IFB - Forum International Bosnia

définition du terme de tolérance; lors d’un exercice pratique, les participants échangeront leurs réflexions et idées sur les notions de tolérance et d’intolérance
instruction sur la tolérance et l’éducation interculturelle
travail en 4 groupes sur la tolérance et les religions : judaïsme, christianisme catholique romain, christianisme orthodoxe et islam
feed-back et conclusions
moment de clôture

Objectifs
· Favoriser une plus grande conscience de la tolérance comme valeur et
· Renforcer la connaissance des principes du christianisme, de l’islam et du judaïsme qui fondent la tolérance
· Travailler en interaction pour que chaque participant puisse y contribuer activement

Manuel
Un manuel pour enseignants sur le thème tolérance et principes religieux, en langue bosniaque, sert de base; il est actuellement en traduction vers le français et sera disponible en automne 2005

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Rusmir Mahmutcehajic

est le président actuel du International Forum Bosnia.
Il est professeur à l'Université de Sarajevo.
Il a été Vice-premier et Ministre du Gouvernement de Bosnie-Herzegovine.
Ses champs d'intérêts d'étenden de l'épistomologie à la philosophie, de la religion au politique.
Il est un des quatre co-directeurs du projet international nouvelles perspectives de paix: Université d'été sur les religions et la vie publique ( avec Ivo Banac, Riccardo Panattoni et Adam B. Seligman)

Certains de ses livres ont été traduits:
1. en anglais:

Living Bosnia: Political Essays and Interviews, (Ljubljana: Oslobodenje International, 1996);
Bosnia the Good: Tolerance and Tradition (Budapest/New York: Central European University Press, 2000);
The Denial of Bosnia (Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000), Sarajevo Essays: Politics, Ideology and Tradition (New York: State University of New York Press, 2003),
Benim Guzel Bosnam (Istanbul: Gelenek yayinlar, 2004.);
Learning From Bosnia: Approaching Tradition (New York: Fordham University Press, 2005.)

2. en italien:

Una risposta Bosniaca: Modernita' e tradizione (Genova/Milano: Marietti, 2005.)

3. en français:

Une politique erronee: Lecture de l’histoire foi en la Bosnie, (Zagreb/Frankfurt: Durieux, Textor, 2005)

Ses livres, en langue originale, sont:

Živa Bosna: Politicki eseji i intervjui (Ljubljana, 1995.);
Dobra Bosna (Zagreb, 1997.);
Kriva politika: Citanje historije i povjerenje u Bosni (Tuzla/Sarajevo/Zagreb, 1998.);
Sarajevski eseji: Politika, ideologija i tradicija (Zagreb, 2000.);
Prozori: Rijeci i slike (Sarajevo, 2000.); Bosanski odgovor: O modernosti i tradiciji (Zagreb, 2002.); Subotnji zapisi: S politickih razmeda (Sarajevo, 2002.),
ljubavi (Sarajevo, 2004), Mesdžid: Srce smirenosti, (Sarajevo, 2004.)

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Mirjana Mavrak

est née le 4 février 1965 à Banja Luka en Bosnie-Herzegovine.
Elle habite actuellement à Sarajevo.
Elle est docteur en sciendes pédagogiques et travaille comme professeur assistant de pédagogie et de psychologie à l’Universitéé de Sarajevo, Faculté de Philosophie, au département de l'éducation.
Elle donne également des cours en éducation des adultes

Elle est l'auteur du livre „Manuel pour enseignants ayant dans leurs classes des enfants malades: «With heart to health» (The International Children's Institute, Sarajevo, 2003), et est co-auteur du livre „Medical Psychology with pedagogy“ (OKO, Sarajevo, 1997).

Elle a aussi édité le livre „Handbook for pupils and teachers creative and joint work“ (MDD, Sarajevo, 2002); en plus de nombreuses articles furent publiés dans des périodiques professionnels et académiques

Mirjana Mavrak est membre de la société multidisciplinaire «prévention communautaire de la santé mentale» (MDD-Sarajevo).

