ethnonationality is often out of either practical considerations or due to the reputation of the school (Palmberger, 2016).

Figure 5: Locations of all “two schools under one roof” in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

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Another way to segregate the students is through the creation of mono-ethnic schools. This type of segregation is not only visible in the Bosniak-Croat Federation, but in the Serb Republic as well (Bozic, 2006). Even though these schools generate segregation, they offer a friendlier environment for the students and pupils than the entrances separated by a fence in the previous system. These mono-ethnic schools with mono-ethnic curricula are mostly present in mono-ethnic areas (Swimelar, 2013). In addition to these mono-ethnic curricula, history books from Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian Croats are often imported from Croatia or Serbia, providing a non-Bosnian perspective (Swimelar, 2013, p. 171). These curricula privilege subnational ethnonational identities and prefer those to a stable state (Swimelar, 2013).

The final way to systematically segregate students is by the introduction of the so-called “national subjects”. These subjects have been introduced through the right of minority groups to be educated in their mother tongue and according to their cultural and religious beliefs (Bozic, 2006, p. 330). Normally this would translate in minority students attending classes of both the majority and the classes of their minority. However, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, this has resulted in complete autonomy in all educational matters, resulting in the minority students only attending their national subjects, disregarding the national subjects of the majority (Bozic, 2006, p. 330). Even though some of these national subjects such as geography tend to favor harmonization, other national subjects such as history and language only intensify the segregation (Bozic, 2006, p. 331). Thus in this system, “general” subjects are taught according to the local curriculum, and “national” subjects are taught separately (Bozic, 2006).

As Pasalic-Kreso argues, "education is often abused in practice, giving students different interpretations of the same facts," and "often schools divide students on the basis of their ethnic identity, language and religion" (Pasalic-Kreso, 1999, p. 7 as quoted in Islamovic & Blazevic, 2014, p. 56).

In high school and higher educational systems, on the institutional level, ethnic separation is less of an issue (NDC, 2012). All eight universities in Bosnia and Herzegovina are ethnically mixed with students coming from across the country. There are exceptions such as the Dzemal Bijedic University in East Mostar, which is considered a Bosniak University, and the

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coming from segregated communities and schools, children are shocked when they enter university (NDC, 2012).

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5. ETHNONATIONALIST INFLUENCE IN WHAT IS

WRITTEN, SAID AND HEARD

5.1.1 Primary School “Kulin Ban”, Tesanjka

The primary school “Kulin Ban” in Tesanjka was originally founded in 1909. From 1967, when the school became renewed, the school was called primary school “Nikola Matkovic- Kolja”. However in 1991 the assembly of the municipality of the Tesanj Canton decided to rename the school “Kulin Ban”, after the ban that ruled Bosnia between 1180 and 1204, one of Bosnia’s most impressive rulers (Ljevakovic, 2009). Until and during the Bosnian War the school was a mixed school that was attended by both Bosniak and Croat students. After the end of the war, in 1996, the school became known as a “sator skola” (tent school), because the Croat children refused to have any lectures with the Bosniak children and therefore had class in a tent in the schoolyard (Dzanovic, personal communication, 26 April 2018). Afterwards, the Croat children returned to the school and the school functioned under the system of “two schools under one roof” until 2008. In 2008, the Croat children left to a newly created Croat primary school in the Usora Canton (Mulalic, personal communication, 26 April 2018). Even though a few of the Croat parents decided to leave their children in the school in Tesanjka in the beginning, the pressure of the religious leaders on the parents to segregate the children became too high (Dzanovic, personal communication, 26 April 2018).

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Nowadays, “Kulin Ban” in Tesanjka is a mono-ethnic Bosniak primary school. The school favours Islamic holidays such as Eid. The alphabet of instruction is the Latin alphabet, but the children do start learning the Cyrillic alphabet in year 3.

At the end of year 9, one hour is spent on the secession of the SFRY and one hour is spent on the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. All children in year 9 identify themselves as Bosniaks.

