by Dzenana KARUP-DRUSKO
"Novi Seher," say pupils of the second grade of the primary school gathered in a hallway of a school building in Novi Seher.
"Novi Seher," respond pupils in another hallway of another building of the same school.
"What is the name of the country you live in?"
"Bosnia-Hercegovina," both respond.
"Which language do you study?"
"Croatian," respond the former.
"Bosnian," respond the latter.
"Would you like to go to the same school?"
"No, of course not," both respond.
"Why?"
"Because they are not Croats," respond the former.
"Because they killed our fathers," says an eight-year-old boy in the latter school.
Two schools, one roof OSCE mission in Bosnia-Hercegovina issued on April 3 a statement "expressing [its] concern because of persistent segregation of pupils in 56 so-called ‘two schools under single roof' in the Federation BH". The statement claims that in these schools Bosniak and Croat children, as well as teachers who work in them, frequently do not have any mutual contacts. There are many examples, especially in Central-Bosnian, Hercegovina-Neretva, and Zenica-Doboj cantons, that prewar schools have been physically split into two separate schools. Pupils enter the school building through different entrances, take school breaks in different space, and even the teachers use different offices.
"Continuing practice of ‘two schools under single roof' violates principles set out in the Strategy for Education Reform, especially its part that says that entity and cantonal education ministers must ‘end segregation and discrimination through education' as well as ‘stop practice of unnecessary spending, duplication and inefficiency in the education system in Bosnia-Hercegovina'", said ambassador Robert M. Beecroft, the chief of OSCE mission for Bosnia-Hercegovina, according to the OSCE statement.
The OSCE mission for Bosnia-Hercegovina called on all directors of schools and all members of educational structures [sic] to follow positive examples from the municipalities of Zepce and Vares, which successfully implemented administrative unification of all cases of "two schools under single roof" with the goal of eliminating physical, social and psychological separation of pupils outside classrooms. Through administrative unification of such schools the authorities should register schools as a single legal entity with one director, multiethnic governing board, student and parent councils. Administrative unification is not related to instruction plans and programs, nor with the teaching in the classroom. However, it should encompass a shift to attendance of classes at the same time and exchange of classrooms, which should foster minimization of physical separation between pupils of different ethnicity.
The OSCE mission for Bosnia-Hercegovina demands that cantonal authorities officially announce and send instructions and that they work with school directors on implementation of those instructions, which must lead to unification of all cases of "two schools under single roof" by the beginning of the next school year. Creating the basis for administrative unification, school directors should improve interaction between pupils and teachers in each one of "two schools under single roof", organizing joint extracurricular activities.
Renewal of life Novara Maric, OSCE employee in charge of education in the Zenica-Doboj canton, explains that according to cantonal laws, if a school uses two instruction plans, it may have only one director and one deputy director. She offers two schools from the region, from Zepce, as a positive example: "These schools have one director and one deputy director. Kids enter the school building through one entrance, only classrooms are different." The school in Vares is another bright example, where the situation is similar and some [Bosniak] teachers, as they do not have enough classes, also teach according to the Croat program. Maric confesses that, true, there are also bad examples of "two schools under single roof" and mentions the school "Novi Seher" in Novi Seher, the Maglaj municipality. The school existed before the war and was called "November 29". During the war a new school, named "Novi Seher", was founded and registered. Ms Maric is not sure whether it was registered in Mostar or in Vitez. Bosniaks had left, she says, Croat stayed. When returns started after the war, the school for Bosniaks started working in Novi Seher.
Today the school in Novi Seher looks like this: the only shared thing is the single entrance to the school yard. On the left, there is the building with the sign Primary school "Novi Seher", Zenica-Doboj county, which follows the Croat program, and on the right there is the building with the sign Primary school "Novi Seher", Maglaj municipality, Zenica-Doboj canton. The two schools have their own directors, deputies, governing boards, offices, classrooms... The kids even start classes at different time, so that they never meet.
Mehmed Meskic, director of the school that follows the Bosnian instruction plan and program explains: "The war in Novi Seher started on June 4, 1992. Population in the region was ethnically mixed, almost fifty-fifty [Bosniaks and Croats]. There were also two Serb villages, Brezovi Dani and Crnojevici, but the HVO immediately at the beginning of the war expelled all the Serbs. The conflict between Bosniaks and Croats started on June 28, 1993, in the evening, when all the Bosniaks were expelled. Some of them ended up in camps, some were murdered, while some managed to reach the territory controlled at the time by the Army of Bosnia-Hercegovina. I was supposed to be sent to Mostar to the Helidrom camp, but my former pupils saved me".