Elle a participé à de nombreuses conférences internationales et locales; elle est engagé dans de multiples projets d'éducation des adultes.

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Krsto Mijanovic

Né le 4 Février 1955, à Trebinje, en Bosnie-Herzegovine dans une famille chrétienne orthodoxe
Il réside actuellement à Sarajevo.
Il est employé auprès de l’International Forum Bosnia - Sarajevo

Krsto Mijanovic est ingénieur, docteur en sciences techniques. Il a participle dans plusieurs projets de recherche; il est consultant externe de la faculté d’Ingénieurs de l’Université de Lubljana en Slovénie.

Il a publié plusieurs ouvrages académiques, dont des documents portent sur l’unité et la diversité de la Bosnie. Dès les débuts de l’International Forum Bosnia, il était engagé dans de nombreuses activités liées à la deconstruction de connaissances dans les domains politiques et économiques.

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We, the authors of this appeal,
Ivo Banac (Yale University, New Haven),
Shlomo Fischer (Hebrew University, Jerusalem),
Rusmir Mahmutcehajic (Sarajevo University, Sarajevo),
Michael Sells (Haverford college, Haverford) and
Adam B. Seligman (Boston University, Boston),

affirming our affiliation to diverse religious traditions and feeling a sense of responsibility for the need to improve people's social circumstances in Bosnia as a case of universal significance, issue this

APPEAL

FOR SUPPORT FOR THE RESTORATION
OF TRADITIONAL MOSQUES
AND OTHER RELIGIOUS ENDOWMENTS IN BOSNIA

During the 1992-1996 war against Bosnia and Herzegovina, more than 1,200 mosques were razed to the ground or badly damaged. They had been the key symbols of identity in the villages and towns of Bosnia throughout centuries of sustained religious pluralism. Their demolition was part of an undertaking to destroy the plural nature of Bosnian society and culture. The destruction of mosques was of major symbolic significance for those who planned and perpetrated the atrocities that wrought such havoc through the country by denigration, torture and killings. The genocide, ethnic cleansing, mass rapes, concentration camps, torture and killings of the war were all part of that criminal venture.

Since the war ended, the Muslims of Bosnia and Herzegovina have been living with trauma, of which the formal evidence, more than anything else, is the destruction of their mosques and fact that returnees to the places they were forced to leave are finding it impossible to restore them on their own initiative and through their own endeavours. Although these mosques were part of the European cultural heritage, there is no systematic European support for their restoration and reconstruction as part of restoring normal living conditions in this country. This unhealed trauma of the Bosnian Muslims also has a new feature: their suffering is experienced and understood as the result of their alleged apartness in Europe. “Since our religious heritage is not being protected with sufficient resolve by those who uphold the European order,” many of them say, “the conclusion to be drawn is that we are not wanted, that we are seen as an alien element in a part of the world that we have always lived in.”

The discrimination experienced by Muslim returnees, and the spread of aggressive attitudes towards them, symbolized in the physical sense both by the ruins of their mosques, the restoration of which has been prevented, and the aggressive placing of crosses in public places where sacred buildings of other faiths once stood, is increasingly seen as the triumph of the power of intolerance and of the subjugation of the Muslim minority to the Christian majority. This paves the way for the presence and influence of radical fundamentalism, whose protagonists exploit the trauma of the Bosnian Muslims to radicalize them in regard to Europe and the West. These forms of radical views and behaviour by individuals and groups among the Bosnian Muslims are also exploited by the ideological elite that perpetrated the atrocities and ravages of Bosnia as a way of justifying their claims of the threat of Muslim radicalism.

III

Since the normalization of Bosnia's plural society is impossible without ensuring that people can exercise their rights where they live – which includes the right to restore their religious heritage – returnees are now confronted with a dilemma: it is impossible to restore their traditional mosques, given the lack of support, but the alternative, with the support of fundamentalist organizations and states, is to build new ones that are wholly foreign to the cultural environment in Bosnia. This unresolved dilemma leaves the door wide open to maintaining and indeed reinforcing the current social and cultural fragmentation and disruption in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and to the growing incursions of fundamentalism as prescribed by militant fundamentalists who exploit these circumstances further to radicalize certain Bosnian Muslims.

