In the second part of the program about reconciliation, the Youth Reconciliation Ambassadors visited Bosnia and Herzegovina OSCE Mission in Sarajevo. In a very calm and relaxed atmosphere, we had the opportunity to talk with Ambassador Fletcher M. Burton, the head of mission. My question was, can Bosnia and Herzegovina and the region become functional without reconciliation? Ambassador Burton gave me a positive answer. He said that the functional state without reconciliation is possible, but not recommended. For example, he mentioned Switzerland, one of the most functional states, but consists of separation in almost every level of society. In his opinion, even if we can get a functional state and probably positive feedback about activities and it’s citizens, that still wouldn’t be a healthy way of living. People shouldn’t be so separated from each other.
Even if it sounds like a crazy idea to compare Bosnia and Herzegovina and the problems we have in the region with Switzerland, I think it is a good idea. If in this moment we have nothing, then maybe we should work on functionality first. Maybe if we could get a functional state, reconciliation and healthy way of living would be a spontaneous consequence.
Of course, at this point it sounds so utopian because everyday we can see unhealthy people who live unhealthy lives in most likely a non functional society surrounded by the same other people with the same problems. All incapable to deal with a system like this.
And this leads me to this question, how we can even consider reconciliation in a higher level if the citizens now are without the basic things for everyday living? Why should we even talk about it when on every step we still can see the things which remind us about a terrible war that happened two decades ago? Two decades sounds like many years, but for a historical change that is just a drop and maybe it is still early for important changes. In Bosnia and Herzegovina we still have a big number of war crimes without a trial, we have a huge number of missing people. No one knows how many mass grave we have. Not to mention the religious monuments built on so illogical and delicate locations that provoke destruction. How we can talk about reconciliation when Bosnia and Herzegovina has divided schools where our teachers teach a non functional system and educate our children that they are different and they should be educated in a different way, because the system is not worth while for everyone. We take the number of people who have stress related mental disorder, because of what happened in the war, and our health system has no way to handle that. The numbers of infected cases of PTSD is difficult to estimate because the law is recognized only to the people whom the diagnosis is made by 1997th year. And finally, how we can talk about reconciliation when two decades after the war ended, we didn’t change one sentence from Dayton agreement and we still live in separated entities and how, in the name of God, do we talk about reconciliation when two decades after, in our political elite we still have the same people who were involved in war policy in this or that way?
But despite everything, we still try to be reconciled with hope that through that we can get a better life? Why do we strongly believe in that, when we can just work on EU integration process and wait for things to start getting better through that?
Sometimes I think that the attraction of the subject actually what sells it, even more than the essence of the idea. In some moment I wonder why should I try to reconcile with people who were the main actors in the events that took place when I was a child. Is it fair to put such a burden on the back of a young man, and expect him not just to fix what someone successfully destroy, but to reconcile with those people? Today everyone expects from young people to have an idea about strengthening institution which are the most clear and most obvious proof of nepotism. Or how to improve our educated system which is under the influence, not just political parties but also the religious institutions, and full of corrupt teachers with questionable morals. And then I ask myself, how anyone could expect from their children who grew up with such examples in such circumstances, to become a person with the ability to use their whole capacity for a functional life.
In one moment, I realized that there something is wrong with the young people in the region, because when I look around, I see young people which work on themselves, for their community, for their states, for reconciliation, for future and for region. I see people who volunteer for their inner satisfaction, because they believe it can be better. Young people move abroad for a better life, trying to help their family and community with money and different kinds of support. Or young people in the government and the nongovernmental sector which advocate for the different laws through the different platforms. I see young people who don’t care about national identity, or someone’s name, or religion. Those are young people which can provoke the change in this region. And then I ask myself, what was going on in the approach that in the end, everything turned out so well? It seems that the part of society who voted for collapse of Yugoslavia (which they never will get over), others who started the war and those who lead this country for the last twenty years are so ineffective that they can’t even apply the method for raising nonfunctional future generations.
Luckily, that is the reason why we have at least one section of the productive society and to tell the truth, that which the rest of our society is not favorable. For them, this occurrence is actually a product with mistakes, totally socially undesirable to the point to even consider someone like that to count on. Society does not care for that part, and that is the main reason why they can survive. Unfortunately, the fact is that all young people are not like that and that we have a certain part of youth well inclined to promote national political sides without any question or criticism toward the same, who inclined to think on the socially desirable way, to vote for money, who negate victims and celebrate executioners like heroes, who use a religion for a speech of hate, who offend another’s pain and debase their sacrifice. And those are the people who, in many cases, get good jobs or a promotion or even a higher salary or the places in institutions where in normal circumstances, you should work ten years to deserve it. They are the products which are destined to fall together with the system eventually. They are horses on Orwell’s Animal farm that end up being used and eaten.
After all, I wonder to myself what is my path? Where I will end up? What is my contribution on reconciliation and why do I need it? I can start from my beliefs in human beings, so I choose to believe in a future generation, the children of those with mistakes, with hopes that my generation will tell to their children that even if they must go in a divided school, they don’t have to be the victims of that separation, that if they work and study for twenty years on the massive grave or about all the missing people from this war, it is far better than to create another war. Even if they will live in a non functional state where it is normal for a random client to become a victim of PMS the counter worker, they will be well behaved and not hit her or yell at her. And if they will live in a separated country, they will always have a Srebrenica to remind them what they will get if they allow someone else to think instead of them. And only if my generation sends out a message about the suffering and message of love, forgiveness and common sense to the future generation, we can expect that we won’t have another Srebrenica, Jasenovac or Auschwitz.
And for now, some of us can admire our parents, rare and unusual for the time we live, because they stayed dignified in the time when everything around them was absurdly when the madness became a leading voice. Through them we can see how to stay strong, and there is always a choice. The choice that children can be raised for love or for hate, for capital or for humanity. The children can be taught that everything has a price or be taught about existence for the things in which can’t be sold. Or bought. And that is worth fighting for your children with these mistakes… because even if they are not perfect or socially desirable in this place, they are so unique that they will never pass unnoticed.