The return of Bosniaks to Novi Seher started in 1997. Director Meskic recalls that the first postwar "sleep over" was in the night of July 26 and 27. Only five-six houses were habitable, all the other had been burned. "Since then we've been renewing life," Meskic says. Before the war Novi Seher had somewhat more than ten thousand residents, Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks. So far about 70 percent of expelled Bosniaks have returned, while Serbs are still not coming back. Most of Serbs now live in Teslic. Since the first democratic elections, the SDA and the HDZ have ruled in Novi Seher.
The school started with work on September 14, 1998. The building, Meskic recalls, had been destroyed, only walls were left standing. Croat children used the newer building, built in 1978, and remain in it until today (which makes Bosniak kids jealous, as they are convinced that Croats have a better school, although in reality differences are slight). The Bosniak school has 18 classes with 461 pupils. "Now life is normal. Sometimes people even greet each other. That did not happen in the past," Meskic responds to the question whether the life in Novi Seher has returned back to normal. He adds: "When I encounter kids from the neighboring school in a group, none of them say hallo, but when I meet them individually, they always greet me, very politely. That means they are afraid".
Who has children's wellbeing in mind? At the OSCE office in Zenica we were told that there had been several attempts to create a unified school in Novi Seher, but that the resistance at the local level was so strong that the attempt failed and everything continued as before. "Ever since we started with work, we and the cantonal ministry of education and international community have been trying to create a unified school. We are not holding anything back. Ask them [Croats] about the rest. Although, some of them do not obstruct unification," Meskic says.
Responding to the question why Novi Seher does not have a unified school, Mara Cejic, director of the Croat school, attended by 305 pupils, says: "This is a political problem. When the status of the school is finally resolved, no one will ask for our opinion; this is a matter for mayors of Maglaj and Zepce, ministers... Parents oppose unification. We had a parents council before the war as well, but it never functioned properly. Now, when we are supposed to resolve the status of the school, they are suddenly active. Parents understand their side of the problem, but do not see the rest. A group of well meaning teachers, who have the wellbeing of children as priority, do support better future and do not have anything against a unified school, but others disagree...".
Director Cajic says that she was born in Seher, where she attended school, and lives today. As far as she is concerned, she has nothing against a single school, but there are those, she explains, who came after the war and cannot accept that. She admits that there were difficulties with municipal competitions in which pupils participated. Bosniak pupils went to Maglaj [Bosniak majority municipality], while Croat pupils went to Zepce [Croat majority municipality].
The essence of the problem is that the school "Novi Seher", attended by Croat children, belonged after the war to the Zepce municipality, although it is located on the territory of the Maglaj municipality. A while ago, that changed. The school is now financed by the canton and "Zepce municipality" was removed from the sign on the school building (leaving empty space), unlike in the "neighboring school" (as they refer to each other) which still keeps "Maglaj municipality" on its sign. Parents of Croat children still hope that the school will eventually belong to the Zepce municipality and consequently refuse to discuss unification.
Teacher Ankica Kolarevic admits that children seldom spend time together. To the question whether adults, parents, spend time together in Novi Seher, she responds by saying "not really". "Everyone spends time with their own kind". To the question whether before the war people visited each other for Christian and Muslim holidays, Ankica responds that she never visited anyone for Muslim holidays, while Mara says she did. Mara explains that before the war the center of Novi Seher had mostly Muslim population, while the surrounding villages were mostly mono-ethnic [either Croat or Muslim]. There were very few spots with mixed population. She had Muslim neighbors and was friendly with them. There was one school, people went to the same cafes... However, now everything is strictly segregated. Bosniaks go to cafes run by Bosniaks, Croats to cafes run by Croats. Teacher Belma Alispahic agrees. People do not mix, or mix very seldom, and she offers an example; "When I started working at the school, we published a magazine Zvoncic [tinkle bell], but I was bothered that children's writing was published based on ethnicity, it had to be strictly one half Bosniaks and one half Croats."
Director Mara admits that she is bothered by the new greeting in the neighboring school [Muslim greeting selam allaykum] and she says that at times, when she sits in the neighboring school children greet her by saying selam allaykum. Both she and Ankica talk about changes in the [official] language made by Muslims. Mara mentions example "mahrama" [scarf] and adds that now sound "h" is inserted everywhere (while on numerous public signs in the town we could see Seer, instead of Seher), and Ankica cannot recall a funny example she spotted in the Bosnian instruction program grammar - as she hadn't heard of that word before. Both of them agree with the statement that the Croat language has also been modified quite a lot since the end of the war, while Mara explains that she simply avoids and does not use certain "new" words, such as "uporabljavati" [to use, originally "upotrebljavati"].