The restoration of the traditional mosques that have been destroyed or damaged is consistently opposed by those forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina that are under the direct influence of Saudi Arabia and of elements linked, financially or in outlook, to that country. While new “Saudi mosques” wholly foreign to the Bosnian culture are being erected throughout the country, hundreds of other mosques, the majority of them several centuries old, still lie in ruins. This, too, has a radical impact, ideologizing the Muslim identity along lines that are not indigenous to Bosnia and are contrary to its entire historical experience.

There is, however, one instance that is based on and being carried out with a wholly different approach. A group of returnees to Stolac, in eastern Herzegovina, with the support of more than a hundred intellectuals, coming from different religious backgrounds, at home and abroad, has formed a Committee for the Restoration of the Mosques of Stolac. Among the principles that guide the Committee's work is that no foreign ideological influences will be permitted to direct their undertaking of reconstructing the mosques of Stolac. All Stolac's mosques, along with other religious and cultural buildings, were demolished between 1993 and 1995. With the start of reconstruction of the Caršija mosque (first built in 1519), the long process of reconstruction and restoration of a total of eleven destroyed mosques and other religious buildings has begun. The group is now caught between fundamentalist power which encounters no barriers to its expression and its own limited capacities resulting from the absence of moral and financial support.

We believe that to support and encourage this example would have paradigmatic value in countering fundamentalist abuses of the misfortunes and trauma of the Bosnian Muslims. Support and encouragement for this and other, similar groups in Bosnia, and abroad, is one of the most important means of opposing the criminal agenda of annihilation of others and those who shield and protect what has been achieved through the perpetration of such atrocities. Ending and reversing the current tendency to reinforce ideologies of which terrorism and intolerance are just two of many manifestations depends on support and encouragement for this and similar examples.

We, the undersigned, believe that the reconstruction of the Bosnian Muslim heritage cannot be solely an internal, Bosnian project. Nor can it be left only to the resources of the Islamic world. The attempt to destroy European Islam in Bosnia was undertaken by certain groups of Europeans with the complicity of many others. This has not been the first time in the lives of many of us that European societies attempted the genocidal destruction of their own, internal, other. The attempt to eradicate the Jewish presence in Europe cannot but be on the minds of many of us today as Europe again struggles with the existence of individuals and communities who are not perceived to share, in all respects, the European cultural heritage.

The painful slowness of the judicial process, in bringing to justice even a small proportion of those who committed or ordered the atrocities, is blocking the start of a real reconciliation process. That reconciliation process, we sincerely hope, will eventually include the recognition of those non-Muslims who risked and in many cases lost their lives, in defence of their Muslim neighbours. Again, the parallels with events six decades ago in Europe are clear. The willingness of refugees and the displaced to return to their homes, even many years after their expulsion, even without the prospect of work and with the very real fear of discrimination deserves every encouragement. The rebuilding of houses of worship is an important component of the sense of security which returnees need.

The expanding Muslim presence in Europe – an aspect of the global economic order as well as of the continuity of religious identities worldwide - engages us all. The extent of this shared, mutual, indeed global, engagement is being made clear daily, from New York, to Bali to Gujarat; most often in negative and destructive manifestations. The project of reconstruction in Bosnia is, however, an opportunity to realize this mutual engagement and responsibility in new and creative ways. Those of us who have suffered discrimination and destruction have a special responsibility to this engagement.

With this proposal that, as part of a wider programme of support for the restoration of Bosnia's pluriform heritage, the restoration of the mosques and other religious buildings of Stolac receive direct support, we enclose a survey of the atrocities against Stolac, with photographs of the destruction of the town's cultural heritage.

