Media Campaign Against Revision of Textbooks

Who is Against Multiethnicity?

AIM Srajevo, 9 November, 1998

The hue and cry of the media controlled by Izetbegovic's Party of Democratic Action (SDA) against revision of the textbooks made during the war in the part of the fedaration influenced by the said party and the said media, have turned into the hue and cry against Sarajevo Declaration, against the spirit and the letter of Dayton agreements, against the very foundations of multiethnic B&H which the Bosniac policy, now it has become clear, hypocritically swore by.

In the lack of courage to admit to itself and others that it wishes to see B&H divided and all the power on its part (instead of Izetbegovic's shared power on the whole territory), the SDA, every now and then questions everything that might lead to integration of B&H. In other words, Bosniac authorities follow closely in the steps of their coalition partners, and at the same time hypocritically point their finger at them. They tell the international community what it likes to hear, make promises and sign documents, but in practice do just the opposite, and in fact support the Croat Democratic Community (HDZ) the Serb Democratic Party (SDS) and other radical forces in Republuka Srpska.

This time turn has come to school books which, like many other things in this country, needed to be put in order and amended according to the proclaimed. After amendement of the constitutions in compliance with the Dayton agreements, after establishment of the authorities, after disciplining of the army and to a certain extent the police, turn has come to the youngest population which has been completely neglected so far. Indeed, the quantity of evil, hatred, falsehood, new and old myths among the school population has multiplied, and a new generation was raised on it, which would be capable of starting a new war some day. Obviously deeply aware of that, people from the international community intended to and then started cleaning Augean stables of the B&H school system in which, instead of upbringing and education, three irreconcilable truths most frequently clashed. On such a small space, on such a blood-stained space - it is really a little too much.

The world has already experienced similar problems and found a remedy for such maladies which domestic defenders of hatred believe to be patriotism. There are no nations in Europe which have waged so many wars as the Germans and the Franch, nor is the warring experience of the Germans and the Poles better. And yet, these European neighbours have worked on their textbooks for decades, cleansing them of everythging that separates them from their neighbours, that inspires new evil and stirs up passions. This method, thoroughly tested and fruitful, is planned to be applied here under auspices of UNSECO, Council of Europe and OHR, especially and urgently because the nations in B&H are not only neighbours but have lived in the same state. The task taken over by the Office of High Representative consisted of "reading", together with local experts, the textbooks written during the war, at the time when ideology was present in all aspect of life of the society, at the time of hotheads, bloodshot eyes, under incessant shocks caused by collective and individual tragedies and hysteria we experienced. Least of all those who are nowadays raising hue and cry.

The shameful textbook of natural and social science in the part signed by Dr. Enver Imamovic which toured the world as a prototype of mythomania and propagandism is not the only example. There have been examples of falsifying history, its fabrication or adornment for daily political purposes, inventing history for those who lack it, but foisting it on children who are ten or less years old, least of all one's own, is unprecedented in history. Experts and people working in the school system who are faced every day with "undoubtful truth of adults" know what journalists from SDA media and new "patriots" do not know: that children in the fourth grade of elementary school cannot be taught even the "Petit Prince", least of all the story of genocide and aggression with pictures of the slaughetered, the massacred and the mutilated. It is not enough that these persons do not understand this problem and that they will not understand it, if ever, until their own children do not encounter these pictures, but they do not understand pedagogy, psychology, teaching methods, either, nor do they understand any of the subjects taught in schools, because they do not understand that literary, historical or linguistic categories can better be taught on a text written by Mesa Selimovic or similar prominent authors than on sentences such as: Corpses were floating down the Drina, or We were banished from our homes. Among other, should it be said, because sentences written by Mesa Selimovic contain a subject and a predicate and everything else that those who are raising hue and cry know nothing about. But do not let me weary them with grammar, perhaps they are better qualified for politics.

