Between 16 and 17 March, the Centre for European Perspective hosted a Meeting on Intercultural Dialogue in the Western Balkans. The main aim of the meeting was to formulate concrete suggestions and strategies for future activities in this field in the Western Balkans with the emphasis on education and media.Among CEP Task Force members, the meeting was attended by Raisu-l-Ulama of the Islamic community in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Dr Mustafa Cerić, the Chairman of Muslim Council for Religious and Racial Harmony in UK (MCRRH), Imam Dr Abduljalil Sajid, Junior Researcher at the Institute of Social Sciences Ivo Pilar Zagreb, Ms Marija Šerić and the professors at the Faculty of Theology of the Ljubljana University Dr Janez Juhant and Dr Bojan Žalec. Dr Žalec also acts as a Task Force coordinator. The president of the CEP Executive Board Dr Dimitrij Rupel and member of the CEP Executive Board Dr Andrej Rahten also took part at the meeting. The participants addressed the questions of intercultural dialogue in the Western Balkans and formulation of concrete strategies for its improvement. Special emphasis was devoted to the role of education and media, therefore the experts in the field also joined the Task Force members at the meeting, namely the president of the Euro-Mediterranean University Dr Joseph Mifsud as well as the representatives of the Gallup Institute from Brussels. In the second part of the meeting, media representatives and experts from Slovenia and the Western Balkan countries also joined the discussion.
Dr Dimitrij Rupel stressed that Slovenia presided over the European Union in the first half of the 2008 and put the question of intercultural dialogue high on its agenda of priorities. For that reason the Centre for European Perspective constituted the Task Force. He believes that many countries have been hurt by the lack of lack of dialogue and understanding. Finding common interest, common ground, cooperation and dialogue is therefore particularly important. He added that we should rather speak of cultural instead of intercultural dialogue because it is the people who are trying to cultivate dialogue, differences and diversity. He added that one of the leading ideas of the Lisbon treaty is the unity in diversity. People have to live in diversity and have to respect and cherish it. In his opinion this is not possible by reducing cultures to something simple since cultures are extremely complex organisms. Dr Rupel thinks that Task Force is on the right track by aiming to discuss culture and diversity of cultures.
Raisu-l-Ulama of the Islamic community, Dr Mustafa Cerić continued that CEP's mission in the field of intercultural dialogue is highly valuable and expressed its support to CEP's project with the gymnasiums from Bosnia and Herzegovina in the field of educational reform. He said that European Union is based on the idea of unity in diversity, whereas Bosnia and Herzegovina represents a micro-world in the macro-European diversity. It is therefore highly important that Europe understands that Bosnian success is also European success, whereas it will also be a European failure if the country remains entrenched in its religious, cultural and ethnic differences in the future. He believes BiH should do its homework, whereas EU should fulfil its moral and political duties at supporting BiH to keep its multiethnic tradition. He also stressed that people should try to formulate or articulate the common ground and not only to talk about multi-cultural but to act.
Mr Mato Zovkić, Vicar for Relations with Other Faith Communities at the Sarajevo Archdiocese afterwards stressed that support to Bosnia and Herzegovina is highly appreciated, especially with the aim of forming schools and universities, which people could attend without being endangered because of their ethnic identity or their culture. He believes that school curriculum should contribute to building up a pluralistic civil society. In his opinion it will take time to achieve that, but without assistance of the persons of good will and institutions, it cannot be achieved by themselves.
Representing the Gallup Europe, Mr Andrzej Pyrka presented the results of the Gallup Balkan Monitor. Between 80 and 90% of people in all Western Balkan countries believe that free movement of people and more cooperation is needed for more peace and development in the region. Additionally, between 40 and 60% want stronger ties between the countries of the region. However, over the past two years people expressed they feel more and more alienated from each other as well as less similar to each other. Pyrka therefore stressed that it is the right time for such initiatives as this meeting and further activities in this field.
Slovenian mufti, Dr Nedžad Grabus stressed that CEP can play a very important role among the different nations of Bosnia and Herzegovina, especially in the field of education. He also noted that in BiH religion plays bigger role than in other countries since is also the question of identity and historical background. Dr Joseph Mifsud, President of the Euromediterranean University (Emuni), spoke about the aim of education for mutual understanding. This represents a big area in which the EMUNI University will be investing quite a lot of effort. His university is doing quite a lot of work in terms of trying to bring people together within the Union for the Mediterranean. He also stressed the importance of cultural proximity.
Dr Imam Sajid spoke about the importance of cooperation and trust as well as how we can teach each other and learn from each other. He thinks that the problem of the society of today is the lack of trust and confidence, sometimes also the lack of opportunities, which results in the lack of hope for young people. If young people have no hope, there will be no future in terms of the economic growth and respect for each other.
CEP's Programme Director, Ms Andreja Dolničar Jeraj explained that CEP would like to include the Task Force members as well as other participants of the meeting in CEP's future activities. In November 2008 CEP gathered more than 20 directors of gymnasiums from BiH for the seminar 'Intercultural Dialogue in Education'. They conveyed the message that schools of different ethnic origins do not have opportunities within the Bosnian education system to cooperate and work together in a systematic way. With the idea of organising a Competition "Intercultural Challenge" (Call for project proposals, which would successfully promote intercultural dialogue in Bosnia and Herzegovina among young), CEP will promote the importance of cooperation among them and serve as a good example how the state education system could follow this idea and make the system more sustainable.