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International Summer School on Religion & Public Life

Sarajevo – Mostar
11th – 24th July 2004

Executive Summary

The International Summer School on Religion and Public Life (ISSRPL) is a unique initiative. It combines a global perspective on religious thought with social scientific research on tolerance, civil society and a pluralistic approach to pedagogic practice. Its goal is to transform both the theoretical models and concrete practices through which religious orientations and secular models of politics and society engage one another. Its guiding principle is that in order to build relations of tolerance and understanding between groups and to shape a civil society, the perceived barrier between secular, modern and more traditional religious values must be broken down. Rather, political orientations and social practices must be developed that will draw on both religious traditions and the insights of secular modernity in new and creative ways.

The ISSRPL furthers this goal by providing an annual international, inter-religious summer school of two weeks that explores these issues with students, civic leaders and prominent academics from different countries. The program is centered around three academic courses together with the processes of group building and the construction of working relationships across religious and ethnic identities. The didactic goals of the conference are thus not solely cognitive but social as well.

Narrative – International Summer School on Religion and Public Life

In the modern world most ideas of tolerance and pluralism rest on liberal and secular ideas of self and society. These ideas can be briefly summarized as: a) the establishment of a secular public sphere, b) the privatization of religion, c) a politics of rights rather than a politics of the good, d) a secular idea of the individual as a self-regulating moral agent. However in most of the world these ideas simply do not hold. In most parts of the world the public sphere is not secularized, religion remains a public and not a private matter, politics are articulated along visions of a truth community and the self is seen as constituted by collective definitions and desiderata rather than by purely individual pursuits and interests. This is true not only in Southeast Asia and the Indian sub-continent, but also in the Balkans, the Middle East, Ireland, North Africa, Turkey and even in parts of that most secular of enclaves, Western Europe. In Lodi, in North Italy in October of 2000, for example, local Catholic inhabitants poured pig urine on a site that was to be consecrated for the building of a Mosque. Religious identities continue to matter.

Given the continued, if not renewed, salience of religious identities world-wide, as well as their potential to form a focus of conflict and to provide a dangerous legitimation for existing conflicts (in the Israeli/Palestinian case for example), it is crucial to take religion seriously. This means seeing the potential of religion to provide resources for tolerance and mutual acceptance and not solely for conflict and oppression. The ISSRPL is devoted to furthering these goals within an educational milieu. It will provide the educational context for the intensive training of students in those areas where religious thought and secular Enlightenment concepts of self and society overlap as well as where they conflict. Training will include not solely the cognitive or intellectual component of text study, but will also provide an experiential or social component - creating relationships and building group interactions predicated on the dual sources of religious and more secular civil society traditions. In so doing it will "model" the broader social goals of the project and develop allegiances and networks of individuals committed to the enterprise.

LOCALE

The goal of ISSRPL is to meet each year in a different country. In line with its commitment to substantive dialogue across traditions and a mutual engagement of different perspectives, the changing physical location is of paramount importance given the educational strategy and philosophical purpose of ISSRPL. Meetings will be held in the Balkans, the Middle East, Europe and elsewhere.

The ISSRPL mission is to educate a new cadre of religious and civic leaders who, while maintaining their religious identities and affiliations will provide much needed leadership in bridging the worlds of religious and secular communities. Along these lines we have selected as locales for the Summer School those countries where religious and secular worlds, commitments and desiderata, are often in conflict, or alternatively, where different religious civilizations face one another across a divide of hatred and intolerance and violence. In some cases, the reasoning behind the site selection needs no explanation. The war against Bosnia of 1992-1995 was one where the religious sentiments and commitments of Catholic, Serbian Orthodox and Muslim populations played a significant role.

As we prepare the coming ISSRPL formats the populations of Israel and the Palestinian Authority remain in a state just short of all out war as the generations old conflict around the Jewish presence in Palestine continues. While rooted in conflicting national claims, no one can question the increasing radicalization of the conflict along religious lines, as religiously articulated Muslim and Jewish identities play an increasingly greater role on both sides in defining the nature of the conflict and in positing often irreconcilable goals. Here too the ISSRPL works with religiously committed yet political democratic and pluralistic groups of both Jews and Muslim, working together in educational initiatives towards the time when joint work of construction will be possible.