Dayton agreements signed, among other, by their president, does not contain the word "aggression", whatever I may think about it, but I was not the one who has signed that agreement, nor was I the one who signed sale of Posavina, or eastern Bosnia. It was their president who called the Croats to return to Vares, and the Serbs to remain in reintegrated parts of Sarajevo, or to return from Brcko to Sarajevo. As far as I remember, neither Karadzic nor Boban spoke about multiethnic and united B&H. And all these declarations are very obliging. Based on them, B&H was saved and preserved. Without them, it would never have been preserved, and without them, it will never be. But that has its price: private property, return of refugees, common textbooks, and similar. It is curious that "political journalists" do not wish Bosniac children to learn from textbooks children in Banja Luka or Livno are learning from, but wish Serb and Croat children to learn from textbooks used in Sarajevo. Double standards are not alright, but only as long as they do not refer to me - sounds well!

If there is a wish to bring-up and educate children on generosity, humaneness, ethic and aesthetic values, sentences such as "Evil-doers put knives under people's throats" will be of no help, nor can they learn the category of abbreviation only on - SDA! It is therefore clear that the task group consisting of domestic and foreign, mostly highly competent experts, completed a great and humane job: ennobling textbooks from which our children would be prepared for the future, democracy and tolerance, leaving the truth about the past war, which traumatised many, to science. Where else is such recent history taught?

There is no doubt that world power-wielders have decided to give the "leading role" in the process of integration of B&H to Sarajevo and the part of B&H controlled by the SDA because it is the capital and because the Bosniacs are the most numerous nation in B&H, but also because of their repeated declarative advocating European standards. This fact and reasons for it are so evident that it is useless to interpret them every now and then. Is not it only natural that the one who advocates democracy should blaze the trail? It seems to be clear to everyone except Bosniac Seseljs who are paid to do their job - to radicalize their electorate from time to time and produce the worst possible situation, obstructing everything agreed and signed, at a sign from a higher instance.

The culmination of hypocrisy and utter incompetence of the cantonal ministry of education is the subsequent and the delayed reaction in which it rejected recommendations of the task group for textbooks, because it had not established it. It means that for them, textbooks are unquestionable although the OHR established the task group last spring as part of the project of revision of textbooks, on a high level, of people from the Council of Europe and UNESCO, and as an obligation that resulted from the Sarajevo declaration. Not only is the cantonal ministry failing to do its job, but nor is the federal ministry doing its own, since it reacted with a delay by saying that it was in favour of deleting parts of textbooks which were irritating for other nations, but that it be done in both entities, and not only in the part of the federation with the Bosniac majority. In this way they admitted that our textbooks, like theirs, are irritating, and it is even implied that "that is exactly what we want them to be, as long as theirs are"! This is indeed a repetition of the deja vu matrix: we have killed, but so have they; we have robbed, but so have they; we banished people, but so have they; we had detention camps, but so had they... But, they also say: why are they treating us as equals?

It is very fortunate that we have the Office of the High Representative here, which will impose this on us, like everything else. It is comforting for domestic incompetent politicians that their private apologists will defend them. Nevertheless, I do not wish the children of either the ones or the others to learn from the existing textbooks, because I wish their children better than they do. Because if they are to be sacrificial lambs, as one of them pathetically said, they will become that sooner with the current textbooks than with textbooks which would be improved in the manner proposed by the task group.

Who will prevail: the independent group of competent persons from Europe and domestic forces or the group from the SDA which, according to announcements from the ministry, will be formed, will soon be known. The worst of all is the fact that pressure is being exerted on persons from the task group, that even families of some of them are threatened. Hue and cry, and lynch - nothing new! And what if we put Andric's letter written in 1920 into the textbooks? Except for children who are nowadays learning from three different kinds of textbooks, maybe journalists could recognise themselves in it, who are like servants of their respective parties, defending products of "pedagogy of hatred". This would certainly help the children of these journalists to become war reporters like their parents until recently from Bosnia with destination Zagreb.

Zeljko IVANKOVIC

(AIM, Sarajevo)