All kids are the same "A lot more needs to be done before a single school becomes possible," the director explains. To the question what specifically needs to happen, since it is high time children started going to the same school, she responds: "Children do not differ, they are all the same, but Croat kids say ‘good morning' and ‘good day', while Muslim kids say ‘selam'. For example, we need to get rid of selam. We abandoned our ethnic greetings immediately after the war. Personally, that bothers me." To our question what else needs to be changed, besides greetings, which does not seem that difficult, she waves her hand and says: "A lot more."
At the last staff meeting attended by employees of both schools, as well as representatives of both parents councils, Bosniaks supported unification of the two schools, while Croats were against. Mara Cajic again: "I am confident that Bosniaks also do not want a single school. It's just for show".
Both schools have similar problems: lack of good teachers, lack of teaching equipment, wage arrears, lack of money for books, canton did not pay heating bills for the whole winter... but the kids are still separated psychologically and physically. Their reaction? In both schools we visited the second grade. The questions were the same, and children, in their innocence, sincere and painfully honest.
Most of boys, when they grow up, want to be professional soccer players, while girls want to become singers, physicians, teachers. Gabrijel wants to be an artist, a sculptor, while Josip wants to be a chimney sweeper, so that he could walk on roofs. Ahmet would like to become a mechanic, because he likes engines, Faris would like to play soccer for the Bosnian national team and Zeljeznicar soccer club, Anesa, whose father died in the war, would like to become a teacher, Mahmut would like to play piano...
Croat kids would like to live, when they grow up, in Croatia, in Zagreb or Split. After being asked why they did not want to live in Sarajevo, they laughed and honestly said they did not remember the city, but that they also loved Sarajevo. Bosniak kids would like to live in Zenica and Tuzla [Bosniak majority cities]...
Croat children study using textbooks published in Croatia and Mostar, while Bosniak children use textbooks published in Sarajevo. Croat kids greet each other by "good day", at religious classes by "praise Jesus", while Bosniak kids respond to the question whom they greet by "selam" by saying "Muslims, of course".
Children do not spend any time together: "We do not see them. When they have a school break, we have classes..."
Love under school bench To the question whether they have "boyfriends" or "girlfriends", the Croat class erupts in noise. However, they claimed they did not like anyone in the "neighboring school", until one cute boy, blond and blue eyed, said: "Now I must hide under my bench". In the Bosniak class, the response to the first question was the same, but their response to the second question was an emphatic no. The loudest boy explained why: "Because they are Croats". To my comment that there are very cute girls in the "neighboring school", he responded: "You may see them, I don't!"
When we mentioned a joint school, at first a majority of both Bosniak and Croat children said they did not want it. One Croat boy explained: "Because they are not Croats." However, the boy sitting behind him, Gabrijel, disagreed: "I would go to the joint school. We are all the same." They asked - how could they go to the same school with Muslims when they did not learn the same language? However, they all agreed with our proposal that they could both learn Bosnian and Croat languages. Bosniak children offered their reasons: "They celebrate their holidays, we celebrate ours." We tried to explain that they could celebrate all holidays together and that it was nice to get presents for all holidays, which made them laugh and agree that that would be "cool". They also said that Croat language would be a problem, and one boy said that someone had told him "kaj" [what in a dialect from north-western Croatia], but he admitted that he understood what that meant.
Our conversations in both classes went on for more than an hour. Both Bosniak and Croat children have issues against the other ethnic group, but they can hardly name reasons for such attitudes. We asked them several times why they could not attend the same school and they managed to offer the few reasons mentioned above. Ahmet was most intransigent and claimed that he would leave the school if he had to attend the same school as Croats. At the same time, he admitted that he would be fine going to school with Serbs. His grandfather was killed by HVO [Croat Defense Council, Bosnian Croat army in the war] members.
However, both classes concluded that they would attend the joint school, as they saw that as a challenge, as everything else at their age. Very little is needed to teach them about tolerance, respect for other religions and acceptance of their customs. A much bigger problem in this story is how to teach adults tolerance and coexistence if they have almost no daily contact, if they do not spend time together, do not talk to each other... How to teach them that for the sake of their children, which already carry a seed of mistrust of other nations, they would have to forget hatred and help their kids to become open, trusting human beings, ready for coexistence, because Bosnia-Hercegovina has no other choice? Or, perhaps, unfortunately for many of us, it does?
The culprits were identified. Croat high school pupils and Bosniak primary school pupils.