Most of the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina support reconciliation and confidence building in the country and at the same time they believe that national and religious identity are not an obstacle to the process. The most important role in this process would have the education system. Most citizens in the country are ready to hear the truth about the crimes committed, however, to members of different ethnic groups is difficult to reconcile with accepting responsibility for crimes committed by individuals of their ethnic groups. In the process of reconciliation in BiH, as well as in countries in the region, the best results can produce young people, and most of them can not even remember the last war.
About he process of reconciliation and dealing with the past in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the region, is spoken for many years, however, this process is slow and difficult. Last scientific researches suggest that victimization is one of the biggest obstacles, and that, although willing to hear about the crimes committed, it is hard to reconcile citizens with accepting responsibility. It is very important to create one history of crimes that have occurred and to present it to young people through what happened in the past. It is also very important to teach young people that they can achieve a future without war crimes, and crimes in general and create one better prospects for advancement, education, and not to return to the crimes of the past.Most of the discussion indicate that it is important to establish the facts, it is important to emphasize that the crimes were committed on all sides and to stop putting more emphasis only on the victimization of one nation, than to try to look at the facts which are related to the crimes, and to establish the facts and talk about these facts in all countries. Most young people in the country who were born at the beginning and during the war knew nothing about this period. And many are not interested. But young people have to understand the past in order to understand what should be their future activities so their future generations could never experience war again.
Reconciliation is a process from which depends the future of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Today in Bosnia and Herzegovina there is coexistence between ethnic groups, while we are still far from a true reconciliation. Of course, we should not be unrealistic and proclaim the current coexistence as a failure, but that does not mean that we should stop on this point. Religion can be a very powerful weapon in the reconciliation process in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Christianity and Islam are transnational religions that promote universal human values eg. justice, love and forgiveness. The promotion of such values by religious dignitaries would help the process of reconciliation between ethnic groups in the country.Of course, when you have religious institutions that are trapped in their “ethnic folds” then religion becomes divisive, not reconciliation. And at the end there are media that can have a big impact on the reconciliation process in Bosnia and Herzegovina. They create public opinion, or at least it should work that way. On the one hand, the media are the ones who need to, through one critically and objectively review,present what was happening in the war and to put pressure on thegovernment and judiciary to devote more attention to this topic. Also, the media are the ones who need to review the work of local politicians and for the sake of justice and truth indicate their mistakes and failures, to indicate the language of hatred and intolerance, and finally the media is the one who should promote those values that will make our society a better and more humane one. Of course if we assume that we have free and objective media, which most of the media in Bosnia and Herzegovina are not.
Understandings of scientists on ways for arriving at reconciliation among groups is still poorly developed. The stakes are high, but, fortunately, we have never been better equipped to deal with these challenges thanks to knowledge, but even more due to the existence of a large number of people who are dedicated to this goal. It is in the interest of all to be successful in this, as in Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as in many other regions around the world who scattered heavy legacy of conflict. There are many very complicated nodes that must be untangled. Ordinary people need to be more proactive because they have no trust in anyone else but in theirselves. The external world has many problems and may possibly intervene only when there is a lower cruel murder. To improve the welfare of their own lives everyone must fight for themselves. It is important that most of the people understand that respect, agreement and tolerance towards others are not some abstract ideas of those who want to give up their own identity, but that is the path to a better quality of life for themselves.