5.1.2 History as written in the schoolbooks

The history book that is used in year 9 in Tesanjka is called “Historija, udzbenik za deveti razred devetogodisnje osnovne skole” (History, textbook for year 9 of nine-year primary schools). Immediately, the word “historija” stands out, as historija is the typical Bosniak word for history, while “istorija” is used by the Serbs and “povijest” by the Croats. The book is written in the Latin alphabet, “Bosnian” language and produced in Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina. At the end of the book there is one chapter on “the fall of the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia” and one on “the period of war and post-war period in Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1992 and 2000”, and the history lectures in Kulin Ban primary school are created accordingly.

In these chapters, a Bosniak ethnonational influence is definitely visible. An example is when they write about an embargo that the UN placed on the import of weapons on the 25th of September 1991. According to the book, this embargo only denied BiH the right on weapons as the other Yugoslavian countries remained receiving weapons of non-Yugoslavian countries (Sabotic & Cehajlic, 2010). This passage already victimizes BiH, even before the war officially had started.

Another example of Bosniak ethnonational influence is a few sentences away, when the moment “Arkan’s tigers” occupied the city of Bijeljina on 1 April 1992, is considered as the beginning of the war operations. Arkan’s tigers were paramilitary forces responsible for ethnic cleansing under the command of Serbian criminal Zeljko (Arkan) Raznatovic (Toal & Dahlman, 2011, p. 113).

There are pictures of starved Bosniak men in concentration camps that have been created by both the Serbs and the Croats, who turned against the Bosniaks later on. There is a big focus on the removal of non-Serb populations together with their cultural, religious and historical markings in an effort to wipe out their national identity.

The textbook is rather critical of the role of the UN, as they write that BiH demanded a military intervention from the beginning of the war but instead received a non-military

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mission of UNPROFOR in order to create safe zones. The next sentence is very sarcastic, as it concludes “how safe these zones actually were has been proved by the incidents in 1995” (Sabotic & Cehaljic, 2010, p. 186). The book explicitly mentions the genocide in Srebrenica and that it has been confirmed by the International Court to be the biggest genocide in Europe since World War II (Sabotic & Cehajlic, 2010). Also, the post-war period is mentioned were BiH is obliged to cooperate with the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia and where many efforts are made to create a new flag and new symbols that represent all of Bosnia’s people (Sabotic & Cehajlic, 2010). Also, the shelling of Sarajevo in 1995 and the attack on Tuzla on the 25th of May 1995, which were both registered as “safe zones”, have been mentioned in this rather sarcastic passage about the influence of UNPROFOR (Sabotic & Cehajlic, 2010).

After analysing all episodes that have been mentioned in this textbook, it is hard to say what is distorted. All facts that have been mentioned indeed happened during the war. However, all these facts are strictly from a Bosniak perspective and leave out a lot of information from the other ethnicities and how the war had affected them. The textbook describes the Bosniaks and Bosnia and Herzegovina as the biggest victims of war. Again, the facts they use to ground their arguments indeed happened. One episode that can be viewed as a distorted fact is when the textbook mentions that the war started when “Arkan’s tigers” occupied Bijeljina, because the beginning of the war is most often said to be the 6th of April 1992, when Bosnia and Herzegovina was recognized as an independent state (Filipovic, 2002). Even though the recognition of BiH is mentioned two sentences later on and is also seen as a reason for the Bosnian War, the surveys with the children in class have shown that 64% of the students viewed Arkan’s tigers occupying Bijeljina as the beginning of the Bosnian War. As I arrange points to the books for every fact that has been distorted, this book only receives 1 point. However, we have to keep in mind that this book shows a strong Bosniak influence.