The 2003 Summer School was held in Bosnia I Herzegovina and in Croatia. It was dedicated to the role of religion in the 1992-1995 wars. The 2004 Summer School will also be held in Bosnia, dedicated to Muslims in Europe. In 2005 the Summer School will meet in Jerusalem, around the theme of religion in the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

PARTICIPANTS

The participants, faculty and students are international. Students in the first summer school were community activists and religious educators committed to the goals and agenda of the summer school. To these were added graduate students or their equivalents from the countries of Western and Eastern Europe, the Balkans, Middle East, North and South America and India.

Faculty is drawn from the leading scholars in the fields of law, social science, religious studies, philosophy and public policy from different countries. The language of the summer school is English.

Criteria for participation include: a) knowledge of English, b) assessment that students can participate productively in the school, c) interest in the two loci of religious and civil society traditions, d) expectations that students will apply what they learned in their ongoing career and life work. Assessments are based on written essays supplemented where possible with interviews.

FORMAT

In the first year of operation the summer school had 22 students, 11 teachers and 4 administrative staff members.

The school was held over a two and a half week period (17 days). There were 10 working days, bracketed by two weekends at either ends and one weekend in the middle. The weekends were used for more unstructured interaction, the meeting of religious obligations for those so obliged, relaxation and local touring.

Students take three courses. Each course meets for two academic hours a day. Last year, the courses were as follows:
Course 1: Religion and Civil Society - This course dealt with the overarching theoretical issues of religion and civil society. It brought together different sources, traditions and intellectual perspectives to explore areas of overlap, conflict and potential dialogue between religious traditions and more secular, modern worldviews.

Course 2: Religion, Pluralism and Democracy in Southeast-Europe - was devoted to religion, pluralism, democracy, tensions and conflicts in Southeast Europe. This course was taught by experts in South Eastern European issues.

Course 3: Religion and Public Life - presented an arena in which to explore different ways of bringing the theoretical issues discussed in the other courses into practical application. The different faculty of this course reflected on their own professional experience and present models by which the insights of the Summer School could be realized in different institutional spheres.

This year the second course will be structured around the theme of Islam in Europe.

Needless to say the structure of the courses is not set in stone and will change from year to year as we learn from our experience (of faculty, students and the dynamics of short but intensive group meetings). The principle of having one course devoted to local issues is, however, an essential component of the program.

Students are expected to do the bulk of the reading before the start of the summer school. Reading material is made available to students both in hard-copy and via the web. During the course of the summer school, teachers assign no more than 20 pages a day of reading per course.

Each work day consists of approximately 6 hours of school and 2 hours of reading. The program is intensive and demands a degree of commitment from both faculty and students.

OUTCOMES

Four major outcomes of the summer school are envisioned:
1. Transformation of awareness and perception of the participants. While not attenuating in any way their commitment to their own religious traditions, the school hopes to open the participants to other religious traditions and view them not solely as a threat.
2. Enhance understanding of what has generally been viewed as a tension between modern secular and more traditional understandings of self and society.
3. To build in the participants an understanding of this tension as a "creative" one, rather than an unbridgeable obstacle to understanding. Hence, too, to inculcate in the participants an understanding that to shape a truly civil society, devoted to tolerance and the plurality of the human experience we need to draw on religious traditions as well as modern secular thought and practice.
4. Finally, the recruitment of the participants into an ongoing effort and dialogue around these themes that will build on the experience of the summer school to establish ongoing relationships, networks of interaction and contact during the year around the continued sharing of material and publications, as well as social and political experience.

The following have provided financial support for the organization and implementation of last year's ISSRPL

Energoinvest (Sarajevo, Bosnia);
City of Sarajevo (Sarajevo, Bosnia);
Interreligious Center on Public Life (Boston, USA);
International Forum Bosnia (Sarajevo, Bosnia);
Canton Sarajevo, Ministry of Culture and Sport (Sarajevo, Bosnia);
Ministry of Science and Technology of the Government of the Republic of Croatia (Zagreb, Croatia);
University of Verona (Verona, Italy);
Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Sarajevo, Bosnia).

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