JHP Athens Conference

B92 programme summary
TRUTH
RESPONSIBILITY
RECONCILIATION

The Center for Democracy and Reconciliation in Southeast Europe has organized The International Conference on history teaching in the Balkan countries. The Conference is taking part in Athens these days, where is participating more than a hundred and thirty historians and representatives of ministries of education from eleven countries of the region.

The main purpose of the Conference is to make ministries of education consider changes in national-stereotyped teaching policy and initiate a co-operation among historians of Southeast Europe.

The last few years The Center has been working on the research of the quality of history teaching and history textbooks in the countries of the region.

Mr.Nicos Eftimiadis, The Chair of the Board of CDRSEE, speaking about the foundation said that its main goal was helping people of the region collaborate when it comes to democracy and reconciliation. 'This region has been rich with history', he said, 'and that is why the people who live here have to learn how to use it properly. Mr. Eftimiadis pointed out that until now interpretations of the history facts has led the people to conflicts and wars and has created stereotypes and nationalism.

The Conference has been designed to address the issues such as: modification of educational system and history textbooks and suggesting a concept for teaching of non-conflictual history in the countries of the region.

The professor Aleksandar Glavnik said for the B92 that presenting historical facts in history textbooks was different from country to country.For example, Bosnian textbooks speak about genocide of the Muslims by the Serbs in the last war and in the Serbian textbooks there is no word about it.

Additional difficulty for history teaching in Bosnia and Herzegovina is the fact that there are twelve ministries of education having to deal with the three different teaching programmes. In the Croatian schools in Bosnia and Herzegovina, history is taught from the textbooks written in Croatia, the Serbian schools use Yugoslav history textbooks and the Muslims use textbooks published in Lubljana in 1994.

The foundation of national identity and historical awereness in almost all history textbooks in the countries of former Yugoslavia are established through manipulation with historical facts.

The interpretations of the historical facts are based mnostly on specific expression of desired images about the 'others'. All the nations of the former Yugoslavia want to present their Balkan history as a process of fighting for national independence in which the other nations were interfering . Slovenian and Croatian textbooks present Yugoslavia as a 'prison of nations' which served to Serbian hegemony and economic exploitation. Serbian history textbooks accuse Yugoslavia for encouraging Croatian separatism which were stopping positive progress of the country, and Macedonians blame the former Yugoslavia for their denationalization.

The common characteristics in approaching history in the countries of the region are nations who are united in denying whatever positive has happened in the period after 1945.

The important question when writing history textbooks is if contemporary history - history of the last decade - should be included.

Mr. Costas Carras, representative of the CDRSEE, said that to avoid teaching contemporary history was incorrect. In his opinion the children who absorb information about different historical events from their families, media etc would have the right picture about them only if they had been taught correctly in their history class.

Mr Carras believes that in history textbooks social history, history of art must be included but it would be contraproductive to live out political history.

'The most difficult task is to deal with contemporary history ' said Mr Budak, professor from Zagreb, 'There are too many traumas in collective memory, he said .

Historical distance is necessery in order to interpret a historical event properly. The rapid course of historical events provoke interest of children . The tales about partisans had been exchanged with ones about the events of the last decade.

Mrs. Biljana Stojanovic, from Ministry of Education of Serbia, said for B92 that in history classes around the region the language of reconciliation should be spoken and not the language of hatred. The historical events, especially those of the last decade, should be presented as pure facts' she said, 'and at that point history teachers have very important role, trying to avoid giving personal interpretation when narrate history.

The personal influence of the teacher is very important as well as the family environment who provides children with information about the events from the past.

'There are about 3-4000 history teachers in the region', said Mrs. Dubravka Stojanovic, historian from Belgrade, 'Additional education for these teachers is necessery if wanted to achieve better history teaching.' She also believes that reforms in writing history textbooks are needed, but that is going to take time. 'We have to be optimistic and hope to future accomplishments' she added.

Mr. Budak pointed out the importance of The International Community in achieving the common goals. He estimates that its last intervention in modification of history textbooks in Bosnia was done in wrong way. The International Community , in his opinion, should make additional efforts to help improvement of the educational system in Bosnia.

Speaking for the B92 Mr. Dusan Batakovic, historian and Yugoslav ambassador in Athens, said that in presenting historical facts should be avoided propagandistic aspects that give wrong model for the future. 'We can take England and France as an example for how to write history' he said 'Those are countries who had been in a war for a long time and the interpretations of the historical facts in their history textbooks had been very opposite in the past decades. But still they managed to achieve considerable changes in history teaching.'

Mr. Batakovic believes that following that example, the nations of the region have to stop looking back and count victims, but look forward to their cultural evolution.

History based on differences does not contribute to the peace process of the region.

The years to come will probably give to some problematic periods of the past the right approach. The imperative is that the mistakes of the past must not be repeated.