5.1.3 History as produced by the students

The survey I have given to the students of all schools is in the form of a history test consisting out of eight questions. The first five questions are mentioned most of the time in the textbooks, while the last three questions are very subjective and measure the ethnonationalist feelings of the children. The students of the primary school in Tesanjka did not mind whether

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written in the Latin alphabet, they decided to complete the survey in the same alphabet. I have worked out every question according to the answers that have been given by the class. For each answer that had been provided, I have calculated the percentage of the class that has given that particular answer and established whether any ethnonationalist influence is visible in the given answer. For some of the questions students were able to write down multiple answers. The answers to the questions are presented below.

1. When did the war start in Bosnia and Herzegovina?

Given answers Percentage of students Ethnonationalist influence

1 April 1992 48% Bosniak influence

6 April 1992 36% Neutral

The year 1992 16% Neutral

All answers that have been given could have been found in the textbook they use. Both the 1st of April and the 6th of April 1992 have been mentioned as the beginning of the war in BiH. The children that have mentioned the 1st of April 1992 show a Bosniak influence, while the children that have mentioned the 6th of April or simply the year 1992 show a more neutral influence, as the 6th of April 1992 has been marked as the official start of the war in BiH (Filipovic, 2002).

2. How did the war start in Bosnia and Herzegovina?

When “Arkanovci” (Arkan’s Tigers- Serb Volunteer guard) occupied the city Bijeljina

64% Bosniak influence

Because the Yugoslav National Army started mobilizing the army and only the Serbs responded to this mobilization

When the Yugoslav National Army together with the Serbian

Democratic party of Radovan Karadzic attacked Sarajevo

Because of multiple conflicts and incidents leading up to the war

8% Neutral

As a consequence of BiH’s independence

8% Neutral

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Again, all of these answers have been mentioned in the textbook the students use. In total, 76% of the students have written down an answer that represents a Bosniak influence on their perception of history, while only 16% of the class mentioned more neutral answers without a direct blame on the Serbs.

3. Which countries have helped Bosnia and Herzegovina during the war? (The students could have given multiple answers)

Germany 96%

Netherlands 80%

Italy 68%

‘Arab countries’ 48% Bosniak influence

Croatia 44% Croat influence

Switzerland 44%

Turkey 32% Bosniak influence

Austria 24%

Sweden 8%

United States of America 8%

France 4%

Belgium 4%

From the textbook students could have concluded that the Netherlands has helped through the creation of the ICTY or that the USA has helped with the Dayton Peace Agreements. The answers provided by the children show an influence beyond the textbook, where many countries can be considered as neutral answers. Many students did elaborate by saying that the countries they had written down accepted many refugees from Bosnia and Herzegovina.

4. In what way did the UN contribute to the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina? (Multiple answers could have been given)

By providing humanitarian help

52% Neutral

By sending weapons 4% Neutral

By placing an embargo on the import of weapons

36% Neutral

UN contributed negatively because the embargo only had effects on BiH – other countries still received weapons

By creating safe zones 8% Neutral

By creating international cooperation

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Not answered 8% -

Except for the answers ‘by sending weapons’ and ‘creating international cooperation’, all answers could have been found in the textbook. 4% of the class directly blamed the UN for the negative effects of the embargo. Even though the textbook was rather sarcastic about the safe zones created by UNPROFOR, 8% of the class did mention the safe zones as a

contribution by the UN.

5. What was the aim of the Dayton Peace Agreements? (Multiple answers could have been given)

To end the war 92% Neutral

To divide Bosnia and Herzegovina and to divide the people

The division of Bosnia and the end of the war have both been mentioned in the textbook. However, the division of BiH and the people shows a rather ethnonationalist influence, as Bosniaks did not want BiH to be divided in separate entities. Division was only the goal of Serbia and Croatia (Filipovic, 2002).

6. According to you, could the war have ended in a different way? How? (Multiple answers could have been given)

No 56% Neutral

Yes (without specifying) 8% Neutral

By expelling the Serbs from BiH

The war could have ended much worse  all Muslims could have been killed

War could have ended through an agreement with less violence

20% Neutral

Both the presidents and the citizens could have put in more efforts to understand each other

4% Neutral